I posted on Facebook about noticing bloggers social sharing to secondary accounts that weren’t necessarily fake, but had no followers and no intention to build that handle. Most of this behavior has been occurring on Twitter and done by bloggers who are a part of comment and social syndication tribes. This behavior is wrong and doesn’t do anything for anyone except show how much of a jerk you are.
If you’re not going to share articles on your own main social network handles, then don’t bother to share anything. Your goal is to engage with people and build relationships with others, including your fellow bloggers. This kind of behavior says that you’re selfish, don’t care, and above all in social media… you’re doing it wrong.
You want to share articles that you’re interested in, as well as ones relevant to your brand. This makes you more human to your followers. Sure, you might even up tweeting more, but some power Twitter users tweet 100 times or more in one day! Of course, you won’t share the same way on other social networks as your follower-ship may be a bit different, but you’re not doing yourself any good sending your shares off to a dead end.
If the reason for participating in such behavior is to eliminate competition, stop! Those who you believe are your competition are creating content just as hard. They may be able to say something in a way that people can connect better with. It makes sense to give your audience the option to read and grow from not just your website, but others. It shows them that you are gracious, resourceful, and open to learning as we all don’t know it all… as much as some of us believe. Even as much experience I have, I don’t know everything! New things are developing every day online!
So…
Do yourself a favor – don’t be a social sharing jerk.
Hi Nile,
I agree with your points, as a blogger one could have number of competitors but you should treat them as your friends so that you can build relationship and start getting more exposure, and traffic.
Unless you start helping other bloggers by sharing their good stuff on your social profiles then you won’t be able to convince others to share your good stuff too.
As a blogger, i must say that everyone who are our fellow bloggers we should keep a great nature and way of treating each other so better that there should not occur any sort of uncomfortableness in between us.As one blogger will help the other blogger in it’s difficulties and no one knows when and how one needs whom for solving this difficulties.
So, everyone should be like friend to each other.
I am slightly confused. Are you saying that people have multiple accounts and they are sharing on the account that is not their primary in order to give the allusion that they are sharing others content?
That would be jerkish.
Btw I am not a fan of power twitter users. I unfollow anyone who uses a bot to post every 10-30 minutes or they post 20 times in 20 minutes and end up just taking over my feed.
Hi Nile,
Being authentic goes a long way in determining your blogging success. Such practices are not authentic, and we know how karma works.
Be kind, helpful and most of all, think creatively instead of competitively. Think abundant. Why fear the competition when your mind, and generous nature, can take you anywhere in life? If you’re going to help someone do it from a genuine place. Don’t fear missing out, or lacking something, because your fear will be reflected back to you in the form of struggle, poverty and all types of obstacles.
Since this post vibes with my new blog and brand, I’ll tweet it to my almost 29,000 followers. That’s how we do it. Be real, be honest and success will be yours. Be fake, or dishonest, or try to cheat someone, and it will all flow back to you in the form of failure, or financial struggles, or of course, someone else who’ll readily cheat you, or be dishonest with you.
You created the situation in the first place with your dishonesty. Karma works that way.
Good evening from Fiji, Nile. Happy to see you popping up in my Triberr stream.
Thanks for sharing the important message.
Ryan
Thanks for the nice post..Everybody who are our kindred bloggers we ought to keep an incredible nature and method for treating one another so better that there ought not happen any kind of uncomfortableness in the middle of us.as one blogger will help the other blogger in its challenges and nobody knows when and how one needs whom for understanding this troubles.
Nice and very informative post
It is true that bloggers and internet marketers share a lot of information on their social media profiles which are related and not related to their business. This is just to make the people engage on their pages and direct them to their business web page.
While if we consider this as marketing technique, then we are absolutely wrong . It is not a proper and correct way according to the post. People can differentiate clearly between genuine and false marketing campaigns . By this we only loose people and as a result we just get being wasting our time. A proper way of marketing our own content and especially to a group of people relating to your business will benefit us in a better way. Social sharing should be used only to promote our products and services and also helps in building bonds or relations with other bloggers.
Thank you for sharing.
Hi Nile,
I love the title of this post! I get all crazy when I do see this going on. Maybe I’m strange, but I don’t compete with others, only myself. To grow and learn and apply things.
As far as Twitter goes, It makes me crazy! Some people automate a bizillion tweets per day saying the same old thing. I do share posts on Twitter, as well as other social platforms, say thank you when someone tweets me, but that’s it!
Social media is just that social. The main goal is to start a conversation going. Go over to other people and see what interests you and not only push the like button, but leave a little comment for god sakes!
I like to do a little intro when I share on social media and sometimes a hashtag. This gives the sharing factor more value.
Oh I could go on a rant about social media jerks, but enough said! 🙂
-Donna
Nile, THANK YOU for this! I have to admit, I will share to a public page that I manage that has few – if any – followers just for indexing and for the link, but I NEVER share to profiles or properties that I don’t personally use, daily. I also share, using my personal profile, so everyone on my friend’s list can see that I am sharing to that page.
I reserve sharing to my wall for articles that really are good and that I feel will serve the people on my friend’s list. (I shared yours, by the way. 😉 )
Regardless, this is a great article. I think it’s good to keep in mind that we have different reasons for doing what we do. Sometimes (or even many times), people are being jerks. Sometimes, they might be being kind and doing what is in their conscience to do. I’m not putting everything on my wall just to seem to be liked by others, but I DO make sure that I help with quick indexing and social shares in one way or another – on profiles I own.
You’ve made me think, today! Thanks for that, lady!!
This is a serious problem in today’s world. And this should be the major concern of all the bloggers. Helping other’s should be the priority of all.
