How to Become a Social Media Pro
Social media has
become an integral part of today’s lifestyle and there are millions of posts
everyday on multiple social media sites. But how do you make sure that you
stand out from the crowd? shows you some tips & tricks to help you make a
mark online
Use Free Stock Images
Social posts with a visual or two always catch the
eye better compared to plain text. This means you can get increased
interactions — provided you use relevant images that can help readers
understand your post better. To avoid getting into issues over copyright, don’t
just pick up random images from the Internet. You should use your own images as
far as possible. Another way is to get images from stock websites that offer
them for free.
Check www.unsplash.com, www.pexels.com, http://picjumbo.com and http://pixabay.com to start –
images here are available free for use and the sites are regularly updated with
new content.
Automate Tasks With IFTTT
Almost everyone wants to be present on multiple
social media platforms. For maximum reach, you would like to post updates on
all the platforms. The trouble is, it’s a pain to open each website/app to post
the same status everywhere. You can save a lot of time by automating cross
platform posts using the free IFTTT (IF This Then That) app/service. First, you
need to sign-up for IFTTT with Google or Facebook. Once you log-in, you can
head to the social media category and choose from a list of preset combinations
for social media posts. Keep in mind you will have to connect each service with
IFTTT first. Once you have done that, you can choose to have posts from one
social platform automatically posted everywhere else.
Hootsuite for Scheduling,
Analytics & Integration
It’s not possible for you to be on social media all
the time. But to keep followers/fans interested in your content, you need to
push out updates regularly. To solve this dilemma, take a look at Hootsuite —
it lets you schedule posts for the future. Sign up for a free account that lets
you manage up to 3 social media profiles from a single dashboard. You can
schedule up to 30 messages in advance across different social platforms and
even get a basic analysis of how each post does in terms of reachability and
response. If you want access to more profiles, detailed analytics and other
advance features, you will need to opt for one of the paid plans.
Get Better at Hashtags
Hashtags
help identify a topic on social media. When you use a hashtag — identified by
the hash (#) character — the term becomes discoverable/ searchable on social
media, which increases your reach to include people who may not be directly
connected to you. This is why using the right hashtags is very important. The
trouble is, not everyone understands what hashtags to use. One simple way to
solve this issue is to use websites that provide relevant hashtags checkout https://ritetag.com and http://hashtagify.me
as
a start. On your smartphone, you can get the free TagsDock Keyboard app
(available for iOS and Android). The keyboard requires you to select a category
and then shows you relevant hashtags. The free version of the app gives you 10
hashtags for each topic — for more hashtags you will need to get the full
version of the app by paying US $0.99.
Getting Verified: Having a
verified account on social media has a number of benefits (depending on the
platform) including improved reach, access to detailed analytics and the added
trust factor. You’ll find that you also start to get more followers if you have
a verified account. This means that everyone wants to get the verified status,
though it’s not that easy to get.
Facebook
— Facebook does not verify personal accounts. However, if you have a
business page/profile, you can apply for that to be verified. On your Facebook
page, go to Settings > General — if you are eligible, you will see an option
for Page Verification. You can verify via a call or by submitting documents
requested by Facebook — once your page is verified, you will see a checkmark in
front of your page name.
Twitter
— Twitter’s process for getting verified used to be simple. You just
had to head to https://verification.twitter.com/ and add your
twitter handle, submit relevant documents and Twitter would check your
credentials. However, at the moment, the verification process is on hold. There
is some controversy regarding verification because of the perception that a
verified badge bestows some sort of importance. Twitter just used the verified
badge to prove that the account is ‘authentic’. A new verification process is
expected to roll out soon.
Instagram
— Like
Facebook, Instagram only awards the verified badge to a public figure. However,
unlike Facebook, Instagram does not let you request for a badge. These are
awarded automatically by Instagram for accounts that are highly prone to
impersonation. Don’t assume that if your Facebook page gets verified, you will
automatically get a verified badge on Instagram.
Karan Bajaj
ET8DEC17
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