Blog

Happy Friday everyone! As part of Tracie's Professional Development Book Club, I've been reading "Social BOOM" by Jeffrey Gitomer. I haven't finished yet, but so far he's made some great points about mastering social media. I want to take some time to post how I've been effective in the space. Enjoy!

3 DO's

1.  Post interesting content. I can’t stress this enough! If you aren’t forwarding on interesting news stories or articles (which some people ONLY do), then come up with something worth forwarding or responding to. If you aren’t posting anything worthwhile, you will lose followers. Figure out what your audience finds worthwhile and what they expect to hear from you, and stay in that zone. My audience enjoys sports business tidbits, so I try to satiate that every day.

2.  Encourage and elicit interaction. Interaction can boost your social media presence immensely. You can’t just expect people to respond. Ask them to! Have you ever heard “RT this if…” or “LIKE if you think… or COMMENT why you don’t?” Those are requests to interact, and they are highly effective. I recently shared this photo of Dane and I on the Old Hat social media channels with this text: “Can you caption this photo?”

Naturally, our friends and followers had a lot of fun interacting with this, and surely it boosted our exposure (it also made us completely sick of “gnome puns”).

3.  On the reverse of #2, participate in conversations. I myself have been participating in Twitter chats recently. These organized discussions on Twitter expose you to a new audience and are great networking tools. Also, if you follow people you respect, interact with them! Last night I had a short chat with a VP of a Major League Baseball team. It’s these little things that get you noticed, which get you more followers, etc, etc, etc.

2 DON'Ts

1.      1. Over-posting. There are people out there who literally post every few minutes, which, in my opinion, is absolute overkill. Unless you are in a discussion, you shouldn’t post more 2 to 3 times a day (again, in my opinion). I had to unfollow some people because they completely took over my stream of tweets, blocking other tweets from people who are important to me, and posting a new tweet before I could even finish reading their last one. Know your audience, and figure out a good balance of posts per day. My rule of thumb is no more than 2-3 per day. 

2. Abusing the “Check in.” I’ve seen this a lot, and maybe I’m the only person who feels this way, but I’d like to put it out there. I guarantee that the fine folks at Foursquare can track millions of people’s daily activities, and can almost predict their next move. Needless to say, some people check in way too often and at the wrong places. I don’t want to know that you are at a doctor appointment, or grocery shopping, or at work (you’re supposed to be at work, there’s nothing interesting about that). My rule of thumb for check ins: there are 3 main places you can check in: restaurants, airports, and sporting or entertainment venues. Other than those, check in at somewhere unique, especially for restaurants. Long John Silvers isn’t unique, it’s gross, so don’t check in there. If you’re at SeaWorld or at the Natural Museum of History, those are interesting and unique, and will likely generate response! Just be careful, and don’t abuse the check in. 

Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy the Old Hat Newsletter, which comes out this afternoon.