4 Social Media Tips From My Friends

Today i asked a question on twitter that what is the one tip you would like to give some one regarding social media marketing? I received replies from 4 of my friends on twitter. Here are they in the order i received them:

Image: respres (via Flickr)

#1. Anshuman

He suggested Patience as the key. And i agree with him. To be successful in any form of art, patience is required. And certainly social media marketing is an art which is being refined with every passing day.

#2. Gaurav

He laid stress on the need of your audience. According to him instead of talking what you 'want to', start talking about what your audience wants to listen. This is indeed a very valid point. Understanding your audience and communicating with them in their voice is the essence of marketing.

#3. Gagan

He had a suggestion more on a philosophical note but very much valid. He suggested to stay a social media marketing 'learner' rather than portray yourself as a social media marketing 'Guru'. Looking at the number of social media 'Gurus' gushing out from all sides, his suggestion only seems to be valid to me.

#4. Patrick

He had a very nice point to make that a social media marketer needs to be honest and transparent in his dealings with his audience as there's nothing worse as a customer or client than being purposely misinformed.  Adding to that i feel dishonesty can also bring a doom or bad PR for the brand, especially in the age of social media where news spread faster than you can think.

There are tons of tips related to social media, which can be shared. Do you have any? Please share in the comment box below.

How To Be Famous on Twitter - Tips by a Twitter Celebrity

[caption id="attachment_176" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Pramit presenting his own case study"][/caption]Recently Digital Vidya (the company i work for) invited a very famous Twitter personality from India, Pramit J. Nathan in it's recent Social Media Bootcamp held at New Delhi. He has over 165,000 followers on Twitter! During his session on Twitter he explained how to gain popularity, credibility & mass following on Twitter. Here i would like to capture the essence of his enlightening talk.

1. No Rights or Wrongs: First thing he told us was that there are no rights or wrongs on Twitter. It is up to the Twitter users to define their own guidelines. Whom they follow, how they follow or for what purpose they want to use it is entirely dependent on them. Some one may want to maintain his time line clutter free & thus follow only a few hundred people & other may want to follow thousands of people & get followed back by them in return.

2. Going Mutual: Second thing which he mentioned was his approach to gain large number of followers & influence on twitter. He suggested to follow like minded people & let them follow you back & also if some one follows you then following them back. This way a mutual relationship is created. If some people don't return the favor by not following you back, you always have an option to unfollow them. Also lists can be created categorize the tweets of people whose content is dear to you.

3. Content is the key: Third thing he suggested was to create & distribute interesting content. Keep in mind that the content should be interesting to your followers which can help them & which they feel like sharing further. For this, one can write interesting blog posts & then share it and also one can retweet interesting content of other people. This also helps in building strong traction & relationship with fellow tweeple.

4. Target the influencers: He recommended that twitter users can have a much better twitter experience by friending the twitter biggies and the prolific tweeters. By retweeting them and conversing with them one gets the opportunity to reach out to their followers too and make friends with many active tweeps. He said that Twitter is his Window to the Web and his daily source for news, knowledge, humor and wisdom.

5. Don't limit: His important suggestion was not to limit yourself to a particular place or country on twitter. One can create a global personal brand on twitter. Just be open. One can find very good friends far away from your country & he even related his example when he visited Hong Kong with his wife & they met with a tweep (twitter friend) who hosted them for a great dinner and also helped them with many tips to have a great trip.

6. Hard but Easy: According to Pramit, any one can gain 1,00,000 followers on twitter. It’s just a matter of putting in the time but it’s simple to do. All you do is follow a few hundred people daily whose profile seems interesting to you & then wait for them to follow you back. After few days unfollow those who haven’t returned the favor so that you can follow more. This way one goes on increasing the number of friends (mutual followers).

Having a large twitter following does have many benefits. Pramit has been invited to many events as an expert. Also he gets the opportunity from top blogs to be their guest blogger. Apart from that there are various direct or indirect monetary and business benefits too.

What do you think can be more ways to be famous on Twitter?