5 Hot Tips

As you can tell from the title, today's post is generously borrowed from Susan Rice Lincoln's e-newsletter, Social Media Matters. You can read all of Susan's posts at her blog, Mastering the New Net.

I would never use the word "hot" in my own titles ;-)

I really enjoyed tip number four, with the house/garden/social media metaphor. Readers of my blog will know I love metaphors.




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.


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. (Regrettably, I think this is happening to my blog)


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. (And I don't do this)



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.



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.