Pretty much every article we read about social media is about how to use it for marketing and be more visible to your audience and what the return on investment is for using social media. But social media is more than just marketing or even networking. Social networks are social and we must recognize it in order to use them effectively. What many people focus on is marketing, networking, and technology, but ignore awareness of behavioral norms that can and do influence social media activity. That ignorance can lead to unfortunate situations where people start unfollowing someone because of actions that person is doing. The following tips can help you recognize whether you are engaging in good or bad behavior on social media.

1. Retweet carefully. Some people will only retweet a mention of themselves by someone else. Not only is it a very vain practice, but it shows that the person only cares about how others promote him. If you choose to retweet, be sure to retweet articles that are interesting. Show people that you are not there just for yourself.

2. Post messages on multiple networks with consideration. Not all messages need to go to all networks. Just because you have Twitter linked to LinkedIn doesn’t mean people want to read about Cowboys sports teams on Twitter. Likewise, if you reply to someone on Twitter and it’s also sent to their other social networks, it might not make as much sense to people on those networks, because the context that informs the discussion happens on Twitter. Remember that each social networking site has its own specific audience and purpose. Posting messages that are not relevant to that purpose and audience consumes bandwidth and can also be unprofessional.

3. Don’t automatically follow people who follow you. Autofollowing someone can lead to embarrassment and spam, especially if some of the people you autofollow are porn stars and spammers. You will start receiving spam in your account and the icons of the people who follow you will appear on your profile page. Take the time to research who is following you. It only takes a couple of minutes to see the content a person is posting. If the person is just posting a lot of links, is a spammer, or if the content is something you don’t like, don’t follow them. Choose the people you will follow and as a result, you will build better relationships. A note on following people: if a customer follows you, follow them. You want to be more visible to that person and it is just good manners and good policy to follow someone who has chosen to do business with you.

4. Personalize your invitations. When I receive an invitation from someone and they use the generic message, I find it more difficult to accept the invitation and sometimes I decline it and even indicate that I don’t know the person. Personalizing a message only takes a few moments of your time, but it can really make an impression on the person you’re sending the invite to. I always provide a comment or two about where I put the person and what we talked about. That context can help me stand out a little more, and also help that person decide to accept my invitation. More importantly, continue the conversation and relationship building that started when you met the person.

5. Take some time to respond to someone who mentions you or responds to your message. Taking a moment to reply to someone acknowledges that person and continues the conversation too! In fact, when you reply, you actually increase the chance that other people will also comment and improve your visibility in the process. You will also rank higher on social networking sites, in terms of being searched.

For your social media marketing to be successful, you need to think about the behaviors and actions you display while using social media. Because we use technology to communicate, it’s very easy to forget some of those social norms and behaviors. Technology keeps us from fully recognizing the effect our words and actions can have, but learning to recognize that reality can help us be more mindful in the way we communicate through social media and make our networking and marketing more effective. much more effective.