I saw an interesting tiny little tidbit in my Women’s World magazine last night. It was talking about self esteem and one of the ways it said to raise it was by logging into Facebook (or other social networking sites) and befriending people. It was said to raise your “social capital” and make you feel more connected with others.

But it’s not just good for raising your self esteem - it’s good for helping you connect to your customers, too. You can create a whole brand and image just on web 2.0 sites alone! In fact, it’s rare that I trust anyone anymore unless they have a web 2.0 presence I can evaluate.

You have to be very careful on these social networking sites. Watch what you say about religion, politics, and other inflammatory topics. You may think it doesn’t matter, but it does. You might go off on a rant about how you “can’t stand the US” and in your mind, you’re thinking US policies. In my mind, as a US citizen and reader, you just said you hated my country, and I’m a part of that.

Think of your social capital when you participate online in the world of web 2.0. Are you devaluing your “stock” or making it worth more by providing true value and insight? In every post or page that you create, ask yourself if it helps or hurts you social capital - your net worth int he eyes of the community.

Some things will be neutral and that’s okay, too. Just make sure it’s heavily weighted on the “value” side so that people don’t become bored and start to ignore you.

Tiff

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