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Ask Slashdot: Facebook, Twitter For Business, Is It Worth the Privacy Trade-Off?
cayenne8 writes "I've been a staunch advocate of NOT joining Facebook or Twitter or the other social networks to protect my privacy and to not voluntarily give all my personal information away to corporate America, or even the Government. However, I'm beginning to look into making money through various means on the side, one of them being photography/videography. With these mediums, being seen is critically important. Having a business facing site on Facebook/Google+ and even using Twitter can be great for self promotion, and can open up your business to a huge audience. If you were to open your FB and other social network accounts with business ONLY information, and keep your personal information (name, image, etc) off the Facebook account...will this keep your personal privacy still from them, or are their algorithms good enough to piece together who you are from the business only sites? Is the payoff worth the potential trade-off for generating potential customers for your business and guiding them to your primary website?"
See all those sites you visit with a facebook like button. Those images are usually served from facebook, not the site you're visiting.
So, unless you're careful with your privacy settings, you are likely reporting a huge amount of your browsing to facebook.
At the very least, I'd recommend logging out of facebook when you're done and trying to browse with 3rd party cookies disabled.
Having a social media presence is pretty crucial to doing the sort of freelance work you're describing, since so much of how you get business happens via word of mouth (and so much of "word of mouth" happens on social media).
One of the simplest things you can do to protect your privacy is to create an email addres that you *only* use for social media accounts (like, a special gmail address that just forwards mail to your regular adress, or maybe facebook@yourdomain.com if you own your own domain). This rather horrifying article from the WSJ about the way that social media tracking work makes clear that your email address is a big part of how your identity is tracked online. If they can't match the email address you use for your Facebook login with any other aspects of your online identity, you have some protections.
If you're using them strictly as a business tool, I wouldn't worry too much about photos -- I do think it's helpful to have a photo of yourself, especially in a one-to-one business like freelance photography. You can set your Facebook account so other people can't tag you in their photos.
Their little data bots are good enough that they already have information on you whether you have an account or not. You and your browser are traceable if you visit any websites with their widgets, whether you are signed in or not. Just bite the bullet and set up a business account already and stop worrying. You aren't that special.
Having a Facebook has certainly helped my business' promotion, it gets a lot more eyes visit our websites.
What are your other options for self promotion? Ad in the newspaper? How many people will see it let alone act on it these days? Ad on TV? Is the Return of Investment worth it for what you're trying to do?
Really, for better or worse "social" media is the best way to reach a target audience.
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anything connected somehow is trackable somehow and eventually will be.
...unless you're clever, like Ronald McDonald or Colonel Sanders, the real identities of which are still mysteries.
>>>Having a business facing site on Facebook/Google+ and even using Twitter can be great for self promotion, and can open up your business to a huge audience
actually increases sales?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
They already have or can gain easy access to all that information. The govt already has a ton of info on you, tax records, dmv, etc. Business do also (you prolly get junk mail every day addressed to you.) It's a fact of life, it sucks, but thinking you can erase or hide your digital or paper trail is foolish. If you want to protect privacy spend your time fighting to protect it, don't waste it trying to hide.
You want to start working freelance and you don't want to publicize how people can reach you? I'd expect a decent head shot, a phone number, a short bio and an email address. Also representative galleries of past work, as well.
You don't have to put your life story out there, but it's really not uncommon in business to have some small amount of "About Me" information posted with experience, education, sometimes martial status/number of children (especially if you are looking to photograph families/children).
If you are going to set up a social media presence, you can't just set up a page and have it sit there. It does require tending and maintenance or it looks abandoned. If you do photography, post examples of good work at a steady pace, even if it's not paying gigs. Hopefully people forward it around and you get some notice.
It sounds like you need to loosen up, or find another way of making money on the side that doesn't require social media. You can be a successful freelander without it, but you will still need to get your name out there somehow (personal networking, business networking groups, etc)
Ghostery blocks them
I think Twitter is worth it because there are very few privacy concerns. Twitter is 98% public, and everyone who participates knows it. (I hope.)
Facebook is a privacy nightmare, and is crap for driving business to your web site. It does everything it can to keep all information on Facebook, including jerking everyone around. And that will only increase.
Once you post something on either service it's out of y our control. With Twitter it's pretty minor, 140 characters, and it will be gone eventually. (I believe they only archive the last 2000 Tweets or so.) Facebook is trying to make a timeline of people's entire lives and won't stop trying to make money off your content until well after you're dead.
I've used my real name thousands of times on the Internet. I got paid $1000 for reviewing a book once, based on a letter to the editor I wrote once, using my real name and email. I've had people track me down 10 years later to send an email to me, after having seen me post something (I'm not sure what), or get a hit on my name from something else. But no bad has ever happened to me, nor has anything ever happened that I would consider a "close call".
I'm ok posting real info, and I don't get the paranoia. What could possibly go wrong?
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Personally I had (past tense) a fb account but I haven't used it for many years.
But my business does have a fb presence - it has its own fb account and in the office a cpu is dedicated for that fb account.
Nothing important is on that dedicated cpu - so all the info fb can obtain from that dedicated machine is the ip (static) and the hw/sw info.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I see lots of businesses investing in Facebook and Twitter. This is driven by the marketing departments, and especially the younger staff that wants to prove something. Maybe I'm an old geezer, but I am not convinced - in the businesses I am familiar with, I haven't seen any sort of believable results, and the marketing departments can't produce any numbers, only "trust us, we know what we're doing".
Has anyone seen actual, solid numbers from any business that prove that these marketing channels were worth the investment? If so, for what type of business?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Ever post something controversial on Usenet? Google Groups search will make sure that if you were flamed or ridiculed for it, that it is on the first page of search results.
The article reads as "I was a staunch advocate for privacy until I realized I could make money by selling my soul."
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.