Ah, social media etiquette. Here are some examples of faux pas that may forfeit you friends, freak out your followers and cause your contacts to cringe:
Auto-post the same quotes, links or messages on Twitter at intervals throughout the day–every day.
Make a Friend request on Facebook where you are trying to sell the person in the friend request. *Cringe.*
Send automated Direct Messages to all your new Twitter followers already trying to get them to your blog or sell them something. Fail.
Place a long signature line with multiple links at the end of every message you leave on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Follow people without having a Twitter bio, updates or pic.
Use the name of your business instead of your real name for your personal Facebook profile (quick way to get banned–try Facebook Pages instead).
Follow people on Twitter and if they haven’t followed you back within 30 minutes, unfollow them.
Mass follow people and then unfollow them once they’ve followed back (some sort of sick Twitter numbers-boosting game).
Curse up a storm on people’s Facebook walls.
Social bookmark your own posts and content repeatedly.
Choose a profile picture showing you doing a keg stand.
Decide you’re too busy to interact on social sites but still want to claim you’re “on” them. Hence, you drop in every other week to plug your new product or service but do little to provide any real value.
Decide you too busy or too “rock star” to respond to any Twitter @ replies and DMs directed to you.
Ask for recommendations on LinkedIn from anyone and everyone who you have ever worked in the same building with.
Constantly re-tweet complimentary @ replies you’ve received without at least adding a “thanks.”
So, am I perfect? Of course not. But this post was fun to compile. 
How are your social graces? Anything else you’d like to add to this list?
Photo Credit: cyn_
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Hi Christine,
And let’s not forget the person who is following us, but in reality is only trying to amass followers so they can break the 2000 number (which I understand Twitter won’t let you follow more than 2000 if you don’t have 2000 following you.)
Add to that, the profiles that only show a half dozen updates (or less) – most of which are pointing to a sales page.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..Liar, Liar
Great set of anti-patterns.
To stay in goodness, it seems to always come back to one rule of thumb … communicate value
J.D.’s last blog post..How To Design A Fulfilling Life
It’s amazing how people don’t use their common sense when dealing with social media. I’ve actually been guilty of a few of these, but I learned quickly.
It’s about building relationships. That always takes time.
Karl Staib – Work Happy Now’s last blog post..Daily Body Scan
Scary that some folks intentionally play these games. For them it must be only about the numbers and their fragile little egos. Being true to oneself is a great start both online and off.
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work’s last blog post..Back Up One Step and Choose Your Right Path
Even if in online communication, we can’t see people we are talking to, the rules of online and off-line communication are the same.
“Don’t give to others what you won’t take or accept”.Am I right?
No one likes sales pitch, so I try all the time to stay natural and honest and bring value in my interactions with people.
Nice topic Christine.
JP
Jean-Paul’s last blog post..Chameleon Management – or improved Community Management
@Barbara–Two of the most irritating things, yes!
@J.D.–Ah, yes. Love when people realize it all comes back to the title of my humble blog.
@Karl–Hooray for common sense! And about it taking time–in our “want it now” world this is probably the hardest thing for people to accept. They want results, like, yesterday. Social media doesn’t work that way of course.
@Tom–Isn’t being true to oneself so liberating, anyway? I know you know this.
If people would only realize how good it feels…
@Jena-Paul–Do unto others!
Yep. And I love the qualities you’ve mentioned–value, honesty and being natural. Perfect!