The WATCHlist for the Social Media Networker

Your cyber-existence is no doubt a huge benefit for you and your business. It makes you reach out to more people, it becomes an outlet for cheaper (even free) advertising and it gives you an effortless peek into the mind of your potential customers. But along with those benefits come the responsibilities of being a netizen. These responsibilities allow you to have a better, more holistic presence in social media—or on the internet as a whole.

We here at Global Seven aim to give you the best image you can posibly have in social media. But not without letting you understand why these responsibilities are very much necessary in the whole process of achieving success through social media.

1. WATCH WHAT YOU SAY

• This cannot be any more important for you. Based on the not-so-graceful demise of certain personalities—even businesses—because of a single catty tweet, it’s NEVER a good idea to be impulsively vocal about certain sensitive issues (sarcastic it may be or not). Remember that what you’re about to tweet would be read by thousands, even millions of people. And they may get the pun, the humor or the irony behind it. Or they may not. Either way, you’re bound to find yourself in a lot of trouble.

• So next time, before you post that not-so-nice remark about certain social disputes, think of these wise words from a wise man: “If you’re not willing to say it to their faces, don’t tweet about it”

2. WATCH WHAT YOU SHARE

• In this time of Facebook and Twitter, if you retweet/share something, it’s as if you said it yourself. Sharing the opinions of others equate to you supporting them, whether this may be the case or not. This is also true for trends. If you continuously berate the presence of a revolting trend, you then add to its continuum by mentioning it. This does not help negate its online presence. It only worsens it.

• Instead of being so against these outrageous notions, try to counter it by posting about the good things in life. Fight fire with water. It’s more effective.

3. WATCH WHAT THEY SAY AND SHARE

• The whole idea of you being on Social Media is for you to test the waters to see what works and what doesn’t. And a big part of testing is being aware of what they want and seeing if there are ways of relating those “wants” to your product/business. Yes, despite what we said about perpetuating horrendous trends, we don’t and would never knock the importance of trends. Knowing what the current trends are would allow you to distinguish what the possible routes for networking are. Common sense would tell you which routes would be good for you to take.

4. WATCH HOW THEY REACT

• Another big part of testing the cyber waters is trial and error. Monitor how your posts/tweets are doing. Which ones have more activity? Which ones have more positive feedback? Assess how your feeds affect your followers. And you’d know, based on what you’ve posted, which topics to tweet about in the future.

5. READ BETWEEN THE LINES

• Oftentimes, tips on what to/what not to tweet aren’t seen upfront. Go beyond the hashtags and see what underlying factors affect the virality/catchiness of your posts. Is it the way you tweet about your business? Is it the tone of your tweets? Go deeper and assess your cyber presence even more. You’ll be surprised at how deep it really is. The whole concept of “not judging the book by its cover” extends to this aspect of interaction, as well.

The internet is a large place. It is an endless resource of opportunities. But just like everything else in life, careless usage of this resource could spell an insurmountable amount of trouble for you and your business. You need to take good care of your online reputation. It’s the biggest, most influential one you have. Play it wrong and you’ll risk getting into a lot of trouble. Play it right, and you’ll find yourself on top of cyberworld.