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Blogging And Your Privacy
It's a fact; if you're on the internet then you're probably a bit concerned about your privacy. With so many ways to have private
information online, it's easy to forget to consider just what you're posting and weather you should or not.
As entrepreneurs, this can be a problem. People say to make your blog personal, share information and build a relationship with your readers, but what kind of relationship? Where do you draw the line? On one hand, you want to be approachable and open to your customers. On the other hand, you value your privacy. Ah, the dilemma. There is no right or wrong answer but there is a lot of things you can to protect your privacy. While much of it is common sense, sometimes they are easy to overlook during our every day course of business. So let's review what you can do. Who's Blog Is This? Many entrepreneurs are of the mindset that their business is a part of them, of who they are. As bloggers, it is important that we separate ourselves from the business and talk from the perspective of a business. You can add your personality so you don't sound cold and harsh, but know where to draw the line between business and personal. Business Information Only Set limits for yourself what information to share besides the obvious like mailing address and telephone numbers, which should be different from your personal one. Consider things like: What pictures are you willing to put up? If you're comfortable with putting out your own picture, it can help build your credibility but what about pictures of you and your family? Would you share your children's names and ages? What information about your spouse or other family members are you willing to put out? What about your past? When going on vacation should you post it on your blog? Telling people your offices will be closed should suffice. Set a sort of agreement with yourself. It's normally not a good idea to get into personal issues on a business blog. For example, a post about an idea that came to you during Father's Day barbecue is OK, but if you tell people the barbecue was at Mary's house who lives out in ABC town and accompany it with a picture. That *may* be a bit too much information. Write just enough to give people a brief background to set your story. Everything else is overkill. Consider drawing up an employee blogging policy even if you don't have employees. Think of how you'd advise an employee and apply it to yourself. And when you do have employees, you'll already have a blogging policy in place. Review, Review, Review Because blogging is so easy to do, sometimes we tend to hit the post button too quickly. I've been guilty of that. Try to adopt a review-before-publish rule. I sometimes leave my posts overnight so I can see it with a fresh eye the next day. Reviewing each post after you write it is a great way to prevent posting information that can be used, or used collectively with other information, to put you or your privacy in jeopardy. It would be a good idea to keep a short review checklist you can pull up each time you make a blog post. Sometimes in blogging it's not all black and white. The best way to handle keeping your information safe is to do a check before posting. After a short time, you'll get very good at giving your blog personality without revealing too much. |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
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Blogger, entrepreneur Lynette Chandler enjoys helping small business owners with their blogs. She authored an e-course to help new bloggers start their blog right from the beginning. Grab yours at Bloggng Starter Pack
Source: Work At Home Space Articles 
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