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?
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...let me know in the comments.

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