social media Archives - Tracey Byrnes

I was cruising through one of my social media feeds the other day, and encountered a situation caused by a couple of well-intentioned people making simple mistakes. No big deal, right? We make them all the time.

Um, yeah…as it turned out, VERY big deal. Here’s the scenario:

Person A, Person B, Person C and Person D are having a conversation in a closed social media group. Person A asks what time doors open/what events held where for a particular event, not realizing that Person E already provided this information in a separate post to the group. Person C suggests that Person D might want to remove Person A’s comment, as the question has already been answered. Thinking that this makes sense and will cause less confusion, Person D goes ahead and removes Person A’s comment. Person A gets completely pissed off and blasts back with an “I can’t believe you censored me for that question” response for all to see. Explanations and apologies are posted for all eyes by Persons B, C and D, but the damage is already done, and the consequences are still unfolding.

In fairness, none of the people in this story are experienced community managers; they also don’t know the best practices. However, the mistakes they made could’ve been easily avoided with just a little bit more thought to the possible consequences.

While it might seem logical to remove a question that’s already been answered from the comment feed, it doesn’t take into account that the person asking it might not have seen the other post; especially since it wasn’t within the comment thread where they asked their question. Then there’s the little matter of whether its removal is likely to open a can of worms that no one wants to deal with.

Here’s the “best practices” nutshell version. Unless it’s spam or in violation of the group’s policies, it’s seldom a good idea to remove a comment or post. It’s better to just leave it up there. Why? Here are some of the easy reasons: You’re less likely to piss people off. Your actions probably won’t require apologies or have unintended consequences…which can get bigger and last much longer than you’d think. There are fewer hard feelings to tiptoe around, which means better group interaction. And for an extra bonus? Other group members often take it upon themselves to deal with the repeated/annoying/”what were you thinking?!?” questions and issues for you.

So..the next time you’re tempted to just delete a comment/question/post that’s annoying you (for whatever reason), think before you do. Because simple mistakes aren’t always so simple, especially in social media.

Have any “war stories” you want to share? Feel free to leave them in the Comments section!

Photo credit: David Castillo Dominici

The World Wide Web allows us to see, hear, watch, read and talk about the experiences of literally millions of people, from thousands of places, at any time of the day or night. And that, when you sit down and truly think about it, is an astonishing reality…one made possible by ongoing advances in technology, access to more and faster bandwidth and social media in all its many forms.

The question is: are we really broadening our horizons, or just cluttering up our lives with endless noise that drowns out our inner voice of direction and guidance?

I believe the answer is both.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been wrestling with some stuff that hasn’t been positively contributing to my life. After acknowledging that my life isn’t where and what I want it to be, I started digging into the whys and wherefores. During this time of introspection I cut down on my media consumption; social media in particular. Why? Because although I find a lot of value in it, *I was allowing* the noise to drown out my inner voice…which was telling me that there were things I needed to sit down and deal with. Immediately.

Don’t get me wrong: technology isn’t bad. Social media isn’t bad. In fact I find them fascinating, and have learned a lot about both from some really cool people; many of whom don’t live anywhere near me geographically. They’ve inspired me, taught me and encouraged me in a way that makes my life richer and much more dimensional. The drawback to all these positives? It’s oh-so-easy to allow the sheer volume of emails, notifications, tweets, posts, requests, games, etc. – in a word, noise – to take over your life…drowning out that inner voice that’s trying to tell you some important things. You know, those things. The ones you really don’t want to deal with. Things like “you need to stop living vicariously and get your shit together” or “you’ve got some serious issues to deal with” along with that nagging mental reminder to get the damn grocery shopping/laundry/housework done, like, yesterday.

There’s no magic elixir to “cure” yourself of this noise overload. There’s only you. Your decision to make changes in how you handle stuff; your willpower to begin something and then keep it going (or not); your commitment to regularly evaluate where you are and what you’re doing to achieve your goals and dreams as life hurdles forward at ever-increasing speeds on the wings of technology and social media.

Have you heard from your inner voice lately?