5 Do's and 5 Don'ts on Social Media With Explanations
Toma 
You know, this social media thing is not that complicated as some may think. Of course you need to approach it strategically and by that I men you need to know your audience and what social websites to use. But as far as I’m concerned this is the most difficult part. The rest is just common sense and many make mistakes simply because when they’re typing in front of the computer don’t realize that they’re talking to real people. We all seem to overlook this at some point and the sooner we realize it the sooner we’ll be able to correct it.
5 DO’s on Social Media
- Be Human : I wrote an article on Social Media Success Depends on How Human You Are and the main idea is to look at your social media activity from a human stand of point. You have to realize that your friends or followers on these social websites are REAL Humans and you have to treat them just like you’d do in real life.
- Add something to the community : This is something you should do most of your time on social websites. Adding value and posting useful links or just comments that offer some information will help establish yourself as someone who knows things about your niche and who is constantly searching for new ones.
- Offer your help for free : Here is a simple concept that works on social media : the more you offer for free the more you’ll receive back. Offering free information will increase your reputation and people will start to trust you. Free means no money but if your help requires a little bit of work from you at that point you can ask for a testimonial and sometimes a simple client review could help you get more clients.
- Post at least 3 times per week on your blog : This is essential. At the beginning this is enough to start building a community but as time goes by and your traffic increases and so do comments you’ll have to post daily. There are bloggers that have lots of traffic and post whenever they feel like but not all of us are that fortunate. In the end it’s up to you to realize what works best for your niche but consider a minimum of 3 times per week.
- Always expand your social network : Your friends or your followers represent your power, your influence. But don’t think it’s enough to be friends : you need to interact as often as you can with as many as you can. Keeping your follower active can get you great benefits.
5 DON’Ts on Social Media
- Don’t Spam : For example if you are on Twitter don’t post something like “thanks for the follow to @…. and @… …” every 5 minutes. Use direct message for that. Don’t start following thousands of people just to send them a message with your website. It will not get you any benefits and soon you’ll be out of the game.
- Don’t pitch people : Understand that social media is like hanging after hours with your friends. If one of them decides to contact you for your services it’s fine but not the other way around. For example if you and 5 of your friends are drinking beer would you say something like this to them(at some point) : “I’m offering SEO services at affordable prices” ? No. Because it will sound stupid and inappropriate. But if you talk about it in a natural way and not trying to manipulate the discussion to that direction then all your friends will know what you do and if they need your services and trust you they’ll contact you for sure.
- Don’t rush into social media : this is a recent article I wrote and the basic idea is to try and take things one at a time. The reason is because sometimes it can be overwhelming to blog every 2 days and comment on 30 blogs daily and interact with your social friends every day. It takes time to get used to this. You can check the article and also view the video version of it : Don’t rush head first into social media.
- Don’t broadcast : This refers to someone that seems to not pay attention to what is happening around him. Usually he keeps posting his links and he’s not interacting with the community. Imagine that in a bar there is someone in a corner that is speaking alone. He doesn’t care what the others have to say – he just has some things to say and after that he gets up and leaves. I don’t have to tell you how that person would be seen as.
- Don’t use automated messages or auto follow or accept everyones invitation : This kind of thing is usually used by spamers or broadcasters or pitchers. They are the ones that auto follow everybody and send automated questions or requests to visit their site. Don’t do that. Remember the human factor and answer carefully to each of your new followers or friends. Personalize the message by using their name or a remark to their blog or website and you’ll get much more benefits.
What can you add to this
I know that these are not the only things you should or shouldn’t do on social media in order to be successful so I’m inviting you to post your advices or suggestions in comments bellow. I would love to hear from you and see what you think.
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11 Comments to “5 Do's and 5 Don'ts on Social Media With Explanations”
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Thanks for this information. I’ve been “social” for a few months now. Learning by trial and error. Great article.
By the way, just wrote a recap on social marketing, engagement and triggered campaigns for Catalog Success Magazine. I reposted it to my blog. You and your readers might find it interesting as it recaps the NCDM (National Center for Database Marketing) conference earlier this month.
Happy Holidays.
http://gilbertdirectmarketing.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/ncdm-2008-recap-the-key-concepts-all-direct-marketers-must-know/
Jim
Jim Gilbert’s last blog post..“Bailout” is the new, “free”!
I like #4 on what to do. Since I started school, I haven’t been great about keeping my blog updated regularly, and I’ve noticed a decrease in my readership as a result. Good advice.
Dube’s last blog post..BusinessWeek.com
Good Article: I think you meant to say “Always Expand your network..” not “Always Expend your network…?” Or is it Always expend time with your social network?
Just confusing… Sorry, just trying to help make you look good.
Warmly,
Jeffrey
Jeffrey Fry’s last blog post..Return on Effort
Toma,
Thanks for some real useful information here. In summary I might add that the question is, “are you giving to give, or giving to get”. The former is what this networking or social media is all about.
Great points here, but I disagree with one. You don’t HAVE TO post 3 posts a week. Just post if you have something to say. I subscribe to some blogs where the bloggers are clearly just posting for the sake of posting and it’s really annoying.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to get into the habit of writing. I think everyone should write a little bit every day. But it’s important to have a purpose when posting and I often find myself feeling like my time’s been wasted after reading some frequent blogs. Maybe it’s just me. I’d love your feedback.
Thanks,
allan
Allan McDougall’s last blog post..Letter #2
I disagree with the blogging ratio you mentioned, producing 3 high-quality posts a week is almost a full time job… btw – the solution I found is sharing a blog with a small group of people I work with. This way our content is more versatile but is still focused around our common areas of expertise.
Besides that, I found your other points totally valid, especially the linkage between our live persona and web one.
Sarit Tamir’s last blog post..So, how are we doing in this credit/tech crunch?
I will not agree with you completely on the 3 post a week. You should post when you have something interesting to say or when you feel you are going to bring something valuable to the community!
Guillaume’s last blog post..Christmas Break
@Jeffrey Fry Thank you for noticing. I’ve corrected the error
@Allan McDougall, @Sarit Tamir, @Guillaume – Of course that quality should be more important then quantity. I think you need to provide good content every time you post something. The reason I encourage others to post at least 3 times per week is because this is the only way to have your content indexed fast by Google. Also readers tend to forget about your blog if your posting lets say once every week. I think that being indexed by Google faster is very important especially for a business blog that needs to transmit something to their readers/customers. It’s crucial to post something today and after 12 hours to be in searches.
Thank you all for taking the time to read and post your feedback. I appreciated.
Nice article. Keep up the good work you are doing.
I shall try to apply to my best your advices
You are one of the persons that makes me proud of being a Romanian.
Good luck and all the best!
Codin
@Codin Coman Thank you. You are the first guy from Romania that posted a comment on my blog. I’ll try to do my best and offer quality content
Thanks for your article- it was a good, quick read and I will be sharing it with my Linked In small business group for their review. Cheers, mo