The Ten Commandments of Social Media Engagement
photo credit: John_Stephen_Dwyer
Much like when Moses had to go back up the hill to collect a new set of commandments after he smashed the first batch, everyone was submitting some good ideas on Twitter when lo, Twitter crashed. Sara Evans (@PRsarahevans) started off the discussion asking “What are the 10 Commandments of Social Media?” All of the posts can be found under #10comm. Anyway, before everything halted, there were some excellent suggestions for a list of Social Media’s Ten Commandments.
1. @stephkordas: “Thou shalt be human/conversant/transparent.”
2. @AlKrueger: “Thou shalt not send auto-dm to new followers telling them to check out a website or your blog.”
3. @nicroames: “Thou shalt engage in the conversation, broadcasting your stuff is not social media.”
4. @jillelswick: “Thou shalt be interested in people you’ve never met.”
5. @TamarahLand: “Thou shall re-tweet, thou shall not covet thy follower’s tweets.”
6. @abrahamlloyd: “Thou shalt answer at least one question a day from someone asking for help, advice, comfort, or direction.”
7. @mkaPR: “If thou be a star on Twitter, thou shalt be open and follow regular people too.”
8. @wordymouth: “Thou shalt not commit character assassination.”
9. @jcberk: “If you mess up, own up. Then do better.”
10. @carriekerpen: “Thou shalt listen, and engage. Thou shall not unabashadly shout your message. Thou shalt provide value.”
And there were many more. Including these two, which I think sum up the whole discussion:
11. @abrahamlloyd “Remember that colelctively every tweet, post, link, friend, vid, and pic tied to u paints a picture of who u r.”
12. @wordymouth: “Be true, be open, be willing to listen, be willing to share, always be kind and never hold anything back.”
What would you add? (Here’s another list submitted by @AlKrueger).
A public relations strategist and writer, Michael Sommermeyer contemplates the convergence of public relations, social media and marketing. He started blogging and building websites in 1993 and has written the WordyMouth blog since 2005.
Thanks for mentioning a couple of my tweets in your blog post. I thought the discussion was excellent, and raised a number of great points. An interesting thing for me, though, was that most of the ideas people offered focused on execution / participation. There was little discussion about the need / responsibility to plan or measure re: social media.
If you want to be successful with social media, these commandments provide a great set of rules to follow. They are just a start, though. Social media requires planning and measurement to be executed well. That being said, I think they need their own set of commandments.
Be human. Be humane. Be helpful. Share. Be brief.