This was a great article!!!...Im actually going to repost it!!...and remove my logo as my twitter photo!!...I dont want to be seen as a fake person or business!!
12 Most Transparent Ways to See Through People on Social Media
The much debated “transparency” issue is discussed at least once a week in a chat. How can you see through the slick persona speeding by at the speed of light?
Jessica Northey always says “If you spot it, you got.” Sometimes the traits that you see in other people are the qualities that you see in yourself, but some other people just confuse the heck out of you! Look at their twitter stream, what are they tweeting and sharing?
Here are a few clues to help you decide is this person for real or full of crap?
1. LinkedIn information is non-existent or incomplete
Yes, sometimes people choose not to use LinkedIn but other times, the information doesn’t jive with their bio.
2. Avatars from 1972
Keep it current and fresh people. Make sure you are comfortable meeting people in real life and can go to a tweet up feeling confident and happy (and recognizable!)
3. Personal account hiding behind a logo
Things that make you go hmmmmmm? People respond to faces not eggs or logos.
4. Expert/Ninja/Guru self-titles
What are you thinking here? You are going to get me 1,000 new followers? You only have 103. This isn’t authentic.
5. Stealing tweets!
Are you retweeting someone else’s tweet and removing their name? Are you taking something they wrote and passing it off as your own? This is considered intellectual property and it is not okay to do this in the Twitterverse.
6. Veiled messages
Just be honest and upfront. Say what you mean. What are you trying to hide?
7. Inconsistency has a close cousin: inauthenticity
Different profiles on various social media pages immediately raise eyebrows. Real people keep their messaging the same. Really! Consistency is always key.
8. Dishonesty
People will catch your lies, eventually!
9. Fake engagement!
Don’t tweet me for a higher Klout score — tweet me because you want to talk to me. If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s ok too!
10. You say you are single
Problem is, your Facebook says you are in a relationship and all the photos back that up.
11. Hidden or deleted tweets
Why are you hiding or deleting your tweets?
12. No real name on account at all.
What red flags do you see in social media transparency? What sets off the alarm bells for you?
Article by Peg Fitzpatrick
Peg Fitzpatrick
Peg Fitzpatrick is proud to be a Managing Partner and writer for 12 Most. She is Director of Marketing and Social Media Manager for Kreussler Inc., and hosts the popular #MyBookClub chat on the 1st Monday of every month at 8 pm EST. She has also started speaking at events such as the #140 Conference and is honored to be included on several “best of” online and blogging lists. Peggy loves to travel and enjoys photography as well. All about being positive and connecting, she is a true social butterfly. Tweet her and say hi at @pegfitzpatrick, find her Stumbling on StumbleUpon, rocking Google+ here Google or happily pinning on Pinterest
51 comments
12 Most Transparent Ways to See Through People on Social Media http:\/\/t.co\/UnpupwED via @12most Just be yourselfffff! Please! :D
Peggy, great articles! Tweeted this one and the 12 Most Karmic Ways to Pay it Forward. I've enjoyed reading other articles on your pages. This is going on my RSS feed for retweets. Thanks for the thoughtful topics! @etechwriter on Twitter. Diana Ost
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HA!!!!! I absolutely hate egg avatars and I immediately report as spam. Tweet for Klout score? Hmmm I may need to go to Klout Score 101. I'm about to tweet to the Bieberrrrrr! ROFLOL! Good post Pegsta! :)
@Natasha_D_G I with ya on the egg avatars! I'm constantly harping about it on my blog and to my LinkedIn group, LinkedUp Grand Rapids. If you're interested, you can check out the posts on my blog at MichaelYoderGr.com.
As far as Klout is concerned, it's pretty simple to use. Just go to Klout.com and sign up with your Twitter id. It's basically a way of measuring your online influence. Klout has recently added several networks that it now includes in it's monitoring to measure influence. Even cooler is they will give you swag if your score is high enough. I've received a month's supply of Joint Juice along with a water bottle; a leather port folio DVD from the producers of the TNT show Franklin and Bash; a pre release of new show Men of a Certain Age; and, samples of a new coffee. I guess they figure people who have enough influence will talk about their "stuff" and spread the word via good old word of mouth.
