Report from April 24 event offers social media tips

Tips on how to survive social media

Whether your organization’s social media activities are performed by a team or it’s a solo act, you must have a strategy to be successful, according to Kalyn Baldwin, Fort Worth-based Cash America International’s social media specialist.

Kalyn, who’s been in her role at Cash America since May 2011, drew a capacity audience to Joe T’s on April 24 for Surviving Social Media, an event presented by IABC Fort Worth.

Kalyn offered lots of basic information for managing the various social media platforms and keeping your head above water as you engage and interact with customers, employees and other key audiences. Here are Kalyn’s key tips on using four of the most popular social media tools:

Facebook timeline – Make sure you have an attractive, relevant cover image. It’s OK to change the image occasionally, but keep the message, quality and feel consistent with your brand. Kalyn says these pages are good examples:

• Magnolia Bakery
• Dos Equis
• White House | Black Market; and
• TCU.

Twitter – Your Twitter page must be branded and the branding must be consistent with your other social media pages. This ensures brand cohesion across platforms, Kalyn says. She pointed out that even Mishka the Talking Husky – who started as a viral sensation on YouTube also has branded Twitter and Facebook pages.

YouTube – Mishka’s YouTube channel serves as a video content hub. Kalyn says companies and other organizations should copy this tactic. Cash America uses its YouTube videos as content on its other social media channels, including its blog.

Blogging – Blogs provide companies a way to completely control the message, Kalyn says. Cash America International uses its blog to educate customers, introduce employees to its publics, and to support reputation management and community relations.

Kalyn also addressed content creation and management, offering these tips:

• Integrate the content and cross-promote appropriately among the platforms.
• Pay attention to all the details such as titles, headlines and images.
• Provide relevant content that’s true to your organization. Link it to your corporate and social media strategies. Keep it consistent with brand messaging.
• Quality of content and followers is more important than quantity of content and followers.
• Be social and conversational. Don’t just publish content. Interact with readers who make comments. Use content as a way to engage your audiences and to start conversations.
• Focus on readers’ needs.