I am a person who uses Facebook, and I therefore declare myself a “social media guru,” and am ready to share my vast and valuable knowledge, while drawing from my own personal experiences in the ever-expanding community of Facebook.
Everyone has a few (or many) friends on Facebook who do nothing but drive them crazy. You know who I’m talking about. You’ve seen their relentless and nonstop posting, their nonsensical ramblings, and their dirty laundry being aired out in public. These are the people who make you consider giving up Facebook altogether just so you can’t be put in the same category.
What you may not realize, however, is that you may be guilty of the very same things.
Let’s look at three annoying Facebook habits and how you may be making the same mistakes.
1. Nonstop Posting
You’re scrolling through your newsfeed, and you can’t help but notice a trend. There are certain people who just dominate your feed, virtually flooding it with updates on every little thing they’ve done throughout the day.
Went to get ice cream? Status update. Ate a sandwich? Update and photo.
And god help you if they ever go on vacation. Do you want to see every square inch of this hotel room? No? TOO BAD!
How you may be doing the same thing:
If you’re constantly updating your company’s Facebook page with status updates and photos, you’re just as annoying as the person in the aforementioned scenario. True, you may not be posting about the mundane events of your day like they’re front page news, but you’re still spamming people’s feeds.
And think about this: If there’s someone annoying you with constant updates, what do you usually do? Hide them, or worse, unfriend them. What makes you think your own Facebook fans won’t do the same to you?
Really, there’s no need to post frequently throughout the day. One or two posts a day will suffice. It’s enough to remind everyone you’re there without driving them crazy. Plus, it’s doubtful you have enough to say to spread it over 20 posts a day.
2. Nonsensical Rambling
So you’ve just cleared your feed of the spammers. “Alright,” you think. “Time for some quality Facebooking.”
But no sooner have you begun to scroll when an enigmatic status catches your eye. What in the world does that mean? Is that a poem? Song lyrics? A Marilyn Monroe quote? What are these nonsensical ramblings?
What is it that makes these people think “Oh, that’s a cool line from this song. I should post it on Facebook with absolutely no context whatsoever. That’ll be awesome.”
Come on, man. If you don’t have anything to say, don’t say anything!
How you may be doing the same thing:
That same rule should apply to your company’s page. If you don’t have anything to say, or don’t have any quality to post, then don’t post anything!
That doesn’t mean you should just sit around all day waiting for something you can post about. It just means you need to put a little bit of thought into it.
Did you read an interesting article about something related to your industry? That works, post that. Just make sure to engage your community somehow. Try asking “How do you feel about (article subject)?”
Getting a conversation going is a great way to get people coming back to your page. Just make sure you have something for everyone to talk about.
3. Airing Out Dirty Laundry
Okay, you’ve gotten past the spammers and the ramblers. NOW the real fun can begin!
There you are again, happily scrolling along, when you notice a status with a bunch of comments. “This must be quite an engaging and interesting conversation,” you think, as you prepare for a lively exchange of ideas and opinions.
Alas, you are disappointed as you find that the “lively exchange of ideas and opinions” is in fact one of your friends and his ex-girlfriend having some huge personal argument right out in the open. And it’s not the first time, either. It’s become quite the common occurrence.
How you may be doing the same thing:
It’s unclear to me exactly what it is that makes people think it’s okay to have personal conversations in a public forum like Facebook. It’s awkward and makes everyone involved look extremely self-absorbed.
This goes for business Facebook pages as well.
When you have a large number of people reading and commenting on your company’s posts, it’s more than likely that you’ll eventually see a comment or two that’s not exactly positive. Maybe it’s a former client who was dissatisfied with your service, or maybe it’s a former employee out for revenge after being fired, or quite possibly it’s someone just being a jerk for the fun of it.
As tempting as it may be to fire back at these commenters, resist the urge. Yes, there have been many cases where some clever social media coordinator totally shuts down some would-be troublemaker, but more often than not, you’ll just end up looking bad.
On that note, don’t bother trying to delete negative comments either. Trust me, people will notice, and they will say something.
Just take a deep breath, forget about it, and go find some quality content for your next post.