Facebook and Its Value as an Online Business Tool

The other day, I saw an online report that talked about the perils of over-sharing on social media sites such as Facebook. It said that college students were prone to sharing a lot of information over social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. This wouldn’t be such a problem if the habit did not continue beyond graduation, it said.

Very true, of course. You cannot share too much online regarding your business. I’d doubt that anyone would ever want to share any such sensitive information. But small online businesses run by young entrepreneurs are the subject of the discussion here, and they need to take special care that they do not share any information that could come back to haunt their business later on.

While I do very much doubt that even a young entrepreneur would ‘share’ too much online in ways that threaten his/her own business, I have also nevertheless seen the typical, in-the-face online and offline marketing and advertising of businesses, which often gets excessive and proves to be a nuisance overall.

Netiquettes in Online Business

All online sharing and advertising should be a carefully planned exercise – not a free-for-all kind of hammering-away-till-you-get-customers campaign. And Facebook threatens to be that as well, besides compromising privacy and leaving you, your business, and even your associates vulnerable to attacks such as s*xting and the lot.

There have also been complaints regarding other negative side-effects of Facebook. Being the powerful medium that it is, Facebook has big potential for misuse, despite being inherently a good thing to have. That’s my take on it.

For heaven’s sake, you could misuse flowers if you were bent upon doing as much. Also, I doubt that most young companies have the time and the personnel to dedicate to social media. A sense of propriety and timing as well as appropriate content are all necessary in your planning for your organization’s Facebook page.

Startups will do well to thoroughly envision their strategy for engaging their audience on Facebook. Done well, you can reap rich rewards. Ensure however, that there’s not an iota of any negative sentiment toward anyone in any of your Facebook posts.