Pull on the virtual rubber…uh GLOVES, whip out your virtual sanitizer and don your virtual face mask!  Today we are talking all about social hygiene!  Why?  Because if you are going to be social, you had better be safe!

Today, where virtual attraction is key to engaging your ideal prospects, buyers, users, customers and expanding your circle of influence people sometimes let social hygiene fall by the wayside.  The desire for numbers versus quality has sent hygiene out the window along with social morals.

My mom would have called those people “loose” or “questionable” or even say that they are part of “the wrong crowd”.    

Ok, morality really has nothing to do with it, but the numbers game vs. quality is an issue.  When you start out at 0 it can be a really lonely place and social discretion isn’t as appealing when you are desperate.  This is when it becomes attractive to build or augment your following by engaging in slutty social practices like buying followers and likes and following anyone with an account.    But let’s put this into a social mores perspective shall we?

Would you go out with ANYONE that you SAW?

Would you give your contact information to ANYONE who wanted it?

Would you do ANYTHING that ANYONE told you to do?

Would you BUY friends? Could you?

Would you be friends with “pretend” people (anything that happened before age 5 doesn’t count)

Would you consume or buy something from a shady or less than reputable source?

If you apply some IRL (In Real Life) social standards to your social media engagement and strategy you WILL attract the RIGHT kind of people.  The people who are aligned with what you have to offer, be that opinions, information, education, products, services or all of the above (hopefully all of the above) will gravitate in your general direction!  They will WANT to read what you have to say, they will WANT to engage you in dialog and they will share what you share because they know it comes from a reputable source? Your following, likes, circles, connections etc… will be made up of high quality connections that will fuel you, feed you, enlighten you and support you.   When you start dealing with some volume you will get a doozy or two…just like in real life.  Roll with the punches and simply move on from those experiences.

I wanted to dig a little deeper on the similarities between Social Hygiene and Physical Hygiene, so who do I consult?  “The Germ Guy” , Jason Tetro of course to get his expert opinion!

Hygiene isn’t always about being clean…it’s about being safe. There’s nothing wrong with a little ‘dirt’ in our everyday activities. From a social hygiene perspective, this could relate to political incorrectness or potentially inflammatory language. The key is to ensure that anything that is said is based on fact and that the message continues to be safe. In my world, grossing people out about germs is okay.

Hygiene is about making sure those around you are safe. If you know that someone around you might have a lower immune system or have problems dealing with certain kinds of germs, you have to be sure that you keep as clean as possible to ensure that you are not inadvertently causing infection. The social perspective is to know your audience and to keep the message clean enough to prevent problems such as misinterpretation, and hyperbole.

Hygiene calms the soul. In terms of social hygiene, the idea is to be sure that in any situation, there should be a calming factor such that the audience is aware that while a point is being made, no one should go overboard.

Viral is okay; pandemic is not. Proper social hygiene should be done to help prevent the fear associated with a pandemic…if a message does go viral, there should always be a sense that there is no need to panic. In a way, the best guide for social hygiene is the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Much like hygiene, if an infection occurs, there is no rewind button. If in any event there is a breach that leads to a consequence, that has to be faced and managed. One can apologize for infecting someone but at the end of the day, it is because they didn’t follow proper hygiene to ensure that the infection never happened in the first place. So with social hygiene. If a message is put out there, be ready for the consequences…and even if you decide to delete a tweet or remove a FB post, people may still talk about it…be responsible for whatever you do.

 Here’ are some tips on how to remain safe latex free!

Don’t click that link!  Twitter folks, no one is talking about you or saying bad things about you.  Don’t click on that link!  If you do, you are a dirty dirty tweeter.  Be prepared to be unfollowed and blocked.  No one wants to play with dirty girls or boys.

Don’t install that App! Facebook folks, people can only creep your profile if you let them.  Change your privacy settings if you aren’t keen on that. Rest assured there aren’t any great tools yet that will tell you if X amount or “so and so” has looked at your profile and how many times they have.  Don’t install that app, don’t click that link.  If so you are a dirty dirty Facebooker and everyone will know it.  Peer pressure works you know.

If it smells bad, it is!  Your true friends or even email contacts you haven’t heard from in ages, are not suddenly sending you any links to porn saying you should read this because they feel you should be enlightened.  Don’t click on that link, don’t reply to that email in fact, don’t even open it!   You may want to send them a courtesy note in a brand new email but best approach is to IGNORE it.  Unless of course you want more of it…then tally ho!  No pun intended…ok yes it was.

Block & Report SpammersIf an account is spamming you odds are they are spamming others including your followers.  Like catching a nasty well…virus and passing it on to your friends.  YUCK!  Break out the virtual penicillin and stop the cycle!   Block the accounts so they can’t spam your contacts.  Report them as spammers so they can’t continue to infect others with their well…junk

Want to build your social media following in a healthy way?  Try these strategies!

Like attracts like – post relevant, valuable information that is designed to attract, engage, inform, educate and convert your ideal targets.

Get in with the right crowd.  Associate virtually with people you would WANT to be associated with..   This means people who are like you, people who are your ideal customer, partner or influencers.  Hotstuff12345 with 25,000 followers may not be a good person to associate with….depending what your business is that is.

Post only things you want read, viewed, shared and shared again!  Some motherly advice?  Don’t put yourself in situations where others may share unwanted details or imagery if you know what I mean.  If you do, well your mama warned you…

Share things from reputable sources.  Share information you and your followers would find informative and valuable from respected sources.

Quality over quantity – spare us the details of what you had for breakfast, where you checked in at on Foursquare.  I will be the bearer of bad news.  We don’t care and btw…you are wasting bandwidth.  Just thought you should know so you can focus on QUALITY.  Make sure EVERY bit of communication has VALUE.

Apply some IRL common sense to all of your social media engagements.  If you wouldn’t do it in real life, why would you do it virtually in front of millions?

So go forth, be safe and use some discretion and social hygiene!

 Share the love! Safely of course!

Do you practice safe social media hygiene?  Read all about it with @avv on #mentormondays http://ow.ly/aBi2m

Social Media Hygiene Latex Free – OOH LA LA!   Read what @avv has to say on #mentormondays http://ow.ly/aBi2m

Practice Safe Social Media! – Social  Media Hygiene with @avv on #mentormondays http://ow.ly/aBi2m

Comment below!

Have you been the victim of social spam?

Do you have tips to stay safe and keep your accounts healthy on social media platforms?

Do you think social media is a hedonistic love fest and safety shouldn’t apply?

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Anastasia Valentine is an award-winning product strategist, CEO of a fabulous marketing and PR agency, speaker, published author and mother. She has over 20 years achieving amazing results in bringing ideas and products to market in the high-tech, music and retail industries.
She works directly with amazing solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and small, medium and enterprise-class companies across the globe.  Her approach combines her knowledge, skills and experience fueled with her drive, a little tenacity and a lot of moxie to launch and build businesses!  Visit Anastasia at www.anastasia-valentine.com