Sebbie on the Webbie

Posts Tagged ‘myspace’

Computers, the Internet and social networks can be very confusing to new users. People wonder, if it’s professional for a teacher to be on Facebook at all, or if we can ignore friend requests from people we hardly know. Some people can’t see the difference between a business network and a dating site, which is not really that surprising as there are still people who don’t know the difference between an email and an Instant Message through MSN. (Or the difference between a book and a magazine for that matter.) It IS frustrating to those of us who have used all these things for years, but I think we have to be somewhat tolerant to the mistakes of an eager newbie, and just try to give a few tips here and there and hope the newbies find their way to them by accident because it would be too much to hope that they would actually google it… :p

If you have a newbie friend or relative who has just found the social web, you could find your favourite social network etiquette post and forward it to them through the medium they are most comfortable with.

Here are some of my tips:

1. Before you do ANYTHING find out what the site is MEANT FOR. Not all social networking sites are meant for the same purpose. The cultures between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and Match.com are very very different.

2. Once you know what the site is meant for, and you think it suits your needs, sign up and COMPLETE your profile. You will need a picture of yourself. It’s just nicer for everyone that way.

3. Before you contact a person, read their profile unless you already know them very well. Their profile will give you an idea what they are there for, and if they would like to know about you.

4. Before adding a person as a friend, consider your relationship with them. Is it appropriate for the site? Are you really interested in their daily antics? Are they interested in what you have t say? If you don’t know them personally, always tell them why you added them as a friend. (This rule doesn’t apply on Twitter though, you can follow anyone you like on Twitter.) Most of the time it is NOT the purpose of a social networking site to collect every other person on the site on your friends list. It doesn’t serve any purpose and it doesn’t make you look popular, it makes you look like an attention whore.

5. Don’t assume that people are using the platform in the same manner or for the same purpose as you are. (Related to #1, but not the same thing.) Especially on general social networks, like Facebook and MySpace it is possible that some people use it for dating and some for business networking. Find out what the person you are interested in is using it for and if you want to contact them for some other reason, be very respectful and make sure they know that you are aware that you have read their profile and that you are aware that you’re walking on thin ice.

6. NEVER invite people on a social network before you know if it’s worth it. Also, invite only selected people, not everyone on your address book! You probably don’t even WANT TO have everyone on your book as your friends so think for a bit. For example your happily married 60-year-old boss probably won’t appreciate your invitation to join LavaLife (a dating site).

7. (On Facebook & some others:) NEVER EVER invite people to use an application you haven’t tried out yourself. If the app doesn’t have “skip this step” on the invite friends -part, just leave it. It is probably not worth bothering your friends with! Also, consider who you send the invitation to when you do. The less you know a person, the less likely it is that they appreciate your invitation.

8. You don’t have to worry about ignoring friend requests or application requests. Normally these sites do not notify people about rejection. That would be a bad practise anyway if they did. The sites are not created to create drama but friendships. Of course, drama happens when there’s a lot of confused people around.

9. Don’t start a friendship by asking for a favour, like “Can you add me too” or “Can you retweet this” or “Can you visit my blog too as I visited yours?”

10. Remember that you are amongst PEOPLE, (who are not automatically your friends.) This may sound obvious, but it seems not to be. Consider what kind of message it sends to people if you select a screen name like “hugeDXXX76″ or “CheapAutoParts”. Speak to people online like you would speak to people offline. Don’t try to sell stuff to everyone you meet, especially not randomly. (Like I shouldn’t try to sell a wedding dress to a hetero sexual man for example.) Be respectful and friendly and at the same time, and do have a sense of humour.

I find it funny. In a short time I’ve found several blog posts about some guy or gal who became famous for getting fired or told off at work because of something they said on Twitter or Facebook or some other place. The content is always the same. Screenshots proving this appalling behaviour followed by advice on what not to say publicly or publish online. Good heavens. If I would drag every flame war I’ve ever seen online, or every drinking party photo I’ve seen on Facebook onto my blog I could probably run a blog on just that topic alone. In fact, I think the first Internet term I learned was probably “flame war”. Who cares about them, seriously?

When social media expands, our humanity becomes more and more evident all the time. A lot of us don’t exist in two modes any more; the work persona and the leisure time persona, but these two merge together – and I find it nothing less than fantastic. We are all people, but the old business model has pretty much denied that. If we’re in business, we have to turn into Cylons or something. Ever smiling, ever patient, ever wise…

Hands up: Who can say they’ve never been involved in a flame fight online? I sure have. I always try to maintain my cool, but that is not to say I haven’t said things I probably shouldn’t have, but I’m only a human. If I was a famous or even remotely respected business human, I’d be posted about on numerous blogs with the caption line: “What not to say on Facebook”.

I am expecting that as the younger generations start taking over the businesses, we’ll all become more and more accepting of each others little failures of self control. I think all people, business or not, should be allowed to react to rudeness with a bit of anger and not be expected to maintain the clean exterior 24/7. Most of us get drunk every now and then. Most of us have said something we shouldn’t have, fucked someone we shouldn’t have and made the wrong people aware of those mistakes either by accident or knowingly. Just losen up people. It doesn’t matter.

Are you one of those people who add friends on social networking sites or blog catalogues to improve their exposure / readership / social status? YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME. Have you ever seen any rating for the amount of friends anywhere apart the number that shows how many friends you have? Have you ever considered the fact that having more than a 100 friends (depending on the type of network the number can be larger. Ie. Flickr as pointed out in the comments) on your list will seriously effect your credibility, unless you really ARE famous? Like it’s okay for Britney Spears to have 100000+ friends on her MySpace profile (if she has one) but if you’re more like Sally Nextdoor, having more than a hundred tells people that you are desperate for attention, you don’t have real friends, you don’t know the meaning of friends, and that you are currently spamming a lot of people with your personal crap.

If you think that having your profile picture displayed together with tons of other profiles will bring you traffic, you’re wrong. Do you know ANYONE who browses friends of friends beyond the Top Friends? I certainly don’t. So if you don’t have a real relationship with the person on your friend list, you won’t gain any advantage of it, quite the opposite.

This goes with BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog as well. The more friends you have, the less value YOU have to people you add. Why would anyone want to be one of your thousand friends? They know you don’t care. They know you won’t remember 15 minutes from the time you added them that you did. All you put out is negative vibes, as everyone knows you don’t have time to follow all these blogs even if it was the only thing you did in your life – and that would make you officially pathetic if you did.

The more popular you are in reality, the less you tend to make “add me” requests, because you don’t have to. You don’t have to beg for attention, and you start to clear out the bulk from your friends list to keep only those you really are interested in. That shows your real friends you give value to them, and it shows people you wish to know, that you are not over worked by the number of people you have to socialise with so that they too may have a chance to actually getting to know you.

If anyone has a real good reason to do this, and it being so popular I would imagine someone has some rationale behind it, please do share if you dare!