The problem is there are so many social media platform that its difficult to manage each of them. So people usually use auto publishing tools to update these sites, resulting in a page will only links and no interaction.
Facebook and Twitter are the place where you get the most junk links.
Great point, Nile. I’m part of some blogging groups that have members who write about stuff that’s not relevant to my audience. So I share on Pinterest where I have boards on those topics (authentically because they’re topics I’m interested in) or in other ways such as Facebook likes or on StumbleUpon. I don’t share those things on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook (other than likes) because they aren’t relevant to my readers . . . and I don’t create “fake” accounts to share to. I agree that’s not a good tactic.
I guess the old adage applies: do unto others.
Just stop to think if you’d like your content dead-ended in this way. If the answer is no, then it’s best to avoid doing it to others.
I never knew why people have fake, dead-end accounts, but you’ve shed some light on the matter.
Thanks, Nile.
Okay, I guess I’m still pretty naive, despite my 5 years on social media, but I didn’t know anyone did such a thing. :/ I have only one account with each of the social media platforms I’m on. I choose where I share, based on how relevant the post is to my followers, but it’s always to Twitter, LinkedIn, FB, G+ or Pinterest. Thanks for addressing this issue, Nile.
Agree that authenticity works to reach the larger audience. If you are sharing more than just your own content and staying on topic the results can be amazing than just singly talking about yourself.
There seem to be so many “systems” these days that rely on automatically spewing out material all over the social sites – it’s no wonder we see so much junk out there! I think people get suckered into becoming Social Media jerks believing they’ll become overnight successes. And we all know it doesn’t work that way.
Thanks for sharing, Nile 🙂
Alan
It is really important to share relevant posts – tweets or even in your type of niche.
I agree. I think doing things the right way and sharing things we are interested in always give the best results.
It’s awful that people do this. Thankfully I’ve not seen much if any around.
I always think, if you don’t want to share everyone (because not all are relevant to your area), then either don’t take part or just find other sharing groups that are relevant.
I agree and always post to my primary accounts, as I hope everyone does. I know its not the case but I’m thankful for everyone who does post honestly, dependably, and with good intentions
you have said what we all probably feel. It is one thing to help other bloggers and build community but it is completely another to be out for you own interests and ignore the others that help you.
Wow, I had no idea people did this. That sounds pretty “jerky” to me. Thanks for letting me know so I keep my eye out for the jerks on twitter or facebook doing this.
Hi Nile! You’re the one who posted about your dyslexia and the grammar thing too, right? Right! I remember you! LOL! I love your posts, they are so true. I consider myself “new” to blogging and I have an experience about thing sharing thing. I prefer not to say more about it (because I am afraid you might hit “EDIT” Hahaha!) I don’t think all accounts with a few followers are fake. I have like 2 twitter accounts with approx. 500 followers, yes, ONLY 500. My attention was caught recently and it became my inspiration to work harder on getting more followers. Now I was able to gain 100 and it’s hard but I’m trying. Whew! 😀 I wish I could just jump to having 20k in a week. Whew! I know having 500 followers could mean dead-end to big-time bloggers but you should know we’re trying. 😛 🙂
I agree. I have been noticing this as well and feel the same way. It defeats the purpose of being in a tribe or syndication group. I am a firm believer in you get what you put out so I’m sure it will catch up with them soon enough.
It’s comparable to being dropped off in a dead end alley somewhere by your date. Great post!
Thank goodness there are more peaches in this world than bad apples though. I have met a lot of good eggs through my blogger journeys and am grateful. I try to concentrate on that and also passing on the kindness! I hope you much success!
Interesting post indeed. This is awesome without saying names to call out these people which this is my own believe. It would be totally wrong for them to do this to eliminate competition. Thanks for sharing
I understand you and there are really some blogger who prefer not to reveal themselves for security purpose and anonymity and that is fine for me. if you really wanted to share it on your main social media account like me, you need to proofread and write it well for you not to get bad comments/impressions towards your friends and that is one of the reason one some people prefer not to show themselves
YUP I Agree We Should All Help & Treat One Another With Respect Too!
Oh wow, I haven’t seen this happening but I guess I haven’t really looked either. Will be now, thank you.
Great information! Bookmarking!
I have seen this done in several occasions and since I am just building my audience I was worry some may do this to me.
I’m overly picky about what I share, thus I choose not participate in the Twitter or Facebook groups. For example: I’m a vegetarian, so I’d feel uncomfortable sharing a recipe that included meat in it, as that would be sending mixed signals to my followers. However, I understand what you’re saying. If a person doesn’t feel comfortable sharing on their primary account, they’re not doing anyone any justice by sharing on an account that is basically dead (i.e. hardly any followers and/or just posts from Twitter share groups). I’ve noticed some fashion and beauty bloggers do this. I feel like people like that need to get off their high horse and learn what a community is truly about. 🙂
Great post. This is very helpful for new bloggers and season bloggers out there. I try to give a variety of my posts across social media.
I’m right there with you. The whole point of social is to share great content along with your own. Share more, engage with others, play fair!
I have a much higher following on my personal Twitter acct., so I tend to share more on there vs. the twitter for my blog. I figured more people would see the content I’m sharing that way.
I agree that is bad manners. I have never noticed this. I notice that you are from Illinois! Me too!
I haven’t noticed this and I don’t do this but as a member of blogger groups, I can see why some people would share to an account other than their primary. When you’re building a brand and/or trying to establish yourself within your niche, it’s not helpful to share content that’s not relevant or that is not very well written. And because some of the larger groups don’t screen for blog ‘quality,’ you can get stuck with some seriously undesirable content that you must share.
I sasly see it all the time and I agree with your post 100%.Some people are shady.