The Manners & Woes Involved in Social Media

My teacher has shown me an interesting article titled, “10 things your grandmother can teach you about social media”. The points are quite valid. Twitter is really just an extension of real-life social situations. Manners are important anywhere you go. Some people think that just because you are online your actions don’t count, but in this day and age what you say online is forever and it could impact you much more than some slip of the tongue at dinner that was never recorded.

It really is true what they say, “a simple thank you can go a long way”. Even in social media there have been moments where I’ve followed an assistant editor working at my dream job and he or she has had the decency to thank me for the follow and mention that they liked my blog or twitter handle. You’d be surprised just how touching a simple, human action can be.

Sure, the Internet is a wonderful invention as well as Facebook and Twitter. Just because we’re using a different medium to interact does not mean that the value of face-to-face or human interaction is lost. Social media has its positives, allowing people to connect with, say, a CEO of a corporation or NYT bestselling author who normally would be out of reach to them.

We just need to remember the rules our grandmother taught us; be courteous, be kind, and listen--don’t talk over someone, can easily be transferred and used in the realm of social media. Consider, the people that spam or annoy you. Constantly talking about either their breakfast that morning or like talking advertisements. The loss of that human quality is what we can’t afford to lose if we want to be successful in the social media realm. So if you’ve loved someone’s posts—go thank them.

Cheers ladies and gents,

Liz