Every company thinking about being active in social media needs to have some sort of policy around transparency and disclosure. The debates seems to be how heavy handed do you make your policy? Do you leave no room for doubt? Do you take a hands off approach?

Some policy’s range from Microsoft’s “Don’t do anything stupid.” to more complex lawyer written policies. Some recommend a simple URL link in a blog comment as enough transparency while companies like Dell require employees to add ‘atDell” to the end of their names.

At HP, management refers employees to our existing Standards of Business Conduct with some additional guidelines specific to social media. In those additional guidelines the overarching theme is full disclosure, transparency and respect but it’s largely left open to individual interpretation.

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Just yesterday I was on the phone with an amazing business man. I met him at the biznik BizJamSeattle2008 a couple of weeks ago, and was really impressed with his work, attitude and obvious success.

So we were chatting to get to know each other better and see if there might be some synergy or strategic partnering potential.

He does fascinating work around helping entrepreneurs recognize and harness their strengths-and let go of limiting beliefs-to achieve success. What struck me was that about 30 minutes into our conversation I ran straight into a big wall of his limiting beliefs!

We were talking, and I mentioned something about having my Virtual Assistants (VA’s) take care of a task for me. And you know what he said???

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In the last installment of this series I defined Destination Search Engine Marketing as the process of creating a desired destination point for anyone looking for the product, services, or information you provide. With that as the starting point I further discussed what it takes for you to become that destination point and the effects that marketing campaigns have on sites that are not “Destination Websites.”

One of the things many businesses struggle with is how to really make their site stand out. Many of us have dozens, hundreds, even thousands of online competitors. Some are serious competition, some not-so serious, and some not yet even on the radar, but will soon become major players for “our” space. The truth is, everybody wants to be #1 and there is only one #1 position.
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