etiquette

8 Things NOT to do on Facebook

My internet marketing firm spends all day online. I personally spend a great deal of time on Facebook for business reasons, and have a large and varied friends list. This blog post will help you steer clear of bad etiquette on Facebook.

1. Stalking on Facebook is just as inappropriate as in real life. If you are commenting on and/or liking EVERYTHING that someone posts, that is a form of stalking.

2. Punctuation matters; there is nothing as aggravating as having to mentally insert the missing and or corrected punctuation while I am reading a post. Slow down, and have some respect for your reader.

3. Don’t use quotes every day as your status. It’s boring and lazy and tells your audience nothing at all about you, hence it is poor for engagement; and that is what supposedly you came to Facebook to do…you know, engage with actual people.

4. DO NOT FRIEND FARM!!!! That is the act of pillaging one of your popular, successful, networked friend’s list and sending friend requests to whom you think look cool, or a good business target, or whatever. It is rude, and it is the height of bad online manners.

5. DO NOT accept people as friends if you think you are being friend farmed. If you don’t know them, click ignore. There are no trophies for having the biggest friends list, and why the heck do you want to interact with someone you do not even know?! Unless they are in your very favorite band, say no. This is how friend farming will finally come to a halt.

6. Grammar matters too: Google it if you have to or re-word, but when you use the incorrect form of your, their, or wear, it makes it hard for people to read.

7. And whatever you do, do NOT be judgmental on someone else’s wall; you may misunderstand their humor, you may not know the inside joke, the back-story, or the reality on someone’s post, and for you to pass judgment in a snarky, superior way ON THEIR WALL is unprofessional.

8. Do not post links to or about your business, charity, project, or passion to someone else’s wall without asking first. It is both presumptuous and rude, and is akin to putting a sign for your business in your friends’ yard without asking.

In other words, be kind, be intelligent, be polite, be positive. Just like in real life, if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. As a partner in a small business marketing company, I can promise that obeying all these rules will make your Facebook world a better, happier, more cheerful place.

~Kim Finley, Sales Director