15 Rules Of Engagement For Social Networking
Guest Post by Bobby Borg
While social networking has been around for almost 15 years (and some would argue it’s been around longer), many people still haven’t gotten the hang of it. In short, social networking is about being social online. Your behavior should really be no different from what it would be at a cocktail party. What follows are a 15 social rules of engagement that you might want to consider.
1. Use Your Personal Name: Use your personal name in correspondences. It feels more authentic to people when they know they are talking to a person rather then a company.
2. Create An Attractive Profile: Use attractive profile pictures and provide thorough and interesting profile information.
3. Use Open-enrollment: Have an open enrollment policy on your networks, but quickly delete anyone who spams you or makes inappropriate posts or comments.
4. Have A Plan: Have a precise strategy and time-limit that you will devote to each social network. For instance, you might post an update, check messages, and respond for a total of 30 minutes per day. Just be consistent so that people know what to expect.
5. Engage People: Strive to engage people in conversation and listen to what they have to say rather than just force your messages down people’s throats. The latter is not what social networking is about.
6. Be Transparent: Be transparent by letting people see that you are a fallible and real person. Let them in on secrets or more personal casual information that of course does not cross any professional boundaries. Just be careful not to leak personal information that could jeopardize your safety and bring you harm. There are some real nuts out there.
7. Strive To Build Trust. Social networking is about getting to know people.
8. Provide Great Content: Post quality, relevant, and current content that people want to share. Try to avoid multiple posts about the fact that you just drank a glass of water. Ask questions, conduct polls, share photos and videos, and post links to interesting articles.
9. Go Beyond Networks: Try to engage your social network community both off and offline. Reach-out to specific people directly on the phone and even by mail.
10. Learn From Your Posts: Take note of the people who seem to correspond with you most and get to know more about these people. What is it about your posts that they seem to respond to most?
11. Do It Yourself. Outsourcing people to answer your social networks for you defeats the whole purpose of transparency and building a strong community. Social networking should be done by your company, not someone pretending to be you.
12. Build A Community: Make people that they are part of a bigger cause or family by being part of your social network. Perhaps you can create a general name for them, similar to the way Lady Gaga refers to her fans as Little Monsters or Kiss referred to their fans as the KISS army. Whatever you do, think of your network as family.
13. Don’t Argue: Do not allow yourself to be drawn into arguments with coward who hide behind anonymous user names and have nothing better to do than be a grump.
14. Go Where The Conversation Is. See what people are talking about on other social networks, listen in, and quietly posts your feeling in a non-intrusive way.
15. Use Other Promotional Platforms: Remember that social networking is only one part of your promotional strategy. Be sure to use offline strategizes as well including college radio, local music magazines, street marketing, and more.
BOBBY BORG is the author of Music Marketing For The DIY Musician: Creating and Executing a Plan of Attack On A Limited Budget (September 2014). The book is available on Hal Leonard website under “Trade Books” http://bit.ly/1po5FyO (ISBN: 9781480369528),
AMAZON http://amzn.to/X4Fwst, or Bobby Borg (www.bobbyborg.com).
Thanks to the folks at Hypebot for posting my article. They provide a great service to Musicians. Me and all of my students/clients appreciate you.
More tips can be found at http://www.bobbyborg.com and in my book Music Marketing For The DIY Musician.
Cheers