Why social media etiquette is important for business

In my inbox I saw a couple of invitations from Biznik, a business site I frequent. When I looked at the invitations I saw the standard generic invite: “I’d like to connect with you on Biznik.” In one case there was additional text where the person was promoting her facebook pages and her latest book and in the other case nothing else was written. In both cases, I wasn’t motivated to want to accept the invitations. In the case of the former invitation, I already knew what she wanted from me and it wasn’t a relationship. In the latter case, I wasn’t sure what the person wanted or what motivated him to connect with me.

I’ve seen several people argue that there’s no need for etiquette in social media and that it should be fine if people choose to use the generic invitations, but I think using the generic invitations is lazy. There’s a reason to have etiquette in social media, and its not to control people’s behavior, so much as indicate possible ways to actually make social media work for you instead of just being a time sink. When a person takes the time to provide context for why s/he wants to connect with you on a site, it provides a lot more than an explanation for a connection. It provides a business opportunity.

Effective social media isn’t just about posting your latest promotion or a link to your website. Effective social media involves starting or continuing a conversation and using that conversation as a way to build a relationship with someone. If we only focus on social media as a tool for promotion or marketing, we ignore the possibility that social media can be a viable medium for creating business relationships.

What makes social media effective is the conversation, is the choice to connect, but unless we are willing to apply some etiquette to our communication and make the effort to start a conversation, then all we’ll get is another number on our profile indicating that we are “connected” to a person. If we want more than just a number, we need to make the effort to start or continue the conversation.

Etiquette is ultimately a guideline meant to help people understand the social environment they are in, so they can take effective action in that environment. Social media is a social environment and applying some etiquette to our interactions can go a long way toward helping us develop relationships that allow us to grow our businesses and thrive in our lives.