Dealing with Offense–When is It Okay to Lecture Others?

Welcome to my humble home…

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Social media is becoming more and more a part of our everyday lives, and this means that we are coming into contact with more people than ever before. We do more socializing on Facebook than we do in person, but the impersonal nature of technology can get us into trouble if we aren’t careful.

The “impersonal” nature of Facebook is deceptive. Yes, we sit behind a screen and know people by monikers and avatars, but there are real people on the other side, so we need to take extra care to remember that.

We “Know” Others, but We Don’t KNOW Them

I go out of my way to always be positive on Facebook. Granted, I try and make sure I am “real.” I am not all fake buckets of sunshine, but I do respect the fact that we all struggle and most of us live in a perpetual state of being stressed out. Social media offers only a limited glimpse of who I am and what is going on behind closed doors.

Why?

If I shared every trial, challenge and illness, pretty soon, you guys would need a drink. You have your own troubles and don’t need me being a Debbie Downer.

Ah, but just because someone isn’t talking about their trial, that doesn’t mean they don’t have any.

I once made a real OOPS on a blog post about the dangers of premature editing. In fact, I made more than one OOPS,  I made THREE. I had THREE major typos. I had a guy leave the nastiest comment that challenged my right to even breathe air after my faux pas. What this person didn’t know was that I made the errors because I was up all night with my aunt who was dying and who finally passed away at 2 a.m. after we’d been caring for her for months and months of illness. I erred because I was exhausted and grieving.

Give the Benefit of the Doubt

When it comes to others on social media (and in life) try to make it a habit to believe the best. If someone gets out of line, we can take it personal OR we can stop and remember times we showed our @$$es and offer grace. We don’t know if this person just lost a job, experienced a death or is worn out from caring for an aging parent or a sick child. Sure, this person might just be a jerk, BUT maybe they are having a rough time. Compassion is always the best choice in my book.

Resist the Urge to Publicly Lecture

We will never fully agree with everyone. In fact, if we want to live a conflict-free life, then we need to just move to a deserted island. People hurt, they experience loss. They get in over their heads. Sometimes they believe differently than we do or support another political agenda. We won’t laugh at every joke and we won’t agree with every quote. That’s just reality.

This said, if something REALLY bothers us, we can confront, but we should do so in love and privately.

When I was in college, I was on a full Air Force scholarship to become a doctor. This meant that I was in A.F.R.O.T.C. There was an upperclassman who LOVED to berate people publicly. He would LOOK for an infraction and then take great joy in shaming us in public. Trust me, we ALL hated him.

We should avoid lecturing others if possible. Most people will just get ticked. Granted, there is a way to confront, but please do so in PRIVATE. Posting a lecture on someone’s wall is just going to put them on the defensive and it’s a good way of starting a public Facebook brawl.

If we are on social media any length of time, all of us are going to post something that unwittingly offends someone else. Often this is because others, due to their limited knowledge of us, may not understand or may misinterpret the intent.

For instance, I recently posted a gingerbread house that was made to look like a trailer…because it looked EXACTLY like where I used to live even down to the white car on blocks. The owner of the property was a hoarder, and every time he found spare tires, appliances, wood, scrap metal, he put it in the back yard in one big pile. He would also buy car bodies he was going to restore, but he never did and they just sat outside and rusted away.

I used to have a refrigerator on my back porch. NOT…KIDDING.

So my landlord was a hoarder and my neighbor was an animal hoarder who “owned” at least 75 feral cats. I didn’t sleep for months, because the cats used to keep me awake all night fighting/mating outside my window. Oh, and they ALL used my gravel drive as one giant litter box.

But, you know what? I MISS that place. It taught me to be so grateful for everything I have. I didn’t have any money, but I had good friends and a lot of love. And what seemed like hell back then are now some of my most cherished memories.

Careful When Confronting

Anyway, I posted the image of the gingerbread trailer home because it made me smile and reminded me of hard times, but some of the BEST times. I wasn’t making fun of people from the trailer park. I was remembering a time that was very happy for me. Yet, a couple of people felt that was I was being an elitist mocking those less fortunate and that posting the image was un-PC of me.

