That’s what happened to Brelyn Hammernik, who is being accused of violating non-compete agreements by her former employer, Minnesota-based TEKsystems — an IT staffing company — because of her “conduct” on the professional social network LinkedIn. What did Hammernik do? She “communicated” with numerous contract employees from her former employer, via LinkedIn.

That’s scary for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s normal to communicate with former colleagues. Secondly, it’s normal for recruiters to “persuade” previous colleagues to shift allegiance. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it’s normal. But unless Hammernik was actually poaching, why is it a problem to interact with former colleagues? Unfortunately, TEKSystems is claiming that Hammernik actually solicited both their contract employees and clients via LinkedIn, and they acquired communications as proof. As a result, the company now has a lawsuit against both her and her current employer, amongst others.

Just keep this in mind: any company with a knowledgeable sys admin can easily capture all Web communications, copies of email, even phone calls. In fact, a publicly-traded company must do this because of SEC regulations. But even private companies do this. If you use social media, remember that, whether you’re communicating with employees of either a former employer or a current employer.

Now given that this so-called authority ranking is based on the number of followers and that celebs probably attract people from all walks of life, it’s not surprise, at least mathematically, that average follower authority is low for celebs. On the other hand, people who are social media and Web authorities, such as Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang and Steve Rubel, seem to have an average follower authority that is much much higher. The same goes for news/ media sources: the broader the appeal, the lower the average follower authority. But of course, social media influencers will have the advantage when it comes to the social media arena. That is, it’s not a surprise that their followers have a higher average authority ranking.

What can you take away from these findings? Just that the quantity of a Twitter user’s followers doesn’t necessarily matter, depending your objective in connecting or interacting with him or her. Influence is important, but sometimes depth of social graph is just as valuable as breadth of social graph.

If you’re interested in finding out more, Sysomos has a detailed, charted & mapped breakdown of the 15 influencers that they studied.

Yes, we should mourn the victims, though is Twitter or social media in general the place to announce the first execution of its kind in the U.S. in nearly a decade and a half? A lot of Twitter users thought it was disgusting. What do you think? Isn’t “socializing” about sharing news? Did Shurtleff step over a line? Twitter might be an opt-in service, but there are public timelines, trending topic lists, etc., and children can see such tweets. Did he let his obvious passion for justice go to far, commit an act of TMI (Too Much Info) in the wrong channel, or was he justified, as some commenters at Mashable have said, given that Twitter has become a news source?

Have you been using the professional social network LinkedIn and feel as if you’re not getting very much out of it? I’ve only recently started expanding my network, after a long period of dormancy, and finding I’m turning to it more often, especially after joining several discussion groups in a few areas of interest. If you’re looking for “personal brand”-building tips for using LinkedIn, Dan Schwabel shares some valuable at Mashable. The salient steps are:

1. Brand your profile.
2. Develop your network.
3. Position yourself as a leader.
4. Leverage LinkedIn as part of your unified brand strategy.

Each step in the article also offers how-to info.

[via Mashable]

A little bit of contemplation made me realize that there are actually several different types of Facebook friends. Here are a few of the types I have:

1. Friends and acquaintances from real life.
2. People I’ve worked with online or by phone.
3. People I’ve communicated with by phone or email.
4. People I’ve been recommended to and will likely meet soon.
5. Real-life friends of real-life friends.
6. People who are my “friends” or “fans/ followers” on other social networks.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs with some of these types, but at least in my small Facebook network, I’ve covered all the categories of friends. How is your Facebook network doing, and what categories do your friends fall into?

The answer to that question is less simple. Just as not every business needs a website, even in this decade, I don’t feel that every business needs to twitter. At least not yet anyway. Unless your business is based online. Then it’s a necessity in your SMM (Social Media Marketing) toolkit, unless you have more effective means of consistently promoting your business and website.

