Social Networking Responsibility
If you got to this page expecting to learn more about my free SEO advice or professional SEO services, you can find that information here. The following is information for social media content creators on the responsibility that comes with that role, if you want your social media to help and not hurt. 🙂
It seems to be forgotten these days, but the entire point of a “social network” is communication between people.
Social networking is not like television and radio, it is not a one way means of getting your message out.
You, as a participant in social media, no matter how famous you are (or more often, perceive yourself to be), are responsible to engage your community when they take the time to comment on your stuff or interact in some way. If you are putting yourself out there on Facebook and have some 11.3k followers or whatever, yeah, that could get a little unreasonable to keep up and reply to every single comment. Tough shit, you chose to be a part of a social network.
That social net has given you a large audience, and you most certainly do owe that audience your attention in return.
No, you don’t need to respond to every troll trying to pick apart your message. You don’t need to put meaningful thought into a reply for every, “How cool!” or “I love this!”, but when someone takes the time to leave a sincere comment for you, by God get your keyboard on because by creating a Facebook or Google+ page or whatever, you’ve made a commitment.
I for one eliminate any brand or individual who fails to live up to this responsibility, and quite frankly, think significantly less of them as people. When an individual takes the time to read your material, when they take time out of their lives to communicate with you something meaningful, and you ignore them altogether, it’s not much different from being a snobby rock star who ignores a fan talking directly to him. Except, you are not a rock star, you’re just a guy on Facebook, which makes you about the opposite of a rock star.
Have the decency to act like the regular human being you are.