Promote U Guru Blog

Bad Social Media Etiquette Could Be Killing Your Brand

Hi All!

Back in 2012  I wrote a blog post entitled “Do You Suffer from Social ‘Me’dia Syndrome?”. It was picked up by tons of other blogs and also led to my being asked to write variations of it for several online business communities and magazines.

I bring this up because yesterday I spoke to a client of mine who was asking me about Social Media strategies. After my chat with her I realized that it was a good time to revisit this topic in 2015. Why? Because MANY people are still clueless about proper Social Media etiquette! And that impacts your Personal Branding!

Have YOU forgotten the word “social” in Social Media?

Here’s the deal…you have to participate to make it work for you. If you make it all “about you”, you’ve lost the entire essence of what Social Media is about! I find that many new clients who come to me are not getting much out of their Social Media and online marketing efforts because they’ve forgotten ONE little detail…they forgot about the word “social” in their Social Media strategy.

Here are a few tips that will quickly illustrate my point:

1. Comment on other peoples’ blog posts. If you have a blog and want people to comment on your posts, you have to comment on OTHER peoples’ blog posts to start generating traffic to yours. It’s simple: If you read a blog post you like or have an opinion on, don’t just “keep it to yourself”. POST A COMMENT!

2. Retweet other peoples’ tweets: If you like a tweet from someone else, take a split second to click on the retweet button to share it with your followers. That’s why the retweet icon exists! To SHARE info with everyone and help cross-promote each other to help increase awareness for other people. It’s amazing how much more tweet-love and traffic you’ll get if you retweet, reply and comment on other peoples’ tweets. AGAIN…it’s part of being “social” in tweet-ville…and it’s part of Social Media etiquette!

3. Comment or Like other peoples’ posts on Facebook or in LinkedIn Groups: If you want more people to comment and/or click on the “like” button on your Fan Page or Profile posts, then do it more for other people! It takes less than one second to click “like” under someone’s post and sometimes just a couple of seconds to write a comment. Again, if you see a post that you like or find interesting, rather than just THINK to yourself, “That’s funny!” or “That’s cool!” or “That’s interesting!” or “That’s really helpful info!”, move your cursor up to the word “like” under it and simply click. Or type a short comment to acknowledge what that person posted!

This may all sounds like common sense BUT it’s NOT common practice…which is why millions of social media hobbyists and small business owners are involved in Social Media but frustrated with it. They constantly just focus on posting stuff about THEM, their businesses, their products or events, their books, their families, their vacations, their kids, the songs they like, food they like to eat, etc., but they rarely take the time to acknowledge what other people post and share online.

So…here’s my challenge to YOU: If any of this describes how YOU participate in the world of Social Media, make “improve my Social Media etiquette in 2015″ one of YOUR resolutions this year! You’ll be pleased with the results and will truly be participating the way the world of Social Media was intended.

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa