What are the top five things beginners should know about social media?
The question was asked in one of the social media groups that I belong to on LinkedIn:
“I’m giving a speech for … and would like to know five hot topics you think
beginners would like to know.”
This is a very good question which got a lot of response from many members (me included). Following are some of the more insightful responses:
Top five tips for beginners for any social media environment:
Response 1
Colart Miles
Business Process Manager at The Edge
- Be generous.
- Learn the basic etiquette for each environment.
- Reciprocate positive behaviors
- Declare boundaries… inner circle for friends & family only, professional circle for business contacts… etc.
- Be authentic.
5 + 1) HAVE FUN!!!
Response 2
Diane Rayfield
ISMA Certified Social Media Marketing Specialist for Harp Social
- Define your social media goals before going in and build each social platform around them.
- Update your social platforms daily.
- Use plugins and apps to cross-pollinate all your platforms.
- Add your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook links to your email signature.
- Proceed slowly. Don’t open more accounts than you can successfully manage on a daily basis.
Response 3
John Lusher
Business Development Specialist for Technology & Social Media.
- Have a strategy before you start. What are you trying to accomplish?
- Be yourself.
- Be giving, work to promote others, not yourself.
- Update frequently.
- Connect with others in your field and out of your field, learn from them all.
Response 4
Alex Parr
Great Networker who runs a Suffolk WiRE network, Brains-Trust mastermind group and is an experienced property lawyer
Great question. I couldn’t agree more with the comments made by Colart and Diane. What I would find of immense value, as a “newbie”, would be to find out how to “define social media goals before going in and build each social platform around them” and what it means to “have a strategy before you start”.
I just went boldly in, dipped my toe in the water and am having great fun learning as I go along. I love Twitter http://twitter.com/alexparr but I am not sure about Facebook and how to use it from a business perspective. What I think is important is that people give it a try … it is a very daunting experience, so a lot of encouragement would be very well received.
Response 5
Anthony Tham
Public Relations Manager at Travel Salem
- Listen. Social media is about communicating with your consumers/audience. Don’t just broadcast information, but listen to what people are saying (directly to you or via other forums) and respond accordingly.
- Tying into strategy, have some sort of measurement tool to calculate your social media success…or failure <—it happens
- Like Diane said, take advantage of all the free apps and websites that make your social media experience richer and easier. My favorite: UberTwitter on my BlackBerry and TweetDeck for the computer.
- There’s a saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Use Flickr to post photos/videos. Very simple interface that allows you to track how many views you get. More than 4 billion photos have been uploaded to Flickr!!!
- Plan your social media usage accordingly. It can be a bit time consuming even if you focus on only one or two of these social media platforms. Make sure you’re thinking about what you want out of it by organizing your time and workload.
Yes, blogging is important. It’s like a second website. Using Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and whatever platform that you go with, you’ll be able to drive people to your website or blog; creating a free-flowing of information regarding your business/organization or whatever you’re promoting.
Harp Social has the certified expertise, tools and social media acumen to take your social media marketing campaign to the next level. Find out how we can help you use social media more effectively for your business. Call or email now to get started! 630.691.9500 or drayfield@harpsocial.com
Share your thoughts on the five top items for beginners below!
Harp Social has the certified expertise, tools and social media acumen to take your SEO and social media marketing campaigns to the next level. Find out how we can help you use search marketing and social media more effectively for your business. Email or call 630.691.9500 today to get started today!
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Diane Rayfield is an ISMA Certified Founding Member and Social Media Marketing Specialist for Harp Social. |  |
Thank you Diane for a thoughtful and intellectually stimulating post.
One common denominator of all successful social media marketing plans, I believe, is a flexible and yet robust strategy. You need to think strategically first and then be very quick on your feet once the strategy is being implemented.
Flexibility is indeed paramount. As we gauge the response to our efforts and the impact we are making, we need to be both proactive and reactive as they are met with varying degress of success.
One final point: a presence in the social media is not that costly in terms of platforms adn applications, but one should never underestimate the time element involved.
It has been said many times and it bears repeating: social media marketing is very time-consuming and that needs to be taken into account and apportioned bewteen the parties involved before campaigns are ever implemented.
Well said Oscar. Campaign optimization is a must and should be built into every social media marketing strategy. For every SMM campaign we launch, we set goals and metrics that we use to chart our progress for those goals. Being flexible within the strategy is indeed a must in order to best reach your marketing goals and take advantage of the ever-changing social media platforms. And you are absolutely correct in stating the fact that social media is very time-consuming, if you are going to do it correctly. Thank you for your well thought out and intelligent response. We look forward to hearing more from you Oscar.
Fantastic Post! I just want to restate the two obvious ones that were already mentioned.
1) That you should step into Social Media with a plan and not in a rush.
2) That Social Media can be time consuming, but is very rewarding in a lot of ways.
Great Post
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