I call this one Latina bloggers Rising.

Check back for more videos later.

There are a lot of privacy concerns concerning social media these days.  Most, if not all mention the intrusive type where your data is either stolen, exposed or sold. Not much is mentioned toward the slight privacy tweaks that may still leave our networks open in a subtle way.

As I became more aware of my status within the Hispanic social media industry, I became more sensitive toward my competition.  This is a fine line because in social media we all aim to help one another, yet at the same time we are each others competition.

On the one side, it is agreed that in social media we should help one another.  Yet, on the other side we are competing for business (‘m aware that not everyone is in it for business purposes, or may be competing in different areas; we’ll just talk about this idea and keep it simple).  So, how does one solve this dilemma?

There are a couple of things I do here to achieve this…and I’ll share them below.

Contacts & Networks

LinkedIn

Contacts or a database is a rich goldmine of resources to companies.  They take painstaking methods of obtaining them and keeping them relevant.  They are the leads, partners, supporters and customers of a businesses endeavors.  If you had access to your competitions database you could potentially fleece them out of their customer base and shift the balance in your favor.

LinkedIn, is a powerful networking platform.  And like any social network there are subtleties of privacy that are not talked about by the general population.

You are on LinkedIn, you have a business, and your network is exposed to anyone and everyone who is your connection.  Hide them.  I do.

Facebook

The same can be done for Facebook.  By default, anyone can browse who you are connected to unless you go in and change that.

Below I chose to allow only my friends to see my ‘friend list’  (I changed this to ‘friends of friends’).  This can be a handy setting in a variety of settings.

There are other settings here that are interesting as well.  And don’t forget to go to the next section to see what you’re sharing and with who.

(Log in to FB–>Acount–>Account settings–>Basic Directory Information–>View settings.)

Ideas

Don’t talk about them.  Develop them in secret.  I can’t say how many times others have pounced on my ideas because I shared them too early.  If you do share them, do so with only people you trust (even then be careful), or produce a NDA (non-disclosure agreement).

I hope this helps you lift the hood on your social media network settings and think about how they may affect you.  There is much, much more.  Let me know what you think or how you customize your privacy settings – or not.

This Friday, I’m having an interview with Jose Marquez, CEO of LISTA on net neutrality.

Net Neutrality is a discussion about your stake in internet bandwidth.  In a nutshell, it addresses the issue of measuring the use of internet bandwidth one utilizes and applying a tiered rate based on that usage.

There are proponents and opponents of this approach.  One argument states that Latinos will be affected unfairly, others say that they won’t and this will cover the cost of upgrading of the internet backbone.

Obviously, there are many thoughts on this subject:

“In the climactic scene of the Oscar-nominated film “There Will Be Blood,” Daniel Day-Lewis’s ruthless oil tycoon explains that he has drained all the valuable oil off a neighbor’s land. “If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and I have a straw … and my straw reaches across the room … I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”

Will your milkshake get drank by someone else?  What are your questions/concerns?  Ask them here and I’ll ask Jose.

My original blog – LatinoPundit – served a purpose to fill a void of the lack of Latino bloggers.  I wanted to bring Latinos into mainstream discussions about politics and society, and also raise awareness of Latino subject matter.  That was done for over a period of 5 years.  Nowadays, you can find Latino blogs on a plethora of topics.  With that purpose now filled, there was no reason to continue with the Latino Pundit blog.

With the knowledge that the Latino population is growing, I knew that Latinos would be more closely examined.  And who else, but big businesses would have an interest?  So with social media growing as well as the Latino population, it only made perfect sense that marketers would begin to enter this area.

I’ve had 5 years of experience online interacting and community building before social media became trendy…and from this advantage , I knew that I’d be ahead of any marketer without this type of experience.  Thus I entered the Hispanic marketing world and rebranded my self as such.

One significant contribution to the Latino community was the national community feature for Latinos In Social Media (now called LATISM), building off the idea AnaRC had from her tweet “Where are all the Latinos on Twitter,” and the directory of Latino professionals.  Call it being at the right place at the right time, because if I didn’t see Ana’s tweet, LATISM probably would of not happened.  Thanks to all those involved with LATISM, the very first Latino based social media seminars took place in NY, then FL and DC followed…a fourth and what looks to be the largest yet is taking place this September. (If you can, catch LATISM in action via tonight’s Twitter party.)

My continued purpose in social media is to contribute to Latinos and social media as a whole from this blog to continuing projects that serve the greater community.

Manny successfully launched one of the largest Hispanic PR/Social media conferences and has a respectable blog. His recent endeavor is PapiBlogger:

PapiBlogger is the nation’s first bilingual web site devoted to showcasing creative parenting tricks for fathers and mothers.  Together with its popular Facebook fan page www.Facebook.com/papiblogger and its Twitter page www.Twitter.com/papiblogger, the bilingual blog serves as a forum for parents to share creative parenting ideas for children ages infant to young adult.

He is currently documenting his family road trip.  Go check him out.

Latinos from both sides of the American hemisphere are devouring social media.  Check out the latest bullish graphs and read on…

Mas: You can find them on Twitter by following #latism #latam #latino #hispanic