Five Ways to Lose Friends and Followers

I am a very active user of social media and I add, follow, hide, and unfollow people all the time. I am constantly adjusting my wall or feed depending on the service. Twitter is probably the easiest to manage and Google+ still hasn’t become popular enough to warrant much tweaking. Facebook however, requires constant babysitting.

In some cases, it is Facebook’s internal fiddling as they tweak the interface subtly or not-so-subtly with increasing frequency. In most cases however, it’s just people using the system in ways that are annoying.

To minimize my pain, I now follow people who have allowed that option for their account (and if you are looking to get eyes on posts, it’s a no-brainer to allow it) because unfollowing carries a lot less emotion than unfriending. However, there are plenty who, for whatever reason, I have friended and who do things that annoy me. If I follow or friend you and you start doing any of these five things, chances are I won’t be for long.

1. Endless self-promotion.

I get it; you want to sell your products or promote your events but if your friends didn’t buy it the first time, they aren’t going to buy it the next time. Constantly pitching to the same room is no way to build a following. This goes double for designers and social media managers who feel that if they had a hand in creating a company’s website or social media account then they can ask their friends to like that company’s page.

Build a page for your brand/business and share a status from that page now and then on your personal page. Promote recent projects as just that on your business page rather than using the suggest-to-friends link. Friends who are truly interested in what you do will follow it and you’ll get a much better conversion rate.

2. Poll overload.

I recently emailed a local media outlet because while I love their news updates, I hate the constant fishing for input on stories — “What do you think about the city’s decision on X? Comment or call us at the station.” This is not now social media works; fishing for comments just makes you look desperate. Polls should be infrequent, not hourly.

Give readers the original story, “City decides to X” and readers will share their opinions if the story has any controversy or merit.

3. Being overly negative.

Some people are pessimists, I get that. What I don’t get is when someone goes out of their way to rain on everyone’s parade, when all of their comments are put downs, criticisms, or complaints. I get that people have a bad day or bad week but maybe that’s not the week to be on social media.

Try to see your posts from others’ perspectives. Step back and check your attitude. Share something positive or personal. If you are only critical, people will tune out.

4. A wall full of monotone media.

Yes, I take note of  your sources and if you post repeatedly from one blog, one news site or one aggregator — whether it is a news channel, humour site, or themed blog — I will eventually hide your posts or unfollow you. Where possible, I may just hide the source (“Hide all from annoyingsource.com”) but where it gets really annoying is when I already follow the source and you are clearly just rebroadcasting.

Show some originality. Branch out. Find new sources or post your own thoughts. At the very least, add some editorial commentary to what you are posting rather than just sharing without comment. If you love the source and think others will too, just link to the main source and suggest others follow.

5. Post passive-agressive copy-and-paste status updates.

In moderation, I can excuse these but if you regularly post “I bet most of my friends won’t share this…” or “Let’s see if my friends are paying attention…” or “Are you brave enough to post this on your status for just one hour?…” copy-and-paste updates, I’m going to lose interest really fast. These are the equivalent to chain mail of my youth. I hated those too. Remember last month’s Giraffe Riddle that took over whole circles of Facebook? Or how about the “change your avatar to X to show your support for Y” campaigns. None of these offer more than lip service toward a cause and even that giraffe riddle ended up starting arguments rather than being fun.

Again, try being original and personal. Social media is no place for bullies.

While any of these five could easily make my finger click on the “hide all” or “unfollow/unfriend” button, I know we are all human and we are all trying to swim in the same digital pool. Sometimes these are self-correcting or temporary.

Sometimes, I just sigh and accept these social media faux pas for what they are and scroll ahead; if I’m still following you after you do these things, it’s because I really like you. 😉