bad teachers Archives - Successful Blog

In my email this week was a leadership statement from Vincent Wright, Social Media Consultant, man I admire. If you’re on MyBlogLog or Twitter, you may have met him. If you haven’t yet, look for him. You’ll know you’ve found the Wright guy when you see his Wright hand avatar over there.

Bad Social Media Teachers
by Guest Writer Vincent Wright

In each social media environment, there are patterns of behavior.

There are good patterns of behavior.

There are bad patterns of behavior.

Social media owners, moderators, and group participants recognize both the good and bad patterns of behavior.

Those who seek to use social media platforms for their intended usage, enjoy witnessing those who use social media the right way.

Those who seek a more self-centered purpose — even to the detriment of the platforms they are on — use social media poorly, and jeopardize the platform for all users.

The first group could be called social media environmentalists.

The second group could be called a whole bunch of names — none worthy of sharing with a “PG 13” audience.

But, think about this: patterns of behavior don’t just come into existence without a cause, without a stimulus.

Someone must conceive, create, and cause the propagation of both the good and the bad behaviors we see.

If we see what I call “profile stamping” on Ning, where a member will go to dozens upon dozens of profiles and stamp the same banal message with the same graphic over and over and over, some bad social media teacher taught them to do that.

If we see what I call ” ‘hi’ stamping” on Yahoo Groups, where hundreds of members attempt to sign up for private, moderated groups just by saying, “Hi”, some bad social media teacher taught them to do that.

If we see what I call “toll boothing “ on Linkedin, where some “enterprising” Linkedin member wants to charge you a fee for a service that is free, some bad social media teacher taught them to do that.

If we see what I call “invitationitis” rampant on any number of social media platforms, where people without any modicum of self-control seem to indiscriminately invite just for the heck of inviting, some bad social media teacher taught them to do that.

There is no shortage of other bad social media behavior we could add to the above list – feel free to add yours – but, I love that the word “teach” literally means “to show”. So, if someone is showing you bad social media behavior then, they are bad social media teachers.

And this, too: since the word teach means to show, what are you teaching those who are watching what you’re showing them on these social media platforms?

Vincent,
This is going to run while I’m gone to BlogWorld. I agree with the heart and hope in this message. I bet that some are “self-taught” social media experts who are now teaching others to do these nasty things.

Bet the folks who read this have more bad social media practices.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Bad Social Media Teachers by Guest Writer Vincent Wright

Bad Social Media Teachers
by Guest Writer Vincent Wright