I have been doing a lot of talking to people about how they interact and connect as part of the planning for a networking guide.

The surprising thing is how often we come across people who are hampering their own efforts. Here are some of the ways we discovered:

• Staying close to home – Only going to networking events in the same city.
• Sticking to one niche – Not exposing themselves to people outside of their usual social circle.
• Using only one approach – If business cards and elevator pitches don’t work, they are essentially stuck.
• Only doing what they have always done – While past techniques might work, this does not mean there are not other things you could be doing.
• Avoiding face to face – Being an introvert I can understand this one, and have developed techniques to make it easier on us shy types!

If you actually do just three tiny adjustments to your networking, using all the best of online and offline combined, then you have far more potential:

1. Use both the social networking tools and face to face networking in a combined effort.
2. Put energy into expanding your reach outside of your locality or same-old hangouts.
3. Actively develop new approaches so you do not get stuck in a rut.

When you connect with someone cool in a face to face setting, ask for their LinkedIn or Twitter IDs. Online, ask when and where the person might be showing up next. Easy!

Over the years I have managed to grow a really effective network by adjusting my approach around these three things. Social networking has a great amount to offer, but it is even more powerful when combined with real-world connections and relationships.

I hate to say that Facebook has had it rough lately, because they’re still well on a path to take over the world, but they have had their fair share of controversy over privacy and other PR blunders.

My favorite is QuitFacebookDay.com. They’re just short of 19,000 committed quitters. How far will they get? Will it actually make a difference?

Answers: Not far. And No.

But I give them credit for trying to take on the big boys. The notion of quitting is a clear indication of the frustration felt by many Facebook users. So in response to the backlash, Facebook announced they are instituted simpler privacy controls.

The problem with this is Facebook assumes the problem with the privacy settings is it’s too complicated. Which it is. There is no denying that. Will simplified privacy settings satisfy the angry throng of Facebook users?

Today, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, announced simplified privacy settings for their 450 million users.

“We believe that people want to share information and they’re best able to do that when they have control over what they share,” Zuckerberg said. “When you give people control and they’re in a good environment, they will share more.”

Zuckerberg said the new settings will focus on three things:

• A single control for your content.
• More powerful controls for your basic information.
• Easy control to turn off all applications.

New Privacy Interface

The main difference is that everything is under one location, rather than 57 different places; I’m exaggerating, but that’s how it seemed.

Whatever settings you choose will apply to future applications. So there is a semi-opt-in option. For example, if you have settings on “everyone,” then new features and applications will be set to “everyone” in the future.

A nice feature is the ability to turn the platform off completely, so that applications, games and websites don’t have access to any of your information.

Right now, it’s hard to get the full grasp of the changes because we only have what Facebook is showing us, but the new changes will be rolled out in the next few weeks. So we’ll keep you posted.

Zuckerberg did end it by reminding us that he’s only 26. So, I felt like a little bit of a loser for not doing more with my life now that I’m almost 30, so thanks for that Zuckerberg.

What are your thoughts so far? Do you think Facebook has gone far enough? Is there more they could do?

Social Media is a great idea for most businesses. If you are an individual working on your own then you can try it out without any other opinions holding you back. When you are an employee though you need to justify things.

One question your boss is almost certainly going to ask is “how much is this going to cost”.

That might seem easy, after all the majority of the tools, services, applications, and sites are free to use. Even the ones that charge either for a product or a monthly service still have a free trial period or less feature rich option. The tools you pay for have price lists so they are easy to quantify.

What else is there? If you want a consultant or trainer to help you implement, that could be an investment you need to calculate into your budget. Lots of people are self-taught, but that does take more time and research, and results are variable, especially when you are learning on the job, with an established brand at stake.

The biggest cost is time, and the more people on the team, and the higher percentage of those hours are taken up, the more it will cost. Even if this pays off in a big way, this is still a significant investment where the results could be weeks or months down the line.

A cost that people do not often think about is the opportunity costs associated with social media. By doing social media marketing, are you missing out on something else that could be more effective, have a better ROI, or activity that could repair a problem your business has that could get worse without treatment?

One such opportunity that many companies seem to ignore is the opportunity to fix their customer service issues. If your company is currently putting out fires and treats the call center as “complaints department”, going into social media could well exacerbate the situation rather than make it better – you might end up with a net loss in brand and business by pointing a magnifying glass at your problems.

Yes, social media really can help with customer service, but only if you have the infrastructure and support system in place to actually deliver customer service. Otherwise you are making more people aware of your issues. There is a famous idea in advertising that great advertising kills bad companies.

Most companies can benefit from social media, and make more profit in the process. Just don’t jump before you have done the math!