Social Netiquette Help.. Guest Post by Social Media Guru @Mayka

I'm back from sunny gorgeous Hawaii just in case you were wondering why I wasn't blogging from the volcano.  I have been thinking a lot about social media and the do's and don'ts and the fact is that I need major help in that area. Mayka Mei was recommended to me by the William Morris Entertainment  digital division and I think she is fantastic. Mayka, who has amazing stories twitter stories can get anyone a ton of followers. She was kind enough to share her Social Netiquette Do's with us for free. Hope you love and would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.  This is the Gorgeous and VERY cool Mayka.

Social Netiquette for Dwellers without Decorators

Guest Post by Mayka Mei, Senior Strategist at Red Magnet Media

True story: I once got a job through Twitter. There are more and more stories like mine these days, and it should be no surprise that the job I landed was in social media. It was a fairly new industry then, so I got to experiment with how to use my company’s Twitter and ended up growing our following from 800 to 168,000!

With an estimated 175 million Twitter accounts, it’s far more difficult now to incite that kind of organic growth – but that doesn’t mean that everyone is using social media correctly! In my current job doing digital strategy with creative brands, rock bands, and fashion labels, I always have fun being asked the how-tos on social media. Here are my two bits for getting key social media concepts down, with one of those bits being a fully blown-out lesson – enjoy!

The Question I Get Asked the Most

When should I post?
I like to alliterate, so I call this Mayka Mei’s Mealtime Media Theory! People are naturally social around food, so to maximize views on your social media updates, I advise posting during meals. Think of when of your audience is getting up for breakfast, checking email during lunch, looking up recipes for dinner, or awaiting their dates for drinks.

The world breaks for food, and they like to consume their social media updates at the same time.


The One Twitter Lesson I Want to Teach the World

@mentions vs. @replies
Not all Tweets are the same! The subtle structural difference between mentions and replies trips up even the biggest brands.

Mentions are when you include a fellow @twitterer in your Tweet:

Everyone who follows me on Twitter will see this Tweet, and @suzeyalof will see it in her Interactions when she logs into Twitter.

Like before, everyone who follows me will see this and it will show up in the activity feed of each Twitterer I included. Plus, anyone who searches for #followfriday [http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/] on Twitter will see who I mentioned.

Replies are when you write a Tweet to someone, and you’re keeping it public. Similar to a mention, replies include the person’s Twitter @handle, but unlike simple mentions, replies always start with someone’s Twitter @handle:

My reply lives on my Twitter feed and will only be seen by people who follow both @suzeyalof and me.

Fashion blogger Rumi Neely is replying to Skaist Taylor. We’re able to snoop on their conversation because Rumi started her tweet with @skaisttaylor.

Why make replies behave differently than mentions? To cut down on the Twitter stream clutter from really chatty Twitterers. It also keeps Twitter discussions threaded so that Twitterers can really stay involved in the conversation.

But wait, what if you really want to write a sentence on Twitter that starts with someone’s @handle?

I call this The Elegant Cheat: Just add a dot! Observe:
This simple punctuation mark is all you need to convert your Tweet from a reply to a mention, and it fits in unobtrusively with the rest of your message.

I once blogged about a book I loved, and days later the author of that book was tweeting me [http://themaykazine.com/2010/03/16/twitter-makin-normal-people-famous-and-famous-people-normal/], wishing me well as I entered a doctor’s appointment. I just love that there are opportunities for connections like that!

Social media may be a mysterious place, but it wouldn’t be half as exciting if it wasn’t ever evolving.

Happy socializing!