For businesses using Facebook or any other social media,  it is essential and plain good business practice to be aware and up-to-date on all outlet policies, and therefore have the ability to make informed decisions on what information to post on your account.

The following is the exact language used on Facebook’s Rights and Responsibilities page that deals with content rights and ownership:

Sharing Your Content and Information

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how we share your content through your privacy and application settings. In order for us to use certain types of content and provide you with Facebook, you agree to the following:

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (”IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (”IP License”).
2. This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account (except to the extent your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it). When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).

We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use them without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them)

This statement means that any content you post on Facebook is still yours, however, Facebook has a right to use whatever content you post without having to credit you in any way until your delete that content from Facebook. To maintain control over the content you post on Facebook, it is essential that you are proactive about using your privacy settings to ensure that the content you post is always used for your original purposes.

Facebook’s Full Privacy Statement

It is  important that your business have active policy concerning what is posted on Facebook by employees or with the company name. Sensitive material should never be posted on Facebook and all employees should be reminded that company ethics and confidentiality statements apply to social media outlets.

Also, to make sure that your business’s Facebook presence stays positive and useful, it is also important that all posts are consistent with branding and web strategy.

According to Wikipedia, Twitter “is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 bytes in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them…Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them <and> users can send and receive updates via the Twitter Web site, SMS, RSS (receive only), or through applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific, Twitterfon, TweetDeck and Feedalizr.”

What’s more, Twitter is free, and easy to use. In fact, as of this writing, millions of people are currently on Twitter…or tweeting. So, ready to start?

First off, you may want to educate yourself on the ins and outs of Twitter: how it works, who is using it, what kind of information you can gather, and how it can work for your business.

For those of us who like to information-gather before we jump in, check out Mashable’s benefits accrued through Twitter use. You can read Union Street’s Twitter for Lead Generation and Twitter for Business pages, and Zappos’s notes on the Twitter site. Even the Wall Street Journal has published an article about Twitter. Finally, Laura Fitton’s comprehensive piece has several step by step articles and guides for getting started using Twitter. So go ahead, poke around, and give it a whirl. Part Two of our Twitter blog will help you get started tweeting for your particular business needs.

How can Twitter Help My Business? (Part 2)

So now you’ve checked out a few articles on what Twitter is, and how it can work for you. Now it’s time to experience Twitter on your own terms! Are you ready to Tweet? Let’s get started.

First, determine whom you want to follow.

Mashable has a rundown of 15 different Twitter directories (if you’re in the real estate industry, check Union Street’s Twitter for Real Estate article).

Next, start posting.

Once you have an account, and found folks to follow…let’s get people interested in following you. Best way? Start posting—post often, and post well. Check out great tweeting tips, or post your own Twesume.

1. Embrace good social networking etiquette.

Remember, all messages posted to Twitter—even updates you send by phone or IM—are on the Web where prospective employers and customers can find them. Tweets are short and sweet—but can still convey a sense of style and savvy, or look cheeky and unprofessional.

* Check out Peter Shankman’s tips, as well as some great info on Twitter etiquette.

* Not understanding the strange lingo that is sometimes used on Twitter? Shannon Yelland has made an excellent dictionary of Twitter jargon and slang.

* Still need a little help figuring out how to maintain your sincerity and play nice in Twitter? AgentGenius gives you some great social media etiquette and business tips.

Now get ready, get set…and start tweeting!

For starters, the word blog comes from Weblog. A blog is typically a series of entries on a Website, and often a commentary on something important to the author and/or the author’s customers (if the blog is associated with a business). Blogs can cover any and every type of subject including: information on a specific topic, market, product, service, or group of people; a daily diary of someone’s life; the progress of a project; the blogger’s stream of consciousness; a commentary on social, political, or other issues or viewpoints; or any other manner of topic. Generally updated with regular (often daily or weekly) entries, blogs can be located on a specific section of an author’s Web site, or be the sole point of the site.

So why should you blog? In a word: connection. Blogging helps us stay in touch with our readers, and readers have come to expect it. What better way to get in touch with your readers on a personal basis, and keep them informed in a friendly, up-to-date, and informal way? Establishing yourself and your personality in a blog opens the door to easier communication. (In fact for businesses in particular, social media is being considered as part of current customer service.)

What’s more, blogging keeps your content fresh. As we discussed in our blog entry, Fresh Content for Discerning Palates (November 21st, 2008): Web visitors and search engines…prefer to visit sites that have fresh, new, rotating content. Web search engines… look for the signs that a site is dynamic—and that is largely governed by how often your content is updated.

