Social Media 101: Learn From The Pros

It's been a couple of days since I attended the Delhi pit stop of Sree Sreenivasan's India Twitter Tour and I'm excited to share some of what we gleaned, with you. (You can blame the delay on my attempting to put some of what we learned into practice. *I'm looking at you, egg DP's)

Sree is the new Chief Digital Officer of New York City, and is known to many Indian journalists from his stint at Columbia University, where he taught for some 20 years, and also served as the first Chief Digital Officer. More recently, he spent three years at the Met in New York and very publicly announced that he had been let go, telling folks earlier this summer via Facebook, to hit him up with ideas, and catch up for a chat/ coffee if they'd been meaning to... It was a pretty bold move -- please read more in this wonderful piece on Quartz -- and resulted in what he calls a "global hug", not to mention, his latest position... announced by the Mayor of New York a short while ago.  

The tips I found most helpful include:

1. Why You Should Have a bit.ly Account

Among other things it lets you have a good URL, and lets you see traffic

Feel free to check out bit.ly/sreestatusreport for all the slides he presented! Including what you really want to know re social media tips!

2. How to Weed out your Fake Followers

Check out www.statuspeople.com

Btw I have started deleting Egg DP's -- nothing to be gained from having them on there! 100 down, several hundred more to go. And yes, it reduces your follower count, but you don't need fake followers!

*Don't buy followers on Twitter, people! (That was an entreaty.)

3. Handles to Check Out

@Eventifier helps you do something cool with hashtags

@Twiangulate helps you find your 100 most influential followers

@TyporamaApp sounds like fun to try out in terms of creating different styles of tweets

@giphycam that can help you make Gifs

@imgplay that can take an existing video or photo series and help you create a Gif (pronounced JIF if we were still confused)

@TheSkimm is apparently an email newsletter aimed at millennial women that we should all check out

@PicCollage and @Canva help you create clutter-breaking posts, what @Sree calls "thumb-stoppers"

(PS I love Canva)

@Boomerang lets you know that XYZ hasn't responded to your email (a reminder, so you can re-mail)

@Bananatag tells you when someone has opened or re-opened your email

Check out #sreetips for much more

Also read: Women entrepreneurs are using social media to boost their business read

4. Think before you tweet

Sree (@Sree) said he spends 3-6 minutes on each tweet! (Can you imagine?!) Also he gave us all something to think about --What if this tweet is your last? (Believe it or not, there is a Tumblr of people's last tweets)

5. Twitter Branding

Your photo should be recent, and not one where you're cropping out someone's shoulder (It's almost like he *saw my profile photo, eep!)

Give Your Twitter Bio a Make-over, to keep it relevant

Use the Banner Space Well

And Make Full Use of the Pinned Tweet!

6. Stay Connected

This sounds self-evident, but Sree made the good point that you should be in touch with people when you don't need them (or rather before your need them) before you have an ask. Anyone who's switched jobs, will know exactly what he means!

Also read: Safety for women online & offline: Social tools can be a bridge

7. Facebook Legacy

You might want to think about who you want to designate to take over your FB account when you die

8. How to tweet well?

Raheel Khursheed of Twitter India (@raheelk) said they're given advice when joining Twitter, to stay classy. (Advice he says he doesn't always follow, but makes a good yard-stick!)

Both Sree and Raheel mentioned that you should be aware that your social media posts aren't often being seen as much as you think -- so re-up/ re-post/ re-package good content.

Sree did reference what must be a Murphy's Law -- "Almost everyone will miss almost everything you do on social media, until you make a mistake!"

Keep it simple, helpful, funny, if you can.

@Sree shares his tips for social media success.
Photo Courtesy: bit.ly/sreestatusreport

Also: I loved this point -- Sree deciding not to take part in any more manels!

Readers will know that our columnist @jasuja is involved in creating a database of women speakers in India, so no one can hide behind the excuse that there are not enough qualified women at hand, for any given topic!

Watch him speak about this to SheThePeople.TV here

 Do tweet your feedback to this post @amritat and @SheThePeopleTV, and go ahead and follow @Sree, @Raheelk...while you're at it!