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Remember the movie “Grease 2“? Michelle Pfeiffer, Adrian Zmed, etc.? I remember several months that it was being played nonstop on cable (oy!). I developed a huge crush on Michelle Pfeiffer. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Sort of.

“You got a rep to protect.”

I remember a recurring line in the movie from the T-Birds: “I got a rep to protect.“

At the time I thought is was silly for people in the early 1960′s (or even the 1980′s) to be so concerned about their reputations – how others viewed them. Granted, I myself was going through an insecure phase where I had stopped caring so much about what others thought (even though, deep down, I still did!).

There is something to be said, though, about “protecting your rep.”

Emotional Aftertaste

Wasn’t it Ze Frank who said that a personal brand is the emotional aftertaste we get from a set of experiences with someone? In other words, when we leave our interactions with one another, we take that set of emotional experiences with us.

This got me to thinking:

Every day, throughout the day, based on what we do and how we do it, as we share our thoughts and ideas — we are interviewing each other.

You’re consciously or unconsciously thinking about whether I’d be someone you’d like to work with. And I’m doing the same thing with you. Maybe you and I don’t have jobs we’re looking to fill, but in the back of our minds, we evaluate one another as to whether we’d like to work together. As Mitch Joel says in his book, Six Pixels of Separation, “I Google you, and you Google me.”

This is okay.

Protect your rep

But this is yet another reason why we need to be careful what we share publicly. Even if you have your privacy settings ratcheted down so that only your friends can see what you post, they still are the ones who can see what you’re posting. Sounds redundant, but it needs to be said again.

Recently someone I know posted a picture on Facebook as a way to vent some emotions this person had been feeling. When I next spoke to that person, I asked what they thought if I were to share it publicly – outside of social media – in front of one of the common circles of friends we share. They said they would be embarrassed. Then I pointed out that by posting what they posted, it’s the same thing, since many of their friends are in that same group.

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My friend Carole Baker, who founded the New Media Dayton group, recently shared on Facebook:

I just want to say that I’ve been deeply involved in social media (for businesses and brands) for two years now and never once have I poked anyone. I do not understand why anyone would want to poke me, and I have no idea what it means. There I said it. I had to get it off my chest. And another thing…I have never thrown sheep. Why the heck would you throw sheep?

Now I’ve been using Facebook for about four years now, since 2007, and I have poked, been poked, and I think I’ve even been super-poked. I think back then Cliff Ravenscraft declared me the winner of an informal poking contest. I’ve often wondered what the metaphysical consequences of what happens when you poking yourself.

If I remember correctly, here’s the way it used to work:

When you poke someone, you are trying to get his or her attention. They are notified of your poke and can see who you are and view your profile information as though you are friends. It’s a way to say, “Hey, come check me out!” or “Hey, come and see what I’ve been up to over here!” You can ignore the poke or go check them out. Once you check them out, you can either poke back, send a friend request, or ignore it.

I was close.

Over the years, Facebook has changed the application and privacy settings so much that poking seems to have become irrelevant and more of something silly to do.  Still, every so often, I’ll see that someone has poked me, and I take that to mean they’re trying to reconnect in some “old-fashioned” way or otherwise draw my attention to them.

But what do you say? Is there any value in Poking? Especially you other “old-timers” on Facebook… can we finally stop poking one another, or, as Carole mentioned, throwing sheep at one another?

Click here to see the embedded video.

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In the social media world, I think we tend to have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. At last Saturday’s New Media Cincinnati, we talked a lot about how Facebook continually is changing things around, which forces us to stay on our toes when it comes to our privacy settings.

And yet we still love Facebook.

What we have in common

In fact, one thing I’ve started noticing recently is the information in the upper right of the page when I go to a friend’s profile. For example, I went over to my friend Kevin Dugan‘s profile and saw the following picture:

What we have in common

What is interesting is that, with this summary, I’m able to see what Kevin and I have in common. I don’t know about you, but I find this information extremely useful. Now, whenever I want to touch base with Kevin, I can browse what we have in common and strike up a conversation around this if I want to.

We’ll continue to beat up on Facebook because of its squirrelly changes to our privacy, but we’re not in a hurry to leave the site because we’re still getting some really good use from it.

What do you think?

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We like it and we say so

If you’re active on Facebook, you probably have noticed that when you or others post something, other people can “like” what you’ve posted, and Facebook gives it a “thumbs up”. It keeps track of how many “likes” a post gets, and you’ll typically see verbiage that reads, “John Smith likes this”. This feature of Facebook becomes something of a promotion engine.

You can also “like” what you yourself have posted. If you opt to like something you’ve posted, you’ll see text that reads, “You like this.”

Self-aggrandizing and pretentious?

Earlier this evening I saw an update on Twitter from Steve Phillips, the President and owner of one of the best search engine optimization companies in Cincinnati:

purpletrout: Tacky: Consultants who give themselves “thumbs up” on their Facebook posts. Really? You need to give yourself approval?

I saw this amplified, or “retweeted” a few times by others, and then I chimed in:

danieljohnsonjr:@purpletrout Is it wrong to Like something you’ve posted on Facebook? That’s why I “give myself thumbs up”. I like what I’ve written.

The ensuing conversation, which included some direct messages, mentioned how I should let others praise my work, and not me myself.

Statements like this come across as though I’m not allowed to like what I’ve posted.

Some remark that it should be understood that you like your own work and that to “like” it on Facebook comes across as “pretentious and self-aggrandizing” (UPDATE: Julie Niesen @winemedineme wanted me to make sure I attributed her for that phrase, so there it is. FWIW). And yet Facebook lets us “like” our own posts anyway.

Be proud of your work

I see it differently.  I like my work, and I’m proud of it. I think we’re supposed to like it. I think there’s something divine about appreciating something we’ve created, whether it’s a blog post or a status update or a video we’ve shared. We like it, so there shouldn’t be a problem if we choose also to note it as such via Facebook. Sure, I’d love if as many people liked what I do as much as I do, but even if they didn’t, I still would.

Since Facebook builds this functionality, this ability for content creators to “like” or “thumbs up” their own work, it should not be inferred as pretentious or self-aggrandizing. I disagree with you if you see it differently.

I’m still waiting for someone to explain the metaphysical consequences of “poking” oneself on Facebook, however.

What say you? Help me see it differently.