It’s only been less than a decade, but Social Media has changed the way we do marketing. In our fast-paced industry ideas are thought of, tried out, and either vetted or discarded, all within a matter of days. With all the flurry that’s happening, it sometimes gets a little bit hard to actually figure out what works, and what fails. Here are the top 25 tips you should definitely learn should you decide to venture with social media.

1. Be objective. Start a campaign by asking yourself questions like: how do I measure success? Upon meeting the metrics, does the campaign stop or would it have further goals? Setting your goals beforehand avoids unnecessary guessing later on when you’re faced with two opposing decisions.
2. Be on your best behaviour. Everything you do gets recorded – sometimes permanently.
3. Strive to be interesting. You want people to come back to your profile over and over.
4. Maintain a lively discussion. Reply if people comment on your profile.
5. Don’t make it difficult for people to give you feedback. Appreciate their feedback, be it positive or constructive.
6. Interact with your fans. A contest or two every once in a while wouldn’t hurt. You can also try a few surveys.
7. Keep your profile current.
8. Choose a good username. Seriously.
9. Use services that will integrate all your social media applications together. For example, FaceBook can link with Twitter so that any status update on FaceBook reflects as a tweet.
10. Customize your landing pages. You don’t have to go with the drab default layouts. Many social media sites allow you to upload your own designs and layouts – take advantage of them.
11. Watch out for new entrants. You’ll never know what will be the next twitter or FaceBook.
12. Join many social media sites, but focus only on a few. Just like many things, it’s preferable to go for quality over quantity.
13. Organize your information. Company pictures, logos, portfolios, etc. should be in their proper places. You don’t want prospective clients getting lost in the employee pictures.
14. Don’t forget other Media.
15. Don’t forget to do website and search engine optimization.
16. Don’t overdo placing too many widgets and applications. You want them looking at your profile, not tickling yet another cute hamster.
17. Think about advertising with the social media site’s ad network.
18. Check – and recheck – your privacy settings.
19. Have a lot of patience. Your profile needs to build enough critical mass before it becomes profitable to maintain it.
20. Expand your network. Connect with peers and industry authorities.
21. Link to your social media site from your main company site, and vice versa.
22. You mean you don’t have a company site? Get one; social media sites are not a replacement for your main company site.
23. Make your social media site special by announcing exclusive deals and coupons only available there.
24. Profile your followers. See what your audience really consists of versus your expected target.
25. And lastly, remember the golden rule: do unto others what you want them done unto you. That means, don’t get all squeamish about following people – they need followers too just like you need them.

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