@mdyoder Good for you! I'm familiar with Klout and benefits I'm just not into gaming my score. I spend more time on work twiitter acct than my prsnl, not on very much at night nor weekends. And I certainly don't @ for score purposes. Do people really do that? - That's awful and in truth not even sure how much that will move your score - perhaps I'm just naive. Thus the (joking) request for a class!
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LOL Peggy - this really cracked me up!
I must admit I have broken one or two of these at some point in my life.. For a while, my LinkedIn was severely out-dated.. I engaged people on there here and there but didn't really bother updating my bio.. After you go from social network to social network, you get tired of creating new profile.
Heck, my Facebook profile is incomplete still. That one is deliberate whereas LinkedIn I mostly forgot to update stuff and then realized, "WOAH.. This is SO 2003!" LOL
You ever wonder what the abandonment rate is for social sites? I mean, it seems like everyone comes in guns blazing, only to lose interest and go elsewhere.. Then you have a shell of yourself left somewhere. OOPS!
Depending on my audience/network in any given community, I may act a little differently.. But it's not a matter of inconsistency or inauthenticity. I just feel some people can handle full-on crazy me. Not just that, I feel that every community has it's own tone so you have to play into that, right?
I mean, I can go crazy sharing lolcatz on StumbleUpon but doing so on LinkedIn may make the stuffy suits implode. We don't want that. ;o)
Thanks for these powerful reminders. As a firm believer in SEO, I believe we should all be aware of our digital footprint and the breadcrumbs we live all over the place. Try Googling yourself and your aliases.. It's amazing what sort of stuff will turn up.
Really, anyone try to pose or pretend on the social web must have a screw loose.. Eventually, someone will poke around, especially as you become a household name. Better watch out!
@Yogizilla I've been thinking about abandonment rate lately, too. Just how many of the 750 million registered Facebook profiles and pages are actually being used? How many are bogus or dummy accounts? I've read articles about the number of profiles of dead people and how they are trying to deal with that issue! And, it's not just FB, what about Twitter and LinkedIn? I talk to business professionals all the time who have started and stopped on LinkedIn leaving a trail of unused and abandoned profiles. They get an invitation from someone and can't remember their login information, so they create a new profile. Yikes! Add into all that the fact that companies create dummy profiles to work on pages and profiles for their clients. Happens all the time. I don't know if we'll ever have a realistic number of the profiles that are real and being used consistently.
@mdyoder EXACTLY!
On the matter of outsourcing social media, business owners need to make sure consultants and firms internalize their vision and mission. If they don't, the inconsistencies will show. While I make a living helping companies doing this sort of stuff, I always encourage them to take ownership while I provide the strategy and oversight.
After all, what would move people more? Talking to their favorite celebrity or thought leader via Twitter, or reading tweets from their PR person? Again, this all goes back to the whole tribe-vs-community debate.
Whether you choose to engage or become a distant entity that everyone reveres, be authentic about it.. And be mindful of your digital footprint. It's not just us SEO folks digging around to see what we can learn about potential customers, partners, and supporters, finding what we want is easy for anyone that really gives it a whirl.
I want to be clear here: I'm not shooting down companies that manage online touch points for their clients. I know personally the need to have SLA clients and be persistent with Internet marketing efforts.. BUT the more involved the key players in any business entity are with their online presence, the more of an impact they will see.
It's not just online.. How did you feel when you went to a high-end restaurant and the owner or even the head chef came to thank you and maybe have a conversation with you? It makes all the difference!
Maybe that's what is wrong with the way many folks use social media.. They're forgetting the social aspect. ;o)
@Yogizilla Thanks for seeing the humor :)
And the "better watch out" is a great warning. Yikes! I haven't Googled myself lately but I will! I know there are some bad tweet up photos out there but I love them because I am with friends.
So appreciate your reading and commenting! Nice to meet you!
Peggy
@PegFitzpatrick Likewise!
I think I already follow you on Twitter, actually. I've seen your stuff before but this was one I had to respond to right away.. You reveal so many important truths here. I shared via Google+ with some comments.
I'd love to see your thoughts there!
Again, thanks for sharing these powerful reminders.. I know we all have moments when we do something online and think, "Crap, I can't take that back now, can I?"
