HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, EVERYONE!

Whether you are celebrating today with flowers, chocolates, and dinner, OR if you are cursing Cupid, Hallmark, and the entire production, I want to share with you how NOT to break my heart online.

Here are my TOP 5 THINGS NOT TO DO ON FACEBOOK:

5. Habitually click like on “LIKE THIS IF YOU / IGNORE THIS IF YOU” pics.
You know what I’m talking about, right? Those pictures or status updates that say things such as “Like this if you hate cancer. Ignore this if you love cancer”, etc.

Seriously??? Why would someone post this? Desperation? Need for attention and “likes” on their profile or page? In any case, please don’t feed into this. It”s OK to keep scrolling past these updates. No one will judge you. In fact, they”ll probably thank you.

4. Copy/Paste status updates that say things like “Repost this. 99% of my friends won’t do this”.
This is another one that really grinds my gears. It doesn”t matter how beautiful or important the status update may have been until that point, because when I see “99% of my friends won’t do this”, my response is “You’re right!”

Don”t stoop to guilting people into sharing your post. Focus on creating interesting and engaging content (whether for business or personal), and if it’s good, people will share it… without the guilt trip!

3. Share a large number of photos of wounded and abused animals.
I love you, Sarah McLachlan and I support your cause (and other causes with the same mission), but STOP IT! Shock Marketing does work sometimes, but too much is too much.

Admit it. When you”re watching TV and those commercials come on, you dive for the remote control and change the station, right? So why would you post those photos on Facebook? I understand that this is a very important cause, but who wants to log in to Facebook to find their News Feed full of injured puppies? You don’t have to shock to convey a message.

2. Post non-stop pics of your food
We all know someone like this… they post photos of their meals almost every day.

Do you do this? You do? Really?

Come here.

No. Closer.

Closer still. I need to tell you something…

STOP IT!

Posting a photo of a really special meal or something from a new restaurant from time to time is OK, but every day? Why?

Unless you are a chef or a nutritionist like my friend Lisa, then please… Please stop it!

And the top way to break my heart on Facebook…

1. Share conspiracy theories and spam without checking Snopes.com first.
“There’s a new virus!”
“OMG! They’re giving away free iPads!”
“Facebook is going to make us PAY!”

AAAAAARGH!!!

Here’s my rule. If it sounds fishy, then it probably is. So before you give in to the adrenaline and click SHARE, take a second to copy the status update with these claims and paste it into the search bar over on Snopes.com.

Snopes is a website that researches and reports on urban legends, internet hoaxes, rumors, email forwards, etc. If Snopes says it is true, then fine… share away! But if it’s false info, break the cycle and do not share lies with your friends or fans! We are all responsible for our words and actions online, so do the right thing and briefly check the content for accuracy before passing it on to others.

So there it is…

How about you? What breaks your heart on Facebook?

Sound off in the comments below!