Considering Social Network Etiquette
Christopher S. Penn says of me, “We take Chris everywhere twice. The second time is to apologize.” The joke is that I have a certain kind of personality that often gets misinterpreted, especially in the digital format, and in so doing, I tend to upset various online communities through some slip of etiquette. I’ve come to accept this, and in most cases, I’ve made efforts to improve my lot.
A friend told me about a situation on Twitter where someone took the time to send my friend a direct message (akin to writing a digital personal note), but that the message basically said, “You’re not a bad person, but I’m not interested in what you Twitter.” (My paraphrase). My friend was upset by the gesture, and felt that it seemed unusually cruel to make extra effort to announce that this person was leaving the party. I said that I felt it was a matter of not understanding the norms of Twitter, and that’s what got me thinking about this.
YOU Are In On This
This is an open post. The idea is to post comments about social etiquette, and to think about this together. I want to start something here, grow it with you, and then put something out. So, let’s start. You jump right in, with questions to be answered, comments, whatever you want.
And in the mean time, I’ll write out some online social network etiquette questions and answers of my own that you can answer differently, if you don’t like my idea, or that you can take as a guide. Here are some Q&A starters:
If I decide I don’t like someone’s Twitters, how do I leave?
I believe in Twitter, it’s polite to just leave the user without sending a message. Don’t use direct messages to “break up with” the person you’re following. Especially if you haven’t had DM conversations before.
Is it okay to dump my mail inbox into Facebook and invite everyone?
Sure. But consider what message you’re sending out to all those folks, especially if your inbox has mixed business/personal use. You might consider manually adding people if your mailbox import contains lots of people you DON’T want to have join a service.
Someone added me as a friend on Pownce, but I don’t know them. Do I add them back?
Depends. My practice is to add everyone, and only remove doofuses. It depends on your stalker fears, your need for intimate connections versus crowd patterns. How do YOU want to use the service?
I hate all the @ conversations in Twitter. Can’t people just use Direct Messages?
People use @username because it’s easier, because it allows others to follow a conversation, and because with the new Replies tab (in Twitter), it makes following a conversation easier. It’s the social norm there now.
I can’t stand those zombie bites and food fight apps on Facebook.
Don’t play along, if you don’t want. It sends the message of how you want to use the app. Don’t feel that this is a ‘when in Rome’ situation. Use the networking tool the way you want to use it.
Someone asked me to forward an introduction on LinkedIN, but I’m not all that comfortable doing it.
If you know the person making the request reasonably well, consider sending an email to discuss this. There are some subtleties in passing a request along, such that the end recipient judges YOU alongside the original requester. If you feel your reputation might be somehow tarnished by this request, give it some thought. But then, why are you linked to someone you don’t feel comfortable introducing to others?
I’m getting creepy private messages from a new “friend” on Facebook. Should I drop him?
My theory of weirdos is simple. Drop them quietly, softly, and without fanfare. If there’s a way to let them stay friends on a service, but remove their ability to see your updates, cool. If not, drop them quietly.
YOUR THOUGHTS
Let’s open this up to you. What else can we add to the post? Updated Q&A will go up into the main post as I find gems to add to the piece. Thanks!
Photo credit, caseywest
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Comments
Thanks for a very thoughtful post.
Each of these social networks struggles hard to differentiate itself and this attracts sometimes only slightly different overlapping social groups, but sometimes very different, so to come up with overall rules which apply everywhere is almost impossible. What’s netiquette in MySpace is different to, say, Facebook, and certainly to Twitter where the demographic and expectations are based on knowledge of different social memes.
I do think there are class differences and that means manners differences. I wouldn’t dream of (for example) using **profanity in jest** within LinkedIn, but I certainly would in MySpace, where it’s de rigeur. Equally, if I write for a newspaper or journal, I am going to use / avoid certain turns of phrase, depending on the publishing outlet.
I am still surprised at the extent of personal information that people are prepared to freely offer up to Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, especially regarding their physical / geographical whereabouts. We’re possibly only a few moments away from criminal activity, based around someone knowing that someone else is miles from their home, and using that information to remove items of value in their absence. Now, unless you’re naturally suspicious you maybe won’t think in such terms of vulnerability; but this is where the danger lies in social networking - they are wide open to be exploited by anyone, from any background, with any motive, and we rather kid ourselves that the bubble we play inside is protective. It isn’t, and this is why people can get hurt. In the end, social networks are only as well behaved and pleasant as the people using them.
