What to do when your social media is frustrating you

We’ve all done it. We’ve been so frustrated by the lack of traditional response to our social media activity, we’ve gone back to our old ways.

• We’ve written what we thought was the best-blog-post-ever and then no one read it.
• We’ve encouraged someone to follow us on Twitter. When they didn’t, we emailed them directly.
• We’ve made the most intelligent comment on a celebrity blog and the following 100 comments entirely ignore our stream of thought.
• Worse still, the original high-profile author acknowledges specific people for their comments except you.
• We use social media as a vehicle to blast out traditional marketing messages at work.

But

You cannot broadcast.

You cannot push.

You can only talk to your community when you have built one up.

So here are tips for what to do when your social media is frustrating you

1. Don’t worry. We’ve all been there before. Your community will be forgiving for any one-off breaks in etiquette. If isn’t forgiving, it’s not worth having.
2. Do something else for a while. You cannot become an expert in all of social media at one time. Instead, focus on one or two activities for a while, then move on to some others, then come back to the first. You will find how much better you are after a break.
3. Do something for someone else. Have you ever reTweeted one of your follower’s Tweets? Have you ever pushed a link to another post other than your own? Have you helped explain something as simple as an RSS feed to a newcomer? Have you asked someone to guest post on your blog? You can only begin to expect back when you have given a lot.
4. Do nothing. The web and the blogosphere are noisy places. But what is louder than a shout? A whisper.

Photo credit: misocrazy