Social networking service – SMIO Digital Marketing

In working in the field that I do, it has occurred to me that numerous people, including myself are making the same social media mistakes over and over without even realizing it. So, today I have decide to compile a basic list of do’s and dont’s of social media usage. Here we go!
Do-Get on Social Media! If you are not already on social media sites, get on them, this is the way we are communicating! Start networking on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, pick your poison!

Don’t-Get on these sites without a goal in mind. Ask yourself, before getting on a social media site, what do I want this site to do for me?
What do I want to get out of this site? What to do I hope to gain from this site? Etc.

Do-Research! Figure out what social networking sites cater to needs. Meaning, after you establish your goals research the background of each site. You should be asking your site why does this site exist? Who does this site cater to? What will I gain from being on this site?

Don’t-Overjoin. What I mean here, is do not overwhelm yourself. Start by joining one or two networks and get a great foundation started and be active on these sites. Get your name out there! There is no point in joining 5-6 sites if you are not going to actively participant in them. In this case, keep with the mentality less is more.

Do-Be consistent! While this point is some what repeating my last don’t, I want to stress how important consistency is. There is no point in creating an account if you are never going to post or connect with other individuals. Take home message, be consistent, create a schedule and stick to it. Meaning, I like to stick with a Facebook schedule of posting once daily, Twitter posting three times daily (because this is a microblogging site and the newsfeed moves so fast), Blogging once daily, and posting on Pinterest 3 times a week (MWF).

Don’t-Overpost, if you are annoyingly posting it is likely other individuals will “unlike”/”unfollow” you. Moderation is the key! Stick to being consistent and develop your own social media schedule!

I must confess I am super annoyed with other bloggers, theorist, professionals and academics claiming that nonverbal cues are absent in computer-mediated communication, such as social networking sites.
While this may have been true 20 plus years ago when we were first learning to use the internet, this is no longer true! Social networking is packed with nonverbal cues, we just have to stop and notice them. While traditionally nonverbal communication may not pop out at us when communicating via a computer, nonverbal cues are there. When I say this we are constantly sending some sort of nonverbal messages online. For instance the images we choose to send to our friends can be seen as a form of a nonverbal cue, meaning we select these images for a purpose full of intention behind them much of the time without even realizing it. Next, time you select a picture to post, stop and think what message am I actually sending? Do I want others to see me as outgoing? Fun? Energetic? It is true, we can not not communicate, simplistically meaning, like it or not we are always communicating something!