Chris,
Good stuff (it feels really uncomfortable for an English person to keep passing complements, sorry if I sound muted).
I have one thought so far, in the section:
“I hate all the @ conversations in Twitter. Can’t people just use Direct Messages?
People use @username because it’s easier, because it allows others to follow a conversation, and because with the new Replies tab (in Twitter), it makes following a conversation easier. It’s the social norm there now. ”
I would like to add. @s are not all about conversation they are also about communication and building community (see your previous post). large ,long winded @ conversations do tend to get up my nose - but that is just me. The odd ‘high there’ or ‘yeh - been there - sucks doesn’t it’, add a human interactive touch to what otherwise is a potentially voyeuristic medium.
AJ
It’s sometimes hard to get the lay of the digital land, and this is why posts like this are so important. I belong to a few parenting-centric social networks, and it’s interesting to me how those Community norms are somewhat different than those elsewhere.
What strikes me is that we need to understand that there should be fundamentally little difference between what you would do online or offline. If you wouldn’t tell someone to their face you want to break up with them, but instead would casually back out of the friendship, then do the same online. Remember, you are talking to real people with real feelings, and being kind and considerate of others is always better than being rude, or nasty or simply callous.
I use twitter as my virtual water cooler for my online “associates” - like work friends. Some people I feel closer to than others, but it’s like a work environment. You might not love everyone, but everyone is unique, has their own world view, and there can be surprising little treasures in even the darkest corners. So while we may all feel a little overwhelmed by the vast amount of communication online, don’t take your frustration out on others- manage your own channels and engagement in them instead.
You control your own actions and emotions- other people won’t make you mad unless you let them, and that seems to be giving up a lot of personal power to strangers, if you ask me.
I agree with what Dean said about privacy and what people put on social networking profiles or what they add to updates on Twitter. Like him, I’m amazed sometimes at what people will add to their profiles, including addresses, cell phone numbers, detailed running commentaries about one’s whereabouts, compromising photos, etc.
Whenever someone adds something to their profile, or adds a friend, they need to understand that no matter what their privacy setting is, they are broadcasting that information to the world.
Interesting post, Chris, as usual.
I like that this was positioned as Etiquette and not as Rules. O’Reilly’s Rules for Bloggers really annoyed some people. Etiquette somehow seems more in line with what we are trying to build here.
I wonder if it is worthwhile to talk about who you *friend*. Or are those annoying friend accumulators (esp on Facebook) not going to be paying attention?
I actually agreed with everything you wrote, your own answers. If I have a person I don’t feel like following on twitter anymore, I just drop them silently, not start a ruckus over it. Also, if someone is making me uncomfortable, I do the same–silently and without fanfare, as you said. Now as far as setting up a new account on twitter/pownce/facebook, I did so one friend at a time–I don’t believe in the address book dump. I tend to get my point across better online than I do in person–I get in trouble in person all the time–I guess because online I have time to think about what I want to say, and say it correctly, as opposed to when I’m face-to-face with someone and don’t have a lot of time to formulate my responses. Does that make sense?
Great post, Chris!
Personally I like the use of @ in tweets. If people like you, Paull, CC and CSpenn hadn’t used @s…I wouldn’t have found half of the people I now have on my twitter friends list! One thing is looking at your friends’ lists and see who they’ve added, but the @s give me more of an idea on who I would probably +like+ to add…based on the conversations I am seeing happening between you guys.
I’d like to see the question “Is it rude to ask “How do I know you?” in response to a friend request?” turned around into an etiquette point about how to add or follow people you don’t know personally because you find their tweets/posts useful in some way. Would it be polite to direct message them in advance to let them know you’re adding them and why, even though they don’t know you?
Chris:
I’ve been told that I tend to be abrasive in some social networking situations. Yeah, I kind of am, but that’s my personality. I try to be careful, but sometimes I just let something fly.
Anyway, I believe that if you post a comment to someone’s blog and they decide they don’t like it and subsequently delete it, they should address any response to you privately through email. However, should the blogger choose to respond to you publicly (i.e. through another comment or blog post), they should leave your original comment.
Recently, I responded to a post on an entertainer’s website and this person didn’t like what I said. The entertainer not only deleted my post, but edited the original blog post. Rather than responding to me using the email address I had provided, the entertainer said something to me in a comment to the post. Basically, the entertainer left it to subsequent readers of the blog post and comments to assume that I’d said something pretty awful, as opposed to mildly insulting.
