Confessions of a Social Media Devotee |
I'm Meg, a digitally savvy and self-taught social media devotee. I've dedicated this tumblr to one of my personal and professional passions: digital culture and communications. Thanks for visiting, and please do not hesitate to connect with me. You can also connect with me via e-mail: meg.harmer@gmail.com My educational background is in Sociology and English Literature (Queen's University, and Laurentian University). |
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Social Media 101: Using Twitter Effectively
a. Don’t Underestimate Your Audience
Each of your audience members are each a part of the conversation you are trying to facilitate with your twitterfeed.
Thousands of conversations are taking place on Social Media platforms every minute. It’s ideal that members of your audience engage and participate in online conversations; ideal audience members don’t simply soak up the content you have created or shared, they engage with the content (thereby engaging with your brand).
What do engagement and particpation look like on twitter?
By re-tweeting, mentioning, and sharing/replying to twitter users who engage with the content that you share, you engage in the online conversation with members of your audience.
b. Facilitate Audience Loyalty
It’s important to effectively include your audience members who follow you. They follow you for multiple reasons: they want to hear about upcoming events, they want up-to-date information, and they want to be in the loop. Entertain AND educate your followers, and they will be loyal to the content you create and share on twitter.
You can entertain your audience by giving them “teasers” to anticipate future contests, giveaways, and announcements.
Bring your audience members along for the ride, and include them in these announcements. Educate audience members about your brand, and entertain them by providing them with incentives.
c. Hashtag and Link Effectively
Making appropriate use of hashtags, links and mentions on Twitter increases your presence, and your SEO (search engine optimization). Increasing your SEO gets you seen by more members of the online community, and has the potential to increase your online presence.
Link effectively by using sites like bit.ly to shorten links.Sites like this also allow you to monitor the online traffic you have directed to these links if you create an account with them (Creating an account is super easy!). This is the most basic form of online or social analytics.
Here’s an example of a tweet with effective use of hashtags and links:
Why is this an effective tweet? The keywords and geographical location are embedded in the Tweet as hashtags (making them searchable) and the pertinent link with more information is shortened.
[Is this blog post confusing? Maybe you want to check out the “Twitter For Dummies Cheat Sheet”]
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Social Media: You’re Doing it Wrong.
Think before you post, especially on a company page.Social Media and public relations are without a doubt, incredibly dependent on one another. A social business is a competitive business. Being remembered for your professionalism on Social Media platforms, rather than for your sass, is ideal.
