Social vs. Professional Online Networking Sites

Social vs. Professional Online Networking Sites LinkedIn, Naymz, Facebook, MySpace,Twitter, VisualCV and the list goes on and on and on. Studies, reports, pollsand surveys on the subject ofsocial vs. professional online networking sitesare as prolific as those on work-life balance or the skills and talent shortage!In a recent Globe and Mail poll, 84% of over 5000 respondents said they would not add their boss to their friends on Facebook.In a Vault survey, 82% of employers said theirdecision to hire a job candidate would be affected by something they perceived as negative in anonline site.A survey by Gartner suggests sites such as Facebook and MySpace areused for fun and entertainment, rather than business but thatshould change. Social networking software holds enormous potential for improving the management of large companies, said Nick Ingelbrecht, research director at Gartner. However, work in this areais still immature and in the meantime companies should be aware of what is happening in the world of consumer social networking and implement appropriate usage policies for employees use of services such as Facebook and MySpace on company time. Your personal presentation,whether online or face-to-face,whether on a social networking site or a professional networking site, whether on a video or in a photo,should be appropriate and acceptable and should not includeanything that you yourself would consider tobe offensive or negative to anyone. If you have personal preferences, ideas or issuesthat you do not believe would beunderstood or shared by others, keep them to yourself,useyour private email or join a group of like-minded individuals. It is only common courtesy to avoid discussingissues that couldhave the potential to offendothers so why do it publicly online?Your reputation may not concern you today but you can be assured theday will come when it has an influenceon your success or lack of success.