How to Protect Yourself on Social Media

photo credit: Vibe Tribe Creative

Social media is arguably the most powerful tool currently circulating in our society. Whether you use it for marketing, networking, business or personal pleasure it’s a part of our daily life. For me, I use it for all of the above – every single day of the year. I spend hours a week ensuring that what I post is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and that my followers gain something by reading the caption / link attached. 

Recently, an incident occurred that I wanted to bring to light in hopes that you will never find yourself in a similar position -- or, if you do, you will know the proper steps to take.  

I was sitting in the middle of a work lunch when I got a Facebook notification from an acquaintance that I hadn’t spoken to in well over a year. Intrigued by what she could possibly have to say, I threw my table manners aside and opened up the message. To my surprise I saw the words “Cosmetic Dentistry” plastered next to my smiling face. I thought to myself “what in the bleep is this?!”

Click link

New web browser opens: Yoursmilebecomesyou.com appears

I see the below.
 

At first I thought HEY! THAT’S ME! and then I thought wait, that’s me…

As I sat there staring at the website like a deer in headlights I didn’t know what question to ask first. How did they get my picture? Where did they get my picture from? Is that legal? Shouldn’t they have asked my permission? Do I call them? Do I call my mom? Do I call anyone? Am I being a baby for feeling completely freaked out that my face is being splattered across a major association’s website without my consent? 

Pause. 

For the record: I have never, ever, had any version of cosmetic dental. This smile of mine is au naturel and I would like to take this moment to thank my parents for blessing me with it.

Once I cooled down I put my business hat back on and broke down the appearance of this matter. Here I am, an author of a blog and face behind a growing brand with a smile to reflect my positive outlook on life. How in the world is it going to look to have a young woman who consistently preaches positive life reminders yet hides the “fact” that she went under the dentist’s drill. 

To be honest, before that moment I had never given serious thought to safety issues when it comes to social media. All of my social media accounts are public: Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Pinterest – you name it, you can see it. I let my followers into my life on a daily basis. From traveling across country to visiting my boyfriend to candid moments with my best friends. From huge career steps and everything in between-- it’s all there when you type in @MillennialMiss. The thing is, I want it to be there. There as in my social media platforms or the sites I've given permission to use my image and link back. But not to a company that has ripped my picture off my photographer's Pinterest page without acknowledging me as a person, let alone asking for my consent. 

So I did something that I had never done before in my entire life – I called a lawyer. After I brought him up to speed, he hardly batted an eye lash before telling me that using my photo to promote cosmetic dentistry without my permission was against the law. The following day we dove head first into procedural steps to file a lawsuit.

To be crystal clear – this post is not about me standing up for my rights as a person let alone a person with a brand attached to her name but instead I want to take this unfortunate situation and use it as an opportunity to provide some simple tips on how to stay safe on the internet. The truth of the matter is, you never know where your picture may end up. Scary thought, huh?

I know that to the naked ear this all may sound a bit silly, but social media holds a lot of power. It is crucial that we, as women, know how to protect ourselves. 

Combining research with personal experience, I have compiled a list of tips of safety measures to take when using social media:

1. When creating social media accounts make sure to use a password that is stronger than your pets name. Use a password that no one would be able to crack and keep it private! 

2. Provide minimal information about yourself as possible and stay away from publicly listing your address. Always double think when filling out these forms, what wouldn’t you want a complete stranger to know?

3. Even though “check ins” are of the norm, be cautious of when you do so. Tagging your exact location (i.e: where you’re brunching) in real life gives a further glimpse into your whereabouts which, can lead to someone easily following you. Enjoy your time with the ones you’re with and save your posting for afterwards.  

4. If you tend to use a public, work, or friend's computer log out of your social accounts after each use.

In hopes this post served as an eye opener to consistently be mindful of what you post online and that every single one us is entitled to exercise our rights. 

Tag me,
Chels

Chelsea Briche runs the popular blog The Millennial Miss. A platform for young women surviving their twenties with grace and a lot of humility. The platform is Chelsea's "pledge to you, the ones who haven’t quite figured it all out yet. That we, together, will immerse ourselves in every single thing possible; explore, love a lot, love a little, and never touch the ground."

