Social Media & Twitter Tips

Here is an outline I used recently at a social media class presentation at UNC Asheville. I am thankful for the opportunity to share what I know and help the current generation learn and the next generation grow in their new media efforts.

Everyone needs to establish their brand in these online communities:

1. Gmail - email account - The King of Emails!
2. Blogger (Wordpress, Typepad, Squarespace) - blog website - this allows you to easily update information about your business while keeping your main website focused.
3. Feedburner - really simple syndication - rss feed
4. Picasa (Flickr, Photobucket) - online photo album - perfect for showcasing products, events, staff, etc.
5. YouTube (Vimeo) - video channel - a video presence allows you to reach a whole new community and share your vision.
6. Twitter - status updater - simple updates about your business, life or both
7. Twitpic - photo updater - picture updates - great to use to upload a pic from your smartphone
8. Friendfeed - social media compliation platform - post to Twitter tool is awesome, it allows you to add your other social media sites and then auto updates out to Twitter when you post something new.
9. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace - social networking communities are the new "social clubs" as we knew in previous years, but these are online
10. Foursquare - location sharing social network - tells connections what venue you are at and allows you to post to Twitter, add tips, etc.
11. Su.pr (bit.ly, ow.ly, ht.ly) - link shortener / tracker - shortening your urls will allow you to have more writing room in your Tweets!



Twitter Tips -

1. Make an account
2. Go to “Settings” and fill out all of the information for your profile etc.
3. Send out a sample tweet like “Hello, good morning”
4. Find people to follow searching and by looking at other’s lists.
5. Check the people that are following you - and follow them back if they are not spam or porn. If you want to focus on a certain group of people, make a list and check that list frequently.
6. Use a social media management tool like Hootsuite to ultra manage your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
7. Watch your “At Replies / @Replies” - that is where people are talking to you, with you, or about you publicly. Reading these and giving a response is your 1st priority!
8. Check your “Direct Messages / DMs” - these are your private messages. This is where people usually thank you for following them and send a link to their website.
9. A tweet a day is great practice, no matter how unimportant it may seem. Share something.
10. If you are promoting a business, a minimum of 25% of your tweets should be sociable, personal, humorous, quotes, etc. Just tweeting about your business is unsociable.
11. Check the people you are following and if they do not reciprocate and “follow back” - cut them off and unfollow them. (Maybe put them on a list if you need to track them, but do not let them stop you from growing your followers, network, audience)
12. Do not become a Twitter police officer - people from many different niche groups are on Twitter. Some of them may be selling something that you do not like. Do not waste your time chasing them down. Live and let live; Tweet and let tweet.

GSocialMedia