Daily affirmation-like quotes that pop up on Twitter and Facebook status updates generally make me cringe and grit my teeth, or think of Jack Handy’s hilariously absurd “Deep Thoughts” on Saturday Night Live, but a couple of recent blog posts have me thinking of one of my own – All You Ever Needed to Know About Social Media Comes Down to Good Manners.

A recent blog post by Paul Gillin, General Mills’ Blogger Relations Program Follows the Golden Rule, provides great insights into how General Mills has built strong relationships with online influencers by being good listeners and sharers. The entire blog post is a must read, but take a look at this excerpt: “General Mills doesn’t treat its online influencers like the media. The relationship is closer to a friendship than a business exchange. ‘When you have great news, who do you tell after your family? You tell your friends, of course,’ he says. ‘That’s the philosophy we try to engender.’” (Quotes are from David Witt Lillien, General Mills’ PR manager.)

Another example comes directly from one of our clients, Eversave.com. Eversave recently launched online daily sites in Boston, Philadelphia, Austin, Baltimore and Columbus, OH. Many more cities are soon to follow and Eversave has wisely started building relationships with online influencers in their target markets. Cheryl Harrison, a blogger and social media expert based in Columbus, published a post on her Being Cheryl blog about online daily deal and group buying sites and mentioned Eversave. Her post included GroupOn, an Eversave competitor, in the headline and refers to GroupOn a number of times with only a brief mention of Eversave. Nonetheless, a member of Eversave’s social media team called Cheryl and left her a phone message, thanking her for mentioning Eversave. She also posted a thank you message on Cheryl’s blog. Cheryl responded by publishing a follow up post – Blogger Outreach: The Power of Saying “Thank You” - in which she commended Eversave for reaching out and thanking her, including the phone message and the email “thank you” in the post as best practices examples of how companies and vendors should work with online influencers.

We’re constantly advising our clients to take such an approach – engaging an audience through social media is more than just broadcasting. You need to follow the golden rule and listen – and practice common courtesy basics like sharing and saying, “Thank You.”

As Paul Gillen and Cheryl Harrison both point out – it doesn’t take a lot of money or a huge investment of time. You just need to pay attention, participate in the conversation, have fun and mind your manners!

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