Eboni Bryson | Staff Writer
Have you logged into your social networks and noticed a dramatic decline in followers and friends? Are your likes, favorites, and retweets looking drier than usual? If you answered “yes” to any of the following questions, then it sounds like you’ve pushed your friends to press that “unfollow” button. To avoid more disparaging numbers, we suggest you follow this advice:
1. Don’t hashtag everything. “Hashtags” first started out as a means of tagging related topics on Twitter. While using hashtags is great for emphasis and light humor, every word in your post should not be a Hashtag. Putting a “#” in front of every word will not make your post any more visible and will eventually make your followers kick you off of their feeds.
2. Don’t post a bunch of cuffing pictures. Everyone loves taking pictures of themselves with their significant other. Who doesn’t love to show off their relationship? Even though you may take a lot of pride in your relationship, remember people follow you on social networks for YOU, not your relationship.
3. Don’t misspell simple words. There’s nothing worse than seeing a typo in a tweet or post that is supposed to be meaningful or of some type of importance. By now, if you are on a social network you should know where to put your apostrophes and how many “o’s” the word “to” needs.
4. Don’t be thirsty for retweets or likes. Everyone feels a little twinge of happiness when one of their followers or friends has shared, retweeted or liked their post. Though retweets and likes are great, they do not make you a celebrity. Nobody wants to follow that person promoting “RT if you want 1000 more followers” or “Like if you want a ‘Good Morning’ post.”
5. Don’t complain about not being someone’s Man Crush Monday “#mcm” or Woman Crush Wednesday #wcw. Man Crush Monday and Woman Crush Wednesday are some of social media’s most interesting days of the week. It’s the time of the week when people all over social networks show appreciation and love to a man or woman they admire. Complaining about how you’re not someone’s man or woman crush brings attention to you and inevitably makes you look thirsty for attention. Don’t be upset if you’re not someone’s Man or Woman crush! Be your own!
6. Don’t over share. Social networks are for communicating, NOT for sharing every single second of the day. If you give periodical updates about how life is going or things that you find interesting that you would like to share with others, then that’s perfectly normal. However, If you’re using the bathroom or going through a really nasty breakup…keep the details to yourself.
7. Don’t engage in social network “beef.” This is a lesson artists like Gucci Mane and Soulja Boy have yet to learn. Fighting on ANY social network is a BIG no-no for three reasons: 1. Nobody wants to see that on their feed. 2. It shows that you have WAY TOO MUCH time on your hands. 3. You look weak for trying to say things over a wi-fi connection that you wouldn’t say in person. If you’re going to argue with anyone and you just don’t have the means to speak to them in person, then argue in private message or Direct Message. Don’t make yourselves look immature by arguing over the Internet.
8. Post too much or too little. The reason you get followed or friended is so that others can keep in touch and see how you are doing, hence the title social networking. If you are going to create a social network and have 4,897 friends on Facebook and 2,459 followers on Twitter, then use it! Don’t create one and then forget about it because that’s how you get unfollowed immediately. Also, while you do use social networks to communicate and share with others, don’t over do it. Don’t post every single moment of your life, because quite frankly…no one cares. Have the right balance so people aren’t trying to scroll past all of your posts on their feed, they may feel tempted to delete you because you’re dead weight.
