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An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette

February 24, 2011 http://www.chrisbrogan.com/?p=7048">View Comments

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I receive a lot of questions about various points of etiquette with regards to social media. I also observe instances where I wish people knew some of the more common etiquette, because they seem like wonderful people, who maybe have made a mistake because they didn’t know better. To that end, I thought I’d give a brief set of ideas around social media etiquette. You’re very welcome to add to these in the comments. There will be a mix of do’s and don’ts, and remember this above all else: you’re doing it wrong.

Social Media Etiquette: Your Appearance

• Your avatar picture shouldn’t be a logo. We don’t meet logos at parties, do we? You can include a logo, but make it you.
• Unless you’re a fictional character, more often than not, your avatar should be you. Amazing Simpson-like renditions of you are interesting for about four hours.
• Your Facebook profile pic can be not you, but it often means that others might not accept your friend request. It feels creepy friending a four year old kid (avatar).
• Your picture can be you from 10 or 15 years ago, but that first face to face meeting is going to be jarring.
• It doesn’t take a lot of work to take a decent pic. Why use those “me cut out from posing with someone while I have red eyes” photos?

Social Media Etiquette: Friending

• You’re not obligated to follow/friend anyone. No matter what. Not even your mother. (I follow my mother, btw).
• If you decide to unfollow someone, don’t make a big stink and announce why. Just leave.
• It’s okay to let the competition follow you. It’s okay to follow the competition.
• Famous people don’t always want to follow back. I’m looking at you, Justin Bieber!
• You can set your own rules on Facebook. I’m in the process of moving everyone to a fan page and just keeping VERY close family and friends.

Social Media Etiquette: Conversation

Commenting about other people’s stuff and promoting other people’s stuff is very nice.

Retweeting people’s praise of you comes off as jerky. Just thank them.

If you retweet something interesting, always give credit for who found it first.

Facebook wall comment streams can get long. Don’t grumble. If you’re along for the ride, it’ll end some day.

Promote others more often than you promote yourself. My long-standing measure is 12:1. (If it doesn’t work at first, it’s because maybe you’re not sincere in your promoting of others).

Listening is important and commenting is important. Be the #1 commenter on your blog. (See next one)

It’s okay to NOT comment back for every single comment you receive. It’s nice when you can respond, but don’t litter the comments with a bunch of “Thanks, Judy.” People know you care, if you’re doing it right.

If you are talking about someone in a blog post, link to them. Steve Garfield is a pro at this.

If you’re really nice, you’ll think about link text and help them even more by linking to Internet video expert Steve Garfield. Make sense?

Links do matter to Google and to the people you care about. When you can, give them a link.

Social Media Etiquette: Disclosure

(Note: I’ve written about disclosure before).

• If you’re writing about a client, add (client) to the tweet/post/update.
• If you’re selling me something with an affiliate link, disclose that in the tweet/post/update.
• If there’s a material reason (or perception of such) that you want me to take an action or click a link, tell me.
• Tell me once in the post, and once again on a disclosure page. I use part of my about page for disclosures. See also: one of my other favorite disclosure pages (for cheekiness).
• Make sure your audience comfortably knows your motives, and everything goes better.

Social Media Etiquette: Promoting

• Promote as if you’re at a cocktail party. It’s not the same as your email blast list.
• Promote others, and it’s much more likely people will help promote you when it’s your turn.
• Leave room for retweets. Writing 139 characters won’t get you anywhere.
• Promoting on Facebook is MUCH nicer on my wall than in my private messages. (Do you agree?)
• It’s probably okay to promote something 4x a day on a social network, so that you hit all the time zones appropriately. In the last hour, you can always give it a couple more pushes, but that’s about it.
• Direct messaging people for promotion help is often annoying. It happens much more than you know.
• Your cause isn’t always our cause. If we don’t want to help, don’t badger.
• Things where you have to get 1,000 tweets to raise money are litter on Twitter. Things to get 1,000 “likes” on Facebook are fine. (Remember, however, that a “like” gives your demographic data to the thing that you’ve liked, plus permission for that page to message you privately.)

