My Top 3 Social Media Pet Peeves
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I absolutely adore Social Media. I find it to be a very effective way to network, increase visibility, establish familiarity & expertise, and open up doors of opportunity of various kinds.
With the great opportunities if used properly, some people misuse and abuse their social privileges. Here are 3 of my Social Media Pet Peeves.
Cold ‘Calling’. Cold calling (in all of its forms, not necessarily via telephone) simply doesn’t work in the social sphere. Why? Because we didn’t become a part of the social sphere for you to sell to us. It’s simply a perk you’ll earn as we become familiar with you. You’re going to have to warm people up with your interaction, help, knowledge, expertise and general involvement before they start listening to you. Cold calling will deliver the cold shoulder (we avoid telemarketers, what makes you think your cold tactics will yield different results?).
Am I saying you need to get to know every single person on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.? No. But if I have no idea who you are and you send out a Tweet specifically to me that says “Earn more money with this! *insert link here*” I’m NOT clicking on it. Who the hell are you? Why are you sending me this? …oh yeah because you think you can cold call on me and get a sale LMFAO, joke’s on YOU!
Email Theft. Don’t steal someone’s email address from a LinkedIn connection or other social involvement and then start emailing them crap without their approval.
That has happened to me recently and I’m pretty pissed about it… TOTALLY ignoring everything the guy sends, and marking him as spam. And guess what, he might have something pretty good (from a glance it looked like he might) but I’m so mad he invaded my email without my invitation or approval that he could be giving away money and I’d never know because I now refuse to deal with him. Instead of seeing him as an expert, I see him as spam. If he would have handled this differently, I may have given him a try, now there’s ZERO chance. Trying to force yourself on someone will only cause the opposite – rejection.
Having a private profile & not telling me why you want to be friends, or at least who you are, when sending a request. It really annoys me to get a friend request with no message and then when I click on your profile to see who you are, if we have anything in common, what you ‘do’, or learn something about you only to find your profile is private (or lacks any info about you).
If you want to have a private profile, fine (although I don’t really recommend it if you’re in the social sphere for more than staying in touch with family because you could lose a lot of people who aren’t going to go through requesting to be your friend, or accepting, just so that they can see what you’re about) but if you have a private profile and send a friend request you need to say something about ‘why’ since no one can see anything about you (but you will increase your chances with many if you say something in your request…and reduce the chances of getting ‘the button’ pushed on you).
And for goodness sakes, say something about yourself, your business, what you do…something, anything, on your profile! It never fails that I get friend requests (this happens a lot on Facebook) only to click on their profile and either I can’t see a thing (open up your profile if you want exposure people) or I see the info box that says nothing but your relationship status and your birthday. (*ignore*).
EXAMPLES:
This person’s profile is private. I can’t see or learn anything about them and there is no message with their friend request. Why would I accept?
This person says absolutely nothing about himself and there’s no message with the friend request. Again, why would I accept?
Now this person says something about himself which allows me to decide if I want to be friends, if we have anything in common, or if he offers something I might be interested in. ACCEPTED!
So those are 3 of my top Social Media Pet Peeves. What are yours?
Social Media Maniac,
@areaK
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Categories: Social Media
Tags: facebook, internet social networking, linkedin, online social networking, Social Media, social media marketing, social media profiles, social media tactics, social media tips, social networking, social networking tips, social networks, Twitter, what is social networking, why do people use online social networking
3 comments to “My Top 3 Social Media Pet Peeves”
November 14th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Good post Karen, I definitely agree with those. One I especially do not like is the “email theft or being pushy” I don’t like when someone wants to connect with me on FB or Twitter ONLY to try to sign me up in their program, it’s like, come on, get to know me first maybe I might have interest after that. Don’t just send me your opportunity as soon as we say hello…lol it doesn’t work that way.
November 17th, 2009 at 11:11 am
[...] of people have lots of pet peeves about how social media is used in a disingenuous manner. Many organizations and corporations still don’t really know what to do [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Exactly…the old “cold calling” method is a “fail whale” in the Social Media sphere. And the thing is, if they spent all that cold calling time simply engaging, they would likely see better results. Cold calling is a waste of time and defeats the reason they are marketing via SM in the first place, properly utilizing the time they are spending cold calling is their best bet.