7 Social Media Tips for Creating an Online Presence

The Seven Social Media Tips are Finally Here!

I had a chance to sit down with some of my classmates and discuss social media and how to actually create an online presence. Pretty cool stuff--and don't worry, we kept it pretty simple. Take seven minutes for seven tips, you'll be glad you did.

   Check out the podcast here.
  
  Don't feel like listening? Watch it.

OK, guys. Working on the.vid quality, should have a higher res copy up by tomorrow. Enjoy this one for now! 

                                       

Wanna keep it straight-bloggin' style? Read it below. 

1. Keep it separate

2. Research

3. Reach out

4. Quality over quantity

5. Link it

6. Keep it relevant

and finally ...

7. Keep it up

 

1. Keep it separate—but don’t lose your personality!

There are many ways to help keep your personal and private social media life separate:

-update your privacy settings on a consistent basis so that they may fit your specific needs and control your own content, if you would be embarrassed for someone to see what you are advertising, don’t put it up in the first place

However!  Don’t be hesitant to let people get to know the real you, don’t try to hide who you really are because your uniqueness is what will distinguish you from everyone else. 

Jennifer Fong, author of the direct sales and social media blogs, explains how People get to know us when we share a little of our personal lives with them.  And we also get to see into the personal lives of others.  That’s how you build a relationship with people.

And according the Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, "Social media is all about people connecting with people, and so your true personality is bound to come out -- no real point in trying to hide who you are as a person."

2. Research

In any PR class a student takes, research is a topic that is stressed from the beginning to the end. Research acts as the first step many PR practitioners use when it comes to client engagement. Research can make or break a PR campaign, but it can also make or break your reputation in the “online world”. In regards to social media, research can help you know what to write about, who your audience is and where to find them, what key words or tags you should use and which emerging trends you should follow, according to Bill Handys blog over research in social media. If you don’t contruct the proper amount of research, you ultimately know nothing about the topic and sound ignorant in the long run.

3. Reach Out

Now on to tip number three:  Reach Out to Truly connect.

Just putting up a blog or a facebook fan page won’t do much good if visitors sense the flow of conversation goes one way.

Start a conversation on twitter or on facebook, or ask for feedback on your blog. Not to mention, making comments on other blogs.

Matt Mullenweg, founder of blogging platform wordpress, lists not partipating in comments is a surefire way to kill community, so make sure to actively participate in 2-way communication.

Now on to Taylor with tips four and five.

Tip number six is relevance. Relevance is extremely important when it comes to PR. Consumers are bombarded every day with an infinite number of blogs, news stories, etc. Because of this, if something is not relevant, especially in the “online world”, it will be immediately discarded. Irrelevant topics are unimportant, uninteresting and the people that discuss irrelevant topics will eventually have a reputation for doing it and will be forgotten about. Keep up to date with what is going on in the world and with what is important in social media.

And for our final tip for today : Lucky number 7. Keep it up!

Be sure to keep current and relevant on your social media outlets. The popular social media website, Mashable, released a report that discusses how the average internet user spends more than a fifth of their time on social networks and that is on the rise, so there are plenty of people on the net to network with. 

To help with that, try to follow only relevant people. I know its hard not to follow some ridiculous characters like Rob Dyrdek and Drama from MTV’s Fantasy Factory and the Taylor’s favorite: Dunkin' Donuts, but do your best to limit irrelevant tweeple.

Shout me loud dot com offers 101 tips on how to become a social media rock star and number 76 is: Always make sure your tweets offer great value & information. People will me more apt to follow you if you have relevant information.

 Thanks guys!



Did we leave anything off the list? What do you think should have made the cut? Let us know by commenting below!