Social Media Etiquette: Content Production

• You can post as often as you want on your blog. It’s your blog. Monthly will probably fade from our memory. Weekly could work. Daily is my favorite. Some people post many times a day. It’s up to you.
• You can tweet as often as you want, but people unfollow “noisy” tweeters (I get unfollowed often).
• You can update Facebook often, and if you’re running pages, you might want to update 3-4 times a day, I’m starting to observe.
• Depending on your blog’s purpose, be wary of over-selling. (I ran into this personally.) Make sure you’re still providing great community value.
• If you find great content from other places, use it only after you understand whether you have permission to do so, and under the terms that the people have set.
• If you’re linking and sharing someone else’s blog post (which is good to do), it’s also wonderful when you add something to it. Add some commentary. Add a thought or two as to why it matters to your community.
• If someone’s work inspires your own post, it’s a nice thing to “hat tip” them with a link to the post that inspired you, somewhere in the post (usually down at the bottom).
• If you go a long time between blog updates, don’t write a “sorry I haven’t written lately” post. No one cares. Just publish something good.

Social Media Etiquette: Sharing is Caring

Every blog I know has a share/like/tweet/stumble button at the bottom or somewhere. They’re there for a reason. If you like the article, pushing those buttons is a “tip jar” for the artist. Push it. It doesn’t take long.

If you’re reading in Google Reader, sharing is as simple as “[SHIFT] S” and that goes to everyone who reads your shared items.

Tell the blogger when you love something they’ve done. People’s #1 complaint to me when they’re starting out blogging is that they lack any feedback. It’d take you 30 seconds to do, and would change a person’s perspective for a whole day.

Comments in Twitter are temporary moments in a stream. Comments on the blog post itself are forever, in the best (and worst) of ways.

The web thrives on links and social sharing. The more YOU do to participate, the more people will create material for free for you to enjoy.

Your Mileage Will Vary

For every idea above, there’s an exception. For every idea above, there’s a great reason to do the opposite. If you’re doing it differently than above, you’re not wrong. You’re doing it your way. Okay, I lied: you’re doing it wrong.

I look forward to your thoughts, disagreements, counter-posts, additional thoughts, sharing, and more.

Related posts:

1. Etiquette in the Age of Social Media
2. A Brief and Informal Twitter Etiquette Guide
3. Considering Social Network Etiquette
4. Essential Guide to Social Media- Brian Solis
5. What are Some Social Media Marketing Best Practices

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Apple, app stores, mobile OS and more

February 16th, 2011 by Healy Jones

Great report by a company called Lookout on Android vs. Apple apps. The key finding is “If each market continues to grow at the same rate, the Android Market will have more apps than the Apple App Store by mid-2012.”

Who know exactly how the growth curve for each market will continue to grow, but the finding is pretty clear that Android is rapidly gaining on Apple.

Android also seems to have a larger number of developers who have built more than one and more one app, vs. Apple, where over 50% of developers have only submitted a single app. Not really sure what this means, but perhaps the Apple world has more hobbyist developers who put only one app out there, while Android developers are more likely to be companies pursuing an App strategy?

Apps per Developer: Android vs Apple

Apple announces recurring subscription billing

There is suddenly a lot of noise about how Apple is introducing billing options for subscriptions. Except that there isn’t a lot of noise coming from Apple about it, so I’m pretty darn confused. Apple’s press release talks about “a new subscription service available to all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store.”

OK, cool, but what about SaaS services like OfficeDrop? I don’t mind paying 30% to Apple when they bring us new customers, but what about when our existing customers, free or paid, download our Apple apps as they use our service?

And what does this mean:

Publishers who use Apple’s subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app… In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

I’ve got so many questions, and wish Apple was providing a little more clarity here to developers like us who are spending a lot of time and money developing on their platform. Since our apps are designed to seamlessly interact with our web service, I don’t know if we’ll have to somehow rip out the online upgrade forms we’ve worked so hard to develop, I don’t know if our email campaigns that encourage upgrades will somehow have to be modified for Apple, of if they will even work, I don’t know if Apple will give us decent analytics so we can test upgrade options and layouts…

Come on Apple, throw your development ecosystem a bone here and help us understand what the heck is going on.

Posted in mobile, saas |

HP‘s Social Computing Research Group has released the results of a new study that dives into the anatomy of Twitter’s Trending Topics.

For its research, HP analyzed 16.32 million tweets on 3,361 different trending topics between September and October 2010. To get its data, it queried Twitter’s search API every 20 minutes.