If you’re not sure what to do, check out David Berkowitz article, Ten Ways to Decide if Your Business Should Twitter, over at Social Media Insider. Also consider reading Geekpreneur’s free ebook, A Geek’s Guide to Promoting Yourself and Your Online Business in 140 Characters or Less with Twitter.

Not familiar with microblogging? Either you haven’t spent much time on the Internet in the last two years, or you don’t watch Oprah’s talk show regularly. (Twitter.com was recently showcased, causing a backlash from some early adopters who resented the seeming commercialization – or other possible reasons.)

That aside, microblogging is a means of communicating tidbits of information in much the same way you might text message someone with your cell phone. In fact, Twitter – the current king of microblogging services – is modelled on the same principle. With true microblogging services, you have up to 140 characters per message to say whatever you want, share links, report a tidbit of news.

Should You Microblog?
Not everyone is going to find value in microblogging. But the small percentage of users who do “get” its value for promoting their business or themselves – be they entrepreneurs or celebrities.

Reports around the blogosphere are that microblogging sites have a high “bounce” rate. That is, people sign up but often don’t use their account, or abandon it after a few months, never to return. My own experience is ignoring my accounts – I use a few services – for several months, exploring a bit, ignoring, then diving in full throttle. Or at least half-throttle. The fact is, if you’re going to use a microblogging service such as Twitter to promote yourself, the value increases with the size of your network. If no one is following your microblogging stream of updates, then you are not going to get much ROI (Return on Investment) for your efforts.

As a result, since new users have to learn how to build their network, it wouldn’t be surprising if the widespread of adoption of microblogging for promoting online (or offline) projects/ causes/ businesses/ organizations takes a few years. It took a long time for websites to be a “necessity” for most businesses, too.

Microblogging Platform Choices
Twitter, Facebook (status updates), Plurk, and Identi.ca are just a few of the microblogging options available. (The Pownce microblogging platform has been sold and the team absorbed into Six Apart.)

In terms of true microblogging platform, all indications are that Twitter is the most popular. However, with reports that maybe 10% of tweeters make up 80-90% of the content on Twitter, it seems that the service is not so widespread in use. Facebook, it could be argued, has wider penetration as a microblogging tool. However, since it allows for more than 140 characters in status messages, it’s not a true microblogging tool.

However, if you’re a business, things may not be so simple. Facebook has been promoting Pages instead of account profiles for businesses. But it seems that to prevent squatting of usernames once vanity URLs are available, Facebook has put a few limitations on qualify. Mashable discusses it more in detail, but the gist is that if you have only a Facebook Page (which many but not all businesses do), you can only have a new username/ vanity URL if the Page was created by May 31/ 2009 AND has at least 1,000 fans as of that date as well. As the Mashable article says, that’s not an easy task for many small businesses.

So, you’re sold on the idea of using a social network for an online project that you’re involved in.

Question: would you rather use Facebook Connect to build a niche social network, knowing you’re giving up control of member information, or would you prefer to build a network from the ground up, thereby insuring that you have control over all member information?

Of course, the first option is less effort, but you pay the cost of not having access to full member info.

The second option requires effort and promotion, but does not necessarily preclude using Facebook tools/ plugins. If you use BuddyPress (which requires WPMU – WordPress Multi-user) to build your social network, then you do have control over customizations. That means you can plug in FB tools, if available, or write your own FB integration code.

So it should be easy to see that what you choose depends on your abilities or budget. If you don’t know how to build your social network on the BuddyPress platform, with customizations, or if you don’t have the budget to hire someone to do that for you, then you’re left using Facebook Connect, or maybe Ning or one of the other social networking platforms.

Personally, I like have control of data, when it comes to my own projects, and fortunately I can customize existing Open Source code if I want to, though I never seem to have the time. So the dilemma continues.

So the next time some “friend” asks for money online, double check with them through other means (email, cell phone, instant msg, etc.) that they are who they say. Or be careless and get taken for a ride. And while you’re being cautious, watch this hilarious, slightly potty-mouthed video and remember it next time someone you barely know wants to add you on Facebook.