I would have been open to correction. I mean, I would NEVER want to hurt others. And maybe I didn’t think it through before I posted. BUT, I resented that I was being lectured over my own wall.

The offended parties could have messaged me privately and explained their side and I could have explained mine. Then I would either have the option of leaving it or quietly taking the image down because I didn’t realize it might be hurtful to others. But, since the confrontation was public, I feel it placed me in the spot of having to defend.

None of us like being treated like we are three. If someone is posting stuff on your wall, that’s a little different. They are not respecting YOUR space. But, when the “offending” material is on their own wall? We aren’t the manners police. We can either send a polite private message, hide the person’s feed, or unfriend because we aren’t a good fit.

All of us run across content that makes our hackles go up, but we need to just let it go. It’s unrealistic of us to expect to “like” everything posted. Just move on. If it really is bothersome, send a private message. Remember all of us have different backgrounds and experiences. What is fun and innocent to one person can be a capital offense to another. Just please bear in mind that most people don’t go out of their way to be deliberately mean.

As I mentioned earlier, it is best to assume the best and give others the benefit of the doubt. Just because someone posts something funny about a trailer park, doesn’t meant that they aren’t living in one. Trust me, you live somewhere bad enough and humor is all you have to get you through.

It is impossible to post content that EVERYONE loves. Some people love cats, others hate them. Some people love guns. Others think we shouldn’t be armed with anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Some people love inspirational quotes. Other people think they are sugary crap drivel. Some people have no problem with excessive profanity or vulgar jokes, while others keep everything G-rated.

The only way we can hope to get along is to just learn to pay attention to what speaks to us and ignore the rest. If it really is an issue, just message the person privately. They might actually agree and change or take down the post. They will at least be grateful that we acted discreetly to get the matter resolved.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Have you had someone publicly shame you on social media? How did you take it? Do you have some advice? Other tips on how to lovingly confront? Have you lived in a trailer park? Do you still live in a trailer park? Share your stories! I think trailer parks are one of the most interesting places to live :D.

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of December, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of December I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

How To Get Unfriended, Ignored, and Blocked on Facebook

Send GF cookies.

Happy Friday! Man, what a week. We’ve been having a ton of fun at WANA International with all the cool new classes. The teachers at WANA are so much fun, just like my good friend and WANA Instructor Lisa Hall-Wilson who’s stopped by for a visit.

Lisa? Why do you have a pillow case and duct tape? Are we querying agents today? I really think you should———*muffled tussle* *crash*

Signal Lost

Friends, this is Lisa. Sorry to do this, but I’ve taken Kristen and her blog hostage. I locked her outside and hid the spare key because I think she’s unfairly biased against Facebook. It’s true! She’s posted on here about the big bad Facebook tyranny ganging up on writers. The truth is writers can be their own worst enemy.

How did she get out of those bungee cords? All right, I’ve got to type fast.

Facebook is still free, and you don’t have to buy ads or promote posts to find success there. 50% of Canadians and 38% of Americans have a Facebook profile, and half of all users come back daily. Repeated studies have shown that people who engage with brands on Facebook are more likely to purchase from and recommend those brands than the brands they don’t follow.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook because I’m paid to, but also because it’s a natural fit for my personality. Writers seem to have this love/hate/I-don’t-get-it relationship with Facebook. The platform arbitrarily changes the rules, isn’t great with customer service, and their privacy track record is a bit tarnished terrible. I understand why people find that frustrating, but stop whining. I’m serious. *clears throat* Kristen that means you too ((hugs)) 😛 Facebook is a little dictatorial not perfect and it’s really easy to waste time there – I get that, but it’s still FREE.

I have two suck-it-up buttercup band-aids:

#1 Facebook just passed the 1 billion user milestone. 1 Billion Users! This is a massive marketplace and your readers are likely already there.

#2 Fans aren’t on Facebook to know about your latest book (stop frowning). People are on Facebook to connect with friends and family, but while they’re hanging out there they may take time to learn more about you, they may buy your book, they may tell a few dozen of their friends about your book. That’s all gravy.

Hang on…

OK – I’ve barricaded myself in the bathroom with my laptop tethered to my phone. She’s threatening to shut me down. I scooped her laptop and gave her phone to the Spawn to hide. That should buy us a few more minutes.

