Please, stop trying to impose your rules

By Sofia, on June 29th, 2009

Commit No Nuisance Sign London
Originally uploaded by greenwood100

Here goes a little bit of a rant.

I am so tired of semi-knowledgeable people (and in the field of social media and online comms nobody knows it all – it’s too early people) trying to convince me that they know the One True Way. Oh we all do it one way or another. And I think it’s silly – not to mention dangerous.

Don’t get me wrong, I work in comms and I know that policies need to be set and followed, especially in a corporate environment (for start-ups I always prefer a much more relaxed approach). But trying to convince me that your Rules apply to every single blog, lifestream, microblogging, social media platform out there just drives me insane.

There are fundamental differences not only between personal and corporate presence but also from one presence – within the same category – to the other.

And for the attackers out there: I love ‘how to do it’ posts as much as the next person. Really, I do. I’m actually including some nice ones at the bottom of this post. But there is a world of difference between giving pointers and crushing every other approach.

Don’t generalise
It never worked for anyone, it will not do you any favours. Generalisations are basically over-simplifications. They are useful to make a point and provide some sort of direction but they do not represent reality. Example: Apple does it ALL wrong and it still rocks.

Learn from the exception not the rule
Where would we be if we all had the same rules, the same approach? Ah, perhaps we would be like old media? Out of touch – out of reach – all the same. We are not soldiers here, we are normal people and our individuality should add to the sum and make it better. Not make us into pod people. Find the exception and see what you can learn. (I would highly recommend reading 5 People Who Broke the Rules of Social Media and Succeeded by David Spark on Mashable)

Lead by example but don’t DEMAND that I do it your way
Seriously. If you have views then please let me know but if we don’t agree just stop reading me/ following me. Here is a good example. I managed to spam my twitter followers by broadcasting all of my friendfeed activity to twitter – including comments. Some people came over and told me. I fixed it and they go on following me. Wasn’t that easy? Some other people stopped following me because they believe I should not be broadcasting to twitter from friendfeed. Fair enough. Just don’t try to enter into a huge debate of why I’m doing it wrong. Say your piece, we’ll chat about it and then I will do what feels right for ME. Feel free to do the same by un-following me.

Stop making assumptions
Don’t assume the reasons why a company or an individual does things a certain way in different contexts. There is always a reason – sometimes a bad one sometimes a good one. Just ask. I am more interested in your analysis if you have taken their view and actually researched the issue than if you are just ranting of your own accord.

The way you use a platform is not the One True way
Oh I’ve heard it all. How comments should be written. How twitter is not for chatting. How when ReTweeting you should always track down the source (impossible not to mention silly). How Facebook should be strictly personal. How you should not repeat the same stuff in all your platforms. How you should not blog if you don’t have anything interesting to say. There is one thing I have to say to all of this: The most successfull – interesting – followed – read – distributed content on the web flaunts most or all of these rules.

Engage. Don’t instruct.
You are not television. You are not a newspaper. You are not a magazine. I can respond to you. So talk to me as if we are having a discussion – not as if you know it all. So ask, research, propose. Who knows, maybe we can all learn something.

Oh and if we don’t agree? It’s fine. We may chat about it for a while. Then, I’ll stop following you. No hard feelings.