First of all, let me say that I love and respect my grandmother very much. So this is not anything meant negatively in regard to her. She’s a dear and wonderful lady.

No, that’s not her in the picture, it’s just a stock photo.

But yes, my lovely little old Gramma did decide to block me on Facebook. Which is why I’m writing today’s story about it here. Because it certainly applies to reputation management as a whole. Which, of course, is what this site is all about.

So here’s how it all went down. My Mom added me on Facebook a while back and then her mother, my Grandmother, also added me. No big thing there, it’s how Facebook works and it’s why the site is so popular. People can connect to loved ones and friends.

But Let me continue.

So anyway, I have a vice, and that’s a little addiction to video games. It goes all the way back to when I was a kid (yup, mom and dad bought us PONG back in the day… ) and it’s something that I still love to do today. At either rate, on Facebook you can play a cool game called Mafia Wars. Which I have grown to love and play often. Pretty much every day.

Now what happened is this…. The long and the short of it is that my Grandmother saw the Mafia Wars stuff and it flat freaked her out. I haven’t spoken with her directly, but my Mom said that it really scared her. Because she doesn’t know about or understand video games or online games much, she was under the impression that I was in some sort of REAL mafia.

She saw all the alerts for help with other crime families, the notices that I had made my umpteenth kill, etc, and that was just a little too much for her. Remember, in her day there just weren’t video games like now and it’s got to be hard for her to understand exactly what we are all doing there.

Which brings me to my point and why I brought it to this site today. It comes down to perceived information in regard to your overall web reputation. I took this little bit of information that my grandmother provided me with and took it a step further. Giving my Facebook page a real review as to how it effects my online reputation as a whole.

Are there other things on Facebook that might be hurting my own or my company’s reputation? Are there connections there that I maybe don’t want? Perhaps a game that someone finds offensive or a fan page that I’ve connected to that could be considered bad by some?

These are questions that each and every business owner needs to be asking themselves. It’s something they need to be aware of, and something they need to watch out for. With me, it was as simple as a harmless little game I happen to be playing on Facebook that sent my Grandmother the wrong message. (one which my mother has tried to explain to her to no avail I might add)

So what connections do you have on the array of social networks out there? Have you taken a minute to review what impact those connections might have with your clients and customers?

If you haven’t looked at your social network pages in this light, you definitely should. It might save you from a situation like this, or even worse, one far more embarrassing.

And for my Grandma:

Honest Grandma, I’m not in the mafia or involved in organized crime in any way. I’m just a search engine consultant running a web content company.