There is a lot of discussion about “best practices” in social media, and the best ways to use social networking sites. When you step away from the proper usage recommendations, though, and into everyday use, the problem isn’t the messaging or use of these sites, the problem can be the way your messages are perceived on the other side, without you even knowing.

Even if you are very clear about your goals and uses of social networking sites and cater your messages accordingly, you never really know what observers will think about what you’re putting out there.

We all make assumptions about who is reading, what people will think and how they will react, and that creates the boundaries we use to decide what to post and not post. But it doesn’t always work out how we intend. Here are some of the assumptions I’ve seen made that have the potential to backfire horribly.

Read more: http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2010/10/15/assumptions-in-social-media/