Remember that social media is social
Almost every article we read about social media is about how to use it for marketing and be more visible to your audience and what is the return on investment for using social media. But social media is more than marketing or even networking. Social networks are social and we must recognize this in order to use them effectively. What many people focus on is marketing, networking, and technology, but they ignore the awareness of behavioral norms that can and do influence social media activity. That ignorance can lead to unfortunate situations where people start to unfollow someone because of the actions that person is doing. The following tips can help you recognize whether you have good or bad behavior on social media.
1. Retweet carefully. Some people will only retweet a mention of themselves from someone else. Not only is it a very vain practice, but it shows that the person only cares about how others are promoting them. If you choose to retweet, be sure to retweet articles that are interesting. Show people that you are not alone.
2. Post messages on multiple networks with consideration. Not all messages should go to all networks. Just because you have Twitter linked to LinkedIn doesn’t mean people want to read about Cowboys sports teams on Twitter. Likewise, if you give someone a reply on Twitter and it also goes out to your other social networks, it may not make as much sense to people on those networks, because the context that informs the discussion is happening on Twitter. Remember that each social networking site has its own audience and a specific purpose. Posting messages that are not relevant to that purpose and audience consumes bandwidth and can also be unprofessional.
3. Don’t follow people who follow you. Automatically following someone can lead to embarrassment and spam, especially if some of the people you automatically follow are pornstars and spammers. Your account will start receiving spam, and icons of people who follow you will appear on your profile page. Take the time to research who is following you. It only takes a couple of minutes to see the content that a person posts. If the person is just posting a lot of links, is a spammer, or if the content is something you don’t like, don’t follow the person. Choose the people you will follow, and as a result, you will build better relationships. A note on people tracking: If a customer follows you, follow them back. You want to be more visible to that person and it is good manners and good policy to follow someone who has chosen to do business with you.
4. Personalize your invitations. When I receive an invitation from someone and they are using the generic message, I find it more difficult to accept the invitation and sometimes decline and even indicate that I do not know the person. Personalizing a message only takes a few minutes of your time, but it can really make a good impression on the person you are sending the invitation to. I always give a comment or two about where I met the person and what we discussed. That context can help me stand out a bit more and also help that person decide to accept my invitation. More importantly, continue the conversation and relationship building that started when you met the person.
5. Take the time to reply to someone who mentions or responds to your message. Taking a moment to reply to someone acknowledges that person and continues the conversation as well. In fact, when you reply, you actually increase the chances that other people will comment as well, and improve your visibility in the process. You will also get higher ratings on social media sites, in search terms.
For your social media marketing to be successful, you need to think about the behaviors and actions you display while using social media. Because we use technology to communicate, it is very easy to let ourselves forget some of those social norms and behaviors. Technology keeps us from fully recognizing the effect that our words and actions can have, but learning to recognize reality can help us become more aware of how we communicate using social media, and make our networks and marketing much more effective.
