Every now and then I try to relax and look at see things from a different perspective. A few months ago, I imagined a world formed by social networks, each network being a country (if you think a little, the total population of those social networks could easily be higher than the population of an entire continent, so it’s not that strange anyway). But no country is a real country until it has a set of secret rules. Here are the 30 secret rules of social media (take them with a little bit of salt and pay attention to the last one, especially 
).
1. You are what you retweet.
2. Don’t DM without permission. It’s like trying to sell elephants in a porcelain store. Your goal may be achieved, but the price may be higher than you think.
3. If you tweet more than 8-9 times per day, your followers will be worried. It’s like getting out in front of your house and saying: “man what a nice weather today” 8-9 times a day. Your neighbors will be worried.
4. Don’t trust a follower with a nice woman picture as an avatar but with a nickname containing more than 4 digits. The photo is most likely a fake and you’re dealing with a nice looking spammer.
5. If you stop tweeting for 7 days in a row you should get yourself another account, your current one will be officially marked as obsolete.
6. If you see the fail whale, do continue to tweet on post-its. Don’t lose your momentum. Stick them on the walls of your office.
7. If you appear in more lists than the total number of your followers, that could be a pretty solid confirmation that you have a multiple personality disorder.
8. You know you had too much Twitter when you’re looking for the “follow” link on the business card you just received.
9. Automating your tweets is like sending clones to the social events you don’t like. Sooner or later, they will catch you.
StumbleUpon
10. Laws are changing every day in this country. Your friends are not your friends but your subscribers, which in turn may or may not be you visitors.
11. Stumbling is actually highly valued in this country. But do not fake it. Try to genuinely stumble otherwise you can be accused of inappropriate behavior in public.
12. StumbleUpon is the Hollywood of social media: it can make you famous in a single day, but you can also be forgotten in a week.
13. According to a number of experts, the SU toolbar could be the most widely used mouse click exercise on Earth. Emptying your SU bar from 100 shares in 10 seconds is considered pretty common sense. If you don’t know what a toolbar is, or what a share means in SU, then, by all means, don’t try to find out. Just stay happy.
14. If they talk bad about you, don’t talk bad back. It’s not polite. Being talked bad in Reddit is a sign of high appreciation. Sometimes is a sign of pure rejection too.
15. Ask a question at least once per month. Don’t pick a specific topic, be as random as you can but do ask a question ever once in a while. Asking questions in Reddit is like drinking beer in Germany.
16. Starting your own subReddit is the equivalent of graduation. Everybody does it, sooner or later.
17. In Reddit, you actually accumulate karma, you don’t burn it. You’ve been warned.
Digg
18. If your link got buried, be happy. It’s the first sign you’re becoming important.
19. In Digg, who you are as a person is not even remotely as valuable as who you know. I also saw that in business. A lot.
20. Reaching the front page of Digg is equivalent in some cultures with winning the lottery. The probability, I mean.
21. If you get comments on your submissions, but no diggs, you’re doing something extremely wrong. Nobody will tell you exactly what, get used to it.
22. There’s no real difference between friends and fans: both can bury you alive.
23. If you want to say something nice to some of your friends, think twice, there might be an app for that.
24. There will always be some causes to join at some point in your life, so don’t rush on the first one.
25. Farmville is a very crowded city in Facebook. Rumors has it that some people who entered Farmville never got back from it.
26. If someone likes your link that doesn’t mean you have to automatically invite him/her on a date.
27. You will receive crazy, totally useless, nice looking small gifts. Get used to it. It’s not spam. It’s gifts.
28. It’s compulsory to have your own fan page. If you don’t, people will assume you want to become somebody else’s fan and act accordingly.
29. Never respond to a message that says: “You have just been accepted in Mafia Wars”. Real mobsters don’t do that. They send someone over.
The Final Rule
30. If you’ve read everything on this list and agreed with at least 50% of what’s in it, you badly need a life. A real life.
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I badly agree with rule number 30
)
Zoli Cserei´s last blog ..Welcome to Simply Will Do, my dearest readers!
This was great Dragos, lots of truth and humor mixed together. Thinking about some of these moves us to take stock in the whole way we think about social media.
Jonathan – Advanced Life Skills´s last blog ..Exceptional Self Confidence In the Face of Challenges
Hey Dragos.
Cool stuff about Reddit there. That is the one of the pack that I use the least. That might change over time.
Digg sure is like you say it is. Funny pictures are huge over there.
My StumbleUpon is non-functional at this time as I did too much site-specific stumbling, but if I start using it again, that would clear up.
Cool set here.
Armen Shirvanian´s last blog ..Write Your Way Through It
I suspected it before, but now it’s official: I need a life! Great list!
Once I saw #3, let alone #1, I blinked and realized what tricks you were up to. Don’t change. Happy holidays!
Ari Herzog´s last blog ..Satisfying Saturday: Introducing What I Do Online
Hey Dragos,
I’m always amazed at your ability to come up with very solid mega list articles. I’m currently creating my own set of mega list articles and I hope they’ll turn out to be as good as yours.
Keep rocking!
Cheers~
Mark
30? 30! I only have 20 fingers and toes…..
oh my god…i actually laughed out loud on #30…i need a life…;)byeeeeeeeee….i’m gonna get myself one on twitter
Zeenat{Positive Provocations}´s last blog ..Positively Change The World{Inspirational Thought}
This list is great… there are some valuable lessons mixed in with the humor, and a reminder that sometimes you need to back away from getting too obsessed with the intricacies of so many different networks.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog ..Best of Social Media on Kikolani in 2009
Very good points and yes I do need to get a life. :0
My Fave was how SU is analogous to Hollywood. 430,000 hits last month and now I’m back to being the chick, that was in that thing, that came on after Friends.
Ericka´s last blog ..How Can You Be Against That?
This was great Dragos, I loved the SU list.
Steven Aitchison´s last blog ..The Most Powerful Productivity Technique Ever
Very funny stuff Dragos, and mostly true for sure. Funny how these infiltrate our lives to the point of realizing too late how its infiltrated our lives. I’ve experienced many of those!!
Mike King´s last blog ..How to Free Yourself From Gossip
Dragos, very helpful list! And I chuckled at #30! But seriously speaking, these are very useful insights, especially for people who are just starting out in the blogosphere. Merry X’mas to you by the way!
Celes | The Personal Excellence Blog´s last blog ..58 Noteworthy Resolutions For The New Year
Awesome! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and making ppl LAUGH!
I liked two things: stumbleupon, never knew about it and about freqency of tweets. Whe should search whom to follow painstakingly . must know taste of our audience and ofcourse prefer them and be mindful. Must greet new followers. BE USEFUL.
Number six. Six and Thirty. Without a doubt. I’ve heard about #25, but as a refusnik, i have not struggled with it personally.
jaceanderson´s last blog ..jaceanderson: #1053WoTD is a great idea. Anything that gets some or all of us closer to winning those great @rock1053medhat prizes
that’s great! already subscribing to you…
Great post. I just added a new to-do list: “Do not spend more than 1.25 hour per day on social media”. I just installed PageAddict to keep track how many hours I spend on social media.
Yep! You sound like my husband in this article. lol
BunnygotBlog´s last blog ..Sleeping With Your Business Partner
Really nice one… I enjoyed reading all the points…
So neatly pointed out..
Specially on Asking a question on reddit and getting buried on Digg
Harsh Agrawal´s last blog ..SEO: Some effective and White Hat methods to build Backlinks