Social Media has it’s own set of etiquette and protocol – not knowing what they are doesn’t excuse you. But we can all share knowledge and help educate each other. With that in mind, here are the top 5 most abused mistakes I see out there these days. Are you doing any of these?

• Don’t Link your Facebook and Twitter Accounts
I have people ask me about this one all the time. To most of us it makes sense that in order to save valuable time, we should set it up so that when we post in one place, it automatically posts in the other venue. But it doesn’t work that way. A good Tweet will be different from a good Facebook post and vice versa. When you send tweets to Facebook, your FB Friends can tell – and know that you can’t be bothered to post, and most likely won’t interact with your posts.

• Don’t Post and Tweet and then Ignore your Followers and Friends
When someone takes the time out of their busy schedule to actually read something you posted and make a comment– make sure you take time to Like or reply to their comment. If someone Retweets your Tweet – take a moment to say Thank You. After all, the whole idea of social media is – well – to be social! Good manners are still important.

• Don’t Spam your Followers
Speaking of Twitter. Just because celebrities can get by with long stream of consciousness Twitter rants, doesn’t mean you can. You cannot. You’ll lose followers. Ask yourself if your tweet will be perceived as informative or at least entertaining. People love brief and compelling vs. prolific.

• Don’t Include Links in Facebook and Goggle+ Captions
When you paste a link into a Facebook or Goggle+ status update, you’ll see a preview pop up of what the link will look like when you post it. Once the preview shows up, delete the long url link that you pasted into the status bar. You don’t need it anymore. Now you can write out a caption without all the gibberish being there.

• Don’t be a Jerk
Some people love to stir up controversy and engage in arguments on social venues just for the attention. But in the long run this usually backfires. The same holds true for rants, snarky comments and complaints about people who have wronged them. There may be some people who will tune in for the fireworks – but eventually they will tune out the person being a jerk.

What social media blunder do you see happening out there? We can all learn from sharing with each other!