Plagiarism.  The dictionary defines it as the use or close imitation of language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.. [source]  But since the inception of the Internet, and more specifically, the emergence of weblogs, there has been an overly generous amount of wiggle room in how people choose (or don’t choose) to refer to things in their writing.

Knowing Better

It’s one thing to read someone else’s blog or to browse through the Internet and see something that you really find compelling and want to write about.  Heck, you may be thinking to yourself, “They say it so much better than I could even begin to, so I’ll just copy exactly what they have and call it a day.”

Wrong.

It still amazes me to come across a piece of information on one site, think to myself that it seems really familiar, and then realize later that the reason for this familiarity was because it was copied verbatim from another site.  It’s not that difficult to reference something.  Even if you’re unsure about the proper way to reference something on the Internet, referencing where you obtained a certain tidbit of information is MUCH better than not mentioning where you received your sudden knowledge.  It makes you look suspicious- like you’re hiding something.

Dealing with Plagiarism

Unfortunately, there are plenty of unscrupulous people out there waiting to bring you down simply because they’re too lazy to write content themselves.  If this is the case, there are a couple of things you can do:

• Examine the content of what you have written and compare it word-by-word with the content in question.
• Send a non-threatening email, politely asking the blogger or other culprit to kindly remove the article in question from their web site.
• Conduct a “WhoIs” lookup based on the web domain name in order to find the registrar and/or name of the web hosting company so that a formal complaint about copied content can be wagered.

Have any other advice, stories or tips about plagiarism?  We’d love to hear them!

Who 

Part 3 of 4:  An experienced sales executive, Christine, became sold on the value of on-line networking when she asked a newly-acquired client worth several million dollars in total sales what the final factor was that influenced them to work with her. The client replied that Christine’s profile on Linkedin that included endorsements was the tipping point. It enabled them to pre-screen her and her business, as well as showing that she was web savvy. This enlightening feedback prompted Christine to have all her key employees develop a profile on-line and she arranged to spend time learning how to fully utilize internet networking resources.

Negative Conversation

One question that arises for everyone who steps into on-line networking is what to do when someone says something unfavorable about you on-line, since it can be an anonymous posting and you may have no idea who made the comment. As Andy Beal, owner of an on-line reputation management company (Trackur) says, “Not all bad press is bad. It can be an opportunity for you to show how well you handle real customer concerns that the world can see.”

Keep in mind that the internet is too big for you to control all the conversations that might arise. What is relevant is being aware of the ones related to you, your business and your industry, and learning which comments and conversations are worth responding to and which are not. A bona fide crazy person attacking you will show up like that to others too. Just as top sales professionals view disagreement and objection as a doorway to new opportunities if they handle them in the right person-to-person way, the same applies to the internet.

How do you handle a negative posting? Imagine a restaurant owner finding a bad comment on a blog where her restaurant was reviewed. It might read: “I had to wait too long for the food and the server had an attitude!” A good responsive post would be, “I regret that you had anything less then an excellent experience. We are committed to providing great food, at a fair price, with friendly service. If you are ever having a problem, just ask for me or my shift manager.” Give a simple apology, state your commitment, and provide a guideline for future problems.

Reprinted from Women’s Edge Magazine
by Martin Brossman - www.ProNetworkingOnLine.com
& check out Understanding Linkedin

The following is a guest post from the guys at Logo Inn.

A Logo Design Service Provider

Today, the world is more socially connected; in this regard reputation management has become more and more a concern for any business whether it is small or a large enterprise. Social media marketing in this scenario can help small and medium size businesses to gain reputation and popularity without deploying multiple websites.

One of the best examples of social media marketing could be the presidential campaign of Obama. With his unique logo, he had run the campaign almost on all popular social networking websites included MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube etc. Even now when the campaign has been finished his profile could easily be identified due to his unique logo.

It’s your profile picture that makes you identifiable on social networks, and if you put your logo instead of any other picture, it becomes very easy for visitors to identify and remember your business. Hence, a unique logo can be easily identified by the viewers at a glance and makes your profile to standout from the crowed.

Advertising through web banner can also be done on social networks, which is proved to be very effective and cheaper way of online marketing Thousands of users visit social networking websites daily, subliminal effect could be left on their mind if they don’t even look at the advertisement, but impression of a logo would be saved in their subconscious mind.

One other advantage a small business gets is through creating groups, where you are allowed to setup a main page with a graphic/logo, company’s description, and a wall where users can post comments. Additionally, it provides a discussion board for posting questions that encourage group members to interact and share their opinions. Group creation is free, it is Viral – when people become your fan it is updated on their profile with your logo and shared with all their friends, publicly indexed, and promotable with social network Ads.

It is just not enough; there are many other ways a unique logo can help. Widget marketing is another way to promote your business. Widgets are simple applications that can be made available for your website or blog visitors to copy and paste in their website or blog. Useful widgets can be designed for your visitors, and when they embed this widget to their website or blog, your logo will appear. Therefore, your logo would become the source of bringing qualified traffic to your website and creating brand exposure. Companies like YouTube, Twitter, and Slide are the examples that have taken advantage of widget marketing.

In the last, I would say benefits of social media marketing are never ending, and if you have a unique logo the advantages would be immense. Many other ways are there to utilize unique logo for social media marketing, and it’s your brain how you create innovative ideas to take full advantage out of your logo.

The following is a guest post from the guys at Logo Inn