So blogging is the easy and perfect way to ensure you have up-to-date, fresh information on your site. Some key components to keep in mind:

• Make sure your blogging is relevant to your site/services/business
• Be real, honest, and consistent
• Make sure your content is keyword-rich words—in other words, it contains words and phrases that are important to what you do.  Search engines will love you, and will pick up your site more readily.
• Be sure to add good enough content, and add it often enough, so your readers want to keep coming back

Follow these simple guidelines, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how fun it is—and your readers will appreciate it.

Need help getting started? Check out these do-it-yourself blogging sites—and have fun!

• www.blogger.com
• www.thoughts.com
• www.wordpress.com

OK, so what is RSS? Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a standardized group of Web feed formats that publish regularly changing Web content. Those of us who want to stay informed by receiving up-to-date information can now do so with RSS. And the fact that the RSS format is standardized makes it easy for sites that publish content—such as news headlines, audio/video clips, and Weblogs—to automatically syndicate their content as an RSS feed. What’s more, we viewers can easily combine feeds from a host of our favored sites—eliminating the need to log onto each site and surf through content.  And finally, we save time (and reduce any privacy concerns) because there’s no more need to join a myriad of e-newsletter subscriptions.

So—how to get started? We suggest you check out the variety of RSS readers that are available. (Don’t forget the Web-based feed readers such as My Yahoo, Google Reader, and Bloglines.) Remember to double-check each one to ensure it will work with the platform (Microsoft^® Windows^®, Linux^®, Mac^®, and so forth) you’re running. Once you’ve selected your RSS feed reader, select your desired sites that syndicate content. (Look to see that they’ve displayed an icon indicating XML, RDF, or RSS availability, sometimes viewed as.) Set ‘em up, sit back, and stay informed with your favorite feeds. It’s as simple as R-S-S!

Here’s how:

• Sending a scheduled eNewsletter gets you—and keeps you—regularly in front of your target market. Be sure to provide plenty of information that’s specific to your industry, with a healthy dose of how your product or service provides what they need. In this way, your company can easily become synonymous with the solution to their issues, problems, wants, or needs.
• Provide tips, hints, useful information, and industry facts. Be truthful and honest, and your readers will trust what you have to say. If your advice is well founded, grounded, makes sense, and is creative, your audience will trust you. If it sounds like hype, it probably is—and your audience will know it.
• Consider providing some kind of value-add for subscribing to your eNewsletter. A free helpful-hint download, money-off coupon, or a free consultation or service is a great incentive to sign up—and it ultimately builds your business.

Consider that if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much would a streaming video be worth to your message? Recent pundits claim that half of all Web readers will tend to click on a video before reading text. That being said, your Web site video could begin garnering “hits” for you in a short amount of time, and like never before. At any rate, be sure to create a video that you’re comfortable with and that meets your prime objective:

• An “introduction” video showing your facility or your products and services
• An infomercial, highlighting a specific product or service through an interview or on-site demonstration
• A subject-matter video, where you discuss something that is important in your industry or to your potential customers
• A case study, showing how your product or service is being used and how it made the customer’s life or business easier/better/more visible/more lucrative

One example of how you can create a credible, meaningful, low-cost video is seen here in PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ discussion of “relevance”:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3xTp5hOync

So, once you’ve created your video content and posted it to YouTube, then what? And, for what gain? Well, for starters using an established, powerful tool such as YouTube vaults your visibility. Search engines such as Yahoo and Google rank YouTube postings higher than video postings on other Web sites. What’s more, YouTube’s internal search function is very similar to, albeit less complex than, the search function used by major search engines. And in this case, the less complex the better—because it means that you, as a video marketer, can easily control the YouTube search results through pertinent keywords in your tags and titles. So in the time it takes someone to type a search word and hit enter, your visibility is instantly increased.

Finally, many Internet marketers are just discovering the increased traffic—and subsequent sales—that can be gained through using YouTube. Purchased by Google in 2006, YouTube is the most popular of all the video sharing sites. By posting videos to YouTube that are relevant to your market, you’ll direct your viewership demographics to better represent the audience you need to target. From viewed-video comments to requests for additional video postings, the information and leads you generate from YouTube can be huge to your bottom line. So make it informative, make it funny, make it a documentary—it doesn’t matter as long as you make it memorable, and do it well.

All in all, if you’re looking for low-cost production and vast information dissemination, combined with fast and relevant feedback, posting to YouTube is the way to go. It can help you get your message out cost effectively and quickly, build a viable list of customers, and provide valuable feedback…all at your fingertips. So here’s to happy YouTubing!