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Four Reasons You Should Hire a PR Agency for Your Business

Public relations is one of the most alluring, fast-paced and competitive industries to work within. Whether you were drawn into the industry because you like writing, managing information, or garnering press - one thing is certain, it is not for the faint-hearted.

It is also not for D-I-Y doers.

Yes, it is okay to buy a press release template and craft a release if you intend to dock it on your website, under the press tab. No, It is not okay to assume that media outlets will reach out to you because you put the release on your website.

No, CNN will not call you for an interview. No, ELLE magazine will not put you on the cover. If you are serious about getting publicity, hiring a publicist or an agency is your best bet. At a minimum, speaking to a consultant can help you understand why cold calling a journalist who writes about fashion trends to write about your cook book is unacceptable.

PR pros know how journalists, editors, and writers prefer to be contacted, and how to negotiate exclusivity. We spend years (and a lot of money attending conferences) building our network, so when we need a story to go out quickly, we can go through our Twitter lists, roller-deck, business card binder, email addresses, and cell phone. Our contacts are scared. Asking us to share our contacts with you is not okay. Journalists are overloaded with people asking them for press coverage each day and usually by someone who is copying and pasting the same email to other people in the same newsroom as them. It is the publicists responsibility to decide and leverage newsworthy coverage that benefits the client, and it must be done in a way that is respectful of journalists.

To help you better understand, if you’re revealing a new logo, as your publicist, I would share that news on social media, Facebook first, because it’s community-based. If you are changing the name of your company, as your publicist, I would write a press release and have it go through a newswire. A newswire can be costly, but it’s worth it because it improves the visibility of your news and helps you connect with your target audience. You would not want consumers still referring to your company by its old name because you never put out a statement to newswires. You know who did this wrong? Rally’s. The company formerly known as Rally’s is…Checkers! It has been more than a decade, but I remember it because I never really heard a bell to unring the name across a mass campaign. Smh.

I confess I am a snob when it comes to the public relations industry because we have a bad rep. There are a lot of party-promoters and event planners who use PR tactics but self-identify as a publicist when a job or pay calls for PR professionals skills. This brings me to four reasons why you should hire a public relations agency and not someone who knows a few PR tactics.

Crisis Communications

When things go wrong, you will always immediately fill with worry. Publicists are trained to begin researching and strategizing around formulas such as C.A.C. We handle the situation with care, action, and context. If there is a rumor, we research the rumor, take control of the rumor and address the rumor through the RIA formula. Publicists break down the reach, importance, and level of ambiguity of the rumor. We center the truth and take a position that is comfortable for the client and enough for the public. Don’t handle a crisis on your own. Even large companies are handling crises poorly. If something goes word, the last thing you should do is spin it. Spin is propaganda; it is used to deceive people and convince them to buy-in to what is being said or sold. Always be honest about your business, it’s successes and failures. The public is forgiving when you apologize for a mistake, not when you lie to cover it up. Get your PR team to serve as the first and last line of defense.

Reputation Management

The way you introduce yourself to the world is often the way the world will see you for years to come. Whether it is adversity towards a product or tragedy, reputation is the key elements of your business being successful or failing. Customers value trust above all else. For example, if you are a skincare company and you attend a conference where the founder is speaking on regulations of the beauty industry, and you cannot answer honestly that animals were not tested and harmed to produce your product, as a consumer, I would not trust you as a beauty lead, or businessperson. A publicist would can prep you for situations like that. You cannot respond, “oh, email me and I’ll ask the company that supplies my product.” Hire a publicist to help you craft the three things your business does exceptionally well, what your company is working on and what’s to come. If I were a consumer, I would believe you and continue to support you because you know your brand and where you plan to take it next. The more long-time consumers you have that trust you, the more of them will support you on social media, write reviews and video testimonials.

Return On Investment

Katie Bouwkamp said it best when she said, “the public relations industry has a big PR problem when it comes to communicating how it directly impacts the bottom-line.” Today, PR pros rely on several systems to be able to tell if your press plan is bringing in money or wasting money. The most popular way to know if your PR plan is thriving is website traffic generated after people read your earned media articles. PR pros use metrics such as website visitors generated, leads created through form submissions, and transactions completed (for e-commerce companies). To put it simply, web analytics track goal conversions and assign a dollar value to those conversions. Public relations firms are managing campaigns, writing news releases, producing content for social media and arranging interviews, preparing clients for press conferences, so that you can gain and retain loyal consumers. PR pros take your stakeholders seriously and have a deep understanding of what it means when those stakeholders are happy or unhappy.

