Hi everybody, my name is Grant and I’m a social media junkie.
Not like the cool social media like snapchat, Hoffspace (not kidding—a social media network specifically about THE Hoff), Ravelry (social media for knitters) or ComicSpace (yeah that one’s for comic book lovers)…I’m really in to your parent’s social media. Facebook and Instagram are my favs, but I’m working on reviving my old addiction—Twitter. Remember Twitter? That one where you gotta read words?
Turns out, the Twitter of 2007 (that’s when I joined…n00bz) isn’t anything like today’s. Kids today have access to The President of the United States! Back when I started, all we talked about was Syrian Uprising and Brittany Spears’ meltdown. Ahhh those were the days. I digress.
Here’s the lead of this blog that has been buried beneath three other graphs of other stuff. I’m not at all interested in the same stuff that I’m interested in now. Over the last few days I’ve been cleaning up our @NewSkyPro handle where we followed almost twice as many people who followed us. We were mostly following photojournalists (yawn), news stations or services (double yawn) and a bunch of other really terrible things. Not no more…well sort of.
I can’t help but feel like I’m actually buying something when I click that “follow” button. I feel like I’m using social capital to purchase something that I might find interesting. I know that’s a lot of pressure to put on something as innane as Twitter, but I’ve been hurt before…
Soap Box—Things to do and don’t do if you want to stay friends on Social Media (in no particular order except for #1) :
1) I don’t want to know about the first time your kid “goes peepee on the potty”. It may be that we’ve been friends for decades, but I will still stick you.
2) Don’t re-tweet 30 things in a row. If you do, things better be interesting or get interesting real quick.
3) Do be entertaining.
4) Don’t make fun of people unless you can take being made fun of.
5) Don’t only follow two people. You’re a robot.
6) If you post pictures of chicken and waffles and I’m not simultaneously also having chicken and waffles, we got a problem, friend.
7) Don’t buy friends. You can’t do it in real life (see Donald Trump) and you can’t do it on social media.
8) Don’t be Donald Trump
9) Do post about your Chicken and Waffles, ignore #6.
10) Don’t change your handle willy-nilly. If one week you’re @frankisawesome and the following your handle is @frankthetank I’m never going to know who the heck you are and I’m out.
<endrant/>
BTW, these aren’t just my rules for people, these should be rules for your brand too. If you are annoying, confusing or rude, you’re going to be doing irreparable harm to the brand that you’ve spent days, weeks, months….years creating. Your personal brand and your corporate brand are, in a lot of cases, put in lock step with one another. Remind your people about this too especially if they break one of the above ten social media commandments.
I’m cleaning house, but that means I’m just making way for other new cool stuff. What types of things do you follow on Twitter? Follow us @newskypro on Twitter, Facebook and instagram @newskyproductions. We’ve got literally oodles of stickers here at our office, so use the hashtag #carbonsucks when you follow and we’ll mail you one of these sweet pieces of vinyl!
