Believe it or not, social media has been around for over a decade. Considered just a fad at the beginning, it has invaded our personal and professional lives to a massive extent. Still, the biggest difficulty for brands and people working in social media is to understand its rules. The sheer advice in the form of articles and blog posts available on the Internet doesn’t make that ‘mission’ particularly easy.

We read and hear all the time “follow the trends (e.g. visuals and infographics, Pinterest and Instagram)”, “do that, don’t do that”, “focus on that, ignore that” – oh my! Checking out a few of those articles in a row doesn’t really make it clearer; you get even more confused.

Therefore, when I came across the infographic you can see at the end of this post I was yet again impressed with the power of visuals and how they manage to transmit a number of messages in a quick and easy to understand, yet creative and fun way. Well done to Jeremy Waite for compiling the rules and creating the infographic!

The truth is though, a one-size-fits-all solution to social media does not exist. What one thing might be the ‘holy grail’ for one company, this same thing could be another’s nightmare. Which is why, I can only advise you to put under the loop any rules or dos and don’ts lists you come across and adopt or adapt the tips in accordance with your own organisation, its strategies, objectives, aspirations and activities.

Nevertheless, there is some really great advice in the infographic below. (Some of the rules are also quite funny.) As the creator himself says, the idea behind this list of rules is “to guide you around the messy world of social media, and bring about world peace in the process”. I think he’s kind of succeeded J

Here are my favourites:

#2: Social media is ALL about your audience, be they consumers, viewers, fans, followers or users. It has nothing to do with you, or what you think.

#5: If you actually spoke to people the way most social advertising speaks to people, they’d punch you in the face.

#6: People share emotions they don’t share facts. No amount of science, data or clever analysis will ever change this. Therefore make your content calendars appeal to people’s hearts, not their heads.

#12: Update your page or delete it.

#21: Engaging with your fans and creating a community are NOT the same thing. Seriously.

#24: Despite what your boss might think, social media is not cheap. Nor is it easy. It can be very expensive and incredibly difficult (especially if you do it wrong or take bad advice). Rules 34 and 35 obviously come into play here.

#26: Some of the best directors I know have learnt everything they know about social media from their children. Do not under-estimate these ankle-snappers. Socially-savvy-cellphone-obsessed teenagers now check their phones an average 150 times per day and will find out most things before you do.

#31: Everyone says they don’t want to be marketed to. Really they just don’t want to be talked down to - or targeted with completely irrelevant ads for products that they don’t care about or have no interest in buying. Ever.

#36: Social is 24/7 not a one-time stunt. And yes I’m talking to you Old Spice guy. Just because you smashed a killer campaign, didn’t mean you could run away and stop tweeting the second your campaign ended.

#45: This is not Google. Trying to buy 1 persons attention is not the same as trying to create compelling content that they WANT to share with their 140 friends.

#54: Engagement is not a dog. It cannot be owned. This is not 2003 or 1993. You are not in control of your brand anymore. Your fans are.

#64: Ben Silberman, the co-founder of Pinterest still has the personal emails and mobile numbers of his first 5,000 users. He still cares about what they think and asks them for advice. Follow his example.

#66: Privacy is over-rated. Respect is not.

#72: Social media is too important to be left to the marketing department. Instead, build teams consisting of customer service, operations, digital, sales, support and commercial people. This newly formed team should be obsessed with nothing other than loving your customers to death and building a compelling “conversation strategy” that drives real business results.

(Click on the infographic for a larger view)

Which one is your favourite rule?