What's more scary is that search engines and bots archive and syndicate data faster than you realize. I posted a guest blog entry on Unbounce.com and, even though I went through four rough drafts and shared with my mastermind group, I ended up getting published with typos. WHOOPS!
Well, their site is so authoritative that Google ate it up. In a few hours, it was on the top page on search results and archived, syndicated, and quoted on other sites.. Typos and all! No big deal... But imagine if it were something else? Maybe if I had shared an off-color remark or joke only appropriate amongst friends?
It certainly makes you think more about communication and wordsmithing in particular, no? 8)
To see the article and learn more about how search works, check the article and read the comments:
http://unbounce.com/seo/the-adaptive-seo-approach/
Social media certainly has it's bad sides too. If you dig this, please share with your network, all. 8)
I use a different pic 4 each profile from various times in history. I inform anyone that might wish to befriend me on the strength of a 25 year old pic of me of that pics vintage.
Even so I was aggressively pursued by someone using the name & image of a Hollywood star that would not reveal anything of his true identity until I barred him.
@suzybair I like that you deem your photos vintage - that is honest. :)
Being aggressively pursued it never fun. Yuck!
Thanks for commenting.
Peggy
Loved your post, Peggy. I think the reason so many people get it wrong is because they forget that social media is about people, conversation, connecting, collaborating, and so on. It's not about the technology or the tools. And, it is not advertising and marketing. No, they are not mutually exclusive, but they are definitely not the same and should not be used in the same way. Anyway, thanks for the post. Hopefully some of the people who need to see it will learn from it.
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@mdyoder Nice to meet you! I agree with your "conversation, connecting and collaborating" (wow great post title) I love the technology and the tools but it is all about the people.
Appreciate your sharing and commenting.
Positively,
Peggy
@PegFitzpatrick Nice to meet you, too! Don't get me wrong, most people think I'm a geek when it comes to technology. But, the technology and tools will continue to change at an ever increasing speed. The thing that won't change is the desire people have to connect. So, I think it's important to focus on that first and foremost. Ciao!
I'd vote for "inconsistency" or what we called "continuity" in the movie biz. I find this more often than you would think. I'm getting addicted to these 12 of posts ~ yours is very consistent :-) Cheers.
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Peg - totally dead on with your 12 most. -
This is classic -> "You are going to get me 1,000 new followers? You only have 103"
Are you using me for my klout score?
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Great post! I have definitely come across these people before! The expert/ninja/guru is one of my BIGGEST social media pet peeves!
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@PegFitzpatrick The only other thing that bothers me is when people send out like 35 spam mass tweets at once. There is now an app that you can schedule tweets if you have a lot to say, but it is crazy when it gets sent all at once.
@BelindaK04@PegFitzpatrick That's precisely the problem with trying to automate a conversation. And, of course, we've all heard about the poor schmuck working on the Chrysler social media who thought he was tweeting from his personal account but ended up tweeting the F bomb about stupid people from the Chrysler corporate account. Better tools, safeguards, and attention to individual conversations are probably the best cure.
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Loved this post! Peggy. Great reminders here for a wide audience.
You are a wonderful living example of social media engagement. I "We" appreciate all you do and all that you are.
@MeghanMBiro Very kind of you to say, you wonderful example of a Social Media Sistah. I watch and learn everyday from wonderful folks such as yourself.
Thanks Meghan!
Peggy
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@PegFitzpatrick Great post! What alarms me is the hard sell - Buy my product,read my blog, like my page, RT and mention me, contribute to a cause, etc..without some kind of prior personal engagement or interaction online.
@DixieLil@PegFitzpatrick The problem is people and organizations treating social media like it is advertising. It's not! I often have clients ask me about social media etiquette. I tell them it's simply, treat it like it's a real life conversation. I also ask them how they go about building relationships in real life. The same rules apply in social media.
Lily,
I so agree! I hate the hard sell anywhere. Does it work for some people? It is just too much, too soon. I followed you, now you want me go to your Facebook page and like it, too much for me.
Peggy
3 Like
Love this post, Peggy! And another timely one at that, all done with good humor, as I see many people asking themselves these same questions and struggling with these issues.
You continue to be a shining beacon of how to do it right. (sorry that this sometimes leads to #9!)
Hey Biedermann,
Yeah, that darn #! Can I refer them to my post now? :D Appreciate the props!
