The New Community Rules

Appendix A. The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook

I originally posted the “Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handboook” on my blog at techipedia.com^[113] in December 2008. It became so popular that I have included it here as an appendix.

Social media mimics real relationships in many cases. Would you do the following in real, face-to-face relationships?

• Jump on the friendship bandwagon without properly introducing yourself?

• Consistently talk about yourself and promote only yourself without regard for those around you?

• Randomly approach a friend you barely talk to simply to ask for favors—repeatedly?

• Introduce yourself to another person as “Pink House Gardening?”

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may need a refresher course on social media etiquette—and perhaps real-life etiquette also. Here are some egregious sins that you must not perform on social media sites. Avoid these violations and learn how to manage and maintain online relationships on a variety of popular social media sites.

Facebook

• Adding users as friends without proper introductions. If you’re looking to make friends, tell people who you are. Don’t assume they know you, especially if they don’t.

• Abusing application invites and consistently inviting friends to participate in vampire games. Many call this spam.

• Abusing group invites. If your friends are interested, they’ll likely join without your “encouragement.” And if they don’t accept, don’t send the group request more than once by asking them to join ...