Social Media for Business

Chapter 9 Online etiquette

Key areas we will cover in chapter 9:

• ✓ you are what you share
• ✓ you’ve connected — now what?
• ✓ keeping in touch with your connections
• ✓ applying your good manners.

It might seem a little obvious that you need to behave online as you would in person, but for some reason we sometimes see the two differently and so act differently. You’ve probably seen snarky comments from individuals or conversations going off on a tangent and wondered why. The truth is, we have no body language to go on so we have to make do with ‘digital body language’ and use the tools we have at our disposal.

Let’s have a look at some of the things we can do to make sure we don’t upset anyone.

You are what you share

Everything you post online stays there forever and is a direct reflection on you, so beware of posting things that you wouldn’t want your mother to see! You don’t have to write everything yourself, but at least be aware of the whole content of what you are posting if it is an article from another source, and always include the link to the original article. That way, the rightful owner of the content gets the attribution. Remember, ‘you are what you share’.

Working with original content

So where will your content come from? Once you have started your social media plan from chapter 1, you should have a clear understanding of what your social media efforts are going to achieve for you.

Your content will come from:

• personal content: your own efforts from articles, ...