You’ve been hearing the buzz for years about Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Now, you’re finally ready to get “connected” so you
pick one and jump in with both feet.
First of all, they’re very friendly and loaded with helpful
hints:
“Here, let us grab your address book and invite a few of
your friends.”
“Sure,” you say, and move on to the next hint, not realizing
you just spammed 1000 of your unwary email contacts.
“Now you need to follow/like/connect with others. Here are a
few suggestions.”
You start clicking everyone they suggest, thinking there
can’t be more than 5 or 10 of them. 30 minutes later, your eyes are glazing
over and all you can focus on is that scroll bar on the right side of the
screen. It has to get to the bottom, soon, doesn’t it?
Now, suddenly, there’s a nasty message on your screen that
says “Whoa! You’re going too fast! Slow down!”
“Huh? This was your idea, not mine,” you think as you hit
the back button, totally bewildered.
Now you’re back on the home screen, following more
suggestions, but with a little less enthusiasm. Funniest thing, however,
nowhere do they suggest: “READ THE RULES, CAREFULLY, BECAUSE MOST OF THEM WILL TRIP
YOU UP IF YOU FOLLOW THE REST OF OUR SUGGESTIONS!”
So, now it’s a few days, weeks, or months later. You wake up
one morning all set to work on your social media, and what hits you in the
face? ACCOUNT SUSPENDED! or LIMIT REACHED!
Did they give you any warning? Did they offer any
explanation? No, of course not. Now where are all of their helpful suggestions?
Nowhere to be found, that’s where. It’s all up to you to figure out what you
did wrong and how to fix it.
This usually leads to you closing your account and storming off
to tell your friends what a rip off and scam this program turned out to be.
BUT, that only hurts you. Social media programs can be very useful tools,
highly informative, and entertaining. Here are 4 simple things you can do to
prevent every bad thing I’ve just written about.
1)
As soon you sign up, before clicking on anything else, READ
THE RULES! If there are too many of them, or you don’t understand them, take a
break and come back later. Make a note to come back and read the rules again
when you’re more familiar with the program.
2)
GO SLOWLY! The first day you’re in a new program, don’t
follow/like/invite/connect with more than 10 people. Stick to that rule for at
least a few more days, until you can evaluate for yourself, the results of your
actions.
3)
Talk to people you already know, who are on this program, and
ask for their opinion and any pitfalls you should avoid.
4) Join
a forum for social media users, so you can learn from other members’ mistakes,
instead of making them all, yourself.
If you’re careful, and pay attention to the rules, social
media programs can be your best friend. Otherwise, they can damage your reputation and cause all kinds of
grief and wasted time in the process.
