{!date dayname+0}, {!date long+0} Dear {!firstname_fix} I hope all is well in your world this week. It's clearly been a great week for Barclays who have paid just 2.8% tax on their income. It's an interesting tale of whether you run your business by "rules" or by morals. Barclays can justify their payment by saying their tax reduction techniques are within the rules. The poorer people and businesses in the UK may well believe the rules need changing. Yesterday, I spoke at a conference where one of the questions I was asked concentrated on the "rules" of social media. My answer as that far to often the "rules" lead us into trouble, compared with following your heart and intuition. Barclays may well have followed the tax rules, but the real cost which they cannot account for is loss of reputation, loss of connection with many customers and loss of friends in high places (who will eventually change the rules to avoid political problems). I suspect in the final analysis, the losses from Barclays will far outweigh the gains they made from following the tax rules. If they had acted by doing the "right thing" than the "legal thing" they may well have made their future business life much easier. I suspect by following the rules, they have just made everything so much harder for themselves.
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED: Should I separate my personal and business profiles? Many people appear concerned about their two "lives" - their business life and their personal one. Often, people in business try to separate their business profile from their personal social network identities. For instance, some people use Facebook purely for personal stuff and LinkedIn solely for business. The reason usually given for doing so is: "I don't want my business contacts knowing everything I get up to in my private life". Well guess what? They already do. Even if you can keep that iron curtain shut tight between your online business and personal profiles, you cannot control what other people will do or say. Prior to the internet your business contacts knew something of your personal life - no matter how hard you tried to avoid them knowing. Your children talk to their children at school, for instance. You say something to your local shopkeeper who repeats to it another visitor who happens to be one of your customers. You reveal something personal to your top customer who has a good relationship with you and they mention it to someone else at a business networking meeting. To think you are in control over what other people say about you is simply a delusion. Online it is worse. True, you can separate your business from personal in the LinkedIn vs. Facebook way. But your friends on Facebook may also have accounts on LinkedIn where they can reveal what you said on Facebook. Goodness, they may even Tweet about it too. It is simply too easy these days for people to reveal what they know about you personally, without any real control from you. And even if they only reveal snippets, it only takes a five second search online for someone else to connect all those tid-bits of information in to a coherent whole. In other words, you simply cannot prevent much of your personal information being revealed online. Which begs the question, why waste the time and mental effort in trying to do so? However, there is a good reason why you should separate business from personal. It is simply this - focus. On Facebook, if you have your personal life on your profile and your business life on your Business Page your readers and visitors know exactly what it is all about. Your friends do not get interrupted by business messages and your business contacts do not get distracted by the jokes you heard down the pub last night. Equally, if you use LinkedIn as a business profile only, your contacts on that social network know where they stand - it is just you and your business life. They are not going to have to wade through your personal updates in order to find out what they want to know. So, it does make sense to separate personal from business - however, do not delude yourself into thinking that your business contacts know nothing about your personal life, because they do and they can easily find it out if they don't yet know. There is one more thing - your best business is done with people with whom you have the best relationships. And the best relationships are with people who know the real you, warts and all. Which suggests that including personal information in your business profiles can actually be helpful, rather than a hindrance.
WHAT I LEARNED THIS WEEK: Success rarely comes from planning and measuring I was asked this week how to measure the Return on Investment for social media activity. I replied that you shouldn't really try to measure it. I think it was Einstein who said something like: "Everything that can be measured isn't always valuable and not everything that is valuable can be measured". In other words, just because something can be measured doesn't mean you should measure it. For instance, many businesses measure the clicks they get on their website. They know exactly which links get most clicks and which items get most downloads. And? What does that measure do for them? How does it actually help success? Many businesses are busy analysing data which has no real support or benefit for them. But it makes the owners and directors feel as though they are doing something right. Strangely, that's what they should concentrate on. Intuition and gut feel are right more times than they are wrong. I was reminded of that fact this week when I was at a meeting when the organiser took a decision to do something without checking with his audience. He felt it was the right thing to do; so he did it. Then once he had made that announcement he thought he ought to check. And guess what, every member of the audience agreed. He had felt the mood in the room; he didn't need to measure it with some kind of survey or show of hands. He "knew" what the right thing to do was. You can trace most business successes down to that, rather than to any kind of measurement.
THIS WEEK'S "MUST BUY": How to Really Use LinkedIn There are several books about LinkedIn, but this is the one I recommend to my clients because it approaches things so clearly. It is not technical, but really practical and written from a no-nonsense business point of view. There are plenty of step by step instructions for you and a clear explanation of the uses and benefits of each part of LinkedIn. If you want to get the best out of LinkedIn you really need this book. To find out more about this book visit: http://uklik.me/reallyuselinkedin
Kind Regards
Graham Jones Web: grahamjones.co.uk Tel: +44 118 336 9710 If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter than you can delete your name from the mailing list by clicking this link: {!remove_web} Affiliate Links: Some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links providing me with a small commission when you purchase the item. However, I only use affiliate links for products which I personally value. |
