How would you react if you moved into a new neighborhood and the person next door invited you over for coffee or dinner, but before you even walked through the door, they began trying to sell you make-up, cleaning products or financial services?
“How rude!” you say.
“What oaf would do such a boorish thing?” you question.
Well, lots of people do it. Daily. Pehaps even you.
On Facebook.
Every time you use your Facebook Personal Profile for a Business Page by putting a company or non-profit logo on a profile page, you are saying that you don’t care to get to know a person on a personal level. You just want to sell them something. All you see is dollar signs, not a person.
Is that what you really want to communicate?
You see, there’s a courting routine you need to be aware of on social media – or anywhere – as far as that goes. You don’t go to a networking event, say – a party – and start spouting off about how great your company is, and you shouldn’t do it on Facebook or Twitter, either.
For one thing, nobody gives a flip. Blah, blah, blah.
What people care about is how much you care about them as human beings. Secondly, they care about how much you can help them. Then – and only then – do they care about your business, when they know that you care about their problem and that your business can fix it.
If you start out your relationship with them by asking them to become friends with your company – and not you – you are insulting them. You are saying that you want to skip over the nicities and get right to the part where you give them money for something they do or sell – relationship be damned.
For a while, I overlooked people who put their company logos on their personal profiles and accepted the friendships, giving them a break, assuming they didn’t know any better. After a while, the annoyance began wearing thin. I started “ignoring” those requests but explained why I was doing so. I explained that they needed to put their own photos on their profiles and use Business Pages for their businesses. Sometimes I would get re-invited back the next day – with the photo unchanged.
Finally, I got tired of that. Now, I just simply hit “ignore” with no explanation. I just don’t have time to educate the entire Facebook universe on good manners. Your mother was supposed to have done that. And if she didn’t, well, you’re a big girl or boy. It’s time for you to figure it out on your own.
Look, everybody knows that Facebook and other social media apps are great places for marketing. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just remember that the rules of engagement on social media are the same rules that exist in the “real” world. If you shouldn’t do it in the real world, don’t do it in the virtual world.
Now, go wash your hands before dinner.
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mshades/ / CC BY 2.0
Posted at 10:40 PM in Facebook | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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