The Social Rules of Engagement - Facebook, Cats and Twitter

Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, Pinterest, YouTube (video blog), BBM, WhatsApp and Twitter are communication platforms we are faced with daily, but how do they all fit together and why are there so many different platforms one may ask?

Lets start with Facebook, it's original intention was to connect communities and families together across the world. And if used for this purpose it is extremely effective. So if you have a small group of friends and you would like them to read your brain, know what you eating, who you are intending to sleep with or which cat is your favourite today; Facebook is definitely the platform for you, and your friends can even see a photo of the subject in question. 

With this in mind Facebook should be kept personal and do remember that although we think it is personal it is still on the internet and remains there indefinitely. So your next cat may just be jealous if you posted too many photos of your old cat.

Staying with Facebook it has been said that we actually regressed as a human race by using Facebook, as we have gone back to the time of the Egyptians by writing on walls and worshipping cats.

Okay this is a Blog so I am mindful that it should only have 350 words so I will quickly go through the others before getting to my personal favourite Twitter, remember that if you are not on Twitter you are not on Social Media or so say I.

LinkedIn - is a great site for connecting to all those old business colleagues and the only way to really boost your brand via LinkedIn is to actively participate in the online forums and LinkedIn has millions of them. A word of caution is that LinkedIn is quickly becoming the email platform of Social Media with a good serving of spam from your friends, actually it is permission marketing but your friends have not really cared to find out what you are interested in. Perhaps the name of LinkedIn with change to InterestedIn (hope I get royalties for that advice).

Blogs - are great and they are where you can honestly check out your friends and the people you follow to see if they actually are the type of person whose book you would ultimately buy. Blogs can consist of words, poems and their are a lot of stunning photo or travel blogs out there and this is where Pinterest have captured a good segment of the social platform.

Pinterest - photos, photos, a few infographics and more photos. Pinterest is the site that enables visual sharing, it is voyeurism on steroids and it works for the right brainers in this world like myself. If you need to say something it can be said visually and Pinterest is the place to say it, the more sublime the better. 

You Tube - the video blog, get creative honestly ... We have cellphones with great video cameras in them, oh and remember there is also a microphone - it is not a 8mm Cine movie from the 70's. Include yourself as the commentator, say something interesting, say something controversial but make a movie your friends, not your family would want to watch.

BBM, WhatsApp and Messenger - we live in a fast social world, don't waste your time have endless conversations to friends about things you could actually be telling the world and if you tell enough people you will find those who find you more interesting than the friend who is just humoring you, so shout it out to the world on Twitter.

Twitter brings together all the social platforms and tells the world what you are interested in and not so much what you are doing, Twitter is about giving others a glimpse into your life, a glimpse big enough so that they can read your blogs, see which forums they can collaborate with you on and find out your dreams through the photos you posted on Pinterest. 

I often get asked how do you get followers on Twitter, well be interested in others, there is an old saying "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" and this rings true for Twitter. So follow the people who are interested in what you are interested in and follow their friends. And then follow people who have followed you back and you will soon find that you have more followers than you ever thought possible. 

People are looking for you, the subjects you are interested in and what you have to say about the subjects they are interested in.

If you think you are being a celebrity by just gathering followers and not following people back, you are just a smuck - that is old school rude, so please respect yourself first and show some courtesy to those who have taken the time to follow you.

Oh I know what you thinking ... The answer is put different interests and categories into lists, that way you only have to read about the traffic before you leave and you only have to find out about a movie before you book your ticket, you get the picture.

See you in the Twittersphere.