Seven Golden Rules for Facebook & Co
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| SOCIAL CODE OF CONDUCT |
By now, Social Networks are part of our daily routines like
the cup of coffee in the morning. In the past, if you wanted to stay in touch
with friends and family or wanted to track down old acquaintances, you had to
grab the telephone handset or hire a private investigator – Thanks to Facebook,
Google+, MySpace & Co. these days are definitely over!
But as with all social interactions there are behavioral codes:
Who ignores them can ruin his image faster than a loose lipped politician.
It goes without saying that you have to refrain from using
insults, racist remarks and random threats of violence. The Internet forgives
and forgets nothing, that’s a fact. This is why you should keep an eye on personal
information and correct conduct. For many employers it became a routine part of
their evaluation of future employees to check the social networks to make sure
they got the right candidate. See below some very important codes of conduct.
1. Use Your Real Name
At least in business networks such as Linkedin or Xing you
should avoid using pseudonyms. I know that this probably causes an uproar with people
who are really conscious about privacy concerns. But the use of nicknames such
as “cuba_libre” or “bangkok_john376” is unprofessional in the professional
world. Not to mention that it makes it harder if not impossible for potential
employers or business partners to find you. There is also the big advantage
that you think twice before posting something online when you use your actual
name.
2. Keep Your Cool – Insults and Abusive Language are Taboo!
Did you have a bad day at work? Is your inflexible department
chief going on your nerves or did you get criticized by your boss? Everyone is
frustrated every now and then, that’s normal! It’s not normal though to blow
one’s steam off on social networks. Never forget that social networks are more
or less public! You wouldn’t be the first one who’s lost his job because of
rash comments on Facebook. Ensure that it doesn’t get personal when you express
your opinion. Especially when you come back from the pub on a Friday night and
had a few after a hard week in the coalmine, better go straight to bed and don’t
log in to you preferred social platform.
3. Be Careful with Pics and Vids
If you use your Photoshop expertise to paste your bosses
head on the body of a monkey, please don’t post the resulting artwork online!
It will be only funny until your boss gets tagged by a jealous co-worker. Also do
not get too enthusiastic about video content – Not everybody can laugh about
everything! On one side it’s great to have pics of yourself posted on Facebook,
Myspace & Co, but pay attention to what these pics project and who else is
to be seen on them.
4. Release Information targeted
Use friends lists (on Facebook) or circles (Google+) to
filter who sees what. There is also the possibility, if this is to complicated
and time consuming, to create different profiles on the same platforms for
private and official use.
5. Arrogance is out of Place on Social Networks
“Be humble” my parents and grandparents used to tell me; to
be honest, they had a point there! But there are many users who think that this
rule doesn’t apply to the internet and its social networks, To continuously boast
with your successes and (existing or imaginary) expertise is not well-received
by most other users. If for example somebody posts a question in a forum, the “use
the search feature”-answer or RTFM (use the search featureJ) is not only rude but
outright offensive. If the question was posted and answered before, guide the
new user to the respective thread and do not offend him/her, OK?
6. Be careful with Online-Dating Sites
Online-Dating is either a great thing or a total disaster.
Most of these sites are built similar to Facebook but the big difference is the
profile pics. The picture on dating sites is in average 10-15 years old. If you
follow this trend and also upload ancient photos because you looked more attractive
20 years ago, you might get more response but the actual date will be rather
short. In each case you have to be very careful with dating sites; do not give up too much information about yourself and realize that not everybody on these sites is there because they seek eternal love or a lifetime companionship.
7. Always keep your Job in Mind
It’s none of your bosses’ business what videos, pics or
comments you post online? WRONG! Let’s say you have direct customer contact and
the said client knows you by name…. this and many other facts you should always
keep in the back of your head because to a certain extent you always represent
the organization you’re working for.
You don’t want to ruin your image or provide too much information
to data collectors, do you? My advice: keep you digital footprint as small as
possible. You don’t have to be registered on EVERY single social network! Keep
your personal data organized and don’t divulge too much about you. Use your
common sense and think about if you can still stand behind what you post today
in 5 years from now. Always apply the golden rule: think first, type later!
Because the internet forgets nothing……
.
Social Media Strategy - Implementation - ROI
The Planning of your Social Media Strategy
Implementation of your Social Media Strategy
How to Measure the ROI of Social Media Marketing
copyright 2012 foxfang infographix
New Facebook Buttons!
Mark, give us a Care-Button!
We “like” things on Facebook like there is no tomorrow. But
let’s be honest: Even primates are more versatile in expressing themselves.
It’s time for new buttons! Here’s a little mind game and some creative suggestions.
“We don’t just like things, we do more than that!” was the
outcry of more than 20’000 groups on Facebook. But nobody is listening. For
many years millions of users declare “All they want us to do is to like things,
we want to dislike!”.
Even the scientific community is angered about Facebook’s
bloody-mindedness when it comes to introducing new buttons. Felix Stalder
(Professor for Digital Culture and Network Theories at Zurich University of
Arts) recently warned us about the pre-formatting of our internet
communication: “Facebook is guiding us
in a direction which is beneficial only for them and refrains of introducing a
Dislike-Button for fear of negative comments”. But this is no secret, Facebook
even admits it openly: “Positive comments fit better in our philosophy than
negative statements”. Facebook is
worried about their cozy virtual world because their users mostly log in to
feel good and Facebook doesn’t want to provide a stage for cranks and
sourpusses.
Grooming Talk: We are like monkeys
Fact is: Even monkeys have a bigger repertoire than the
virtual human when it comes to social graces. Gorillas, chimpanzees and Barbary
apes love to sit in groups, ruffle each other’s fur and delouse one another.
Basically they are like us, at least when it comes to social interaction. It’s
all about the exchange of niceties and social commitments. Obviously humans don’t sit together in small
groups and fondle each other anymore (even if it is a nice thought), our
evolution pursues a different, more economical way. This is why we invented the
language, more specifically small-talk. Mostly senseless babble, like delousing
without lice, but not entirely pointless: It binds us together.
Then came the internet and brought us many new “friends”,
130 each Facebook user has in average. It would require a lot of time and
nerves to send emails to all of them or to place nice comments on all of their
walls: we all were in desperate need for something new and the solution was the
“Like”-Button!
What fondling is to monkeys, the click on the Like-Button is to
us. Each one of us already “liked” 80 things in average, that’s a staggering 66’800’000’000
Likes till date! This shows that we are living in the age of a real “Like-Inflation”.
We like irrelevant stuff like childhood pis of colleagues of friends or “funny”
status updates like “I think I have another beer” and so on. And there exactly is the problem: Thumbs up, thumbs up! Facebook doesn’t give us a possibility to
express sorrow, dismay, preferences or sympathy. There is nothing in between an
elaborate comment and a simple “thumbs up”.
The Like-Statement is not just for what you like anymore and this can
cause confusion.
Suggestions for a new Button-Culture on Facebook
I have to admit, I “like” a lot of things – 334 till date.
But I actually don’t feel embarrassed about my generosity – not at last because
this button has a very limited significance nowadays. A boost in importance of
the Like-Button would really make sense, don’t you think? How about a “Love-Button”,
constrained to a limited amount of let’s say, 10 per year? Or a “Care-Button”
to supplement our digital communication vocabulary?
The question remains – Would the users be satisfied with a
couple more feel-good-buttons or would they want more? Anyway, the system will
protect itself as it know to be the case: tomatoes won’t be thrown on Facebook
anytime soon.
(this post is based on a Tagesanzeiger article by Roman Hirsbrunner, CEO of Maxomedia)
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