It used to be considered a violation of etiquette to cut your salad with a knife, because vinegar would discolor pewter blades. Now that knives are made of stainless steel, that rule has gone by the wayside.

Twelve years ago, when I was marketing communications manager for a small software company, I suggested we all add our booth information for an upcoming trade show to our email signatures. One of our IT guys (who rocked a wolf shirt long before it was cool) complained; he said it was a violation of “netiquette” to have an email signature longer than four lines. When I asked why, he said it was a holdover from the early days of limited bandwidth. We did it anyway, and as far as I know, he was the only person who minded.

Etiquette evolves, as does online etiquette. But if you’re a social media practitioner for an enterprise company, you probably already know the basic rules of social media etiquette; at the core, they’re the same basic rules we know from face-to-face interaction. (Jim Tobin summarized this concept nicely in his book Social Media is a Cocktail Party).

Unless you’re a really rude person in real life too, in which case you’re hosed.

I asked my networks, using Twitter, Facebook and Google+, to share with me their examples of the most egregious violations of social media etiquette they see perpetrated by companies. I’ve incorporated their answers in this list of:

Top 10 Enterprise Social Media Etiquette Fails

10. Not following back

You want people to follow your company on Twitter, right? Then how do you respond when they do? Don’t just leave them hanging. If a customer takes the time to follow you, thank them by following them back.

9. Being faceless

We all know that companies are made up of people. We all know that your corporate social media presence is handled by hard-working, smart (and often especially good-looking) people inside your company. Don’t hide them. Tell us the names and show us the faces of the people with whom we’re engaging.

8. Clueless cross-posting

Corporate social media practitioners are often overworked and trying to add social media to a long list of other duties. It can be tempting to link all your social accounts so you can post one update and have it appear on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. That can be a dangerous practice. People engage differently in each channel. Plus, when you see a hashtag in a company’s Facebook status update, you know they’re phoning it in.

7. Being a robot

It’s easy to automate replies in channels like Twitter, or pull from a list of canned responses. Doing that sends the message that engagement is not a high enough priority for your company to put a human being on it.

6. Not keeping your comments house in order

When you put something out there and invite people to respond, you’re in essence inviting them into your social media “home.” Is it a nice place to visit, or are your social media channels overrun with spam, profanity or worse? Are people asking questions that vanish in the void? It takes work to moderate the comments section of your corporate blog, your Facebook comments, your LinkedIn groups, but it’s the mark of a good host.

5. Acting like you know me

Engaging in a personal way can be a tricky task. Some people say it doesn’t scale, and there’s a point to that. If you’re a corporate social media practitioner, you can engage one-on-one with only so many people. Some companies take a tone in their social media communications that is too familiar, too intimate. If the relationship doesn’t exist, don’t pretend it does.

4. Inconsistency

One day you’re all over my Facebook stream, then I don’t see you for two weeks. What message does that send about your company? Make thoughtful decisions about your bandwidth and resources and create a posting routine you can stick to. A content calendar that ties all your communications (social media and otherwise) to your quarterly business activities and objectives is a great way to do that.

And there’s another element to inconsistency, which I would call Not Walking the Talk (but then this would become a Top 11 list): if your company is in the social space, or makes products for it, or is attempting to create a social media niche to market to, you had better get your own social presence ready. Do you have social sharing enabled on your blog? Are you posting regularly and engaging? If you claim social media expertise, you’d better be showing it as well.

3. Engaging and ignoring

A cousin of inconsistency, this occurs when companies ask a question or make a comment in their social media channels, then fail to follow up. If 20 of your fans respond to a post, show them you heard them. Even if you can’t respond to each person individually, “Thank you all for your feedback” is better than the ghost town many corporate social presences become.

2. Talking like a marketroid

One of the challenges of enterprise social media is learning how to communicate in an authentic voice, while still representing your company in a professional manner. It takes practice, and there are lots of good examples out there. Many people go wrong by falling back on their PR or marketing habits. What might sound good in a press release is going to sound stilted and silly in a status update.

And the number one enterprise social media etiquette fail:

1. Being pushy

It probably comes as no surprise that this still sits on the top of the list. More people mentioned it that any other issue. For many companies, social media engagement still means a weekly tweet with a link to a press release. Your fans want content that addresses their needs and makes their lives easier. Give them a lot of that, and they’ll accept a little of your own messaging. Give them nothing but your message, and they’ll go elsewhere.

Are there any we missed? Let us know your enterprise social media pet peeves.

Thanks very much to everyone who shared their thoughts in preparation for this post, including Morgan Siem, Chris Barger, John Doyle, Greg de Lima, Keith Burtis, Will Staves, Colin Dodd, Michelle Ton, Selden Smith, Tammy Young Heck, Rebecca Law Stone and Andrea Zimmerman.

Tags: Facebook, google, Jim Tobin, Social Enterprise, Social Etiquette, Social Media, twitter