I’m a swimming pool installer, but I’ve also been messing around with social media, website designing and SEO for quite sometime now.
As with anything to do with the Internet this is one heck of a steep learning curve and there’s no way can I understand all of it. But anyway through the years I’ve picked up some tips and realised a few others, and I’d like to impart some of this knowledge of social media to you who read my article. So here goes:
First off, keep it simple, don’t rush it, and remember this Social media stuff is new. Twitter for example has only be going since March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and Google+ since June 2011 So not that long ago.
So here are some of the Do’s and Dont’s in Social media (It is not rocket science and you don’t need to buy books as most of the information is all there on the Internet…)
Some of the Do’s.
- Do begin with joining some social media websites… It cost nothing but your time. My social media websites are Twitter • Facebook • Pinterest • LinkedIn • Digg • Google+ • Stumbleupon and a few others.
- Do choose the social media sites you are most comfortable using. Some love FB (Facebook) other prefer Twitter and so on.
- Do write your profile on each social media website (But also see the Dont’s below).
- Do roughly read up on each social media site. Revise a few times to get the gist of the website as you’ll never take all the information in one go, unless you are a smart Alec like me.
- Do get yourself a WordPress blog (wordpress.org not .com) Integrate the blog into your website. if you use the WordPress.com blog you cannot integrate this into your own website. Either the host of your site can do this automatically or you or your webmaster will have to do it for you as it can get complicated to install.
- Do write articles (but not about selling something but the subject or subjects you’re into).
- Do leave your website link at the bottom and link to one or two other websites and let them know you have linked to their website.
Some of the Dont’s.
- Don’t divulge too much personal information about yourself or anyone when filling out your public profile. You do not know who is reading it.
- Don’t tell anyone and do not type your passwords or other personal information too any social media or website if you don’t know them. There are plenty of rogue websites out there only to eager to relieve you of your personal details and more. So just be on your guard.
- Don’t click on links in theses social media websites if you’re not sure of them.
It is far better to use Google, Bing, Yahoo or other reputable search engines to find what you want to search for. Some links are very bad and can cause all sorts of problems including again stealing your passwords.
- Don’t if at all possible overkill with the push push pushing your wares… It’s a turn off.
It’s not easy because you want to announce to the world what you do or have to sell, but if all you do is “Tweet” about your products or services you will not have many people following or looking in on your website. This is where writing articles about your subjects attracts traffic to you. However it is not a problem when you occasionally push your products onto the stage but don’t over cook it.
- Don’t spam others (This is more or less the same as above) You can get your account suspended or even a ban. So don’t spam.
You’ll never get through all popular social media sites It’s just too much and too many to do so just choose a fave 1 or 2 (or more if you can manage it). Use the other social media websites that you don’t use too often to submit your articles. Talking of managing, use a social media manager like Tweet-Deck (Which is free to use) Hootsuite (Not sure this is free) or something similar. (I’ve been brought up on TweetDeck even though it plays up now and then (I’m loathed to change)
But it’s horses for courses! I like TweetDeck with all it’s faults but others can’t stand it and use another social media manager.
Social media sites that I mostly use are LinkedIn Twitter, FB
Social media sites I should use more often is Google+ Pinterest MySpace Stumble-upon Digg and a few others…
It takes time to learn so don’t rush it.
I hope this helps I’ve never looked at books but that’s not to say there aren’t some good ones out there, I just Googled the info (occasionally).
Part II to follow.
