Netiquette
While the Internet is often considered to be the "wild west," there are now some fairly established social conventions you should be aware of that, like rules of business etiquette or diplomatic protocol, can strongly color the impression others have of you and influence them to be favorably or unfavorably disposed toward you. The author provides a handful of tips and suggestions for proceeding.
(EN: The author doesn't stress this enough for my liking ... that being careless in your online conduct can seriously poison later attempts to engage the online community. The Internet has an infinite memory, and it holds long grudges. While it is not entirely unforgiving, it can be difficult to recover from a misstep, so proceed with extreme caution. Social marketers would be well advised to make a more extensive study of the topic.)
Sidebar: Personas
The author suggests creating a handle for yourself - an anonymous pseudonym that conceals your "real" identity. He suggests this can be done if you want to get up to "hijinks" on the Web, engaging in behavior your employer, clients, customers, or peers might frown upon, and being careful about what you do under your real name, which is a personal brand.
It is also a useful way to experiment with social media, using a "disposable" identity that you can easily discard should you make mistakes and blunders that you don't want to weigh you down.
(EN: Anonymity on the Web, including the use of personas, is a fairly extensive and somewhat controversial topic. What the author gives here is good advice, and a persona is good to adopt if you need to experiment, but there's much more to be said on the topic.)
Eight Critical Lessons
Lesson #1: Listen
Of primary importance, take the time to familiarize yourself with the ongoing conversation before you open your own mouth. Few things are more annoying than the "newbie" who shows up and begins chattering about topics that have already been discussed and asking questions that have already been answered.
Lesson #2: Small Steps
One bit of advice is to being with small sites, or in small corners of the larger ones, rather than trying to make a giant splash right away. It will be much easier to familiarize yourself with a smaller subset of information and build up, and any mistakes you make will be evident to fewer people.
Lesson #3: Make Friends
Making online "friends" can be easier than in the real world (where location and time often separate people); also, people online are more approachable than in real life. As with real-world friendships, proceed gradually and with good intentions. Also, heed the previous advice about small steps: a person who attempts to make many "friends" of a networking site, or who clearly has ulterior motives, quickly makes a bad name for himself.
Lesson #4: Disclosure
Two critical tenets of PR is authenticity and transparency. Especially when representing your company, make no attempt to hide that. While being open about being a social marketer for XYZ Corporation might make some reluctant to engage with you, the reaction will be far worse if you attempt to keep it a secret and it eventually is discovered.
You should also be clear about your intent: if you want a blogger to review your product, ask him to do so, and don't offer any sort of incentive to compromise his objectivity (an example given is offering an incentive for reviews - it will come out, and the value of hose reviews, and any others, will be diminished), though it's generally accepted to provide a "free sample" of the item to be reviewed.
Lesson #5: Respect Volunteerism
Understand that most bloggers aren't professional journalists, but volunteers who are writing out of their genuine interest (and often, contributing their own time to the task). There are a handful of key differences, which can work for or against you:
- Bloggers requirements for content are less rigid. They do not have a quota and are not working on deadline. While many are prolific, the spirit of "when I get around to it" prevails
- Bloggers are not held to the standards of objective journalism, and many consider their opinions to be a significant part of their "voice." Moreover, they expect their readers need to be entertained in order to remain engaged.
- Bloggers make connections. They are not ignorant of the world, and will not rely only on what you tell them. Many will seek validation, so send links (and they will share them)
- Bloggers recognize and reject biased marketing messages, pretty much in the same way a journalist will reject a biased press release, a blogger will reject "sales" material
- Bloggers can be vindictive. If they feel you are abusing their attention, they will not hesitate to go public with their resentment.
- Few bloggers can be counted on to respect "embargoes," so if your intention is to make information public at a given date and maintain silence before then, you generally can't trust a blogger not to "leak" the story
- Bloggers expect professional treatment. While they are not "real" professional journalists, they expect the same level of professionalism and regard.
Lesson #6: Reputation
Your reputation as an individual precedes you, ad anything you have done or said in the past will come back to haunt you. Not only is it common practice for people to "Google" your name to find out more about you, but the Internet Archive (www.archive.org) preserves information you may have assumed disappeared. Any comments you have made on a bad day, or any information you (or others) may have unintentionally leaked, is out there and may always be.
Also, your company's reputation precedes you, and any information published by the company or about the company is out there to be found, and not forgotten.
(EN: All this sounds pretty damning, but it's worth noting that reputation can be repaired. While you may never get those spring break photos from college offline, you can bury them in more recent information.)
Lesson #7: Moderation
As a marketer, being labeled a "spammer" is deadly to your reputation and your ability to reach anyone else going forward. You must be moderate and discreet in sending out information, and ensure you're communicating to an audience who's open to receive.
Some specific tips:
- Address people as individuals, and send a tailored message to each. Avoid sending a bulk mail to many with a "dear webmaster" salutation.
- Do not approach unknown bloggers with a proposal, especially an overture to a "link exchange" - this has been worn out
- Do not include links to your own blog or profile in comments made on others, and definitely don't include a link to any promotional material
- Do not post a "comment" without having read the blog entry, and make sure the comment is clearly relevant to the topic
- Be discriminate about "pitching" to people who are active in social media. Review their profile to ensure it is likely to be well received.
- Do not broadcast press re4leases via e-mail. In fact, avoid bulk e-mail for any reason whatsoever.
- Do not attempt to sneak links to your company into any other site (such as Wikipedia)
- Do not offer payment for promotion, and beware of anyone who asks for payment or promotion, and expect any quid-pro-quo to be publicized (better yet, be up-front about it yourself)
(EN: When placement is important, consider using online advertising. While it is often widely ignored, paying for advertisement is not considered inappropriate and does not harm your reputation.)
Lesson #8: Honesty
Reputation is based largely on credibility, and dishonesty is one of the quickest ways to undercut credibility. Moreover, when a lie is discovered (and it inevitably is), people will call attention to it, and the damage you suffer will be considerable.
Beware as well of guerilla marketing tactics that are on the edge of honesty. You definitely don't want your company to be the one that's mentioned in all the articles when a new term such as "astroturfing" or "sockpuppeting" is coined.
Netiquette and Etiquette
Advice on etiquette largely comes down to common sense, and much of it is the same as is practiced in face-to-face interaction. But for whatever reason, people seem to loose their common sense online and will do and say things that they would plainly recognize as being wrong in "real" life - so probably the best test of netiquette is to consider what real-world interaction is most analogous, and decide what etiquette would dictate.