WANA is about helping you be a better writer, equipping you to succeed, and creating community. Here’s the hard truth: shortcuts on Facebook don’t work. Stop. Right now. Just STOP.

*engine turning over*

Did Kristen just fire up her creepy stalker van? She has a rather astonishing collection of stale candy in that thing. I’m resisting because this is important.

Posting Too Often

For the love of lol cats – stop posting on Facebook like it’s Twitter. Three to four times a day is a maximum. If I look at my newsfeed and it’s filled with posts from one page or profile, they’re blocked. No second chances. Sorry. (And while I’m willing to block game applications from my newsfeed, lots of people won’t – they just unfriend you)

Facebook is NOT Twitter

Why am I seeing hashtags on Facebook? If you link your Twitter and Facebook accounts, people will notice. There’s a whole generation on Facebook who don’t know what a hashtag is! If I wanted to hang out on Twitter I’d do that. If you must schedule posts, make sure to spread them out over several hours, and repeat yourself sparingly (or not at all).

Spam (Invading Space)

Do not DO NOT post about your book or plaster promotional statuses on other people’s walls. Especially don’t do this using your Facebook page. “Hey Lisa, great post. Why don’t you check out my page <insert link>.” It makes me feel like I’ve been groped on a first date – and I’m not that kind of girl. On Facebook, a profile wall is considered personal space. I own the space on my wall, and I decide who has permission to post there. This is akin to slipping your manuscript to an agent under the bathroom stall door. It feels…icky.

Stop the Guilt

Posting status updates/call to action/fill-in-the-blanks that manipulate or use guilt and shame to garner interaction are great if you want to be ignored. We’ve all seen these statuses: I bet you won’t share this… or Most people won’t share this because… or Click like if you think murder is wrong. Guilt trips are not endearing. I don’t even read past the first line.

Never Showing Up

People leave comments because they’re looking for a conversation. When you automate your posts and never hang out there, people are offended. It’s like inviting the neighbors to a backyard barbeque and then hitting the beach while they’re standing in your yard with empty glasses. Another great way to teach friends to ignore you.

Use Events for Book Launches

I get invited to online book launches on Facebook all the time. I can choose to attend or decline an event invite. Don’t use a group for a book launch, don’t force invite all your friends so you can spam them forever with ‘buy my book’ messages and email. Details about book tours, endorsements, etc. belong on an author page, not a group. That is how you get unfriended and blocked, or at best ignored.

Time’s up. The Spawn sold me out for Goldfish, and Kristen’s got her phone back. I’m taking one for the team here – remember that :D. Oooh – Is that Halloween chocolate…? No, not falling for it.

*loud banging on bathroom door*

What’s the most annoying thing you’ve seen or done on Facebook? Are you a reformed FB abuser? Have you had to reprimand friends in your network for poor manners? What are some of the habits that drive you bonkers on Facebook? I love hearing from you, too!

*Pixie Sticks slide under bathroom door*

Ooooh pixxxxiiiieeee stiiiiicks…..wheeeeeeee!!!!!!

I’m baaaack!

Whoa, Pixie Sticks to the rescue. Lisa’s in my living room spinning in circles and making herself dizzy. That should keep her occupied for a while until the sugar wears off. In all seriousness—which is kind of a rarity around here—Lisa is an amazing teacher and I hope you guys will sign up for her upcoming Facebook class. It’s like SIX WEEKS long, so plenty of time for Lisa to talk you off a ledge show you how to maximize Facebook AND have fun.

I hope you will show Lisa some comment love, because today we are going to do something different with the contest. One lucky winner will get to take Lisa’s class for FREE! Also, since you guys are such awesome and loyal friends of this blog, if you sign up for Lisa’s class Own Your Own Stage—Using Facebook for Author/Artist Branding and enter in the code WANAFB, this will give you $30 off Lisa’s class so you get SIX WEEKS of WANA Awesomeness for only $99. That is only $16.50 a week, $2.36 a DAY, .68 an hour! Lisa could be making Nikes in Taiwan for .73 an hour so this is a total BARGAIN! She rocks and I hope you will sign up and benefit from her wisdom.

