Social Media Tips on Presenting Yourself

I see a lot of funny things as I cruise around my social media sites and interact with others. I thought I 'd just do a few tips on how we need to present ourselves to others. Lets face it, attracting followers is like trying to draw bees to a flower!

1st your AVATAR. A well photographed picture of yourself standing at a slight angle to the camera is best. No straight on mugshots, you'll look like a criminal. You need to smile! Don't look down at the camera you'll look like you are arrogant. Forget the finger pointing or weird gestures and of course be constant across all profiles.

2nd EMPIRE AVE. If you aren't involved in Empire Avenue as yet you should take a look at it as it can be a great help to those that are serious about social media.

Here also there are some "not too bright behaviours". Players can launch missions to get support for their various accounts. A couple of tips a) Don't ask people to RT to their followers happy birthday messages to your relatives, If you want to get re-tweets, post on a topic that will be interesting to a broad audience. Wise sayings will suffice if you are lost for what to post. b) If you want someone to answer a question on Facebook or Google plus give the specific post link! I've messed this up myself so I wasted other's time and the "funny money" called eaves. c) Thank people for their missions… its called interacting and its essential.

3rd GOOGLE PLUS Take the time and make the effort to change your background image. Google now allows you to add your own G+ cover pic so don't just use the boring old:

Now that's a bit of hopping around cover various platforms however I hope you find these tips go some way in helping you succeed in social media. More social media tips and management articles can be found at orglearn. Also remember your social media image these days forms a critical part of your resume.

Social Media and How To Build Trust

Trust Rule 1: Don't start out your social media communication with "have I got a deal for you!". You find this a lot with Twitter users in their introductory message and its just a no no!

Trust Rule 2: Resolve issues that arise or solve problems through direct communication with person causing the difficulty, don’t bring in others and never get involved in a "flaming campaign". One to one in private is always best. 

Trust Rule 3: In your communications be specific and direct. With written communication, being long winded can lead to disinterest very quickly.

Trust Rule 4: Be real, don't play act or adopt another persona and use a picture of yourself rather than some phoney avatar!

Trust Rule 5: Use a calm and logical approach to your communication and avoid abruptness and always use 'correct' greetings and culturally sensitive language. e.g I am told USA citizens prefer "thank you" rather than "thanks"!

Trust Rule 6: Share credit with those that assisted in the wins you have had, even go to the point of slightly overstating their contribution or as someone said “when in doubt, share”.  If you are involved in platforms such as Empire Avenue this is particularly important. Even with Twitter you need to acknowledge the source of your information. 

Trust Rule 7: If you make a commitment stick to it!

Trust Rule 8: Don't cheat... Again Empire Avenue is a good example… people issue missions for the games currency and some just take the money and run, not a good tactic for success that must be built on trust.

Trust Rule 9: As in the physical world it is un productive to ask loaded or rhetorical questions, ask only “non-assumptive” questions without couching them in any “spin” or as a way to push some secret agenda. This happened to me recently with a Facebook connection and in the end when he wouldn't desist I had to block him.

Trust Rule 10: Make only promises you can keep and if events overtake you admit it, don’t ever avoid the issues or ignore those seeking an explanation of a situation from you.

Trust Rule 11: Don’t scoff at another’s opinions or efforts and add support to those in difficulty.

Trust Rule 12: Have enough self-control (and demonstrate it) to overcome immediate or short-term feelings in the interests of maintaining ongoing and long term associations.

Public communication and behaviour are a small tip of the very large personal "iceberg" of our values and beliefs. Perhaps it wise to be willing on occasions to question our belief system to grow as a person. Dogmatically sticking to what we were indoctrinated with as a youngster is a sign of immaturity and low levels of emotional intelligence. Wisdom comes from being willing to change our perspective.

The following is a list of words that others need to be using when they describe you if you are to gain and maintain their trust;

"communicative, committed, confident, fearless, predictable, reliable, correct, forgiving, clear, factual, unbiased, respectful, reasonable, confidential, contributing, even (as in even handed), defining, accountable, interested, calm, resolute, tactful, sincere, frank, listener, patient, answering, sharing, fair, timely, honest, decisive, neutral, competent, consistent, explicit, responsible, transparent, close (near), willing, collaborative, accurate, graceful, helpful"

Now that's one hell of a list however all those words are what are required of you if you are truly to be seen as trustworthy.

More from Ric can be found on http://www.orglearn.org 

Personal Branding the What and How

There is lots of talk today about personal branding. Personal branding is also inextricably linked to social media.

First a few facts!

FACT: Your personal brand will (and must) be a reflection of your personality.

FACT: Your personal brand should focus on highlighting expertise.

FACT: Your personal brand needs to be specific so you must stick to your message rather than tryig to be all things to all people.

FACT: You need to constantly manage your personal brand and protect, or at least counter the negatives that others may say about you,

FACT: it takes time to build your personal and your choice of methods of distribution (social media) count. 

FACT: The best place to centre your brand (at least at this stage) is a blog.

FACT: All other social media activities need to point back to your blog which needs to provide useful content  based on your passion. If you try to fudge it by doing something you think just may sell, you will run out of steam and do more harm than good.

Social media choices are vast and it can be a bit daunting in a busy work life to figure out to where to concentrate your efforts however, a concentrated effort using the 'right' media is essential!

Can I suggest a four pronged approach!

1) Write a blog. Warning writing a blog is lots of work and if you can't consistently write on a topic you're passionate about don't start. As a bare minimum you will need to post one 600 word article once a week. Again you can use Google to do your research. For you blog Wordpress seems to have a little more credibility however Blogger can have ads (a little income) and activity can be monitored through Google stats.

2) Start a Facebook page that is separate from your personal account. Form relationships through groups that discuss work/business issues you are interested in. If you are in marketing for example find an appropriate group to join. Do some research and add value to the group by posting useful articles to your timeline.

3) Start a Twitter stream and only tweet on your professional interest. Be careful with the name you set up with. If you are say a graphic designer, try to get that fact in your Twitter name. e.g. BillsGraphicDesign For research on your topics you can use "Google Alerts", this can take much of the hard work out of the research for your tweets.

4) Build your profile on Linkedin and again join discussion groups and befriend others in your area of expertise or in similar careers.

You can automatically link/publish both your blogs and twitter streams to Facebook and your Linkedin profiles.

Personal branding is virtually a must for any modern career oriented individual  with reportedly over sixty percent of companies now looking at your social media presence before hiring. Best get on with building your brand.

More career success articles can be found at orglearn