Putting together last week’s post “Ten Mistakes Made by Social Media Newbies” was a rewarding experience for me, especially because the article seemed to touch a chord with many of my friends — a lot of whom are resisting the New World of Communication.

Not all of them, though.

Below is a really detailed article comment written by Kimberly Noon, one of my awesome marketing students at SFSU. Her Gen-Y insights added a lot of her own experience to the conversation, and whe agreed to allow me to share her remarks as a Guest Post.

Here’s Kim:

Shari — I love this. I think you’ve nailed every­thing. As a very expe­ri­enced Social-Medialite, I think you’ve explained every­thing so well. A few comments…

Learn­ing the dif­fer­ent avenues of social media CAN be super over­whelm­ing. For new­bies, they should do exactly what you said. Fol­low the 4 steps and focus on one ele­ment at a time. Learn­ing one (twit­ter, face­book, etc.) will help you learn the oth­ers. For exam­ple, Twit­ter and Face­book have many of the same ele­ments and reach the same demo­graphic, hence once you learn one it will be “eas­ier” to learn the other.

Friends connect through Mafia Wars

Love the Mafia Wars ref­er­ence 🙂 My boyfriend works for the com­pany that sup­plies us with those games such as Far­mVille, Mafia Wars, YoVille, etc. The point of those games is to con­nect friends through gam­ing. Back in the day, this used to be done by hav­ing family/friend game nights and play­ing board games. It’s the same con­cept, only nowa­days, peo­ple are on-line the major­ity of their day and have less time to meet face to face. These games give peo­ple the oppor­tu­nity to play games with their friends/family (be con­nected) and still have the same kind of play­ful expe­ri­ence.

Also, if the games are THAT pop­u­lar there is prob­a­bly some­thing attrac­tive about them… and it’s just another way to be con­nected, which is the point any­way.. right?

One of the best ways to learn the tips and tricks of social media is LISTENING to your peers. Watch, lis­ten, explore, and learn.

Every­one was a new­bie at one time when it comes to social media. Most social media mem­bers are for­giv­ing and will offer help and sug­ges­tions. MOST, not all.

Be your­self when it comes to social media

Act­ing like some­one you aren’t is bad and it’s for a whole dif­fer­ent crowd — the cults of peo­ple who use social media as an “escape” from who they really are. The peo­ple who are there to be them­selves and con­nect with peo­ple they REALLY know (not imag­i­nary inter­net friends) see these “cult” peo­ple as creepy and spam-like.

Speak­ing of spam — DON’T spam. This will cause peo­ple to “unfol­low” or “hide” you, which defeats the pur­pose of being con­nected through social media. There are so many peo­ple on my Face­book page that post and repost every ounce of spam they come across. I “hide” these peo­ple from my Face­book page so I never see what they post. You don’t want to be one of these peo­ple 🙂

Lastly, social media out­lets are NOT your diary. Like you said, once you say some­thing, it’s out there and you can’t take it back. If you want to post some­thing, think about it first. If it’s some­thing only your diary should know, write it down there and don’t share it with the Web world.

Kimberly’s had her say; what’s yours?