Ok, fair enough, she does take candy from strangers, but she knows her stuff with Facebook. Give Lisa a warm WANA round of applause and enjoy your weekend!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

All We Needed To Know About Social Media Success, We Learned in Kindergarten

Nursery School–Manners 101

Remember being a kid and your mom lecturing you about manners? My mom was the head of the Good Manners Gestapo. “Sit up straight.” “Chew with your mouth closed, please.” “Don’t slam the doors.” “Use those ab muscles when you sit down. No plopping!” “It’s, ‘Yes, ma’am.'” “Um, please?” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “Can you go outside? I don’t know. Can you? Are you capable? Are your legs broken? It’s ‘May I please go outside.’“”She did what? She, who? The cow’s mother?”

“Did you ask them nicely?” “No, you need to pick up this mess before we leave.” “Hey, lower your voice. Not everyone wants to hear what you have to say.” “Turn down that music. Others have the right to peace and quiet.”

Where Mom left off, my Kindergarten teacher took up. “Stand in line.” “Wait your turn.” “Ask permission.” “Keep your hands to yourself.”

Starting to feel six years old yet?

Why is it we value manners so much?

Manners show others we value them, that we respect them. Manners pave the way for relationship. Manners show that we have empathy and consideration for others, that we listen and we care. It is pretty difficult to be self-centered and have good manners at the same time, so good manners are generally a sign of a kind person worthy of our company.

Marketing without Manners is Destructive

In all this huzz-buzz about marketing and promotion, I feel one of the key factors being lost is this idea of good manners. When we are rude, thoughtless and trample through someone’s digital world without any common consideration, there’s a good chance that people will not appreciate our presence. If people groan when they see us, odds are they won’t be rushing out to buy our book or tell others how awesome we are.

In a digital world of no faces, body language or boundaries, we need to be more mindful of manners than ever before.

Back to the Basics

Image courtesy of Amber West WANA Commons

To properly teach social media, I feel I must address common courtesy and etiquette. We’d like to believe this stuff is just common sense, but common sense isn’t ever common. We could have the best book in the history of the ABCs, but if people hate us because we are rude, then no promotion will help. Today, we will start with some Twitter etiquette.

Twitequette?

I posit this thought. All we ever needed to know about social media success, we learned in Kindergarten.

RULE #1 Listening is as Important as Talking—We don’t need to tweet all the time, every hour to be heard.

A lot of social media experts are putting undue pressure on writers to be on social media every waking moment. Feeling stressed, many writers resort to automation (because all of us just LOVE talking to and hearing from bots). Relax. Hop on a couple times a day with the goal of three genuine interactions.

A little goes a long way and we remember real people. We ignore (then report and block) bots. We won’t buy books from spam bots, and we won’t send them money to get the rest of our inheritance from Ghana either.

News flash! Twitter is….global. If you can’t tweet when you are at work, don’t sweat it. Twitter doesn’t have visiting hours. No matter what hour of the day you hop on, I guarantee you people will be tweeting. I once had a bout of insomnia that earned me a heck of a following in the UK.

We have to be present to listen. Be real. Others will appreciate it.

RULE #2 You Will Be Graded on Attendance and Participation—NO AUTOMATION, PERIOD

Every time I tell people to not automate or program tweets I get argument. Feel free to automate but I will tell you two truths.

1) We are all ignoring you, and eventually we will report and block you and then we will just hate you.

We don’t pay attention to auto-tweets. Guess what? We don’t read the crap in our spam folders, either. And don’t try to make it look like you are tweeting for real. We are sharp. We spotted the guy in the HOV lane with a blow-up doll, too. We resented him for insulting our intelligence, and we will resent you, too.

2) Programmed tweets can get out of control and land you in hot water.

Recently on #MyWANA we had a link-spammer who would not stop spamming #MyWANA. I tweeted nicely and asked her to stop. So did at least a dozen other people. When nice didn’t work, we tried not-nice and tweeted “WHY ARE YOU SPAMMING #MyWANA? STOP!” I even blogged, then blogged AGAIN to make the mission and rules of #MyWANA clear and to gently discourage her behavior.

Still, she kept posting links…and more links…and, yes, even MORE links.

