Ideas for Social Media Participation and Promotion

This blog post is a collection of ideas to help students in my Social Media class choose a variety of social media activities.

Setup Options

Make the most of your social media sites. Set them up well.

  1. Follow Other Blogs. Set yourself up to follow others in your field or area. This will inform your social media use. Find at least 5 blogs in your area to follow. Use the search terms “[keyword] blog” on Google. Brainstorm keywords often used in your field. Then subscribe to the blog. Either subscribe via email if that is offered (usually prominently on the front page) or see if the blog is posted automatically to Twitter. Or use the RSS feed icon. What is RSS? Feedly is a good option for following blogs on your computer. I like Flipboard for my smartphone. Subscribe to 5 blogs.
  2. Follow people, topics, and/or hashtags on Twitter. Use the Twitter search to find people or tags in your interest area. Look at someone’s profile; scroll quickly through, and see if there are any specific hashtags they are using that you want to follow. Scroll through a hashtag’s recent posts and see if there is anyone else posting interesting and useful content that you want to follow. Click Follow in individual twitter profiles to follow someone or use a service like Tweetdeck or HootSuite to organize the feeds which allows you to easily follow hashtags and subgroups of topics/people.
  3. Mark / logo. Design a logo or mark to brand your work on all social media. For example, note how Silvia Tolisano uses the witch hat across her social media sites: Langwitches.orgTwitterWikispacesFlickrVimeoFacebookBlog. If you have Illustrator skills, use that. Another option is Online Logo Maker. Then add your logo/mark to the profile pictures or header images on at least two of your social media sites.
  4. Tweetdeck. Don’t have a lot of time to tweet? Feel twitter needs a little organization? Use Tweetdeck to organize the hashtags and keywords that you follow. You can also write tweets and schedule them to post later. Get set up in Tweetdeck (text tutorial; video tutorial); create at least 5 columns to follow various topics. Create and schedule at least 5 tweets.
  5. Send blog posts automatically to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and/or LinkedIn. To generate more traffic for your blog, connect it to your social network(s). I have my blog posting automatically to Twitter and LinkedIn, my professional networks; but not Facebook as my friends and family may not care to hear too much about my work. If you are using WordPress.com, click on the Sharing setting and connect the desired social network(s). If you have WordPress installed on your own site, install the Jetpack Plugin and you’ll find the option to Publicize under Settings, Sharing. While you are in the Sharing Setting, add buttons for your readers to share your blog post to their networks.
  6. Subscribe widget and more. Set up your blog so that others can subscribe to it and find other widgets to add to your blog. From the menu, click Customize, Widgets, Add a Widget. Note the “follow” widgets for others to subscribe. Note the widgets that make connections to your other social media sites.
  7. Create a central site that links all of your social media together. It could be on your blog, or it could be on your personal website if you have one. Note how Silvia Tolisano (wordpress) and Michael Taylor (weebly) use a central site for connections to their social media.

Things to Create and Share

Focus on the value add. How does your creation add to the online conversation on this topic? How can you use social media to hook an audience and bring them in? See Runner’s World and Strength Running as some examples.

  1. Internet image meme. What is a meme? Sabbath Sofa – examples of image and video memes. Create an image meme. While you could quickly make a cheesy image meme using a tool like Meme Generator; try something more sophisticated and use your own photo or a Flickr Creative Commons photo (follow the rules) and use a photo editor like PicMonkey (tutorials) to create your image meme. Then share the image appropriately on Facebook or Twitter.
  2. Twitter posts. Create and share 5 catchy tweets on twitter. First read some strategies for great tweets, effective tweets, promoting news, and using hashtags.
  3. Pinterest. Create at least two Pinterest (tutorials) boards related to the topic you are promoting in this class. Include at least 5 items with great graphics in each board.
  4. Graphical options. Create something graphical and cool with tools such as Glogster, Padlet, Instagram, etc. Note the visual choices here.

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