Ah, social media…
While I am glad to live in a world where I am able to creep on long lost high school classmates and easily connect in conversation with somebody who shares a similar #interest, I am the first to admit that social media can be a lot to handle. So today I am going to spit out a few simple tips for handling the world of Twitter. These are neither groundbreaking nor revolutionary, but they are practical ways to sort through
your feed:
- Use a social media management system. My platform of choice is HootSuite, although TweetDeck and SproutSocial also have great reviews. This is a free, effective way to keep up with the massive influx of social media sites. Not only can you manage more than one Twitter handle at a time, but the interface also makes it easy to do a quick breeze through of your entire social media presence.
- Make lists! It was a ways into my Twitter career before I realized just how valuable lists could be. By making lists (such as work friends, companies I’d like to work for, inspiration, competition, clients, potential clients, etc.) I can easily log in and see the conversations I am looking for. This also makes it easier to compartmentalize what kinds of people enjoy what kinds of tweets and allows me to jump into the conversation accordingly.
- Use the force wisely. By the force, I mean the power of the #hashtag. Hashtags are a GREAT tool to connect you with others talking about similar topics; however, they can also bog down your tweets. As a general rule of thumb, I limit myself to three hashtags per tweet. This forces me to create relevant hashtags and do so carefully. Hashtags are sort of like your tweet’s punch line and therefore should be only the “best of the best.”
- Retweet like you mean it. A Retweet is a great tool to use when you want to share somebody else’s content, but you don’t want to water down your value by not creating your own, original content. That being said, only Retweet if it brings value to your feed.
- Have fun! Interact! Believe in Twitter karma! Remember that people come to Twitter for different reasons (be it networking, social, promotion or a combination), but no matter what it should be fun. If somebody takes the time to interact with you, make sure you return the favor. Keep it fresh, don’t schedule all of your tweets and try to create content that you care about – not just content for content’s sake.
The best part about social media is how it is always changing. How have you learned to adapt to your favorite source of social media?
