(From Technology educator Vimal Daga, Director, Linux World (p)Ltd and Indian Innovation & Entrepreneur Community)
Your conduct on social media reflects your personality and changes the perception of people towards you, which could be good or bad for you and completely depends on the way you behave on social media. You may be a technology savvy person, a social media bluebird or an ace expert on the subject of digital media who is spending a significant amount of time on the social platforms but all that can go haywire if you don’t follow certain norms and etiquettes. There are certain courtesies and considerations rules and etiquettes to be followed before you start collaborating on social media. Technology experts and seasoned educators Vimal Daga and Preeti Daga decode the rules for us :
- Never use cuss words in the public domain as far as possible
- Always try to avoid being judgemental especially about looks, weight, age, caste, color, class. nationality and religion.
- While conversing with your social media friends try to avoid asking too personal questions, For example, if the other person is not talking about his or her marriage or relationship status or unemployment you have no business asking about it either.
- Men should avoid asking women for their telephone nos unless and until the lady gives it on their own accord.
- Avoid trying to be too intimate with your social media friend at the very outset, you should maintain a very formal relationship until you start feeling comfortable with another person.
- You have to be careful while interacting because you can’t hear the tone of the voice, the written word can mean a lot of things, it depends on the context and tone with which you say it. So you have to take precautions to avoid unpleasantness.
- Never tag the other person a lot of people take umbrage, they get upset if you tag them without informing them, try to avoid tagging, unless if you have been regularly interacting with them.
- You should not demean someone openly while interacting on the social platform, this should be highly avoidable, this is not taken in very poor light, try to avoid spending time on social media while you are supposed to do your office work.
- Put organic and original information about you in your profile like correct name, sex, your own photograph, and business. Don’t put pics of film stars, celebrities or your pets as your profile picture. Let your real friends approach a real friend only. You can fake your identity but in the long run, this will spoil your name and will be in bad taste.
- Don’t send friend requests to people you don’t know and not acquainted with for selling your brand or product.
- Refrain from responding to strangers unless you know them nice enough, there can be many people who have created accounts with false details and even fake genders, many men have been seen using profile pic of an actress and good looking girl and indulge in chatting or sending vulgar pics, be cautious and avoid accepting requests of such kind of people as they might have malafide interests.
- Avoid sending game requests to people you don’t know or even to known ones before sending requests to seek permission first. Refrain from posting things you don’t want your boss or client to see on facebook.
- Don’t drink and drive is repeatedly advised same is true in case of social media too, don’t tweet post or share pics if you are drunk and high, avoid to log in
- Refrain from making comments on anyone’s post in an angry or upset state.
