As the world becomes more interconnected and we become used to the idea of broadcasting ourselves to the world via Twitter or the web, the line separating public and private has begun to blur. The saying ‘If you’re not the customer, you’re the product’ has become more apparent these days and for the most part, we’re more than happy to hand over certain data about ourselves to these sites.

However, while we give these sites permission, sometimes there can be more information about us on display than we think and some even extract information from us without us realising it. If you want to make your browsing more secure, or change your social media settings so that a limited amount of information is exposed, then read on and make sure that your data is protected.

Facebook

With its own privacy settings located at the top right hand corner, Facebook lets you control how much information people can limit the amount of information available on your profile, determine what people can post on your timeline, and how you connect with subscribers.

Also, an important feature to note that you can manage what apps, ads and websites have access to your profile. Alongside the ability to remove all apps that you no longer use, you can limit the amount of info that people can bring to apps they use (important as you don’t want your info being given out through your friends), and whether you appear on search engines.

A more detailed guide to removing apps can be found here.

LinkedIn

In settings (located up at the top right hand corner with your name), you can limit how much information other LinkedIn users can see. Under ‘Profile’, you can adjust the majority of settings such as activity broadcasts, visibility, and whether users can see when you’ve viewed their profile or not.

The second batch of settings is found under ‘Group, Companies and Applications’. Here you can turn on or off any data sharing with third party apps as well as managing setting for any LinkedIn plug-ins on third-party sites.

Twitter

While the site is still rolling out tailored suggestions, Twitter will also be introducing the ability to limit the amount of information it can extract from you while you’re surfing the Web. If you have tailored suggestions, you will also have access to a personalisation section in account settings. You will be able to tailor Twitter based on their recent website visits and disable these features, which in turn will stop the collection of information for tailored suggestions.

Google

You may or may not know this, but your usage of every Google product out there is recorded. Whether it is search, Android, Google+, Maps, Chrome or YouTube, all this information can be found on. While we could document each feature (there are 27 different products displayed here), the one we will be focusing on is Web History.

When you type in a search term, your browser will save all of your search queries here. By clicking on ‘Remove items or clear Web History’, you can delete part of all of your records. Also, you can pause Web History so that none of your entries are recorded in the future. You can access your Web History directly here.

Google+

While you can access it in Google Dashboard under ‘Account’, clicking on your icon located at the top right hand corner of the page and selecting ‘Privacy’ will bring you to the same place. Here you can adjust your profile visibility and even disable or delete your entire Google profile.

Third-party plug-ins

If the above doesn’t go far enough in your quest for privacy, there are a number of third-party apps and plug-ins that you can download. The most popular one would be Do Not Track, which is available for Firefox, IE and Safari, but unfortunately not Chrome.

A handy feature for Firefox and Safari users is Collusion, an experimental add-on which allows you to see all the third parties that are tracking your movement across the Web. It does this by creating a spider-web graphic showing how companies and other trackers interact.

If you’re looking for something a little bit different, you should try out Disconnect, a third-party plug-in which allows you to download one for individual sites like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, or an all-in-one plug-in which lets you block all social media sites trying to track you.

Although we’ve featured different campaigns by brands, agencies and businesses from across the globe, we rarely see innovative campaigns from the armed forces. That changes today with this smart real-world social recruitment drive from the Swedish armed forces.

The aim was to find 4,000 applicants for 1,500 new positions, while also getting people to talk about the great work the armed forces do in the online and offline worlds. The campaign revolved around helping others (which is what happens a lot in the army), and centered around a large box which was located in Stockholm city center. Different individuals were locked in the box for a minimum of an hour with absolutely no contact with the real world.

The box was turned into a cell and images from inside were streamed to social media sites, online banners and real-world billboards. The only way to escape was to be freed by somebody from the outside and people traveled from all over the country to save those locked inside. The campaign generated huge online conversation and the website attracted 100,000 visitors in less than four days. The major result was that they managed to fill all their jobs with twice the expected amount of applicants coming forward. A very smart campaign! 
First spotted here

We’ve spoken about how valuable social media is to brands for connecting with consumers before. For all the apps, self promotion and links you include on your Facebook or Twitter page, you also have to deal with the day-to-day tasks such as dealing with queries, suggestions and complaints. Turns out it’s the latter that will have the greatest impact on whether they go ahead with a purchase or not if the results of a new survey is to be believed.

The report, carried out by American Express and explores consumer attitudes and preferences towards consumer services, found that more than eight in ten consumers (83 per cent) have bailed on a purchase because of a poor service experience via social media. For those who didn’t use social media for customer service, 49 per cent of consumers failed to complete a purchase due to poor customer service.

Another important aspect to take from this survey is that consumers who use social media for customer service are also the most vocal in both their praise and criticism. When consumers have had a good customer service experience, they would tell an average of 42 people about their experiences. However, when it’s a bad experience, this average rises to 53 people. When it’s consumers who don’t use social media, the trends remain the same but the average number of people told greatly falls; an average of 9 people are told when it’s a positive experience and an average of 17 people are told when it’s negative.

The obvious thing to take away from this survey is that those people on social media are, by far, the most vocal demographic to deal with. Therefore, businesses and brands need to place a greater importance on promptness and openness, keeping the lines of communication between brand and consumer open and listening to what they have to say. As American Express say in its report, “consumers aren’t unreasonable and don’t expect every problem to be solved instantly. They simply want to be treated like individuals, know that you genuinely care about their issue, and are working hard to address it.”

Also you should use the opportunity to address concerns and issues as a way of connecting with consumers and create a connection that will drive customer loyalty and engagement. Brands should keep this in mind as they improve their services and customer relations.

The survey was conducted in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and India. The survey took a random sample of 1,000 consumers aged 18 and over from each country and was conducted by Echo Research between February 22nd – 29th 2012.  A summary of the report can be found here.