Peggy
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Some people tweet without no reasons at all. This is something I will never be able to understand. Some people are just lazy to write their own stuff.
"Black Seo Guy "Signing Off"
@TrafficColeman Well, that's kind of the beauty of Twitter. It's a million different conversations all going on at the same time. Some are funny; some are whimsical; some are serious; some are inspirational (I hate those :) ); and some seem downright stupid. But, one man's garbage is another man's treasure. For instance, what if I see a tweet about someone's dog barfing on their carpet. It pretty stupid to me. I don't have a dog and I don't care. However, if I'm a dog food manufacturing monitoring conversations on twitter, it might be of significance to me. It could help me stop a PR nightmare before it happens. It could be an opportunity to provide some customer service. Or, it could be a lead for a prospective customer. Something to think about.
@TrafficColeman Thanks for your frequent commenting on 12 Most posts - totally appreciate your support!
Peggy
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Insightful post. I liked your point about the Ninja/Guru/Experts.... Soo true! Thanks for sharing!
@PegFitzpatrick@kjcure If you want a good laugh, try this social media title generator. They come up with some hilarious titles.
http://socialmediajobtitle.com/ I personally like, Social Swami. :)
Peg... this is an excellent post. I have been thinking of many of the same things for weeks, just haven't gotten around to writing about it. Besides, I think you are preaching to the choir. Those that agree with you, don't do these things mentioned. Those that do it, probably could care less. but maybe you might sway a few.In regards to #3, you have to love it when you come across a profile with an egg, yet their profile tells you that they are in social media & such. Now, I know there is a quirk with Twitter, that can sometimes give u an egg. But come on... get it fixed then. #4.. maybe I am just humble and think I know enough to be dangerous. But you do have to love those that thump their chests, telling the world that they are gurus, know the secrets. And especially those that keep selling their trade secrets on how to get tons of new followers. I don't need to pay for common sense... it's called engaging, being yourself & friendly... and sharing good stuff. But hey, for $19.95, I will show you how to beat the system. lol Jeff Turner did a great experiment, showing how he could get followers and his klout score up, without doing a thing. See it? So true. What about those that have 500 + followers and no tweets... lol Or those that follow 500 + people with hundreds of tweets, but no followers. Can one say spammers.#5... one of my biggest pet peeves... and it's obvious when you see a few of the same tweets in a row by different people. Coincidence? nah.. lol Stop taking credit for a good find. Pay it forward. Ah, a rarity at times.
Anyhoo... now you got me babbling, which doesn't take much. lol Hey, seriously, I enjoyed this one. It was spot on.
@JeffBelonger Hello Jeff~
Thanks so much for your first 12 Most comment - we love that! Sorry it was such a hassle for you.
I didn't see Jeff Turner's experiment but have seen similar things occur - don't know why it is so important to people but I guess many different things motivate people, right?
Appreciate your reading & commenting!
Peggy
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Simple and true - and no one knows it better than you.
The face of happiness, genuine empathy, and engagement.
btw, I am kind of hoping you respond to this as my Klout could benefit from your Klout Pixie Dust LMBO! Cheers!
Great Post
Latest blog post: Spinning to Survive
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Aww nice comments Dan - as usual!
If I respond to your comment, does this add to your Klout or your clout? I will tweet you too and cover all bases. My #PixieDust rocks ~ but so does yours!
Peggy
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Peggy - Great list. It's important, too, since it seems that every day I'm getting random links, funny invites from strangers and inappropriate messages from bots in most of my accounts. It's ANNOYING. I much prefer real people who are willing to share and engage for real. You rock. FOR REAL. :)
@jeanniecw Hi Jeannie!
That is so nice of you to say! You Chicago people are fab, might have to move there.
The auto DMs are still killing me - does anyone "like" their Facebook page or to the link they send? This to me is such a false way to start a conversation with someone. I used to send DMs to new followers to say hi but people thought they were DMs - the automated version dampened the live version.
@PegFitzpatrick This. The automatic on-follow DMs have killed any on-follow DMs for me as well. I no longer bother replying to any I get, nor send any. I used to reply to any I got, but I don't think I ever received a single reply.
Sometimes when I receive one without a link I briefly wonder if I should reply, but never do, because it is almost certainly automatic anyway.
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