In the ever-changing sea of social media, techniques can change on a weekly basis, it seems. That sure-fire tactic that worked last month is now totally useless. But some things don’t change. I originally wrote this post almost three years ago, and even as I’ve learned more about using social media as an author (and worked professionally in social media), these points are still valid.
So in no particular order, here are five sure-fire ways to annoy your followers and alienate your readership. If you’re tired of the decent or even excellent success you’ve been having with your social media, then try these tips to make everything worse.
Write in ALL CAPS
All capital text is the type-written form of shouting, and shouting for no good reason drives people away by the hundreds. Why save all caps for only URGENT STUFF when you can confuse and irritate your fans by making EVERYTHING SEEM URGENT?
Post at least once a minute
Posting every fifteen seconds is even more obnoxious, so try that. If your tweets are constantly in your followers’ newsfeed, or your emails filling up their inboxes, they’ll never forget your name – even if they now hate you.
Send direct messages only
Direct or private messages on social media, especially to people you don’t personally know, is what all the best spammers do. No communication gets ignored faster than a DM (direct message) from a stranger on Twitter.
Never respond to comments or tweets
This lets all your fans know that you’re much too busy doing important stuff or other sorts of marketing to bother chatting with them in an informal and personal manner.
Never share other people’s content
You’re on social media to promote your product or service, right? Sharing posts from other profiles or websites lets your followers know that you value others’ content and enjoy learning from everybody. Make sure you let everyone know what a self-centered egotist you are by making all your social media posts all about you.
So there you have it – five simple ways to become that person that nobody likes on Facebook or Twitter.
Just remember that if you actually want to gain fans and make positive connections, do the opposite of these and you’ll be soaring high with your social media!
StorytellerGirl 
Never Share Other Peoples Content – This one seems a bit harsh to me. I haven’t done any sharing mostly because I’m not entirely sure of the proper protocol. Do you leave a comment for the initial poster? Are there any copy write issues? I plead ignorance over egotism.
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Thanks for bringing this up. The concept of “sharing” in this digital age can be a little complicated. On most social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc) if you share someone else’s post, it automatically links back to their original post, or tags them – so if people read the post that you shared, they can still find the original source. Copyright issues usually only arise if you fully copy someone else’s content and claim it as your own, or copy it without their permission (for example, if you were to copy word-for-word this blog post of mine, and then post it on your blog without a link back to my post, and pretend that you wrote it – that’s plagiarism). But if you click one of the social media share buttons at the bottom of my post because you want your Facebook friends or Twitter followers to read this, then it posts to your profile but the link comes back to my site.
I hope that makes sense and helps you out! Thanks for reading and commenting!
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Thanks for the explanation. You know how us old folks are with technology. I’m still figuring out all the bells and whistles on WordPress. (To be honest, I’m really just wishing I had a friend that likes to play with this stuff.)
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WordPress does indeed have a lot of bells and whistles, and even though I’ve had this site for years, I’m still not much of an expert! 😛 I do, however, have a bit more knowledge about social media, so if you have some some specific questions, I’d be happy to schedule a time to actually talk to you and give you some personalized guidance. If you’re interested in something like that, here’s my Social Media Coaching page – you can read through it and get in touch with me if you’d like. https://storytellergirlgrace.com/social-media-coaching-for-writers/
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