The beauty in social media’s brain candy is that it can easily, immediately connect you to other people. So if someone is choosing to tune into your life, why would you want to turn them away, or worse, make them dislike you?

Whether you’re using social media personally or for a company, there are some unwritten rules that all users should be aware of – and, unfortunately tons of terrible antics that disrupt them.

That’s why Ve decided to put together a short list of three bad ways to engage on social media. Regardless of your eager attitude or friendly personality, this type of behavior is never wanted or appreciated to anyone in the world (at least not that we know of). Enjoy!

Automated direct messages are the devil. We’ve all seen them. We’ve never liked them. Our inboxes are full of them. These are from those clueless brands that fail to put themselves in your shoes, and instead act out of theory. Their thinking is that if they thank you for the follow, you would be happy to return their favor(s). The truth? No one wants to do that. And if they did, they would have by now.

Hashtags are bittersweet in many ways. When used correctly, they can be a great source of relevant information for users around the world, and a fun, cool way to start discussions. When used wrong, they can cancel out the entire purpose of an otherwise informative tweet. It’s one thing to use them to start, contribute, or classify information, but it’s something else when they’re super spammy, such as #TeamFollowBack.

The only thing worse than annoying overuse or someone syncing their Facebook account to Twitter is someone purposely using a hashtag on Facebook while knowing it serves no purpose. You wouldn’t bother asking someone to “Like” a tweet, right? There are social media features unique to Facebook and Twitter for a reason, so it makes sense to use them right.

Annoying notifications are the worst. There’s no arguing that the official launch and promotion of an event is something that should be exciting to share and embrace with everyone you know. That said, there’s nothing much more annoying than seeing a red number on the top left of your Facebook, only to click it and find out it’s a mass invite about the opening of an awful new bar or the celebration of a forgotten old acquaintance. As if the only reason you logged in was to be informed of that event. If you truly want to invite someone somewhere: inbox them, text them, or actually pick up the phone and call.

Lucky for Ve, we don’t encounter these annoyances on a regular basis – our Facebook friends and Twitter followers are too awesome! However, we still understand that most social media users will come across these once or twice, so we just wanted to share some sympathy and reassure you that, whether from our London HQ, Boston, Sydney, Stockholm, Sao Paulo or brand new Berlin office, Ve will always treat you how Ve wants to be treated!

What other annoying social media antics have you experienced?