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SALT LAKE CITY -- Social networking has no doubt changed the way we communicate to our friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances, but what has it done for our social etiquette? Are many of us a little braver online than in person? Are we aware of our own behavior? Are we too self- involved?
Nov. 17 is known as National Unfriend Day, made famous last year by late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel. Here is a list of some things you can avoid doing on Facebook to dodge the threat of being unfriended.
1. Complaining
Nobody wants to hear repeatedly that you're broke, lonely, sick, tired, out of shape, hate your job, hate your ex, or just hate life in general. It's not that we don't care, but you're bringing us down, and we don't like that feeling either.
2. Inappropriate language or behavior
Is it really necessary to use that much profanity or to post comments to deliberately upset people? Profanity, pictures of scantily clad women or your beer binging party last night is a sure fire way to get the ax … on Facebook and at work if you're friends with your boss.
3. Politics and religion
This applies in real world social etiquette, so of course it applies online, however many people seem to forget this rule. Facebook is not the place to blast your political views; it gets old, especially when you want to argue about it. Same goes for religion — just don't go there.
#poll
4. Posting too much
If you are one of those people who post about every little aspect in your life, you may be losing some friends soon. We don't need to know what you just ate or that your cat coughed up a hairball. And if you are one of those people who post about every play in the football game, please stop, we have professional commentators for that.
5. Trying to sell something
Many people use their Facebook profile to sell their products or services. There is a proper amount of "selling" you can do to not be annoying, otherwise take it to your Facebook business page and leave it there, but please don't be "that guy."
Some honorable mentions are posting songs or song lyrics, bragging about your wonderful husband/wife/kids/job/car/house/pets/etc, sending too many event or game invites, and spam reposts — you know, repost this if yadda yadda yadda.
If you're not sure if you are one of the people listed above, try this experiment: Before you post something on Facebook, imagine yourself in a room with 30 randomly picked Facebook friends. Would you say to them in real life what you are about to post? If you're still not sure if what you're posting is annoying, just ask your loyal Facebook friends.
Chanda Gunter is the owner of The Social Network, a social media marketing company based out of southern Utah. She is a marketing consultant, public speaker, columnist, event planner and teaches several social media seminars and classes monthly.
