A little social media etiquette to observe

Suddenly all eyes are on the noisy person, who for all intents and purposes is oblivious to the social gaff they are making and the irritation they are causing their fellow passengers.

Well, on the train of social media there are social dos and don’ts, just like in normal everyday life. Here is a quick guide for you to ponder. Perhaps it will help you in your own social forays.

Uppercase letters are often used to emphasise words, akin to shouting. Watch out for that CAPS LOCK BUTTON THOUGH, AS IT CAN GET RIDICULOUS! Oh whoops, I didn’t mean to do that. Not only will people get the impression that you are shouting, but it also makes the text harder to read.

Speaking of making things #harder #to #read, #if #you #overdo #hashtags. Gah! I can’t even bring myself round to finishing that sentence. Hashtags are great for categorizing things and helping people find your content, but they can be a real pain if they are overused. Most of the time you should only need to use a small number of hashtags. Anything more than five is excessive and verging on spammy behaviour. I have seen several posts lately which are just a stream of hashtags, which (putting on my search engine optimization hat) looks very much like keyword stuffing (a bad practice used on websites to try and game the search engine rankings for a higher position). In short, less is more.

Link dumping is another faux pas. Link dumping is the practice of posting a link to something and then leaving before the dust has settled. It’s a bit like gate crashing a party, handing out business cards, eating all the cake and leaving before anyone can ask your name. It is anything but social. It is much better and encouraged to stick around, ask questions and respond to other people when they have questions or interesting things to say. Needless to say, spammers use link dumping all the time.

So why am I telling you all this? Well two reasons really. 1) It may help you get more out of your social media efforts. 2) It may also help you to spot the spammers and tailor your experience to suit.

I am often surprised you see, by people’s reactions to different social networks, where they hold a belief that it is full of a certain type of person or other. The truth of the matter is that you are in control of how you interact with others, who you follow and what you see and a little bit of social etiquette goes a long way.

Alan Stainerhttps://www.alansitsolutions.com