Recently, I looked up the dictionary to find out what being social really was, and it explained social as, being in company, meeting people and sharing the spirit of a community. It all started after reading Breaking the Twitter Etiquettes by the Daily Blonde. Then I started thinking of the way I socialize online and I re-discovered myself. Here are some thoughts that make you judge how social you are online.
Do you follow the people who follow you on twitter? It’s the people who follow you who are genuinely interested in you, then why not follow them back? I had always thought that having more number of followers than the number of people you follow is something great. Well its not, it just shows that you are all about yourself, and you don’t love the community. Small differences is ok, but see those guys who have 1000+ followers and follow only 2 or 3?
When is the last time you clicked an Adsense ad? My answer would be a week ago. If you had asked me this question in 2004, I would answer an hour ago. After realizing that every click I make was costing someone, I was always cautious. (Well that’s the soft explanation; the evil answer is that I realized every click I make was giving someone something, how evil was I?)
In November, I had a peak in my Google Analytics stats, when Mani Karthik added me up into his friends list in Stumble Upon. Recently, I get lots of visits from Digg and SU. But I get very few diggs or stumbles. I was wondering, why they don’t really digg up the articles they read or give me a thumb’s up. It costs nothing, and a digg or a stumble takes no more than 2 seconds. I am not talking of the readers who reach in here via search or feed, but about those who come here via the social networks itself. Are you one of them?
I asked myself similar questions and found the answers. Here they go…
Love the Community and Thou shall be loved…
Here are some ways to enhance your social life online and get loved by the community. The more love you get, the more you are successful online.
- Submit pages you like to social networking sites that you are a part of. Don’t be lazy.
- Digg up every article that you read from Digg, a digg costs you nothing, not even a page load. Do the same with other social networks that you are active in.
- Before you complain that no one digg’s you or stumbles you, ask yourself, ‘How many people have I digged..?’
- Don’t copy, paste links from an Adsense ad. If you are interested in an ad, use it. Let the publisher get his part for showing off the ads. On the contrary, don’t click on ads that you have no interest in; someone is losing money with your clicks.
- On twitter, follow the people who follow you. Following someone else costs you nothing; you never know where you get an idea from. Remember that the people who follow you are the people who are interested in you. Also retweet those tweets which genuinely need attention. (Follow me here and let’s start socializing!)
- Leave comments on posts that you like or where you have a new point to make. You are not only inspiring the author, but you are serving the other readers too.
- Reply to every email that you read. You might be very busy, but it takes no more than 5 seconds to say a Thank you. And even a single word reply would make someone glad. (I remember how honored I was, when Amit Agarwal thanked me once, the mail just had the word ‘Thank You’)
- Never start off a conversation with a user on chat who has a red bulb ON (busy) without permission. And whenever someone asks permission for a chat when you are busy, it’s too offensive to stay silent, just ask, ‘What don’t we talk later..?’
- Always be creative enough to break the rules and etiquettes, but follow the ethics.
- Never lie. If you don’t like a post, say it is not good enough, if someone asks you about his site and you don’t like it, say you were not impressed. If you lie, you are not helping someone, you are just being nice. BTW, why do you have to lie? You have all the freedom in the digital world, make use of it.
- Talk to people, be what you really are, don’t wear a mask.
- Help someone everyday, teach someone something you know, they will love you for that.
- Promote others. By promoting them, you are promoting yourselves. Link to them wherever relevant, and don’t keep all your links nofollow.
- Respect others time, don’t keep them waiting for ever.
The bible says asks us to treat others the way you wish to be treated, that’s the key to be an ideal social netizen.
I am a WordPress product developer and creator of Image Attributes Pro. I am passionate about solving problems and travelling the world.
This is precisely the reason I do not follow large blogs. 🙂 This is deep stuff mate!
On the post, I usually signup for a lot of social networks, but the few which have actually benefitted me, like a forum, or a social network or even a blogging platform, I give it all and try to bring in people to that service.
There you go! You bring others to the networks and you are serving the community, Kudos!
I havent done that part yet, Never advised anyone to use a specific network, Thats a real tip.
I always try to help my fellow BlueHost shared host users optimize their sites. By doing so, all our sites run faster and we avoid slowing each other down (after all, it is a shared host). 😀 Great list man!
Great Thinking there, You just gave all shared hosted sites a good reason to help each other, You have just served the community 🙂 Cheers
You really are making yourself unique with such good posts..
Treat others the way you like to be treated – Fantastic quote to apply in blog social networking !
Now I realize why Mr.Babyman on Digg is soo famous even without his own blog !
Hey, Never heard of Mr. Babyman, Can you give me a link, OR maye I will try hunting him down.. You just served the community too.. Cheers
One good thing I do.. is to share my google reader items and get other blogs some traffic, as I have more people following my shared items sincerely.. more than my own blog I suppose 😉 lol
Thats interesting, I am not into Google Reader, I take all the feeds offline for reading, How evil am I.. lol
great ehics if followed.
Oh, Someone has finally called it ethics, Basicaly ethics are guidelines, bend them and break them, but always do good..
EXCELLENT, my friend! These are great rules to live by in this age of social media. You’ve got it! 🙂
I got it all from you, One idea sparks off a million other ideas, And this is hot proof for that. Kudos!
I really appreciate your actions, Arun! Most people network with others for purely selfish reasons. I am glad I stumbled across your blog. Well, I usually give any post I find interesting, a thubs up or if I seriously love it, I bookmark it on Delicious, Mister Wong or Social Median. Most of the times, I promote the articles I read by twittering them. How many seconds is it gonna take to do such simple things?It’s high time people understood that Social media is about people.
There you go, tweeting cool posts is something that takes no effort, People should realize that by promoting others they are helping themselves too… Nice to meet you here. Lets meet up on twitter: http://twitter.com/ArunBasilLal
Cheers