After serving as Chief Digital Officer for The Met, Columbia and the City of New York, I realized the social media management practices we deployed at these institutions could help individuals just as well.
Enter Digimentors, a collective of digital strategists I founded to improve social media strategies.
In the past year, I’ve run dozens of workshops and written for The New York Times about wrangling social media. The following list encapsulates my top tips for executives:
SREE’S TOP SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS
- What’s common sense in real life is common sense in social media.
- Almost everyone will miss almost everything you do on social media. Until you make a MISTAKE.
- Don’t share every thought that pops into your head.
- Tweet as if your next tweet is your last.
- Look at your tweets through eyes of your bosses.
- Be an early tester, late adopter.
- HANDLES: Most recognizable, MEMORABLE handle you can get.
- HEADSHOT: Strong, recent, RECOGNIZABLE photo.
- BIO: Should reflect your best, CURRENT you. Be clear about who you are and what you might tweet about. List 2-3 topics.
- LOCATION: Tell Twitter where you live or are based out of. Journos, PR folks always look for this.
- HASHTAGS: Try to find shortest possible, UNIQUE, memorable one you can
- LISTS: Using lists will improve your use of Twitter.
- FOLLOWERS: It’s not who follows you that matters. It’s who follows who follows you that matters.
- Not just job hunting; career management tool.
- Commit to posting at least 3-5 times a week.
- Study the analytics.
- “See First” feature
- “Legacy Contact” feature
THE “ABCs”
- Always Be Charging (your smartphone)
- Always Be Collecting (using your phone to take pix)
- Always Be Connecting (via LinkedIn, et al)
MORE
- #AlwaysBeLearning
- Make #Thumbstoppers, w/photos, videos, GIFs: Canva • Typorama • GIPHY • Bitmoji • Tailor • IMGPlay • Spark Post • PicCollage
- Get your own bit.ly account
- Do more on your cellphone – produce more content & try Moment app
- Avoid tech neck.
- Log off and read a book!
Sree Sreenivasan is a digital and social media consultant, a former chief digital officer of Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the City of New York. He is cofounder of a new consultancy, Digimentors. Follow him on Twitter: @sree