Getting Social Media Savvy: Tips of the Trade

Social media can be a powerful tool for social change and an alternative to more traditional methods of communication. Jump on the bandwagon and get social media savvy by following these helpful tips.

Be Human and Socially Intriguing – This applies both visually (depict a person in your avatar) and in interactions (demonstrate personality and let people know WHO they’re interacting with online).

Brand Yourself As A Resource– You build relevance and authority by creating and sharing original content (such as blogs) and building communities on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. The more relevant and authoritative you are on your topic, the better search engines will view you. Be consistent in your presence and sharing.

Highlight Your Product– Social media offers an additional avenue to show off and talk about your product in a friendly and informal way. You get to highlight what you offer and what makes you awesome in normal conversation without coming across “salesy” or too promotional. You also have the opportunity to answer questions, show features and offer “how-to’s” to help people get to know you a little better. Highlight your product: Social media offers an additional avenue to show off and talk about your product in a friendly and informal way. You get to highlight what you offer and what makes you awesome in normal conversation without coming across “salesy” or too promotional. You also have the opportunity to answer questions, show features and offer “how-to’s” to help people get to know you a little better.

Get Better Hires– Using social media can help your company hire smarter and faster by not only introducing you to more qualified candidates but also helping you to establish your referral network, Where you once used to spend your time digging through a pile of resumes, social media helps you cut through the clutter and find the most talented gems.

Enhance Your Expertise –When used prop­erly, social net­works can be a great way to enhance knowl­edge. Tap­ping into one’s social net­work can allow for peo­ple to fill an infor­ma­tion gap if mem­bers of their extended social net­work have deep sub­ject mat­ter exper­tise in a cer­tain area. At the cur­rent time, few social net­work­ing sites have used that capa­bil­ity but, I believe this is one of the most use­ful aspects of social net­work­ing sites.

Build a Community: Follow Back Relevant Followers– Engage with people on relevant topics. Talk, respond, and initiate conversations. If someone has taken time to seek you out and isn’t a spammer, follow them back if they fit your target profile (then engage them to solidify the potential relationship).

Be a Follower– Identify strong people on topics of interest and follow who they follow – If there are key influencers or experts in your audience, it’s a good practice to follow the people they follow (i.e., the people influencing their content and thinking).

Tailor Your Use– Target your social media marketing campaign not only to tools that actually reach your audience right now, but also to tools that will give you the best return on the time or money you sink in. Your social media marketing plan won’t necessarily look like anyone else’s. Even the most talked-about tool may not be right for your company, your budget, or your potential visitors and customers. Sometimes trying to get more, or do more, will actually give you less. That’s very true in social media marketing and jumping on the hype of new tools (many of which are fads that die down significantly in just a few months to a few years).

Be Wary–Remember that tried and true marketing strategies have earned that reputation for a reason. Don’t sacrifice promotional efforts that are already successful for your company to pursue new tools that may have a heavy learning curve (meaning more time invested) unless your market research tells you that tool or tactic can work even better than what you’re already doing.