Worst and Best Social Media Practices

A Plurkshop, or text-based workshop, today brought about a concern for me as an up and coming social media professional. That was that A-listers, celebrities, and large corporations are ruining social media by using it in an irresponsible manner. That is to say, they are using social media as no more than a promotional tool to bombard their followers with one-way communication, disregarding the tool as a method of conversation

You can read the text of the Plurkshop here. I’ll warn you, it may be tedious.

This harrowing trend has me worried. If popular sources of social media disenfranchise their readers by not allowing them to contribute to their conversation, the general public may dismiss social media as something not beneficial to them as a consumer.

If, for example, a member of the general public has a bad experience on their favorite celebrity gossip blog— their comments were ignored, or they were not allowed to comment on a “news item”—they will be less likely to participate in a future conversation with me or one of my clients because of the negative experiences they have previously had.

To remedy the situation, we need to change the conversation around social media. Currently the conversation revolves around social media as a marketing tool. PR professionals tell their clients that they need to have a blog, but not why they need to have a blog. Marketers talk about SEO or targeting followers, but they don’t talk about feedback and conversation. Here’s what I recommend social media professionals insist to their clients are the bets practices for social media.

1. Invite feedback – ask questions about your posts.
2. Listen – allow and actually actually read comments. Consider the validity of what people are saying.
3. Respond – write back to people that have valid points and even to those who do not have valid points.

With these three things, we can ensure meaningful conversation in social media that benefits everyone involved.

I’ll have more on this soon, but in the meantime, what do you think? Am I wrong? Am I right? How am I wrong? How am I right? Have you had bad experiences with social media? Have you had good experiences?

Thanks for reading at Featurism.