Sure, if you have a blog site, it’s your site and you make the rules, but if your rules include being able to respond to people’s comments even after they are deleted, perhaps you should post that policy so commenters will know about it beforehand.
I have a personal preference for “open” communities like Twitter for socialization. Invites seem necessary for business communication, but feel too “exclusive” in social situations. I always feel a little put out when someone asks “how do I know you?” in Twitter. The answer (for me) is sometimes simply “I found your page through another friend and I liked your tweets”. I don’t go down to the local pub when I need a job, and I wouldn’t expect a prospective employer to allow me to walk right in, sit down and start chatting everyone up at the office.
With all that being said, I really like the use of @ in Twitter. It’s like a party, and @ lets you overhear people’s conversations, so you can decide if you want to jump in, and maybe introduce yourself to someone new. Direct messages, invites, privacy, exclusivity, I see these as necessary for business, but a total drag for socialization.
On Twitter, which tends to be more casual and voyeuristic, I don’t ask fans how I know them - I just assume they are a FOAF or saw my tweets on the public timeline.
On something like Facebook or MySpace, I would ask where I know the person from, not to be confrontational but to put their profile in context. And when I make a friend request on Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, I always try to let that person know how I know them if I think there might be any question. It’s a courtesy that saves them wondering who I am and makes it easier for them to decide whether to friend me or not.
As an early adopter of Twitter, I used to get uptight when I saw the proliferation of ‘@’ messages. Now I get it.
My purpose in using Twitter has changed over the months since I started using it. I now use it to participate in conversation, let others know what’s going on with me, point to content too large on Twitter, and make/keep in touch with friends.
I’ve especially enjoyed finding people in my own geographic area through TwitDir.com, and I hope that I can connect through other online means and even meet up with more friends locally in person.
I’ve decided to use Twitter and other social networks to for relationship-building and personal branding, so knowing how to “take the pulse” of the current climate of a social network is something of value.
Another question: what should be the rule about replying to @’s & DM’s? Is it rude not to acknowledge these?
Excellent points, Chris. I especially enjoyed your 21st Century approach to “Dear John” letters ala Twitter.
BTW, I liked your post so much, I linked to it from the Twitter Fan Wiki.
Chris,
You always write such great stuff.
Twitter, for me, is as much a creative outlet as podcasting is. A chance for me to participate in a way that’s most comfortable as an ongoing conversation. I’ve intentionally “misused” the @’s in tweets to let others find the people I find interesting. It’s not always about playing by the given rules. Are we nothing more than sheep? All these different sites are tools in our arsenal for social behavior…isn’t that what we all strive for..to make connections with people.
As for stalkers, they will always exist, some people are just more needy of attention for any number of reasons, but the best way is as you say Chris, drop them quietly with no fanfare. As Whitney implies, it’s just as easy to be kind as it is to be mean…I doubt many of the a-holes are reading your blog…
Thanks for this Chris. You have an excellent way of sharing.
Andy Bilodeau
http://andycast.net
Hi Chris, great post and thanks for all the super tweets too.
Twitter is becoming useful in so many ways - as news feeder, friends connector, ideas distributor, discussion starter, opinion gatherer - and best of all, a cumulative ’social sixth sense’, as expressed by Clive Thompson in Wired magazine (thanks to Neville Hobson for tweeting about this great article): http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-07/st_thompson
In terms of etiquette, I’m finding it increasingly helpful when people use the same avatar image on various social networking sites. It’s just easier to identify/locate them each time.
Chris,
Thanks for taking the lead and using your non-bully pulpit to open up the conversation about this topic, especially since it would be almost impossible to actually discuss on Twitter. I agree with the majority of your suggestions and those from commenters.
I do not sense any Alexander Haig, “I’m in charge here” attitude. In my mind, you have taken the lead on getting the community talking and acting so many times, you ARE the person that can bring up a sensitive topic in a thoughtful way. You’re not roping off the sandbox, you’re just suggesting a better way to play. That’s fair.
Keep being a force for good.
[...] Considering Social Network Etiquette : [chrisbrogan.com] (tags: web2.0 socialnetworking socialmedia twitter) [...]
