Twenty-three years ago I spent the summer working in Canada. About six weeks into it a couple of people at the camp I worked at told me I was really rude because I didn’t say hi to everyone I passed on the street.
It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would have a problem with my behavior, especially since I was acting any differently than I would have back home in Los Angeles.
I shrugged my shoulders at them and said if they acted that way in L.A. people would think they were tourists and or weird. Cultural differences.
Twitter Etiquette
I have been on Twitter for five or six years now and I have seen a few changes there. Watched more people join, seen the impact of brands, businesses and Triberr to an extent.
Seen how it has evolved from a place where it was easy to have to conversations to more of a broadcast channel. Now you have to work a bit harder to engage with others and that brings me to my Triberr dilemma.
Been a part of Triberr for about two years and still am grateful for all the introductions and connections that it helped facilitate for me. It has been a wonderful tool and it has made me look very hard at blogging and social media.
Triberr has also made me think about Twitter etiquette in different terms than I once did. That is because many of my fellow tribesmen tweet out thank yous to myself and others who have helped to share their blogs.
I don’t do much of that.
Why?
I am torn because I want to thank those who share my posts but I also don’t want my streams to consist solely of links and thank yous to those who shared my posts and sometimes that is how it looks to me.
In part it is because I have more than 100 people in my tribes, could be closer to 150 or so really and that could create a ton of thank you tweets.
And while I am a fan of showing gratitude for those who help us if we don’t work to mix the streams up with useful content and conversation people just tune it out because it becomes noise.
I don’t want to be viewed as noise and or someone who adds to clutter and that is part of why I tend to issue fewer thank yous.
Weekends
I have also begun to scale back much of my social media activity on weekends. It is time I take for myself and for doing things in person and not online.
Doesn’t mean that you won’t find me online or that I won’t blog/tweet but I tend to do less of it. I can guarantee that at some point I will adjust how I do things because that is part of the joy of social media.
It evolves and what I do today may very well not be what I do tomorrow.
In August of 2013 I have Google Plus Comments and Livefyre enabled. The dual commenting system is a test that may lead to my scrapping one or both.
All part of the fun of social media and the dynamic environment it lives in.
The Goal
The goal or more accurately goals are still the same as they have always been. I blog because it is fun and because I love to write.
I use social media because I enjoy meeting new people, because it has led to friendships and financial rewards and because one day I will publish some works that I want others to read and it makes sense to build a platform.
Every month I try to look at what I have done to see if I can find a way to do it better. Some chunks of time are better than others, that is how it goes.
What about you?
Hi Jack,
A subject of great interest to me at the moment, because I seem to spend a lot of time thanking people who share my stuff – I always try to acknowledge, as long as I’m aware someone has given me a mention or shared my content – I just think it’s polite, but I hear what you’re saying about clogging up our social media streams with ‘thank you’ posts. I also sometimes wonder how sustainable it is in terms of the amount of time it takes.
I agree with the person who’s said you need to switch your comment streams around to make a fair comparison – I almost commented via Google, simply because it was on top 🙂
Sue
PS I hope you sent Livefyre for a VERY long stroll without a map – don’t like it much!
Hi Sue,
It is a challenge. I have been fortunate to have days where there are tons of mentions and if I spent time thanking everyone all you would see is a continuous stream of just that.
I have a big challenge trying to integrate other content between what I share through Triberr, but it feels uncomfortable not to say thank you.
As for the commenting, well I am working on some layout stuff here. Have a great day and thanks for visiting.
Like Sharon, I.am.Canadian.thank you:) I always thank people who share my words, and I strive to add a bit more than the words “thank you”. I ask a question, follow up on something we’ve talked about, or add a little “spice” whenever I can. Sometimes it is a simple thank you, sometimes a bit more. For me, acknowledging others is important.
As far as all the “stuff and changes” online, (OMG I read an article this morning on the importance of long posts and my head is now going to explode), I need to remember to stay true to myself. I started my blog simply to write. I now spend more time researching and lamenting what I don’t know and running to catch up on the newest thing…Today, this “quill pen person living in a digital world” is going back to basics. Cheers! Kaarina
Hi Kaarina,
You are good about thanking people, conspicuously so and that is a good thing.
Back to basics is a good thing, it works, it really does.
Thanks for a really thought-provoking and timely post. I’m new to Tribrr. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much my posts have been shared. Saying thank-you, more importantly, expressing gratitude, is so important to me (and I’m Canadian. You made me smile.)
I’ve been thinking about how to keep up, how to keep my engagement genuine and thoughtful. Your post and the comments really helped me think through my response. I tend not to be active on social media on the weekends. I really need down time and the pace and volume of content is significant.
I love the idea of expressing gratitude through sharing the other person’s work. I do that already but hadn’t thought of it as a thank you.
Thanks for helping someone new to this get some clarity,
Sharon
Hi Sharon,
Welcome to the blog. Triberr has been one of the best sources I have found for meeting interesting people and finding new blogs. I really like it for that and it has been useful for blogging or should I say building the blog.
But it is the people that really move me because I have had some great discussions with others who have helped make me think about why I do what I do and why.
A lot of good stuff there.
That’s what I am enjoying most about this experience – the learning and thinking. I’ve met all kinds of people who really have me thinking more deeply and critically about why I do what I do and what I want to accomplish with the time I invest in blogging and social interaction. It’s nice to have met one more interesting person!
Cheers,
Sharon
I do not say thank you to 99% of the people who RT me. They may think I’m rude, but I’m okay with that. 99% of the people who RT me are from Triberr so they are only RT’ing me cuz that’s what they agreed to do. My thanks comes in the form of RT’ing their material, mentioning them in a blog post, or chatting them up. I don’t believe in “check the box” communication.
On a similar note, my mom doesn’t like those Christmas letters people create annually which spell out family updates. She prefers to receive an actual card, because she finds the cards are more personal than the mass-copied letters. I completely disagree — I find a box full of mass-produced cards bearing an impersonal message created by someone paid to come up with holiday jingles, and then signed with a scrawled name right before it gets smacked into an envelope, much less intimate than a letter which helps me know how my friend’s year went. Truth be told, both are merely obligatory greetings, but at least one {the letter} has some personal effort involved.
And that’s what it comes to. If you’re going to send me your obligatory message {be it holiday greetings or a RT thank you}, put some daggone effort into it. Otherwise, just skip it because I don’t care to spend the time reading your “check the box” efforts. Of course, I’m a nobody with fewer than 1000 followers, so maybe I’m not the best example to follow. But at least I’m not fake! 🙂
Hi Andi,
I agree that check the box efforts fall short of what I want and leave me feeling a bit underwhelmed. Sharing and commenting go much farther.
Hey, what happened to livefyre?
It got tired and went for a walk.