Some Keys for Being Active on Social Media

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin






For years, I have worked at
developing a large social media following—over 200,000 Twitter
followers, over 18,000 LinkedIn Connections and over 4,900 Facebook
friends. These types of numbers do not happen overnight but are something
every author can do—with consistent work. I continue to expand and
develop these areas.





In this article, I want to give
you several keys for doing your own social media. Yes you can hire others to
do social media. 



From my experience no matter how much you train them, they will
not do it like you do it. Your passion needs to show through. I have always done
my own social media posts.





1. Control Your Social
Media Time. It's easy to waste hours on your Facebook feed or Twitter
feed or LinkedIn feed. I do go over to these places but my time is controlled
and not very long at any time.





2. Have the Mindset
Your Social Stream Is Like a Magazine. If you follow me on Twitter or
Facebook or LinkedIn, you notice I have a great deal of variety on my social
media streams. Yet everything is focused for people interested in publishing. My
mindset when I put together my posts are like I am putting together a print
magazine targeted to a particular audience. I will keep you on track with what
you are putting out.





3. Work Ahead. I
use the paid version of Hootsuite to post consistently throughout each day. The
majority of my posts come from other people and each one has an image and a link
to more resources, The only exception is the quotation and photo I use to begin
each day. In general, once a week I fill out my plans for the entire week and it
often takes me about 20 to 30 minutes for this task.





4. Create A Grid for Your
Scheduled Posts. No one but me probably knows the pattern of my social
media posts. I begin each day with a quotation and a photo of that person. I
follow that with a couple of posts to my own material such as a free ebook or a
product that I'm selling. These posts are followed by six hours of posts from
others—yet to my target audience. I close the day with a couple of personal
posts to a blog article or a free resource. You could create a formal grid (I
haven't) but I recommend you make a pattern for yourself and then it is
automatic and something you do rather than work to create.





A recent Pew Poll has proven that
80% of the tweets on Twitter come from 20% of the people. Because I tweet 12 to
15 times a day, I believe I'm in the 20%.  Here's an extra truth about social
media: Not
everyone reads every post but people are reading your posts. I can see from
the comments and reactions.





These are some of my keys for
being active on social media. What are your keys in this area? Let me know in
the comments below.





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