The culture of social media is different and users need to understand the proper ways to behave online. Following proper social media etiquette is key to being successful online, business or otherwise. Just because you are behind a computer in your basement doesn’t mean all social etiquette goes out the window, far from it.

These are the absolute no-no

1. Don’t jump on the friendship bandwagon without properly introducing yourself. You wouldn’t do this in real life circumstances so don’t do it online. Give proper introductions especially if people don’t well, know you.
2. Don’t abuse application invites by consistently inviting friends to participate in vampire games. Many people call this spam
3. If you are a Facebook user, your friends will join the groups they want without constant encouragement from you. Don’t send group invitations more than once by asking them to join via email or wall post or messages
4. Don’t publicize your personal matters on the wall. People don’t need to see you air your dirty laundry
5. When using Twitter it is consider rude to follow a user and then unfollow them before they get a chance to follow back
6. Do not mass follow everyone so that you can artificially inflate your numbers and then use this number as metric for influence
7. Don’t constantly request your friends to Retweet your Tweets. It is even more bothersome when these requests come via IM or email and not on Twitter itself. If you content is good enough to stand on its own it will be Retweeted, no need to make personal requests.
8. For those using LinkedIn Don’t gather email addresses of users you are connected to and then use the mailing list to promote your own company or service off-site.
9. Don’t ask for endorsements from individuals you don’t know or that didn’t do a good job in your employ
10. When blogging don’t submit a story that is completely off-topic. You need to understand the rules of the sites that you target
11. When you comment on other articles show credibility by signing your name instead of signing off as Dead Man Walking
12. Don’t use content from another blog without attribution. Make sure to link out where appropriate and give credit where it is due
13. Don’t send a pitch to a blogger requesting link exchange even though your site has no relevancy at all to their content
14. Do not turn a blog into a flame war against someone you don’t like and if you are wrong about something you said acknowledge the wrongdoing and don’t use other blogs to tarnish someone’s image

With the changes happening with social media, the focus has changed for business. It is far more effective to be recognized and recommended by your customers, than to promote your business through push type advertising. This means that as a business you have to have a presence where your potential customers are on social media sites. The focus is relationships first, so that people know, like and trust you. Buying from you is outside of social media after you have been recognized by your expertise.

Over the last few weeks I have heard several stories about organizations using Social Media to hire new employees. Increasingly. however, employees are also being hired to be on Social media sites all day building relationships with potential clients, promoting their organizations brand and doing market research.

Sites such as Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter have all been used to advertise and fill positions. Career Fairs actively encourage job search through social media

Has anyone got an example to share of getting a job through Social Media or being hired to use Social Media to market an organization? Please let us know.