Facebook – The art of not putting people off

Whether you have been using Facebook personally or for your business, keeping your friends or followers is an art, just like in real life. Here are some tips on how NOT to put people off.

post too often

If you have something significant to share, do it. If not, don’t do it. I doubt there’s a meaningful post every 10 minutes or else it could be meaningful to you, but is it really to your readers? Posting too often is like talking too much. After a while, people will get overwhelmed by your comments and hide them from their news feed or unfriend you.

talking about you all the time

This is similar to having a conversation with someone and talking about yourself a lot, but never asking a question about them. How do you feel if you’re talking to someone and all they do is talk about themselves? If that’s the main thing you do, you’ll run the same risk as if you were posting too often.

Sending of invitations

If you’re creating events, you have the option to specifically invite people or just allow the event to be posted to your wall. If you invite people to your events, make sure it’s about something they might be interested in and is happening in their area. Receiving a flood of invitations to events in Timbuktu puts off people who don’t live nearby.

About self-promotion

Yes, many people would agree that social media is a good marketing tool. However, if all you have to give is ‘look at me’ and ‘look at the great things I’m doing’ in an attempt to sell your services or products, you’re going to turn people away. Share your expert knowledge without expecting anything in return. Once you’ve proven that you provide value, your followers will automatically search for your services and products.

One-sided sharing

Take a look at your posts – are they favorable about ‘the beautiful life you live, how grateful you are’ or ‘the annoying things in your life and how you hate this or that’? If your posts are repeated, it seems that it does not show the real person. Whatever depth you’ve decided to share, make it balanced.

over comment

Social networking is all about connecting with people, asking questions, commenting on what has been said, etc. However, if you comment too much, meaning you think you have something to say about everyone’s update, your contributions will diminish in importance and people won’t read what you have to say.

All in all, I think it’s about balance. You will receive if you are generous in giving valuable knowledge.