How To Make the Most of Social Media
For me, it just wouldn’t be a complete Rocks Digital Conference experience without hearing from Lissa Duty and John Nosal and today’s insights from them did not disappoint!
SEM, SEO, PPC, SMM – if you don’t know what these mean, it’s a TKO for your brand. Taking control of your brand’s identity and giving it a “personality” all its own has never been easier in the age of social media. BUT, it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Walk through the finer points of social media optimization for the three major channels, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
How do we start thinking differently about our branding and marketing? How can we start thinking more like MacGyver? (If you don’t know MacGyver…Google him!) How can we start thinking in a more multi-purpose way about branding and marketing.
Facebook – figure out who your target audience is. (Need help with this? Byron Ingraham’s presentation was very helpful!) How many posts should I post? Well, that’s going to depend on your audience. Figure out what works. What connects with your target audience? Some people post all the time and get high interaction. Others seldom post and get high interaction. The key is getting your interaction kicked into high gear. The more organic engagement you get, the more visibility you get. “Likes” are nice, but the conversation is what you want.
How do I get the conversation?
- You can tag businesses when you mention them and that will trigger the other page admins to maybe come and interact.
- You always want to be the last one to reply. Keep the conversation going which extends the possible viewing/organic reach.
The bottom line with Facebook is – What works with your audience? And realize that this may keep changing so you may have to keep updating what you post.
LinkedIn – Targeting our professional interests/clients. What you share on LinkedIn is probably going to be different from what you share on Facebook. Look at what your target audience on LinkedIn is talking about and post about those things.
LinkedIn is about CREATING connections, not just COLLECTING connections.
How do you succeed on LinkedIn?
- Make sure you are updating your status at least once a day on LinkedIn.
- People love it when you quantify things. “I’ve helped over 10,000 adults change careers”. That’s IMPRESSIVE and will catch people’s attention.
- Comment on other people’s status updates because this pushes you into the consciousness of the other person’s audience.
Ask yourself how you are helping your network? Give to your network to help grow your network.
Lissa sends a follow up note to all of her new LinkedIn connections. This helps to build rapport. Put some personality and passion into your note.
And think about the impression that you’re giving to people – make sure you have a professional headshot. Those weekend softball team pictures are great, and they give your profile some personality but remember – your profile is a gateway to knowing you and on LinkedIn, you want people to know the professional you!
Twitter– Lissa said that optimally, you have to tweet 22 times a day to be seen. Which sounds REALLY hard. How do you generate that much content?
- Evergreen content – 100 one hundred character “tweetable” bits that you can post on Twitter and convert into visuals for other platforms. This is something you can pull from “forever”. And, if you have 100 of these, you can post a few a day and have tweets for over a month. Twitter moves fast, no one it going to remember your Tweet from a month ago, so you can re-use your evergreen content!
- Reply and ask a question – keep the conversation going. You want them to keep thinking about you. (And these “count” in the 22/day tally).
- Post links to relevant articles.
- Retweet, build connections with others on Twitter.
Making personal connections is really key regardless of the platform. Go forth and connect. Create dialogue and create connections!
