[color=#990000][/color]Do you find yourself saying thanks a lot on social media? Ever thought WHY you do that?
In this article I am going to tell you to stop thanking people. Have I gone mad? I’ll tell you why…

Why do I say thank you on Twitter? A strange question, you ask?
No Thanks!
Being encouraging is part of my nature and I value politeness very highly. I always say please and thank you in real life, so surely it’s the same on social media?
Well, kind of…
The thing is, sometimes a “thank you” can lose its value in the noise and sheer volume of posts.
Do you find yourself replying, sending a direct message or commenting with the following?
“Thanks for following me. Looking forward to reading your tweets!”
“Thanks for sharing :-)”
“Thanks for the awesome RTs”
All of the above examples are very polite and encouraging, but what do they actually mean? Have you thought about the meaning of your “thank you” messages or are you just doing what every one else is doing?
Don’t get me wrong, I am doing exactly the same- but recently I was made to think about whether all this thanking was doing any good. I have marketing consultant, Mark Schaefer to thank for that. Thanks, Mark… (oops…!)
It was one of Mark’s blog posts entitled “Why I Stopped Thanking People on the Social web” that made me stop and think.  Do read it- it will give you an idea of what I am referring to.
In the article, Mark says that the tipping point came when someone tweeted him:
You are too damn polite… Stop thanking people, will you!
Ouch.
Mark then went on to say…
I knew he had a point. I had reached the thank you tipping point. So I stopped.
This saddened me. I hate it that the more popular you become on the social web, the less engaging you can be. Isn’t that ironic? The very characteristic people appreciate is doomed over time. Authentic social media engagement is not scalable.
I think Mark makes an interesting point.  Social media is about creating meaningful content or building meaningful relationships- and that includes replies.
It’s also about knowing who is in your core community and knowing why people are sharing your content in the first place.
Translating Thanks


So, coming back to the above example “thank you” messages, let’s do a bit of translating. Could it be that the above messages could mean the following?….
“Thanks for for following me. Looking forward to reading your tweets!”
TRANSLATION: This is an automated message because I am too busy to send you a hand-crafted one. I might be interested in reading what you say although to be honest I probably don’t have that much time to read any of them. I was hoping to reach 10,000 followers, and I’m almost there. Basically I have no idea why I am tweeting you to say thank you for following me, but it seems like the polite thing to do….
“Thanks for sharing :-)”
TRANSLATION: I am genuinely thankful that you shared my article, however I don’t have the time to properly engage with you, but I wanted to say thanks because that’s the right thing to do- my mummy/mommy & daddy taught me to be polite.
“Thanks for the awesome RTs”
TRANSLATION: Thanks for retweeting some of my tweets to your followers. I haven’t thought about it, but come to think about it, some of your followers may have seen my tweets in their timelines. That’s quite good really and it gives me a bit of exposure. Please do keep on doing it! I don’t really talk to you much on Twitter, but I do like the fact that you’re doing my marketing for me.
OK, please note that I had my tongue firmly in my cheek with the above, but I hope you got my point!
Taking up the Opportunity
Part of the issue that Mark Schaefer was referring to, was the lack of value of a “thanks for sharing” type of reply. It’s not quite meaningless, but once you start sending out dozens of these a day, they are going to lose their value.
How about doing something a little different?
Instead of just thanking them, why not introduce them to someone else they might find interesting? How about reading one of their articles and giving some feedback? You won’t necessarily be able to do that with all your replies, but you could create an opportunity and build upon the relationship.

what is this one saying