ALL FACEBOOK — When I read yesterday that the Wall Street Journal is creating a new “LinkedIn Killer” yesterday, I immediately thought about how likely it is that the company botches things up. When was the last time that you’ve visited a content site and were prompted to enter your contact information in order to “connect with the community” and then proceeded to fill out all your information? In theory it makes a lot of sense but no media company that I know of has gotten it right yet...

TECHCRUNCH — The Wall Street Journal has long envied the success of professional social network LinkedIn and its 15 million or so monthly visitors (WSJ.com has just a third of that). In late 2008 they launched WSJ Community, a social network bolted onto the main WSJ site. That community is a ghost town - raise your hand if you’ve even heard of it, let alone visited it. At some point, they’ll likely shut it down as quietly as possible.
But they are still serious about gunning for the LinkedIn crowd and all those monetization opportunities (jobs, ads and a heck of a marketing pool for WSJ subscriptions). They’ve been working on a new social network, to be called WSJ Connect, we’ve confirmed...

In a recent article, we’ve asked should your company have a social media policy? Well, today the Wall Street Journal gave its answer to that question by issuing a lengthy list of rules of conduct on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, for its staff. Guess what? They aren’t really encouraging them to participate in the social web. The rules, or guidelines, if you will, are quite restrictive. Among them are the following...

Staffers at The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday were given a newly compiled list of rules for "professional conduct," which included a lengthy guide for use of online outlets, noting cautions for activities on social networking sites. In an e-mail to employees, Deputy Managing Editor Alix Freedman wrote, "We've pulled together into one document the policies that guide appropriate professional conduct for all of us in the News Departments of the Journal, Newswires and MarketWatch. Many of these will be familiar"...

SUMMARY: Taking the right approach to social media will give your audience the features they love, drive more repeat traffic, and offer more data on your best customers. The wrong approach will waste time and money. Discover how Dow Jones launched Web 2.0 features and used the data they obtained to sharpen their marketing. Includes ways to avoid ineffective launches and take advantage of social media data...