Realize Your Business

Author: Geri Schneider Winters

I’ve talked before in this blog about how you might use a free blog – such as on MySpace, Zaadz, or Facebook – to promote your business. But you have to be careful how you go about doing that, or you will find your account terminated.

I was just reviewing the terms of service for MySpace (all the membership sites have similar terms) and found these uses of a social networking site are explicitly prohibited. You cannot use your account at a social networking site to (I have summarized a bit):

• solicit passwords or personal identifying information for commercial purposes from other Users
• perform commercial activities and/or sales such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes
• advertise to, or solicit, any Member to buy or sell any products or services. (note you can be charged $50 per email for sending this kind of message to other members)
• interfere with, disrupt, or create an undue burden on the Services or the networks or services connected to the Services
• display an unauthorized commercial advertisement on your profile, or accept payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity through the unauthorized or impermissible use of the Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your “Top 8″ friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose

What does that mean for you?

1. You cannot set up a form on your account asking for name and email for any reason.You cannot offer any kind of product, whether or gift or free, through your account.
2. Don’t get too popular, or you might create an undue burden on the systems!! Nice problem to have. If you are that popular, get your own domain somewhere – you can afford it!
3. You cannot post anything that looks like advertising.
4. You cannot send email to your “friends” or other members that looks like advertising.
5. You cannot post advertising for another company (such as promoting a company of which you are an affiliate)

So what can you do?

I think you are still fine with posting informational articles. The articles should have good content and should not appear to be advertising in disguise. Then I like to put a footer at the end of my article, such as this one I use at the end of all my articles:

You are invited to re-publish articles from this blog, in your
publication or website, as long as the article is intact and
you include the following Byline paragraph (with live links)
after each article you use…

START BYLINE

* Article used with permission from Wyyzzk, Inc.’s Realize Your
Business website at http://www.realizeyourbusiness.com This website
of reports and tips contains information to help you succeed as the
Owner/Manager of a small business.

END BYLINE

Notice that I am not directly selling a product or service. Am I a commercial concern? Yes. Do I sell things? Yes. But I am careful to not “sell” using the membership site. Rather, I share information that may be of interest to other people and if they want a further relationship with me or my company, then they go to my website to do that.

I think the concern of the membership sites is that their servers get overwhelmed with traffic, and that traffic is spending money somewhere else (not on the membership site).

So be considerate of the needs of the membership site – they need to make money to keep their servers running. You can help do this by providing great content that brings visitors to the membership site (who may click on the ads and spend money). But then take care of yourself, by making it possible for those same visitors to find your commercial website where you can turn them into customers. Think of using the membership site as a way for people to find you and get to know you. Use the membership site to develop relationships, then these people will more readily become customers at your own commercial site.

This is a win-win-win situation – the membership site gets visitors and makes money, you get customers and make money, and the customers get your great product which helps them solve some need or problem.

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Now it is your turn.

Do you have a membership at one or more social networking sites? Are you familiar with the terms of agreement for those sites?

How are you effectively using your account to develop relationships with potential customers, without violating the terms of agreements of the sites?

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You are invited to re-publish articles from this blog, in your publication or website, as long as the article is intact and you include the following Byline paragraph (with live links) after each article you use…

START BYLINE

* Article used with permission from Wyyzzk, Inc.’s Realize Your Business website at http://www.realizeyourbusiness.com This website of reports and tips contains information to help you succeed as the Owner/Manager of a small business.

END BYLINE