The Do’s and Don’ts of Socializing on the Web

Balancing your work and personal life on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., has become more complex than ever and the dangers go beyond the well-publicized examples of posting party pictures to your profile. Here are a few pre-cautions we as social marketers should take in consideration as we socialize online.

1. Choosing Your Profile Picture

Keeping your profile picture professional, or at least neutral, your photo doesn’t need to be in a studio with a boring canvas backdrop – it could be outside on your deck or on a mountain side, for instance.

2. Do Update Your Profile Regularly

At least 3 times a day is the recommended amount.

3. Don’t Badmouth Anyone

And that means….Anyone!

4. Do Join Groups…Selectively

One of the fun elements of networking sites is that you can connect with other people who share your same interests and have your quirky sense of humor. Thus you end up with virtual groups like “I Drink More Beer than Water.” The silly group might seem harmless enough to you, but for a potential partner/client or even employer, it doesn’t leave a great impression.

5. Don’t Forget Others Can See Your Friends

Unless you’ve opted to keep your friends list private, your friends can see the contacts you’ve made. So in addition to keeping your friends’ risqué pictures and comments off of your profile, be cautious about whom you friend and when.

6. Filling Out Your Biography

The biographical section of social networks vary, On Facebook, the service provides fields for a variety of interests, both professional and personal. Don’t be afraid to post some nuggets that convey who you are, within reason. On several social sites, you can decide with great granularity what information people can view by altering your privacy settings

7. Talking to One vs. Many

Posing a question to your entire network is OK, provided it’s relevant to all of them, or at least won’t be viewed as a nuisance. For instance, you might ask, “Getting a new phone. IPhone or BlackBerry?” Such a question will be relevant to a lot of folks who have gone through the same issue. The key is, if you’re on the receiving end and want to weigh in on such an issue, be sure to respond to that person only – unless it’s been made clear that he or she wants your comments public.

8. Watching Your Tone

It’s important to keep a polite and measured tone on social networks; after all, the mainstream ones are an extension of our lives in real life. Say things you’d feel comfortable saying in person, and avoid inside jokes that only a few of your contacts would understand.

9. Don’t Have Multiple Personalities

Multiple personality disorders do not work well in social media. If you confuse, you lose. If you are a business expert one day, a media maven the next and live news feed after that, people will ultimately stop connecting.

A very simple approach is to make a short list of what you WILL talk about via social media. Stick with it. The pay off? When someone thinks about an expert in interior design, they will think of you because you will have BRANDED yourself as one. (DISCLAIMER: This is not an opportunity to “play a doctor on T.V.” You should actually be an expert in the areas you claim to be.)The same concept applies for joining multiple networks. Keep the same personality for each.

10. Be Transparent and Authentic. Be Human.

You don’t want the worst day of your life to be played over and over again. Then don’t talk, share, Tweet or write about it via social media. That said, no one is happy, or perfect all of the time. It’s okay to let people into the “real” events which happen in your life. Social media for business is about return on engagement. Connect with people, build opportunities through dialogue which would not have otherwise occurred, then connect them with your business. Think in terms of “bad driver just cut me off” instead of “just got served papers for a lawsuit.”

11. Leaving a Legacy – Branding Yourself

Your social media personality becomes part of your brand’s legacy. Don’t brand your personality for the day, the month or the year. This is serious stuff. What you post stays around for a pretty long time and the information (good and bad) isn’t too hard to find. Your social media posts offer vast archives of information about you. This means, what you share; post or tweet today should reinforce your brand tomorrow.

12. No Alcohol/Illegal Substance in Photos/Conversations/Comments/Postings

We are professionals and we all love the idea or having fun and going out for a drink or two. But what we have to remember is we don’t want to post pictures of us having drinks or drinking comments, Everything we do online remains forever, and for instance if we ever run for politics one day and we have posted comments or pictures of alcohol related events and or illegal events it would be traced back to us since everything online remains forever. We need to keep our images clean.

13. Twitter – Tweets

Twitter is still quite new to some of us or some of us aren’t sure how to use appropriately. Rule of thumb who are you and why are you using twitter? As a social marketer’s point of view and as a professional we don’t want to tweet “Talking to my boss right now” and actually be talking to your boss!!! Twitter should be used as an informative tool, we have to remember who are audience is and what kind of information are they looking for, they most likely don’t want to read about going to restroom, or how bored you are. One very important thing is remember who can see and read your tweets. (no bad mouthing anyone or anything refer back to # 3)

14. Legality Issues

As humans we may have legality issues one day or have had such as: divorce, child custody battle, DWI, ECT. As professionals we don’t want to make that everyone’s business online. Our more personal problems should not be shared on our social sites or anywhere else online.

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