Social Media

No matter how much you want to save money by running your social media account on your own, you will never be able to do it better than someone who knows how to do it practically and most importantly, theoretically. You will miss out on consumers every day who would have gladly paid $14 for a vegan lip balm - I know because I am one of those people. Believe it or not, there is a science and psychology behind levering your social media, and PR pros have mastered it. When you entrust a PR pro with your social media assets, we goal set between social capabilities to increase your brand awareness, get you a higher quality of sales, create a loyal fan base and get you a better pulse in your industry. We know how to find your competitors, not to necessarily to take them out but to make sure you are setting the standard, leading the way and bringing in just as much, of nor more revenue. We know what strategies to use to drive engagement and sales (for those of us who are hybrid-mass communications professionals) because we do a lot of social listening to find out what your consumers are saying about the brand and product. Let a PR pro manage your social media, not only so you can serve as the face, voice, and brand of your company, but so you can continue to grow your business.

In the vast skillsets of PR pros, there are a few things you should never D-I-Y, the four are mentioned are the ones I do not waiver on. Trust me it’s worth it, hire a PR firm.

By: Danyelle R. Carter

_______________________________________________________________________________

Danyelle R. Carter is the President of Her Communications Agency, the first communications and public affairs firm committed to delivering high impact strategy to organizations, companies, and candidates that center on advancing women and girls. She formerly served as a U.S. Digital and Press Congressional Staffer and legislative support for women and girls. While serving in the House of Representatives, Danyelle helped launched the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls and Multicultural Media Caucus. Most notably, she conceptualized and wrote the bill to get a statue representative of Shirley Chisholm in the U.S. Capitol that is now being championed by Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY) and Senator Kamala Harris (CA). Connect with Danyelle on Twitter.

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How to Make Money on Your Social Channels

Whether you are an entrepreneur launching the next great news content site or a blogger with a huge social following, making recommendations for things on your social platforms encourages your audience to click and buy. We covered the basics of affiliate marketing in an older post, but for a short refresher, affiliate marketing means you can earn revenue by placing trackable links to get paid when your users shop. But once you’ve got the basics down, what’s next?

Know Your Platform!

Social media is arguably the most challenging way to convert users to make a purchase. Why? While perusing Instagram and Snapchat, users want to be inspired and see their friends and family alongside inspiring images. When users are in the mindset to consume content on these platforms, they don’t always want to be immediately directed to a new page to make a purchase. With that in mind, using social media to direct people back to your site is a great way to drive traffic and allow the user to know where to shop a little later.

Instagram Posts: Include “Shop link in bio” in your caption and direct your followers back to a page featuring Instagram posts tagged with the products you are featuring. ShopStyle Collective has a tool called Looks & Collections which makes it simple! The best part? You can link to multiple items, making it even easier for fans to shop your entire look.

Instagram Stories: Swipe up to Shop! For those that have the ability to link in stories, it’s simple to create a shortlink via ShopStyle Collective and direct users to swipe to shop. ShopStyle’s tools auto detect that the user is coming from Stories and offers them the option to enter an email to get a link to shop, or to shop immediately. We’ve seen a huge increase in conversion on “Swipe up” by giving users the option to enter their email and stay within Instagram, or to shop immediately.

Facebook: Yes, that’s right: Facebook. It’s may not be as cool as Instagram, but Facebook is the silver bullet of driving shopping through social. It’s easy to link out and engage with your community — and it’s easy to do targeted advertising to get links in front of the right people. Focus on building your Facebook community by engaging users and seeing what works organically in order to diversify ways to monetize through social.