HP discovered that Twitter’s Trending Topics algorithm cares more about the specific subject and reach of a tweet than who tweets it or how often it’s tweeted. Around 31% of trending topics are retweets. More importantly, 72% of those retweets come from mainstream media outlet like @cnnbrk or @nytimes. The Telegraph, ESPN, @breakingnews and The Huffington Post all made the list of top retweeted users in at least 50 different trending topics.

“What proves to be more important in determining trends is the retweets by other users, which is more related to the content that is being shared than the attributes of the users,” HP concludes in its research report. “Furthermore, we found that the content that trended was largely news from traditional media sources, which are then amplified by repeated retweets on Twitter to generate trends.”

Tweets from “influencers” have little effect on trending topics. Instead, trending topics often come from news stories tweeted from major news outlets. HP concludes that traditional media still starts the conversation around the most-discussed topics in social media, not the other way around.

HP’s researchers (led by HP Senior Fellow Bernardo Huberman) also analyzed the factors impacting the length of a trending topic on Twitter. It found that the very few trending topics stay at the top longer than 40 minutes. “We showed that the distribution of long-time trends is predictable, as is as the total number of tweets and their growth over time,” Huberman said in the company’s blog post.

We’ve embedded HP’s report so you can check out the company’s methodology and mathematics. Let us know what you think of its research in the comments.

February 14, love it or hate it, is just around the corner. Valentine’s Day is yet another holiday that has been over-marketed and over-commercialized, judging by the onslaught of pink hearts and red roses, but if you have someone in your life to profess your love to, you won’t mind a little visit from Cupid this year.

If you’re planning a special night, the following 10 free apps can help you take your romance game to the next level. And even if you aren’t presently in a relationship, Valentine’s Day is good excuse to tell someone that they’re special. C’mon, you can break out the warm fuzzies, at least for one day.

View As One Page »

Image 1 of 11

View As Slideshow »

1. Valentine RADIO

2. Valentine Photo Free -- Picture With Love

3. Be Mine Lite

4. California Blooms

5. Candy Valentines Hearts Free

6. Cook's Illustrated

7. Say I Love You

8. Love Horoscopes

9. Love♥

10. Tiffany & Co. Engagement Ring Finder

BONUS: Anti-Valentine's Day Sounds

More iPhone Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Decadent iPhone Apps for Chocolate Lovers
- 5 Excellent E-Card iPhone Apps
- 5 Fantastic Free iPhone E-book Reader Apps
- 10 Essential Money-Saving iPhone Apps
- 10 Best iPhone Apps for Dog Lovers

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

It’s Super Bowl weekend and in your excitement to see the “Packers/Steelers” beat the “Steelers/Packers” this sunday, we understand if you missed some of our tools and resources from the past week or so. Besides, that five-alarm chili isn’t going to slow-cook itself.

It was a pretty exciting week for social media and tech with the launch of the Rupert Murdoch-backed iPad-only newspaper, “The Daily.” Below we’ve got a hands-on review and even some tricks to reading the new magazine for free on your computer. We also take a look at how the protesters in Egypt are using social media on the ground. Need to catch up on all the social media reading that passed you by? Check out our weekly megalist, full of essentials.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.

Social Media

• How Much Does Identity Theft Cost? [INFOGRAPHIC]
  This infographic shows some of the staggering costs of identity theft.
• Another 10 Creative Uses of the New Facebook Profile [PICS]
  We just can’t get enough of these clever designs. Check out this great gallery.
• 10 Incredible Interactive YouTube Videos
  Interactive YouTube videos enhance engagement by letting the viewer decide the course of the action, or play around with the content. Here are 10 great examples of the format, which we think will be big in 2011.
• Why Social Media Is Bringing Back Our Grandparents’ Values [OP-ED]
  In some respects, social media is rekindling the ways our grandparents’ generation interacted with their communities.
• How Journalists Are Using Social Media to Report on the Egyptian Demonstrations
  Despite the Egyptian government’s shutdown of social media and the Internet, journalists are finding ways to get the message out.
• Group Buying for Social Good: 7 Sites Using Daily Deals to Give Back
  Group buying’s all about deep discounts, but many of these successful startups are finding ways to support nonprofits as well. Here’s a look at some of the social good initiatives.
• 10 Valentine’s Day Gifts for the Special Geek in Your Life
  Leave the chocolates on the shelf and give your geeky significant other a gift she’ll really love.
• 10 Mashable Comics to Make You LOL
  Check out our 10 favorite Mashable Comics from the past few months, guaranteed to make you laugh or your money back.
• The Evolution of the Social Media Manager: Social Monetization Manager?
  The next evolution of the social media manager position may focus on a puzzle piece largely missing in the social media strategy of news companies: monetization.
• Top 5 Social Media Game Plans for Super Bowl Advertisers
  Despite many variables, there are only five basic approaches for using social media to hype a Super Bowl TV spot.
• HOW TO: Pick the Best TV for Watching the Super Bowl [COMIC]
  Pack in your cathode ray tubes and shove those rabbit ears up…into the attic, because 21st century TV tech will pull you off your La-Z-Boy and onto the field of Super Bowl XLV.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

