image via thoughtpick.com

The world of social media can be overwhelming in its vastness. There are millions of people online right now, and they all have the attention span of a kid fueled by Pixy Stix. How, you may ask yourself, can you possibly get your ideas/products/brand noticed in all that noise?

Check out some of the following social media basic tips and tricks and keep an eye on this site – this post will be a two-parter!

• Use hash tags to keep your topic searchable on Twitter (i.e. #socialmedia or #publicity), allowing potential audience members to find you
• Provide a service for your audience, free of charge – an instructional video on YouTube, a PDF of practical industry info, etc., all relating to your profession
• Use a social media management dashboard like Hootsuite; you can preset your posts and tweets to send at certain times and access your audience numbers for each post, helping to determine the most popular topics
• Tweet and post on Facebook several times a day to reach all time zones
• Link together all your social media accounts (blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) so that when you post to one, you post to all, saving you time and increasing audience eyeballs.
• Add a Facebook or Twitter feature to your blog
• Link to each of your social media sites so your fans can follow you on multiple platforms
• Host a competition on your social media platforms (i.e. telling your audience to retweet a message and picking one of them as a winner)
• Respond to social media messages in a friendly, conversational tone
• Craft compelling headlines AND compelling content – keep ’em coming back for more!

Now I’m about to keep you coming back for more and tell you to STAY TUNED… part II is coming your way soon.