Active Voice Communications

By Michelle Lauer, Active Voice Communications Intern & Guest Blogger

Social media just hurt my street cred, I realized the other day as I sheepishly picked cilantro out of my front teeth. I noticed my faux pas after uploading to Facebook a picture of myself eating a chipotle burrito (recommended on Yelp) from a taco truck whose location I found on Twitter. After a thread of jeering comments from a dozen friends from high school, college, debate camp and my friend’s friend’s surprise birthday party, I learned a small lesson about my online presentation.

Through social media, we share information, experiences, data, opinions and pretty much every other facet of the human social experience. And these online tools have become an increasingly vital part of self-promotion, whether for your own personal branding or to market a company.

And it’s not going away any time soon. Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and blogs are rising exponentially. According to Mashable.com, this month Twitter surpassed 200 million tweets posted in a single day. Two years ago, users posted only 10 million tweets daily.

Social media has instigated global interconnectivity, and even more significant for many of us, it has removed third-party marketing agents from the producer-consumer relationship, allowing individual companies to reach their audiences directly. However, as more and more individuals, companies and movements log in to their social media sites, the challenge to effectively present yourself virtually becomes increasingly difficult.

Many social media faux pas are easily avoidable. Here are just a few to get you started.
1.    Edit your work. The occasional typo will happen, but gross spelling and grammar errors distract viewers and discourage them from reading on.
2.    Provide details. Too little information about you or your company can appear sketchy. Individuals can appear to be social media voyeurs, while companies risk seeming unprofessional and incomplete in their marketing efforts.
3.    Choose your tone carefully. What you post should reflect your brand. When a disconnect from your personality or your company’s brand, overly formal language or informal updates can take away from the image you’re trying to portray.
4.    Reconsider jokes. Think about whether your humor will translate well in written text. It may have been just hilarious when you told that joke at your housewarming party last week, but it could alienate connections over the web.
5.    Remember the purpose. Social media is about making connections. So, go, connect and spread your message — but don’t forget to interact. That means two-way communication, not just broadcasting.
6.    Be yourself. When you’re representing yourself, you are free to be yourself. It’s your site! Give it your own flavor, but don’t leave a sour taste in our mouths (or cilantro in our teeth).

About Michelle
Michelle Lauer is a senior at Arizona State University, majoring in journalism with an emphasis in public relations. In her junior year, Michelle served as a senator for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in the downtown campus student government and as a teacher’s assistant in an upper division statistics course. Michelle has also interned for the Arizona Democratic Party.