Develop a voice
Social media is all about adding a human element to any given brand. It enables companies to put a voice behind their logo and to build relationships with their audiences. It says, “We’re here and we care about our customers.” Take the time to put a little personality into each of your tweets and status updates. The more relatable your tone and content is the higher the quality you will see reflected in your followers.
Social media isn’t about numbers, it’s about purpose.
It was once believed that if someone followed you, the respectful and correct thing to do was to follow them back. With Twitter’s rapid growth in popularity over the past few years, however, this is no longer a practical concept. The purpose of social media isn’t to build follower counts – although that’s certainly part of it – but rather to build relationships with your audience and to join in on the conversation. You hear it from us all the time, but social media is yet one more thing that the idea of being purposeful needs to be applied to. From followers, to tweets and even tumbles, social media begs for practitioners to ask themselves, “What’s my purpose?”
Social media is a two-way street.
Just like any relationship, you want your social media relationships to work both ways. Using social media isn’t simply a matter of shooting out comments about your company and what it’s doing. It’s also about adding value and contributing to what others are saying.
According to a recent post on PR Daily, “the ideal Twitter profile should consist of about 30 percent conversational @replies, 30 percent retweets and 40 percent interesting broadcast tweets, hopefully with an opinion or link, of which only about 25 percent (10 percent of total tweets) are self-promotional. This tells me that a) you’re trying to add value, b) you’re reading others’ content, and c) you’re conversing and aren’t all ‘me, me, me.’ It’s worth noting that all @reply conversation can be as bad as all broadcast, so try to stay balanced.”
It takes time
You know the old adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”? The same goes for the online social scene. Acquiring a substantial social media presence isn’t something that happens overnight – it takes time. Celebrate new followers and commit yourself to keeping each platform alive and active. If you carry on a conversational tone, provide your audience with the information they’re looking for and keep at it, the number of followers and fan page likes will soon reflect your effectiveness.
Read what others are saying
Social Media Today fills you in on 10 things your grandmother can teach you about social media.
http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/191214
ProBlogger poses the question that crosses every professional’s mind: “Is Twitter a waste of time?” Along with demographics, this infographic breaks things down into the pros and cons of this online platform.
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/06/02/is-twitter-a-waste-of-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ProbloggerHelpingBloggersEarnMoney+%28ProBlogger%3A+Helping+Bloggers+Earn+Money%29
Mashable gives you five tips for maintaining brand consistency across social media.
http://mashable.com/2011/03/22/brand-consistency-social-media/
Peter Shankman shares the nine best practices for linking photos to Twitter.
http://shankman.com/nine-best-practices-for-linking-photos-to-twitter/