• HANDS ON: Garmin StreetPilot for iPhone [PICS & VIDEO]
  Garmin has finally created a navigation app for the iPhone, and now StreetPilot for iPhone is available in the App Store for $40. Here’s a review.
• What Consumer Electronics Companies Must Do to Make 3D Profitable
  Sales of 3D televisions are still low for a variety of reasons, but that doesn’t mean manufacturers should stop investing in the technology.
• Learning Ruby: Expert Advice for Advanced Developers
  Our panel of Ruby experts dish out their top tips and clever hacks for the more experienced developer crowd.
• Why Mobile Platform Wars Are Keeping Content Strategies in Flux
  If you peel back the excitement and dazzle of mobile tablet and phone device innovation, you find the kind of chaos that makes strategic planning nigh impossible.
• Will “The Daily” Do for News What iTunes Did for Music?
  Rupert Murdoch’s Apple-aligned gamble on paid news app “The Daily” has the potential to shake up the industry or flop hard. Has he found the right price point and platform?
• The Daily: It’s a Second-Rate iPad Magazine, Not a Newspaper [OP-ED]
  News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch took the stage at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City Wednesday morning to unveil The Daily, a newspaper designed specifically for the iPad.
• 10 Cases Compatible With the Verizon iPhone
  If you’re planning to pick up a Verizon iPhone and want a case to cover it, take a look through our gallery for some great options.
• How Kraft’s Face-Scanning Tech Will Tell You What You Like to Eat
  Forget filling out a profile of favorite recipes and ingredients — Kraft’s new kiosk scans your face to figure out what you’ll be interested in cooking.
• HOW TO: Read The Daily Without an iPad, For Free
  A programmer has posted a free version of The Daily on Tumblr.
• 10 Must-Download Apps for New Verizon iPhone Owners
  Are you a Verizon customer new to the iOS platform? Here are ten top apps that will best showcase your shiny new iPhone 4′s abilities.
• 4 Ways to Boost Viral Video Sharing During the Holidays
  As a brand marketer, how can you take advantage of holidays to create a video that people will want to share?
• IPv4 & IPv6: A Short Guide
  That’s why we’ve compiled this short guide to IPv4 and the eventual transition to IPv6. We explain the two versions of IP and why they matter.
• Why the Web Is Useless in Developing Countries — And How to Fix It
  What does an illiterate farmer do with ESPN.com? The World Wide Web Foundation is aiming to create an Internet that will be relevant to the developing world.
• Why the Music Industry Must Change Its Strategy to Reach Digital Natives
  The generation that grew up digital doesn’t want to pay for music. The paradigm has shifted. Here’s why the industry needs to catch up.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

• HOW TO: Land a Job at 9 Hot Startups
  The scoop on getting a job at Path, Instagram, PicPlz, Foursquare, Twilio, Tasty Labs, Involver, Evernote and thingd.
• HOW TO: Create a Facebook Engagement Policy
  Here are 6 steps for developing a Facebook engagement policy that fits your business’s goals, style and tone.
• What We Need to Win the Entrepreneurial Race [OP-ED]
  In his State of the Union Address, Obama called for a reinvigoration of America’s entrepreneurial spirit. So what is Washington doing to help us “win the future?”
• Why Influencer Marketing Needs to Go Beyond Follower Counts
  Well-intentioned marketers and PR professionals are rushing to discover key influencers, but what’s the best way to connect them to your market?
• 10 Easy Ways to Show Your Employees You Love Them
  A bit of online freedom and recognition can go a long way toward boosting morale and productivity. Check out these techie tips for a happier workplace.
• Why Permission Marketing Is the Future of Online Advertising
  Though there has been an outcry against harvesting user data for marketing purposes, permission marketing through social networks might be the future of online ad value.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of Webtreats etc.