If You're Going to Comment, Please Use a Coaster

Picking up on yesterday's social media cocktail party theme, when it comes to moderation, I like the "please use a coaster approach". This means that all opinions are welcome as long as they follow a small set of house rules. Things like: no anonymous comments, no spam, and no cussin' -- either the "your product is shit" or "your product is the shit" kind. Basically, everyone's more than welcome to agree or disagree, just be respectful.

This is where the coaster analogy comes in -- if I throw a party at my house, I want all of my guests to have a good time, but I don't want rings on my coffee table when they leave for the night :-)

(The coasters pictured above are available at socialdrinker's Etsy store.)

Social Media is to Cocktail Party ...

When it comes to managing your brand's social media, the approach I like to take is, "don't farm it out, and don't phone it in". You wouldn't plan a cocktail party and step out to the movies right before your guests arrived.

But you see so many corporate blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter streams launched with the best of intentions, only to be abandoned, used as one-way channels for press releases, or outsourced to external suppliers "working on behalf of". Just doesn't feel the same as being there yourself to hand out the appetizers and make pleasant small-talk.

One other thing I've noticed -- as illustrated in the photo above -- cocktail parties and social media are way better when guy-with-eye-patch shows up.