I’ve recently learned about a new social media network that allows you to share your credit card purchases with your family, friends or strangers. My initial reaction was … Um, Why?

The service is called Blippy. It’s currently in beta, but it has already been labeled “The Twitter for Credit Card Purchases”. To use the service, you connect one of your credit cards with your Blippy account. Then, each time you make a purchase using that card, your friends and/or network of strangers will see what you purchased and where you made the purchase. Sounds fancy. And stupid. And noisy. And potentially dangerous.

I’m sure some social media ‘guru’ will identify a higher purpose for this service, but I can’t. And I tried. Even if I assumed that most people wouldn’t share their purchasing history with perfect strangers, I still can’t find the value in passively (automatically) sharing your purchases in real-time detail, to anyone. If I called my Mom and told her about every purchase I made, she would block my number. And I would do the same. If the purchase is notable, I tend to phone, text or email the people that would be interested (a very short list of people). Imagine all of your friends, coworkers, clients and a few random strangers walking up to you on the street and saying “I just purchased a $3.96 latte at Starbucks.” At some point you’ll respond “So what!” or “You’re at Starbucks again?”.

Imagine a world where everyone is sharing every single detail of their day, simply because innovations in technology allow them to do so (i.e. for kicks and giggles)? The more noise created, the harder it is for you, as an entrepreneur, to get your message through the tsunami of irrelevant data and noise. Now more than ever, it is important for entrepreneurs and business owners to provide authentic engagement and value to your target audience. Before you share any information on a social network, particularly for business purposes, ask yourself:

1. Is this something I think my audience will want to know?
2. Is distributing this information important to meeting my business goal(s) or mission?

If the answer is no to both questions, think twice about sharing.

Source: Introducing a Twitter for Credit Card Purchases (New York Times)

Kishau Rogers

Kishau Rogers is the President and Founder of Websmith Group, a web application development company. Her mission is to connect businesses with the information and technologies necessary to meet their goals EFFECTIVELY. Kishau Rogers holds a Computer Science Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and has over sixteen years of experience, which includes web, application and database development. Kishau also speaks, blogs, and writes articles to educate organizations and entrepreneurs on resources and best practices for ensuring effective, dynamic and innovation web solutions.

Website - Twitter - More Posts

Managing Your Social Networking Time

It’s a scientific fact that time (seems to) move faster while on the internet. If you plan to use social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for business, develop a plan for managing your time so that your productivity does not suffer.

1. WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?

First, you should identify well defined goals for each social media tool that you plan to use. Knowing what you’d like to get out of each tool will help you determine the scope of your interactions and how much daily/weekly time is necessary to accomplish your goal. Here’s an example:

• LinkedIn Goals – professional networking, online database of current and past clients and coworkers, sharing ideas/best practices with others in my industry
• Twitter Goals – professional networking via mini-blogging, sharing brief ideas or instant updates
• Facebook Goals – personal/social networking, keeping in contact with friends, family and professionals that I wish to connect with on a social level.

2. TIME MANAGEMENT 101

Identify available periods of time (daily or weekly) to dedicate to social networking. Having specific time periods for using the tools reduces the chances of “time passing by” while online. Also, keeping a social networking schedule allows your “friends” and contacts to predict when you’re most likely to be online and available for “social networking”. If you’ve dedicated this time as social networking time, you will be able to effectively focus on your interactions. It’s nearly impossible (and not effective) to perform other duties while communicating with people online.

3. SCHEDULE YOUR DOWNTIME

You should also identify the time periods where you are not “connected”. If you utilize mobile tools to “stay connected” or other tools that alert you when you’ve received a new message or a new “friend” request, identify a time window to turn these tools & alerts OFF. If the tool is turned off, you won’t be tempted to respond to it right away. You may also want to consider if you need to be notified immediately when something happens online. If you have dedicated times for logging in, you’ll learn about the new request as soon as you reconnect. If you have made a genuine connection with someone on a social networking site, they should have another method for contacting you if an immediate response is needed.

4. MAINTAIN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

When you are using social networking tools, be sure to use your time wisely. If your goal is to keep in contact with family & friends via Facebook, don’t spend your “Facebook time” playing WordTwist games … ok, sometimes a game (or 5) of WordTwist is necessary to decompress (and for other very important reasons), but be sure that you use some of this time to actually check in with your family & friends.

If you plan to use LinkedIn to share ideas with other professionals in your industry, make sure that you use some of your LinkedIn time responding to the questions in the Q&A section or discussing topics in industry specific groups (i.e. don’t spend each hour trying to boost your number of LinkedIn connections. If you never connect with the people on your existing contact list, boosting the numbers will not serve as the best strategy for building an EFFECTIVE network).

5. LEAVE THE HOUSE

Finally, you will become a much more interesting person to “connect” with online, if you go outside and do something other than work and online social networking. Be sure that a great portion of your downtime is spent doing something that you truly enjoy, then share your experiences with your network.

Have fun!

Kishau Rogers

Kishau Rogers is the President and Founder of Websmith Group, a web application development company. Her mission is to connect businesses with the information and technologies necessary to meet their goals EFFECTIVELY. Kishau Rogers holds a Computer Science Degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and has over sixteen years of experience, which includes web, application and database development. Kishau also speaks, blogs, and writes articles to educate organizations and entrepreneurs on resources and best practices for ensuring effective, dynamic and innovation web solutions.

Website - Twitter - More Posts