Updating …
What does “Netiquette” look like in today’s world of social media and social networking? In his recent post, “Considering Social Network Etiquette”, Chris Brogan starts a conversation about what are the rules of etiquette in these new services lik…
[...] Great post from Chris Brogan regarding how we behave (and misbehave) in the multiple social networks we live in. Is it a free-for-all game of who has the most adds like on My Space? Is it fair to troll through your friends facebook lists to see who you haven’t added to yours? Just how creepy is it to have someone you dont know ask for a link on LinkedIn or Facebook, or does Scoble have it right when he adds everyone to his Pownce list? [...]
My question is, what is the etiquette with friends and friends of friends? I have a female friend who has added all of my other friends (a large percentage of whom she has only met in passing, once) onto her MySpace and Facebook. I find it unnerving when she sends them comments like ‘I miss you so much’ considering she only met the person once…it was to the point where I had made plans with a friend and she got annoyed that she wasn’t included - even though she only met the other person a handful of times. It’s very annoying and I feel crowded and like I don’t have my own space anymore. How to I tell her to back off my friends and give me some space, without having to delete her or quit MySpace/Facebook?
Let me make sure I get it, Ally: someone you know added YOUR friends, and she’s really only connected to them through you. Right? And she’s met them maybe once ever in real life.
And now, on MySpace/FB whatever, she’s giving them all kinds of smooches and things?
My thought is this: You didn’t facilitate them getting to know each other (the way LinkedIN requires someone to pass on an invite). And so you’re not exactly responsible for her behavior.
That just might be her version of being cordial. No worries. If your friends hit you with comments or mail saying she’s weird, agree. Say, “Yep, that’s just how Jezabel does what she does.”
No harm. No foul. Now, on LINKEDIN, that’s different. Over there, it’s your dumb fault for connecting them. Be VERY wary of your reputation there, because over there, it WAS your choice to connect those two.
Make sense?
[...] West of librarian.net, along with many others, has covered the issue before me: “Do I take my ex off my buddy list? Do I remove his blog [...]
[...] Brogan, C. (2007, July 9) Considering social network etiquette. Retrieved May 8, 2008 from http://www.chrisbrogan.com/considering-social-network-etiquette/ [...]
Nice post, Chris.
Facebook has the “limited profile” option, which lets you have a slightly trimmed version of who you are visible to people you want to connect with but to whom don’t want to expose everything, which is nice.
Someone put up a picture of me doing something I really don’t want out there! What do I do?
Is it rude to ask “How do I know you?” in response to a friend request?
No, not at all. I mean, not in and of itself. If you slept with this person last night and you don’t remember who they are, that might be rude. By and large, people understand, particularly if they met you in a large event, that people can be deluged with requests and a quick refresher is not at all unreasonable.
Related to ettiquette, a “what networks do you need?” guide might be useful. Something to say why most people are on a network so you know where to direct your efforts when you want to do something.
Where can I have a directory I never need to update?
Most social networking tools allow for direct messaging, so if all else fails, you can use DM to find any of your contacts. However, Facebook and Myspace have standard fields for other contact info, and on Facebook, many people publish phone numbers there that might not elsewhere, because of the higher security.
Where can I share photos?
Flickr is designed primarily for sharing photos, but doesn’t offer many other capabilities. Facebook offers a lot of space for photos, but the format and size are highly limited. Flickr for high quality.
Where do I go to have a customized page where I can build my identity?
Myspace offers tremendous customization in terms of graphics and color scheme and the ability to embed music and video into your page. virb does a lot of this as well, but also has the advantage that you don’t have to view other peoples’ customizations if you don’t want to. Facebook’s apps duplicate some of myspaces’ functionality, but do not let you change the basic look of the page. Myspace is by default public, so it may be a more effective center, whereas you need to provide a public link to your facebook profile. By default, no one who isn’t registered on facebook can see your facebook page.
Where do I go if I want to win contests?
Facebook has sponsored contests sometimes, and often there are ads with prizes/contests available, but maybe you want Sugarloot? They’re ALL about winning things.
Where do I get help finding a job?
The Grand-daddy of job-centric networks is LinkedIn, but it’s still invite only. Ask around your friends. Facebook also started a marketplace recently and there’s a job section there, and they hooked their “career center” into jobster.com. That said, it’s not common practice to ask someone about a job on a general purpose social networking site unless they’ve posted about it specifically.
Maybe this is a separate post, but if you know why most people are on a network, it can help avoid a social blunder.