agustina prigoshin

I’ve noticed that as Social Media gets more and more popular, people are starting to take their networks’ trust for granted. Whether it’s intentional or not (and I understand if some people just don’t see their actions as wrong or unethical – after all, Social Media is relatively new and people are still grasping the concept) you must always mind your relationships and soliciting yourself or your company’s services on someone else’s site isn’t OK.

The way I see it is, if I like your product or service enough, I’ll talk about it. I’ll tell my friends and network to check you, your product or your company out.

I know for a fact that if you’re nice enough to your friends or network, they’ll do your PR for you.

Case in point, Jose Boza and his Facebook status update this morning: ‘Friends helping Friends’ concept. I wanted to introduce a weekly announcement on my Facebook page regarding one of my friend’s business services. I have many friends that have wonderful services and I thought it would be a cool idea to share their services with my other Facebook friends. Every Wednesday I will post a different person and what services they offer.

I’m very protective of my network and don’t want to bombard them with unsolicited messages that they might not care to read or have pop up in their feeds.

I’ve had numerous people comment on my blog and Facebook status updates with messages pointing my network to their website. Just because I write about a topic that’s related to your line of work doesn’t mean I’m giving you the “go ahead” to promote yourself.

My instant reaction is to delete the comment.

I’m not speaking for everyone; some people may be OK with you promoting on their site, but do so with caution because you never know if that person will find your promotion intrusive.

My message for this post is: don’t use your friends as a billboard.