This month I had the pleasure of presenting my professional guide to social media at the Illinois Women in Leadership luncheon. In order to provide attendees with the information they were seeking, I worked with the program chair to develop an online survey, which went out to the membership in advance of the event. Over 25% of IWIL’s members responded and about half of the women involved in our organization attended the social media presentation. 

The survey revealed that most of us use Facebook, but want to learn more about LinkedIn and Twitter when it comes to promoting our businesses. It also found that 67% of respondents have a social media strategy for their business, which is fantastic. Surprisingly, or not perhaps, only 13% use a social media management platform. 

So, armed with this knowledge, I prepared a presentation that reflected the online activities of our membership. I spoke about the benefits of social media, content creation, my top tips for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, the need to set objectives and then manage these through engagement and measuring results. 

So here are a few of the tips that I shared with the ladies at IWIL: 

1 Social media is about quality over quantity when it comes to followers/likes/connections. 

2 These are public profiles, which can be seen by journalists, your employees, donors etc.

3 You must address complaints quickly. Take the conversation offline when necessary. 

4 Limit access to your accounts and change the password regularly. 

5 Content is key; make sure it’s relevant, engaging and informative. 

6 Accompany posts with links, images, videos, and tags. 

7 Do one platform really well then expand.  

8 Create a vanity URL for your business page e.g. facebook.com/gemprmedia and LinkedIn profile linkedin.com/in/gemmalonggemprmedia

9 Images boosted on Facebook must contain less than 25% text. 

10 It is ok to repost the same messages; less than 10% of your followers will see a single post – unless you boost – or have followers that share posts. 

11 On LinkedIn, you can tag users that you are not connected to.

12 You can add posts to your LinkedIn profile. 

13 When tweeting, think about leaving space for people to retweet your @name and add a comment (140 characters max per tweet) 

14 Use #s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; these allow for the identification of topics or trends.

15 75% of users are more likely to purchase from a brand they follow on Twitter