Hilary Sloan is a director of business development at ShopStyle, the leading fashion search destination, in charge of ShopStyle Collective, the fastest growing network of top fashion and lifestyle influencers worldwide, currently 14,000 strong. Sloan’s team works closely with influencers to successfully monetize their digital shopping content. In addition, Sloan works closely with ShopStyle’s product team, identifying and innovating against future trends and new platforms to create proprietary tools that influencers can use for revenue generation and brand building. When not at ShopStyle, Hilary can be found applying all her skills to her own mini influencer, her dog, Ella Bean.

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How to Avoid the Social Media Comparison Game

photo credit: Jessica Bordner Photography

You’re on Instagram and notice a photo posted by a fellow creative entrepreneur of a beautiful dinner party filled with people laughing and smiling, a table covered with food and candles and a perfect city skyline in the background. A wave of envy passes over you.

Welcome to the Social Media Comparison Game. In a world where Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and many other social media platforms dominate, it is trickier than ever to not compare yourself to others. Feeling “not as good as” or “not having enough of” ultimately causes fear and self-doubt, which leads us to staying right where we are. Not ideal. We end up putting our own personal thoughts and projects on hold, and not sharing them with the world.

Even with the best of intentions to connect with new people and share your adventures in business and life, it is often unavoidable that at some point you will find yourself entrenched in this [not-so-fun] game. As someone who works persistently on keeping my eyes on my own page, here are my tips and tricks that help me navigate social media comparison.

GET GOOD AT IDENTIFYING ENVY

Start noticing how you feel when you are on social media. Are there certain people or pictures that trigger feelings of envy and jealousy? What does it physically feel like in your body? For me, I start to feel flushed in the face, a little hot around my neck and chest, and want to withdraw immediately, usually in the form of avoiding my own work. It’s important to know how envy shows up for you so that you can better recognize it and intervene before it stops you in your tracks.

FOLLOW, UNFOLLOW

Once you identify the envy, you’ve got to check in with yourself and ask if following this person on social media is good for you and your business. If you find yourself feeling down most of the time when you see their photos, it is likely a sign that you should stop following this person right now. Sure, they post beautiful photos. Sure they seem great. Sure you love their vibe. But the reality is that it is vital you treat your social media network just like your network in real life. You wouldn’t keep people around on a daily basis who zap your energy, so why allow your social media network to do it? Follow and keep people close who light you up, and inspire and motivate you to keep at it. Drop and unfollow people who don’t.

CREATE WHAT YOU ARE CRAVING

Even when your network is made up of people you admire and love, it is inevitable that you will find yourself feeling envy from time to time as people promote and celebrate their lives and businesses. Even though a part of you is absolutely happy for others’ success, you still may not be able to shake that slight feeling of jealousy. Use that feeling to understand yourself a bit more. What is it that you are craving or wanting? Let’s go back to the dinner party scenario. Instead of feeling down and discouraged after seeing the photo, you could ask yourself in your mind, what am I really wanting? It could be that you want to attend a dinner party just like that. Now it’s up to you to create what you are craving by getting out there and hosting one yourself. The key is to become intentional about the life you want to create by treating your feelings of envy and jealousy as personal-research for understanding your own wants and desires. I know it’s not an easy
process, but with time and practice it is possible to have a thriving, inspiring social media network while keeping your eye on your own page.

Jen Wille is a Certified Professional Life Coach for vibrant women who are ready for more. Her warm approach, unique flair to self-development, and desire to help people bridge the gap from where they are and where they want to be is always at the center of her work. Find her at jenwille.com and on Instagram.

The original version of this article appeared on Blog Society. 

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Instagram Just Released Snapchat-Like Feature, But Here’s Why You’ll Use It

Gather 'round, it's story time kids. 

This morning Instagram introduced Instagram Stories, a new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story.

In a blog post the app announced, "With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about over-posting. Instead, you can share as much as you want throughout the day — with as much creativity as you want. You can bring your story to life in new ways with text and drawing tools. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in feed."

Instagram has long been the "curated" social media. It's where users, brands, and influencers give the public a highlight reel of their life. No more. TechCrunch scored an interview with IG CEO Kevin Systrom who admitted to publication, “They deserve all the credit,” while insisting, “This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it.”

Stories is the spot where you can upload all of the stuff that isn't great for your grid-- because from a brand and gaining follower perspective we've heard over and over again how important it is to "get your grid right." 

