Social Media A BETTER WAY TO MANAGE YOUR ONLINE PROFILE!

The problem with social media  So many platforms, so little time  LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+  All about conversations – but conversations take time!  Too many people use it for self-promotion, try thought leadership instead

Common mistakes on social media  Not replying / delayed response  Creating an account for the sake of having one  Have a purpose  Infrequent posts  Uninteresting or untargeted content  Getting hostile to feedback  Inconsistent personality (make sure tone matches the brand)  Taking a side (politics, gender, race, religion)  Using the wrong social media platform  Mixing business with personal posts  Over promotion

How to manage your social time!  Create a schedule  Block out time on a daily basis to check your online profile, retweet/like and to write posts or blogs to add  Choose social media sites that will have most impact on your audience  Stick to your purpose (research, networking, promotion … i.e. not stalking)  Share social media responsibility with employees (but make sure they understand the brand values and tone)

Useful tools  Ping.fm – allows you to update your status across many different social media platforms  TubeMogul – uploads video to multiple sites (not just YouTube) and provides viewing stats for each of them  FriendFeed – collect articles, blogs, photos, videos from various social media platforms on one solution  HootSuite – allows you to monitor all social media feeds in one place and schedule posts in advance (however, shouldn’t replace the human element)  Tweriod – generates a report to tell you when the best time to post to Twitter  Google Analytics – website traffic, where coming from, where bouncing, keywords, keywords tool  Statcounter – aims to identify visitors to site and where they came from, the search terms they used, how long they stayed, what they viewed

Other useful ideas  Use Twitter lists to sort all people you know into distinct lists according to interests  Good for separating personal from business  Pick and choose the news more relevant for them  Build follower base  footers / Website social media badges / clients / prospects asking them to join you online and remind them in every promotion you do  Twitter  Start following ‘influencers’ in the industry and respond to their tweets  Offer exclusive content / deals e.g. Twixclusives  Show appreciation – for likes / retweets  Don’t over hashtag content = 2 = magic number generates 21% more engagement than tweets with 3+ hashtags  Don’t over promote – be very targeted  Facebook  Don’t like own post  Don’t tag photos of clients/employees/fans without permission  Don’t ask for likes for no reason  LinkedIn  Don’t join groups to immediately start self-promoting  Don’t ignore the professional tone of LinkedIn  Don’t pester for recommendations