So you heard there’s a great new social network on the market; everyone’s talking about it and telling you how great it’s going to be for your business. You quickly sign up, put together a business profile, update your status a few times and figure you’ll sign back in in a few days to make some more changes. The days turn to weeks, and weeks to months; the ball has dropped and you’ve moved on to other things.
Six months later you discover that the great new network you signed up for is now the latest new social network and you really should be part of that platform to help your business grow.
It’s often then that the hunt beings. What was that “different” password you used for that account? Well, if you can’t remember the password, there’s no harm in just resetting it, if only you could remember which e-mail address you used . . . perhaps an employee set the account up, but now they’ve moved on.
Perhaps a friend set it up for you but now they’re out of touch.
Or perhaps someone else is holding the key information but isn’t responding to your e-mail requests for one reason or another.
These are common problems businesses face in today’s social media networked world. The best way to combat these issues is to keep good records of your usernames and passwords.
There are several password managers on the market that can help you keep track of your log-in information. Alternatively you can use a password protected Excel spreadsheet containing a list of all your usernames and passwords. By using these methods you’ll only need to remember one password and can feel relieved that you don’t need to use the same password for every account just so you can remember it.
Make sure when friends or employees set up accounts on your behalf you have them associate the account with a main work e-mail address that’s unlikely to change in a few months or years.
So, with an organized map of log-in information, user names, passwords and associated e-mail addresses, getting back in touch with those long lost networks is that much easier.
Set yourself a schedule to check your networks every three to six months to ensure you still have access to them and to determine if you’re using them effectively.
That cool new network you signed up to last year, the one that was promised take over Facebook, may not have been effective for your company, or perhaps you just weren’t using it effectively. By checking your networks regularly you can determine what to do with them. You might find it’s better to delete old accounts that are sitting stale and unfinished and instead really focus on the ones that do work for your business. Or you might be ready to look more closely at the up-and-coming network to see if you’ve overlooked its potential. It’s important to be savvy to the networks out there, and to stay current, but it won’t do your business any good to have a bunch of half finished projects sitting out there for anyone to see.
You have the passwords, take the time to tidy up what you have and see what networks are a good fit for your business.
