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5 Things You Should Never Do on Social Media
Follow my rules and thank me later
Welcome to my Social Media 101 seminar. Please grab any socially distant seat, and thank you all for wearing a mask. I know your time is valuable, which is why I’ve compressed my typically 18-hour, six-part course into this one session, and I’ve waived all fees.
My promise to you is that if you follow these core five rules, you’ll be a successful social media person. Not a “personality” or “influencer,” but someone who can exist and operate on these social platforms without enraging others.
If you haven’t pulled out your laptops or notebooks, now would be a good time. I won’t be pausing for questions.
Here are the 5 things you should never do
Express an opinion
Since the dawn of humankind, people have had disagreements and passed judgments. You look over at your neighbor’s lawn and wonder why they cut the grass so short or how they do not seem to know how to water the lawn without dousing yours as well. You keep these opinions to yourself until you get on Facebook. Then it’s time for a 5,000-word public post on the right way to manage a lawn. News flash: You neighbor is gonna see that post and know it was you.
Save yourself some trouble and keep this diatribe of an opinion to yourself.
This also goes for social media opinion posts on religion, politics, sex, favorite snack food, Zach Snyder’s directing abilities, and the color of that dress.
Caveat: Unless you know you’re right.
Use all caps
Try, for a moment, to imagine one of your favorite books, maybe one of Dan Brown’s crazy puzzle novels — you know, the books with Tom Hanks and that terrible do — with every single word in ALL CAPS. It would be unreadable. Our minds aren’t designed to interpret text like this. Studies have shown that humans read words almost as pictures. What I mean is we see the word as a whole, not a string of letters to be interpreted. Words in all caps break that process.
There’s also the fact that all caps LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF YELLING. There’s no need to yell on social media. The volume, even…
