Social media: the right and wrong way

It's fascinating to me that when on the internet there are so many "10 things not to do on social media"-type articles. And I'm ALWAYS disappointed when they're all apparent no-brainers. Don't insult people who have recently died. Don't trick people into engaging with your brand. Come on, world, is this the best we can do? (It's also fascinating that I KEEP clicking on these articles, but that's another story altogether).

I've been thinking a lot about social marketing in general and how it doesn't really have rules. It's cowboy country. Everyone is just figuring these things out - surely, that's why there are so many snafus, right? I mean it makes sense if you think that it's a relatively new area.

I read a pretty decent "5 Social Media Lessons Brands Learned This Year" article. I mean of the five, there were two good lessons (the other three were "no-brainers": don't make fun of a natural disaster; don't try to dupe people into interacting with you; don't put a 20-year-old who will post inappropriate tweets).

Come on, don't try to trick people! (although those numbers do suggest that it worked - but to what effect?!?!? 

The two good ones: stick up for yourself; don't take days off.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the two general rules that almost EVERY social media "don't"s involves are around CONSISTENCY and PUBLIC AUDIENCE RULES

Consistency

Both of the 'good' nuggets from this article fell into the "consistency" category. You need to a) POST consistently, and b) have a consistent MESSAGE. In some companies, the customers are king; bordering on dictators. For these companies that will do anything (or for ones who handle things poorly), they'll try to succumb to their nasty (sometimes deserving) posts. For other companies who provide good service and a good product, but sometimes deal with @$$holes, if it's consistent with their message and service, they can go ahead and strike back - if it's warranted!

Public Audience Rules

Basically, everything else falls into the "you're in PUBLIC" rule! In public, you can't do inappropriate, crazy things. Social media is in the public sphere - a super-public arena. Companies can't make inappropriate comments, make rants, try to dupe people, or do anything they wouldn't do in a press conference or other public forum.

This just deals with conduct of course; maybe there are more "no no"s around AUDIENCE vs BUSINESS MODELS. But maybe that'll be for next week.