Aug
20
First principles of social media
Some simple guidelines:
- Be honest
- Honesty really is the best policy. And this applies to “half-truths”, too. Ignore this at your peril: if you conveniently skip details, mislead or misdirect, or worse — outright lie, then you will be found out, and not only will you look very foolish, but you’ll lose a lot of goodwill.
- Be open
- Don’t hide behind procedures: if somebody can get a piece of information by filling in a form or asking Companies House or similar, there’s no sense in not just handing it over. It’s easier all round, and — even if the subject matter is a little inconvenient — helps give people confidence in you. And, if the subject matter is inconvenient, the fact that people might find out shouldn’t be the prime concern.
- Read/write
- Talk to people. Have conversations. When people ask you questions, answer them openly and honestly.
- Don’t feed the trolls
- Personal attacks? Straightforward abusiveness? Just don’t bother.
- Know when to take it private
- Sometimes things are better dealt with out of the public eye, even if how the approach was made. Again, this isn’t about hiding things which aren’t convenient, but to save everybody else from having to read about specific ins-and-outs of a problem or where personal details need to be exchanged. Take it to e-mail.
