Just how easy is it to open up large gaping holes in your personal armour to allow your personal and business brand to be exposed to potential damage?

Is your personal brand and your business brand linked? Of course it is, if your business brand relies upon the personal credibility of your personal brand.

So should which should we be more aware of protecting?

If I can suggest that there isn't really a choice at all as it is simply whichever one is more open to attack than the other. However, please refer to my second paragraph.

When I made my first fledgling steps into Twitter in order to promote my own awareness blog regarding a serious neurological condition that I have been diagnosed with, I was offered a list of people that it was suggested that I might enjoy following. Gratefully I added the names and after reading through their blogs, appreciating their own niche and learning from people with far more social media experience than myself, I began to really enjoy the interaction and all of the joys that it brings.

It's not just all business - you can have a laugh at the same time, build personal camaraderie and enjoy the mutual benefits of appreciating someone else's hard work and spreading the reciprocated love. I have learned to respect the vast majority of those that I have had the pleasure to come into contact with. I do hope also that I have added benefit to others through my own input and in time earn that respect back.

In essence, I have met some amazing people who I am more than happy to offer support to and offer out a hand of friendship just as it has been offered to me freely.

I have however, seen another side to social media. The same platform that lends itself brilliantly to those that have a passion and desire to spread their writing, commenting and supportive skills to others, whilst earning a living from it, basically to help others do the same, also stages the way for others of a less professional nature.

It is true that to raise your own quality wheat above the lesser quality chaff, you have to sell yourself a little. Most let their work do the talking as "quality is king" is so often professed, and to be honest to the majority is not only true but a strong business ethic.
There are some however, that because they have been here a little longer, or have a different mind set, are happy just to "tell" everyone that they are the social media experts, self professed "Rockstars" full of their own verbosity and high on their own lunchtime agenda.

Fair play, if you have the balls to do that and can back it up with personal and business credibility, then "Rock on Dude" you are doing well and I wish you all the best and then some. I will even offer my admiration for being a self made success. As long as you remember who put you there and continue to support them and spread the mutual support and respect. Also, that you do continue to live by the standards that you preach and sell content on.

Who am I to judge I hear some people ask? Well, I am one of those people that buy your product, subscribe to your blog, RSS feed etc. I am one of those people that RT your quality content, join your reader list, send you my email address so I can receive your newsletter and future "restricted availabilty" notifications. I am one of the people that swells your followers list that enables you to show your future business clients that you have the ability to spread word about their products. I am not a spam or porn bot on your list, I am a social media user looking for product and advice to help my own agenda.

If I hear that you no longer see value in following me back, or that the reason that you followed me in the first place 12 months ago was actually a regrettable mistake, then no matter how good your products are - I am going to lose faith in you, I am going to lose respect in you - not only in you personally, but also in your brand. When I say "I", take it that I also mean that I am not alone in this - I am sure.

There are other ways of devaluing your followers - but I am sure you can list as many as I can.

So you have built up your social media / and web presence, your brand is strong, you are making a decent living, you have some strong followers that find value in you. You also have followers that have their own agenda, and although they do not always agree with you or your method of approach, they find some reason to follow you blindly and offer you regular ego stroking sessions. They can start to give you a false sense of authority.

Perhaps they feel that they have invested so much time and money into their own brand, and have a strong affiliation to yours, that they are scared of being seen to disagree for fear that it may affect their own either personal or business brand - or both?

Or perhaps they are simply in your niche, and follow you latently, with the odd interaction. They do actually agree with someone that might not see the same way as you, but feel that they cannot add support to either for fear of alienating themselves with either party. You then feel that you can use their silence in your favour? But we all know that they are out there - it's dumb to assume that they are all with you. These are the people that see the harm being done to you.

There are also people that are just not interested in getting involved - but they may be future clients? Have you just opened yourself up unnecessarily to them in a less positive manner?

Perhaps they are just lazy, and find it easier to simply take your point as read and RT blindly?

Perhaps they think that if they support your misguided comment, that you will in return help them at a future date? They seem to ignore the fact that you have already devalued some of their fellow followers. if not all - yet they hang on to an ever thinning thread in hope?

Perhaps they see by aligning themselves with you, that your own high authority will rub off on them and elevate their own status?

That my friend is the power of social media.

Be very careful not to let it go to your head and spoil your original concept of providing the masses with an initial credible source of free information in order to wow them with your open minded generosity and mutual love and respect in order to engage them then onto getting involved in buying the stuff you make a living out of.

We all know how it works, there are lots of "Twits" out there who do it very well, and continue to be grounded and will always remain successful because they are true to their word and true to their followers, they follow and live by the advice that they sell and retain credibility.

Not only is their business brand totally intact, but their personal one is in no danger of spoiling the party.

Every successful brand, whether it be personal or business will attract it's "knocker's", "Trolls", "Flamers" and general "bad mouthers" and "non-believers". Some of which are passive, but some of which are quite vocal. Some are mal-intentioned and deserve to be ignored or cyber-slapped.

There are however, some that do actually have a valid point to make - ignore them at your peril. But how do you tell the difference? Well, its difficult I am sure, but be sure that there isn't a hole in your personal or business armour before you handle them the wrong way. Even the most inexperienced troll can do you damage. You might be able to curry support from your closest lap dogs, but if they manage to expose even the tiniest hole, they can quite easily make it bigger.

It is true, that some have hidden agenda's, some have quite open ones - some do not have any at all, apart from getting a point across and can be quite innocent.

Handle them the wrong way, and you can antagonise an innocent troll without an agenda into a raving cyber lunatic intent on harming your brand. Or on the flip side you can just persuade them that hey can build their own profile by attaching themselves negatively to yours hi lighting your own short comings at the same time - sometimes just for fun and giggles.

There are 2 basic ways to handle them:

1. Ignore them, ignore the situation, they will eventually go away or just run out of fuel.

2. Engage with them, find out the real reason behind their comments / rants, then deal with it appropriately and correctly.

Both could accrue you kudos points with your followers, latent or otherwise.

Mix the two up and you are asking for a royal kick in the butt whilst exposing your holes to them to take advantage of.

If you then mix this with acting in contradiction to your own "strap line" or published business ethic, then you are seriously lining yourself up for a fall.

You can defend yourself all you want to, you can surround yourself with appreciative lapdogs, you can orchestrate a one sided show of support - but in the end you have exposed to the world that you have a great big personal hole in your personal brand. Link that to your business brand and you are on an even bigger losing streak.

You can't honestly say that you would walk away unharmed? By allowing yourself to be drawn in, being seen to be arrogant and perhaps aggressive towards constructive criticism or well meant advice, by entering into the same childish and derogatory flaming that you were so upset about at the start, to promote the same behaviour and revel in the same of your followers?

Be careful to act in the same way that you are advising others to act. Live by the standards that you expect and ask others to live by and above all, be truthful about how much value you place in your own brand. whether it be personal or business.

If either brand is linked to the advice that you either sell or give freely to attract others into your selling circle, make sure that you add value to it by living up to it. If not - you yourself are devaluing your own product.