We finally blocked and reported her so much that Twitter shut down her account. What did she do? She opened a new one (or unlocked the reported account) and started link-spamming #MyWANA AGAIN, no matter how many times we told her that #MyWANA was for community.

Why didn’t she listen? Likely because she’d set up automation. Because she wasn’t present, she couldn’t see the fierce hatred we all had for her. Every time we saw her name, we saw red.

When I awoke yesterday to an entire column of tweets from this woman on #MyWANA, I took the fight to Facebook. This got her attention. She apologized and said she was only trying to help writers, that she had a good intentions, and I believe her but:

Good intentions + horrible manners = ticked off followers

While she claims she never automated, I don’t know if I quite buy that. If she was present on Twitter and watching the column she was spamming using, she would have seen how she was being received.

***Twitter hint: If people are tweeting you telling you that you suck, that is NOT a good thing, so stop doing whatever you are doing that is ticking people off.

Automation can save time, and up your SEO, sure, sure, but it can also make a giant mess that taints your brand. In September’s issue of Fast Company Magazine , Baratunde Thurston, The Onion’s director of digital, talks about he almost ruined the company’s brand by using Tweetlater.

His iPhone short-circuited from all the hate mail.

RULE #3 Each of Us Gets One Turn—We only need one identity on Twitter…really.

Another reason the #MyWANA link-spammer ended up in hot water was that she not only insisted on posting link after link after link on #MyWANA with no conversation, but she had multiple identities doing the same thing. She not only had a twitter ID with her author name, she had one for her company (that offers services to writers).

Great, so not only was she a bot, she was a bot with multiple personalities.

***Twitter hint: Link-spamming with one personality is dumb. Link-spamming from multiple-personalities is borderline suicidal.

If our followers are greeting us with digital torches and pitchforks, that isn’t a good thing. Also, here is a definition of spam so there is no confusion.

Spam: Messages with no humanity or engagement.

It is called social media. Twitter is not our personal infomercial. People are on social media for community. If we are not talking to people and present, we are a bot.

If we are doing something that is offending people and they are trying to tell us, but we aren’t even there? THAT is spam, no matter how good our heart was for posting whatever we were posting.

RULE #4 Play Well with Others—Follow any #s we regularly use and pay attention to the Mentions column.

Let’s say I buy the story that the #MyWANA link-spammer didn’t automate. Okay. Well, then she clearly wasn’t watching the #MyWANA column that she so freely used or she would have seen her tweets clogging up the stream and would have seen the WANAs pleading with her to cease and desist. If she’d checked her @Mentions, she would have gotten the tweets calling her out, and would have seen the rising anger.

When I tweet links, I regularly use, #MyWANA, #amwriting and #pubtip, but guess what? I follow ALL of those hash tags. I watch the columns. I am very careful to not tweet too many links, and I am vigilant to make sure I don’t clog a #.

If I RT a link that uses #s, I change them so I don’t clog a hash tag. If I don’t change them, I at least remove them. I do all of this to make sure my social media behavior is not ruining the social media experience for others.

Remember that social media is a form of communication. Communication has three parts:

SENDER—>Medium—>RECEIVER

As the sender of a message, it is our responsibility to keep tabs on how and if our message is being received.

RULE #5 Remember the Golden Rule—Tweet Unto Others as You Would Have Them Tweet Unto You

Social media works best when we are all vigilant about the feelings of others. Do we want non-stop links blasted at us? No. So why would we think it’s a good plan to do it to others? Do we like direct mailings, junk mail, and flyers jammed under our windshield wipers? No. Then why are we blitzing people to buy our books?

Do we just looooove it when vacuum cleaner salespeople interrupt our family time at dinner trying to sell us something? No. Then why are we interrupting the social time of others to sell them stuff? Do we like friends or family who only talk to us when they want something? Do we like people who talk all the time, who never listen and never ask our opinion? No. Okay, then focus on relationships, on giving instead of taking.

Like I said, all we ever needed to learn about social media we learned in Kindergarten ;).

What are your thoughts? What unspoken social rules do you feel still exist on social media? What ways do you serve others? What suggestions would you offer to make social media more social? Was your mother part of the Good Manners Gestapo?

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of August I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.