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There are many unwritten rules to keep in mind when interacting with others on social networking sites. The following is a list of dos and donts to keep in mind when utilizing social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook.

500+ Friends

Take a good look at the people on your friends list. Do you know them personally? When was the last time you two spoke? Are they really your friends? What use are they to you and what use are you to them? If you do not know the person personally, they should most liekly not be on your friends list. There are exceptions: bands, filmmakers, companies… as long as you are fans of them. Don’t feel like you have to add everyone who asks you. You don’t.

It makes you look bad if you have hundreds of friends because it’s obvious that you are not, in fact, friends with all of these people. And there is no way for anyone to know who asked who to be friends. You could look like you’re desperate to be popular. It’s not flattering.

No Returns

Don’t be that person who gets comments but never returns the love. If someone takes the time to send you a message or comment on your page or blog, you owe it to them to answer them. People may not admit it, but they do expect to hear back from you. It’s very rude not to acknowledge that you at least read what they wrote. If you are a “No Return” person, people will not put up with it after a while and will stop commenting on your profile. It is best to try to respond within a few days.

And it doesn’t always have to be about response. You can initiate the contact. You don’t have to wait for someone to comment on your photo or blog for you to talk to them. Don’t be shy to say HI to your friend and see what they’re up to. Why did you sign up for a social networking site? Did you expect that suddenly everyone will flock to you? If you’re not a celebrity, let’s get real.

Photos are Forever

Don’t think that just because your profile is on private that your photos are safe. They’re not! Anyone on your friends list can use Right Click > Save As to save your pictures onto their hard drives. Who knows why they would do this, but it’s very possible. And once the pictures are on their hard drives, they have the freedom to distribute them over the internet. Follow this criteria when deciding if you should post a certain photo: Would you be OK with it if this photo was emailed to your parents? If yes, then go ahead and upload. If no, you might want to think twice.

Cookie Cutter Comments

You’ve all seen it. The “Thanks for the Add” comments. It’s really unneccesary to thank someone for adding you, especially with large glittery pictures. It is understood that you are thankful that someone added you as a friend. Start out with a customized comment.

Also, using Copy and Paste on all your friends can end up hurting you. If someone sees that you commented on their page only to find that you’ve posted the same thing on everyone else’s page, they may end up ignoring you or even blocking or deleting you (depending on how well they know you.) This is something an aquaintance might do. It is unlikely that a close friend will delete you, but if you are enough of a pest, it’s possible that they might go to these extremes.

Untruths Abound

It might seem funny at first, but filling out your profile with untruths is lame. Lying about how much you make, what your job and name is, your favorite books even, is childish. People look to your profile to find out something about you that they may not have known before, so take this opportunity to let the real you show.

Fishing for Compliments

Most etiquitte rules of life also apply to social networking, some more than others. One things that people do is fish for compliments. It’s exasperating to any normal person when they feel cornered into paying someone a compliment because they recieve a comment a long the lines of “Well, I can’t where that since I’m fat” or “If I was as pretty/smart/rich as you I could…” This happens a lot in the photo area of MySpace and Facebook. For example, people might label how ugly or fat they look in pictures. Be positive and you will get more genuinely positive feedback. Be negative and people will be repelled from you.

These are just a few important rules to make your social networking life run more smoothly. The most important thing you can do is to use your common sense and apply real life rules to the internet world. It’s worth thinking about so you can avoid being “that person.”