Becoming a Social Media Maniac

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Blogger: all of these names are quite familiar to you, I presume. You might even have a couple of accounts from each as you share your life away, everyday or just scroll through the posts mindlessly. The fact that you are on a blogger account, reading this blog says a lot about you already. You might characterize yourself as an active social media user or simply a “scroller” of content, but whatever you are, you are reading this to become a “au naturel” a “pro” at what you do everyday.

Initially, the fact that you own one of these social media accounts is quite irrelevant, congrats you are doing the same thing as 1.73 billion others, but what you do with this account is what would make you 1 in a billion… As entrepreneur John Rampton puts it, “If you’re not generating conversations or new subscribers, or making any money, then whatever you’re doing has failed.”(2014) Therefore here is a couple of advice that can be helpful for your cause:

1.     Know your target audience: It is crystal clear that you have a message you want to portray and therefore how you depict it is crucial. You need to be aware of your audience’s wants and needs, and in order to capture their notice provide your content in such a way to attract their utmost attention. For example, the Offbeat Brides wedding site, is known to have an amazing Pinterest account where they not only pin items present on their own website but also provides wedding information for soon-to-be exclusive brides. The company is fully aware of its own audience and knows what these brides are craving, to be unique and fabulous on their own wedding day.

2.     Keep your consistency in check: Should you post every minute, every hour, every other day…? This is a question that has no correct answer, unfortunately. It is important to understand what your audience wants. As Rampton puts it, you could send 14 posts throughout the day, but they should be spread out because you never know who’s reading what at what time, therefore you need to keep in mind your global audience.

3.     Know which medium to use: For the Offbeat Brides website the best way to portray their information was through Pinterest, where people go to discover knew and creative ideas. But a company or a law firm might not get very many fans on that social media platform. Therefore it is crucial to know your audience and where they are more likely to linger, and which medium they want to see your posts depicted. If you are humorous maybe perhaps you might want to use twitter to get followers to laugh once in a while among the array of tweets they see everyday, and so on.

4.     Allow opinions to flow: Do not just throw out information to your audience; allow them to contribute to what you have to say. Be engaging, ask questions, ask them to favorite or re-tweet a post, and get their attention get more than just passive attendance.

5.     Be on top of the game: Know what is popular, what is trending, what is most wanted, be updated literally all the time… Because social media does not like playing old school be up to date on the most recent information. It is vital to comment about possibly any news that might be interesting, for example like last week’s Vernal Equinox, incorporating recent news with your message.

No one told you this was an easy task, but once you’re in the game it is hard to get out. It is important to know that no game is lost or won, without getting in and playing it. So do not be discouraged with the information provided. Just get your head in the game, know and strongly believe in what you have to say, know who you want to say it to, and decide how you want to say it… it’s as easy as this. As Jay Baer the hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker puts it, “Use technology to be yourself, and don’t overthink it”.