5 Hot Tips to Keep You on Top of Your Social Media Game by Susan Rice-Lincoln

5 HOT TIPS TO KEEP YOU ON TOP OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA GAME

1. Don’t try to do too much. The people/companies that have the best success in social media are using a maximum of three tools. You don’t need to use every single social media tool known to mankind. What you need to figure out is which tools match your strategy. For example, if you are trying to establish yourself as a thought leader in your field, the best social media tool you can use is a blog. If you are trying to build up a community around your industry, idea or cause, select Facebook or LinkedIn.

2. Create editorial calendars. Editorial calendars on a monthly basis are a great way of keeping your social media program on track. Otherwise, your social media engine is just run on disorganized spontaneity and you will eventually run out of steam. Decide in advance what will be the content of your blog posts or the activity for your social networking sites.. You can leave room for spontaneous conversations but make sure your content has a backbone and a purpose.

3. Repurpose everything. If you are creating a photo stream on Flickr, you should make sure that will be seen in Facebook or on your website. When you post a blog, it should automatically be posted everywhere you are active on the social media space. Maximize your social media presence by making sure everything you do is repurposed in an automatic fashion.

4. Commit at least 1 hour a day to social media. A website is like a house. You construct it. You keep an eye on it to make sure the roof isn’t caving in. But you don’t have to be looking at it every single day. Your social media, however, is like the garden around the house. It needs to be tended to every single day. You need to water and weed all the time. So make social media an integral part of your daily schedule. Or you will fall way behind. And your garden will never bear any fruit.

5. Have a purpose. The number one most important thing you need to do to be on top of your social media game is to have a well-defined strategy. You need to know what you want to achieve. You need to know where you are going. Without that, it will just be a frustrating exercise of fragmented conversations and dead-end streets. Know what you want to do. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Persevere and you will be surprised at the opportunities and power that can be leveraged from the social web.