If you have a small or  home business and you’re active on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace  you are a sitting duck when it comes to password security.

Why, because you’ve probably put the answer to your password reset verification questions in your social network profiles. Usually the password reset verification questions are thinks like the town you were born in, your favorite pet, where you were married, etc. Frequently this information is in a profile, or other post you’ve created. You mother’s maiden name, your wedding date, and your kids names may be on that family tree site you site or application you use. The list goes on…

So what should you do?

1. Think about those verification questions
2  Sanitize your social networking profiles and remove or obscure that information, so it can’t be used against you
3. Or better yet, change your verification questions, to information you have never published,  since once information is  on the Internet old copies are stored all over the place.

Remember most of the information put put on social networking sites are searchable somehow, so don’t risk your security–think about what you put out there and how it can be used.
I know of a documented and publicized case where a hacker used social networking to get answers to verification questions as part of network break-in.

One great thing about the Internet is the wide variety of information that is available at your fingertips. The bad thing is that anybody can publish anything (look at me), so you have to make sure that the the site has something of real value, and is not just a rehash of old dated information.  On the subject of marketing, there are two sites that I feel would be valuable to ANY small business owner. These sites consistently provide quality, timely, and useful information.

(OK, this site is called Irunabiz:Technology, and these sites are about marketing, so how do I justify this post. First, They are on the Internet, that’s technology, isn’t it? Second, sometimes they talk about technology subjects like Twitter and Facebook. Third, this is my blog and I can write about anything I want to, so there!)

• Copyblogger. While ‘blogger’ is in the name, this site is about a lot more than blogging. Its about good writing, with a focus on persuasive, and engaging copy. I pick up great tips almost every time I go to it.  It’s also organized very well, so it’s easy to get lots of information on a specific subject.

• The Duct Tape Marketing Blog. This blog is written by John Jantsch (who also has  books and related media on this subject). His blog has a lot of cutting edge information on marketing in general with a focus, lately, on Internet and social media marketing. I think I have referenced material from his blog more than any other. He is well worth reading regularly.

Take some time to let me know about any site you think are worthwhile below.

Related Posts

• Figuring out Twitter when you can barely figure out email.
• Fast Read: Sales and Marketing

“entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”
(entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity).–Occam’s razor

Given that I write a blog, I spend  a lot of time reading other blogs, both on general business subjects and on blogging business. Over the past two weeks I read (and commented on) two posts that really got me thinking about social media.  The first post was on the DuctapeMarketing  blog. It was an post about creating a special role or position in a company for the person that handles Social Media (“Adding a Chief Conversation Officer” ); I got into quite a rant on this one. The other article was on Graywolf’s SEOBlog, where he discusses the fact that Social Media is so complex that its not possible for there to be experts on the subject (“Is There Really Such a Thing as a Social Media Expert“). After reading both these postings and ruminating on the subject for a while I came to a realization– Social Media isn’t new, and its mostly hype.

What we call social media on the Internet has existed in some form since the  the beginning of time. Since the invention of printing with movable type, there have been newspapers and letters to the editor; since the 1960’s there has been some form talk radio; since the late 70’s there have  been call in TV shows. Twitter is the Internet equivalent of a cocktail party, where you can get involved in  conversations on different topics with various groups of people. In the late 80’s and early 90’s people wrote books about ‘networking’ at these types of events, there were even (and still probably are ) seminars on how to ‘network’. Facebook, Linkedin, et all, are quite similar to regular social or business luches with friends or colleagues. Before Digg, if you wanted to know what people were reading, you could check out your coffee shop, or hotel lobby, or even a park at lunchtime. The big difference between non-internet versions of ‘being social’ and the new Internet ’social media’ is access and speed.  The concepts and skills manage these activities have not changed much.

Once you get past the hype, and objectively look at social media, you will see that most of the skills you use to be social, will work with social media too. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are technical nuances and issues that you will need specialists to help you with, but the overall strategy and tactics have been around for hundreds of years. Just look at Martin Luther, who nailed a listing of his criticism’s of the Catholic Church to a church door, perhaps he was one of the earliest bloggers. And if you want to know how to drive traffic to your blog, spend some time studying the tactics that Benjamin Franklin used to increase the circulation of his brother’s newspaper.