A Guide to Social Networking Etiquettes

A recent market research on the trends in leveraging social networking for marketing by corporates emphasised the power of Generation S and how it had made email (Generation E) look so passé. After all, you now have one platform where Gen E can not only mail but also several other things under the sun.

As someone who took up to social networking at its stages of infancy and seen it the way as its evolved today, these could be few tricks of the trade which can help you hold your own in the virtual world:-

• Never hang up a chat session abruptly without bidding bye – Online chat is as good as a f2f chat and need not necessarily be discourteous.
• Say BRB, only if you really mean it.
• Never tag people in pics without their consent – after all, even a monkey would want to be well dressed out if its parading before a group of friends :P
• Never add your boss to your network – u don’t want to be caught holidaying whilst your leave application says u r unwell!
• Never over do the acronyms part – the world was not created knowing words like ROFLMAO, IKWYM, CWTCU, etc..and they do not form part of the  Oxford English Dictionary as well. And, hey, it is NOT COOL.
• Yes, there are Sister’s Week, Brother’s Week, Son’s Week, Daughter’s Week, even Daughters-in-Law’s Week. And yes, there are Cancer Patients Week. I am fairly successful in being a good daughter/sister. I am also fairly sensitive towards patients who are struck with such fatal diseases and prefer doing my bit discreetly. I know of several of my friends who do so, too. Please do not bombard our walls reminding us of these. Do your bit without proclaiming the same to the world.
• If you are copy pasting, please acknowledge. Do not plagiarise.
• If you use it purely for tp ing....err, time passing, do so only with people who have spare time to pass, don’t bother the busy ones unless they too have the time to pass!!..;)
• Wish even those friends whose birthdays do not come as standard alerts through FB/ Google Calendar – Now, THAT would really mean something!

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P.S. : Sorry SK, the 4^th point is not meant for u, and no I do not employ this particular trick...:D!