With Stories you can doodle, draw, and like Snapchat, they'll disappear after 24-hours. 

At the top of your feed there will be a bar featuring stories from your best friends and favorite accounts. When the user adds something new to their story the profile will have a colorful ring around it. To see said story you tap the profile photo. 

The feature follows the privacy settings on your account. You can also hide Stories from followers you don't want checking in. 

According to the post, "Instagram has always been a place to share the moments you want to remember. Now you can share your highlights and everything in between, too."

It also solves the "too many apps, NO MORE!" crisis that many people have expressed anxiety over. Instagram Stories is the first useful attempt to consolidate the overwhelm of social. Clone or not, people will use it simply out of convenience. Snapchat showed that people wanted more than a highlight reel-- IG followed the crowd. 

"Instagram Stories is the first useful attempt to consolidate the overwhelm of social." 

Tweet this. 

It will also prove useful for brands hiring influencers for campaigns to engage followers in BTS footage or event photos. Bloggers and influencers wont have to switch back-and-forth between apps and they'll be able to share moments on their IG without overcrowding the feed. 

However, unlike regular posts there are no likes or public comments, so for the time being it might be difficult to measure engagement. But that's not going to stop the social platform's 500 million users from jumping on board. 

Instagram Stories will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks on iOS and Android. Your move Evan Spiegel.

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Exposing Engagement: Why You Need This Instagram Tool

Around 2.5 billion photos and videos are liked on Instagram every day. It is the ruling King, Queen, and Court Jester of social media. And if you have a public Instagram, you have a brand-- whether you are conscious of this or not. Your brand is who you are to the world. Now whether you choose to market this-- AKA tell people what you do, is a personal choice. However if you want to be successful on Instagram you have to understand your engagement. 

It is the best way to build awareness, drive traffic to your blog, brand, or brick-and-mortar, and ultimately, grow your business. Figuring out your engagement is what separates successful grammers from the mediocre, and there's a new tool simplifying the process.  

Peoplemap is an Instagram marketing tool that features: profile analysis, list building, campaign tracking, and statistics. If you are an individual with multiple accounts you can manage all accounts on a single platform; if you are a brand or a company, your entire team can access the account and information.  

You can search groups, communities within a specific geographical region, and it exposes engagement numbers that are important to brands and individuals. 

WHY IS THIS USEFUL TO BRANDS?

One: list building. Peoplemap has created a way to analyze Instagram marketing efforts and strategically build a targeted community. They make it easier to sort, filter, and analyze any user so you can create "the most comprehensive and strategic Instagram rolodex for your company". 

Now let's chat about exposing engagement. Say you're building a list of beauty influencers, but you want to filter those with the highest engagement, you can do that. If you want to only hire influencers who have 2% engagement and up, you can do that. There is also an option to "analyze" a profile. If you click "analyze," in about an hour Peoplemap will send you a report that highlights who recently, liked, commented, or who was tagged. It's a way for brands (as well as individuals) to really understand the audience. 

These are tools to really help brands understand the who, what, and why of the influencers they're hiring. 

WHY IS THIS USEFUL TO INDIVIDUALS?

As with brands, understanding what performs well and what doesn't is key to growing and engaging your followers. When you analyze the posts that are not performing well vs. those that are, it will help you create a more robust, comprehensive strategy. The higher your engagement, the more money you'll make from brands who are looking for influencers. 

"Understanding what performs well and what doesn't is key to growing and engaging your followers."

Tweet this. 

It also helps you easily compare your engagement to others. While they say comparison is the thief of joy, in this instance it could also be a thief... of dollars. When you understand your engagement in comparison to others who are working in similar categories, you might be able to charge more. Let's say you have 200k followers less than an Insta-famous fashion blogger, but they have a .89% engagement and you're clocking in at 5%. You may have fewer followers, but you can make the case to a brand that the ROI is better with you. 

You can also build a "competition" list in Peoplemap and compare your engagement to others.  If your engagement is lower, use this as a means to analyze your content vs. someone who has high engagement and change your strategy.

When it comes to IG, knowledge and understanding is power. Peoplemap is putting the knowledge in your hands. It's up to you to understand your engagement, the numbers, and ultimately, your business.  

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