Social Media Fundamentals

The honest truth is that there really are no tricks or secrets to successfully accomplishing your social media goals. Fundamentals are the real key to creating a successful social media presence. If you follow me on Twitter (and you should @UWWBrendan) you’ve noticed that I love to retweet blog posts that share these fundamentals.

Like any form of networking or marketing, the best results are found when genuine relationships are made between the people involved. Whether you’re a blogger, you are looking for job, or you contribute to a social media page on behalf your company, the rules are the same. To see results you need to gain a truly loyal following. To do this a real interaction with individuals needs to take place.

There are plenty of ways to go about this of course…

Say Thank You

A simple thank-you goes a long way. I find that when I say, “Thanks for following!” to my new Twitter followers, it often starts up conversations that almost always result in a link exchange and inevitably a followfriday. Without much more explanation it is easy to see how simply being polite can increase traffic to your blog or website.

Collaboration

Relationships can also be made with other content creators. Everyone who creates content has a level of influence that can be of use to you and yours can be of use to them. By guest blogging, working together on a video, or by any other means, collaboration is sure to increase your awareness with content consumers.

Makers Studios, a company that focuses its efforts on creating content for YouTube, has almost based their entire business model on collaboration. Started by several heavy hitting YouTube personalities (ShayCarl, Lisa Nova, and several others) The company taps into the creative talent of a whole host of video creators for content. Makers then uses the influence of each creator on his or her select following to collectively promote the new content. The surprising financial success of some of the studio’s founders is a true testament to the advantages of collaboration.

Genuine Promotion of Others 

By promoting others, you promote yourself. Every time you give someone a shout-out, @mention them or followfriday them on Twitter, or share their link with the world you increase your chances of them going the same for you. Very similar to the concept of courtesy and saying thank you, it’s important to give credit where credit is due and treat others they way you would like to be treated.
Beirut Abu Hdaib, or @beiruta on Twitter, is an avid promoter of others. Every Friday she has a huge list of people to whom she awards followfridays to. As a blogger,(View Her Blog on Tweepi) her posts often include themes along the lines of tweeting others as you would like to be tweeted or retweeting in order to be retweeted.

From Beirut I learned just how powerful a followfriday can be. When I give a followfriday, I like to add a description of the person when send the tweet. It makes it stand out from the rest of the followfriday tweets and gives my followers a chance to truly consider my recommendation. I also believe giving each tweep their own tweet shows them just how much I really appreciate them as a follower.

Other Social Media Fundamentals


“Content Is King”


I was once told by Anthony Piwarun, SEO expert and @Apiwarun on Twitter, that “content is king.” Truthfully, he was right. (See The Video) The concept is simple really. If you want to have people around to listen when you have something to say, you need to develop a following well before it is needed. That’s why people, and more importantly companies, must be regular content creators. By continually exchanging with your public you can create a consistent following so when you need them most, there is an audience ready to hear what you have to say.

Promote. Promote. Promote.

If you’re using social media as a means to gain an edge in any market, whether it be the blogosphere market or the job market you can’t forget to promote your product. When I began following John Paul Aguiar ( @JohnAguiar) on Twitter I was welcomed to his Twitter community via a welcome page geared specifically for new followers. Aguiar direct messaged me the link to his welcome page. I thought it was such a great idea I had to make my own. Now after thanking new followers with an @mention I direct message them with the link to my welcome page.

Typically you wouldn’t see this page unless you started to follow John on Twitter, and you should, but you can see both John’s welcome page and my own by following these links.
(John’s Welcome page) (My Welcome Page)


Thrilling Fundamentals

While there are so many unique ways to incorporate the fundamentals of social media no strategy is complete without them. For any social media campaign or plan to really be successful it needs to engage its audience through relationship building. The more the more individualized this relationship building is, the better. Creating interesting and useful content is a great way to build that relationship but the real reason for doing so is promotion, don’t forget your purpose.

Your Turn...
Did I leave anything out?
Who did you learn from?
...let me know in the comments.

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Life Lessons Learned as a Summer Intern (Part I)

This summer I've embarked on an internship that is anything but typical. Against the advice of friends and family I accepted an internship with a company that employs student labor to paint homes during the summer months. We've all seen these types of companies and had our doubts but I saw something in this particular company and took the plunge.

This internship is absolutely a, fend-for-yourself, sink-or-swim, learn-everything-the-hard-way type of experience. There was no mistaking that an internship in an industry only vaguely familiar to me and paying entirely on commission would most assuredly be a demanding task. To be honest though, it was these challenges that the opportunity presented that attracted me. I’ve never been one to do things the easy way and the idea of having success or failure on my own terms thrilled me.
While the experience isn't over yet I have already racked up a few life lessons and know enough to expect more to come my way. While some of these may not be new concepts to me or you, they have definitely been made more meaningful in the first part of this summer.

So here they are...

Life Lessons Learned as a Summer Intern (Part I)

Your Parents Get Up Earlier For a Reason

When you are a college student you roll out of bed just in time for your 10 am class, then go home have breakfast and start your day. (And it is GLORIOUS!) However, when you work 8-12 hours a day with a list of things that have to be done in preparation for the following day, it’s important to get up at a decent hour.

In my internship I set my own hours, yet, they almost always resemble a typical schedule my parents would have had when I was growing up. Sure in some professions you can wake up at noon, not shower until 5 pm, work a bit before meeting up with fiends and then get some more work done before collapsing into bed. (The life of a writer comes to mind.) However, when the success of your work involves meeting with potential clients and or managing the work to be done by subordinates, you really have to adapt to their schedule and use what time is left to accomplish everything else on your plate. Typically that means just slightly less than 10 hours of sleep a night, and unfortunately that it also means starting your day when society off campus starts. Bummer. I know.

Schedule Me-Time Early

Whether it’s reading, yoga, or just being alone with your thoughts, it’s important to have your personal time. When your days are especially busy or better yet, unpredictable, it is wise to schedule such activities early in the day. When you are crazy busy or things always happen to be added to the day’s to-do list, something has to give. In my experience it is the things left to the end of the day that get bumped from the schedule. If me time gets bumped enough times in a row it’s bound to take its toll on your mental and emotional well being. Be advised.

It is Important to be Excited

I am always in the midst of several projects whether it be for work or school or my own amusement, I need to have multiple things to consume my time. If I was to dedicate all of my waking hours to my internship I would crack. I would assume most people you’d be the same way. And of course it is important to spend time with friends and family, but I like to have side projects too. This could be how you spend your me-time.

Allow yourself to chase your passions, give yourself a chance to be excited. I not only find my excitement form writing but from collaborating with others. On top of my full-time summer internship where I call all the shots (almost), I have another internship in which I work with a group of other student and learn a ton of great stuff from them. Learning new things excites me. What excites you?

You can learn a little bit more about my current internship by visiting my branch website: StudentPaintersPalatine.com


Learn more about me and some of the things I do by visiting my personal website: BrendanBarrett.Weebly.com


Make sure you catch my next post by following me on Twitter! @UWWBrendan


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