Monthly Archives: August 2009

Last week I posted “It’s a jungle out there: words of caution for negotiating social media“, an article with my recommendations about using social media wisely and courteously.  What spurred me to write it were some unpleasant and fortunately isolated experiences with shameless marketers on social media sites.

I noted the irony when yesterday I received an email from someone I’d recently connected with on one of those sites. The message read as follows:

You are among the many contacts of [name omitted]. Before we begin sending you any information, we want to be certain we have your permission.

CONFIRM BY VISITING THE LINK BELOW:

[Link omitted]

Click the link above to give us permission to send you information. It’s fast and easy!

I was first baffled and then annoyed. I wrote back to the sender asking for more details about the content I’d be receiving. They replied, assuring me it would contain news along with highlights from the sender’s blog. I wrote back again, asking for the RSS feed for the blog so that I could follow it with my newsreader if the content interested me. They wrote back and told me that the blog didn’t in fact exist yet. No thanks, friend.

I realized that perhaps the contact settings on this particular account weren’t explicit enough. I added the following information in the hopes that this will deter similar communications going forward:

I am delighted to connect with others online. Social media make it possible to build relationships and forge alliances that transcend geography and time zones.

Please be aware though that my interest in connecting does not extend to receiving solicitations from you for services or goods that you or those you serve as agent for offer. Also, I am not interested in being added to your newsletter list; I get enough email as it is, thanks. If you publish a blog you think might interest me, you can let me know. I’m a blogger myself.

If you do not honor these simple requests, I will have no choice but to decline your invitation or to delete your connection from my account. I regret that I must even post this message at all, but unfortunately I’ve encountered a number of people using social media for persistent and unwelcome sales pitches and not for networking. I am grateful for your understanding and look forward to connecting with those who share my appreciation for building relationships distinguished by integrity and trust.

I’ve added a version of this notice to my social media page on this site as well. Against all odds, I remain hopeful that at last folks will begin to get the message.

Twitter. LinkedIn. Facebook.

Chances are you’ve set up a user account on at least one of these sites or maybe others besides these popular three. Learning how to navigate these social media sites can be overwhelming,  but with the right approach they can be well worth the time you spend building your profile or your portfolio.

I’ve enjoyed my experiences with each of these. Twitter has become my office water cooler, a place to swap news and strike up conversation with some interesting folks while I drink my morning coffee or take a break for lunch.

I’m stimulated by the freewheeling discussions in the groups I’ve joined on LinkedIn, particularly the Commercial and Industry Arbitration and Mediation Group founded by ADR reinsurance expert Philip Loree Jr., Victoria VanBuren, Karl Bayer, Don Philbin, Robert Bear, Peter Scarpato, and Roger Moak.

Facebook, which I use for personal connections, has turned out to be a great way to stay in touch with far-flung friends and family or to get to know on a more personal level the people  I know through my professional ties.

But using social media is not always a bed of roses. I’ve had a couple of experiences lately that have been total bummers. In one case, someone I’d accepted an invitation from on LinkedIn immediately began hitting me with sleazy sales pitches. They became the first person I’ve ever had to disconnect from on LinkedIn (ironically, this person has a reputation as a social media maven).  In another case, I reluctantly took the unprecedented step of unfollowing on Twitter a fellow mediator due to the annoying frequency of self-serving updates they posted, the constant linking to spam sites, and their unhealthy obsession with their follower count. This kind of behavior just ruins it for the rest of us.

Fortunately, these kinds of incidents are rare. But nonetheless, drawn from my recent experiences, here are some social media suggestions to help you 1) play it safe and 2)  improve the quality of life for others online.

• Know who you’re connecting to. Before I accept any invitation to connect, I make sure I know whom I’m dealing with. This is particularly true with the business networking site LinkedIn, which urges users to remember that what counts is “the quality of the connections and not … the quantity of connections”. For any site that you’re using for business-related networking, trust constitutes the basis for the connections you’ll be making. Ask yourself, would the person inviting you to connect be someone you’d be willing to recommend to others?  Today in fact I declined an invitation from someone on LinkedIn whose profile was missing all relevant information. Without knowing who they were, what kind of work they did and where, or any information that told me something about them, I was not yet willing to accept their invitation, and wrote back and explained why, asking for more information and their help so I could decide.
• Be willing to say no. Mediators tend to be nice people. But don’t let your desire to be nice to others stand in your way of turning down an invitation to connect. Don’t hesitate to unfollow or block someone who is annoying you. People who are insensitive to social media etiquette will probably not even notice when you do, so don’t feel guilty about it. I think LinkedIn is correct here; it’s the quality not the quantity of your connections that matter. Besides, life is too short to tolerate schmucks.
• Create a social media policy. Maybe it’s the lawyer in me, but I like guidelines. Well-crafted guidelines set expectations, create certainty, promote fairness, and make life easier for everyone. If you establish your own social media guidelines, you can point to them so that people know that your decision not to follow or friend wasn’t arbitrary or personal, it was based on good reason. A few months ago I had fun crafting a half-tongue-in-cheek Twitter policy; it hasn’t seemed to deter spammers much, but it’s a great conversation starter and my friends on Twitter get a kick out of it. Feel free to use mine as the basis for your own.
• Remember that social media is about sharing, not selling. Please, no sales pitches. No shameless self-promotion. ‘Nuff said.
• Be trustworthy, not trusting. That’s a wonderful piece of advice from the authors of Getting to Yes that applies as much to social media as it does to negotiations. Social media are ideal for building relationships; use them to build ties not burn down bridges. Show yourself to be trustworthy by being helpful to others, passing along useful links, or sharing noteworthy news.Your reputation depends upon it.

Rudyard Kipling might have had social media in mind when he wrote, “A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle…”