Stanley Tang wrote a great blog on the 41 top tips to growing your social media presence. Below are the 41 tips and some of my comments (in purple of course).
1. Be remarkable – somebody worth making a remark about This is very important. Standout from the crowd.
2. Become a resource to others If others think you are helpful they will be likely to come back and visit as well as tell others about you.
3. Have your own unique personality
4. Be vocal and opinionated within the community You don’t have to agree with everything you read & see. Speak your mind but be considerate.
5. Don’t continuously push the envelope by flooding them with requests
6. Invest time into social media Spend at least 1-2 hours a day on your social media presence.
7. Produce and share content that your audience will love
8. Monitor what’s being shared about you
9. Become a real member of the community
10. Ask questions Asking questions allows you to get feedback from others. There may be others out there that either agree/disagree with you but how would you know if you don’t ask.
11. Answer questions When you see a question being asked you should answer it if you are going to provide value. Don’t answer a question with an answer that isn’t relevant.
12. Provide value to the community
13. Be controversial
14. Don’t be another “me-too”
15. Automate carefully – it’s about people not robots I personally do not agree with the automated responses.
16. Don’t be an a–hole
17. Make it easy for people to share and bookmark your content
18. Listen to the community
19. Make at least one new connection every day
20. Engage yourself in conversations
21. Become the conversation
22. You’re there to make relationships, not hard selling Don’t post comments/blogs on products/services you are selling.
23. Take time to focus on building a loyal following Build your followers/friends lists be people that you actually want to socialize with. It’s not the quantity of friends & followers its the quality of the conversation.
24. Give, Give, GIVE!
25. Treat social media like a cocktail party No, you do not have to dress up in your favorite party outfit
26. Be supportive
27. Syndicate your content across all social media platforms
28. Encourage others to syndicate your content onto their sites
29. Fully research the community to understand your market
30. Be fun
31. Get to know the unwritten laws of the community
32. Create an attractive, unique and professional profile
33. Use a cool avatar/picture
34. Use the same avatar for each social media service This is very important so people can recognize YOU on each network.
35. Don’t be a keyboard gangsta (i.e. trash talk all day)
36. Know what your followers/friends want and give it to them
37. Form reciprocal arrangements with others
38. Monitor your noise level
39. Never cheat the system
40. Help others unconditionally
41. Be yourself
Here are some of my additions to Steve’s list:
1. Don’t join every single network just to say you’re on it. Take a look at my blog on the Interactive Social Media Map for more info.
2. Submit your articles and content to the appropriate social bookmarking site. Take a look at my blog on the List of Social Bookmarking Sites for more details.
3. Make your site user friendly. Do not put dark text on a dark background, do not make buttons/links hard to find.
4. Write/comment about topics that interest YOU not just because it’s the “hot” topic of the moment.
5. If you want to use content from someone else’s site make sure you give credit to the original author. This blog is a perfect example of that, even though I am adding my comments to Stanley’s original blog I still provide a link back to his blog as well as give him credit.
What are your thoughts on the tips?
Do you have additional tips you would like to share?
Do you disagree with any of the tips?
