Image: Favim
Did you know that your social media presence can compromise a lot of the things you do, especially your career? Facebook and other social media platforms are truly the best way to expand your social circle, while keeping yourself up-to-date with the current stories happening in your neighbourhood to the world. Unfortunately, we’re bound to go overboard with what we do over the internet, so we’ve come up with a few of the most common ways to avoid making yourself look bad.
DO
Do remember that comments follow you. By responding to someone’s update, or even leaving a comment on a blog, you make your identity available to the rest of world. So before you make a harsh comment about something, do know that people can simply copy your details and find you on Google. What they can do with it, you do not want to know.
Do remember that everything’s NOT personal. Don’t take things to personally when social media is involved. Facebook is a major culprit because people tend to go overboard to believe that Facebook is almost reality. While it can go different ways, remember that a Facebook war is a pointless way.
Do think about your tone. Written messages don’t always convey the full emotion (unless if you’re a novelist), but you want people to know who you are. Twitter is a great tool to engage with followers through words, and your identity on Twitter is based on the messages you post. If all you do is rant about everything, that’s what followers will see you. Try to represent an accurate and realistic range of tones, and Twitter should work to your advantage.
Do think before you tag. You never know who you have on Facebook, and we often wish to hide certain things from people and the first thing applies are embarrassing photos. You wouldn’t want a weird picture surfacing on your colleagues’ Facebook feed, right? So think before you tag an embarrassing photo of a friend.
DON’T
Don’t ask for followers. As petty as it may seem, asking for people to follow you or follow you back on whatever online platform is rather embarrassing. It makes you come off as an attention seeker, and with the number of internet trolls out there, you don’t want to get on their bad side.
Don’t treat people badly. It’s important to have some online etiquette online. If you’re a blogger and you want followers, the best thing to do is start looking up other blogs, and leaving comments. This is a way to share your page with other people, and the blogger herself will acknowledge your presence. Give out some good energy, and you’ll be sure to receive some back too.
Don’t take things too seriously. There are people online like trolls that feed on the things you write about online. There will always be someone who will hate you for sharing your point of view, so it’s good to take a breath and not respond. Unless if this person is really beginning to damage your reputation, and you really need to respond, do it politely and use a factual response.
Don’t go overboard with sharing. Facebook is great for local stories to go viral in the community. But you’ll only have to do with if it has to do with a serious issue in your neighbourhood. There’s no need to let people know where you go every minute of the day, or what you do because you’re bound to make someone feel a little uncomfortable or baffled.
