Here are my social media 101 tips for all who wants to use social media effectively for your organization, business or your personal campaigns. I have learnt this the hard way 🙂 and I try (painfully at times) to live by these guidelines!

1. Be Kind in your posts.
2. Don’t be stupid.
3. Lazy questions get lazier answers.
4. Use stories backed by facts, datas and verify them before using.
5. You won’t benefit from anonymous criticisms. Ignore them. (Seth godin said this).
6. Don’t follow people you don’t want to follow (on Twitter or Facebook) o whose posts you have started finding boring. Keep your timeline distraction free.
7. Keep private posts private. Don’t mix your personal with public.
8. Don’t fight publicly. Handle hurtful, critical comments and trolls with comments, “noted” or “acknowledged”. Ban them if they are pesky.
9. Don’t defend or justify unless you believe you have made a terrible mistake. Acknowledge and move on. Statements like “Let’s agree to disagree” helps.
10. Negative posts get a cynical responses (you might get a lot of feedback, but people will not respect you in the long run).
11. Be positive. People love that. Be creative when provoking or holding others accountable.
12. Consistently show your good side. Open up!
13. There is no better formula for being liked than by becoming yourself.
14. Nothing beats personal interaction. (No technology or social media interaction: Don’t ever fall under that illusion). Go meet people you like.
15. Appreciate any posts you liked. Don’t be shy on this. One thing everyone craves is genuine appreciation.
16. Acknowledge in any posts you share, the person/place you got that information from.
17. Remember this before posting: Does your post signify you are a doer OR just a talker?
18. Avoid using curse words that offends. Use it strategically only when you are ready to withstand public outcry. It rarely helps and usually stings you years after you post.
19. Post in the mornings or evenings to be more effective. And weekends usually get slow responses (for me).
20. Pause at least 10 seconds before you hit “post” anything, always ! Re-edit everything you write. The 1st times are usually crappy, clumsy writings for almost all of us.
21. When sharing, realize people don’t care about you. People care about what value they get from you (your posts).
22. Save time. Integrate your Facebook and Twitter posts and even your blog  through plugins readily found in the internet, so that once you post, it posts in as many places as possible.
23. If you are away, schedule your Facebook, Twitter posts through “buffer” app.
24. Remember, once you post, chances are it will always stay on internet, even after you die.
25. Don’t post anything that  you wouldn’t go out and say it to a perfect stranger.
26. If you want to criticize, first take a minute of break from your phone/computer. Come back and if you have to, first acknowledge and thank people for their thoughts and then mention why you disagree in a way without attack someone personally.
27. Finally, I urge you to NEVER share your password or share your Facebook account with anyone (not even your friends or family member). One mistake and if spammers /hackers compromise your account, all your credibility might go down the drain! Log out if you share your computer with others in family (every time !)

If you want to see some examples o this, do follow me here. I am also on twitter here.