10 Best Practices for Social Media

Erika Brookes is an employee of Virtue. Virtue is a social media management company. They provide technological solutions to help brand grasp the potential of marketing on social networks like twitter, facebook and linkedin. During the Craking the Code: Advanced Social Media Strategies webinar Thursday, Erika shared what Virtue believes are the 10 best practices for Facebook publishing. Below, I have listed the 10 practices Erika named and a little tid bit about each.

1. Conversational Calendar: Developing a calendar will help you map out you social media. You want to make sure that the things you are posting should mirror your other online activites as well as offline activities and any other marketing tactics you use. It is important to be consistent in your post so as not to confuse your audience.

2. Engagement vs. Shouting: When speaking to your publics you want to make sure that you are using a brand voice. This means use the same voice in your social media as you would in all other forms of media. Make sure you audience feels engaged, talk to them, not at them.

3. Meaningful Content: When creating content you want to make sure that your customers are reading things that are relevant to them as well as relevant to your brand. It is important to be an "expert in your field." If you can show your customers that you know why they need your product by using relevant and informative information you should. Be careful though, make sure you are not just promoting yourself. Show your audience you care about them just as much as you care about your product.

4. Post Type: According to Brookes, image posts are the most popular and most effective type of post. It is much easier to share and image than a video, not to mention much easier to create. It is important to speak to your public as you would speak to someone one on one. If you customize each post to your brand and your audience you automatically raise the share value, which is your ultimate goal. All content that you publish is created to be liked, shared or commented on, remember those things when creating a post.

5. Time of Day/ Frequency: Be consistent with your posts. If you post around dinner time everyday keep it consistent. You want to be posting when your audience is using social networking. 

6. Wall Strategy: News feeds are getting 110 times more use than the tabs. It is important to remember this when using your wall. If you set your default page to your posts only then you will show up on your customers news feed more often.

7. Moderation:  It is important to protect and manage your brand through your social network sites. A great way to be in tune with what is being written on your wall is by using key words. This will allow you to make sure the posts or conversations from your customers stays clean and not explicit. However, this is where moderation comes in. Don't be an overprotective parent type. Allow your audience to be heard and have conversations just make sure that the image of your brand can stay foul language free.

8. Fan-gating: This is the idea of increasing your fan base. I don't believe you could find a person who doesn't enjoy getting something for free. A great way of fan-gating would be to giveaways, coupons, etc. An example Brookes mentioned was a Baskin Robbins giveaway. The campaign ran that if you could get 31 of your friends to like the Baskin Robbins page, you would receive a coupon for a free scoop of ice cream.

9. Shorten URLs: By shortening your URLs you can use your brand name to keep your fans interested and make your site easy to remember. However, when doing so, be sure that you are the only one who has access to your data on that website.

10. Tools for Brand Advocates: The largest goal of using social media to market your brand is to get your key publics and their friends to like, share or comment on your page. The more your brand is being talked about the better the situation for your company. Give your existing fans reason to share your posts. Examples of how to do this would be sampling, giveaways, polls, voting. Get them interacting with your social media and they will start sharing with their network of friends.


I found Erika Brookes's "lecture" to be very fascinating. It seemed as if Virtue has pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as Facebook tactics for companies goes. I think the important thing for companies to remember is not to shy away from the numbers. You may have hundreds, or thousands or maybe even millions of fans, but it is important to talk to them as you would one on one.

Attention Car Lovers

Beginning Friday, October 29th, Charlotte Motor Speedway will host the 17th annual Goodguys Southeastern Nationals. The three day event, ending October 31st, will feature more than 3,000 custom cars from all over the nation. The event includes a swap and meet, car corral, TGIF kick off party, model car show, NASCAR rides, vendor kiosk and lots more fun for the whole family. General admission is $18 for adults and if you'd like to bring the little ones, kids ages 7-12 get in for just $6. If you love cars this is the place to be. Come out to motor speedway October 29th-31st and show the whole family a fun filled weekend they'll never forget!

Social Networks and How I Use Them

As many of you know, social networking has taken the world by storm over the last decade and from what I can tell it's not going anywhere. I began my using social media about 10 years ago. I started the way most people did, with a facebook and myspace account. I still hold each of these accounts but I don't think I have signed on to myspace since January. Since I have started taking a social media marketing class in college I have become a part of several different networks. I use each network differently and modify the content accordingly. For example, I enjoy using my facebook account for keeping up with my friends, and family that I am not able to see everyday. I regulate the material differently on my facebook page than I would on a page where I would be looking for connections for jobs.

Through my social media class I have learned of sites such as Diigo, Twitter, Foursquare, Linkedin and lots more. Although these sites are also social networking sites I use them differently than I do my facebook and myspace accounts. I tend to use twitter as a "heads up" site. Tweets from different celebrities, friends, TV networks and organizations bring me slightly up to date and point out things that I may be interested in reading up on later. Diigo is a site that so far I have been using to keep in touch with my social media class via our group page. I also have been using diigo to bookmark research I have been doing for our current project. When using diigo you can bookmark pages and access them via the internet at any computer. The information I plan to post and have posted so far will be short and to the point. Until I have a better idea of how to use each of these I want to be extremely careful with how I am using them. The last site I would like to speak about today is Linkedin. Linkedin is a wonderful site in which you can extend your existing networks. On this site I plan to keep my information brief and professional, this will be the site I most likely send future potential employers to.

To finish up, social networking is a wonderful tool that once learned can be used by everyone. The most important thing to remember is, know your audience and keep your content relevant.

Laura Browder's When Janey Comes Marching Home

On Monday September 27th, East Carolina University hosted guest speaker Laura Browder. Browder, the author of a new book titled When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans, came to discuss her book with students and faculty of ECU at the Wright Auditorium on central campus. Browder's book focuses on a diverse group of women in the war against Iraq and Afghanistan. The book shares the stories of these women through their own biographies. As Browder states in an interview with the University of North Carolina Press, "war photography has traditionally focused on men as heroes and aggressors, and on women and children as victims." Browder's book sets out to show its readers the way women in the army should be portrayed as opposed to the way they are portrayed today.

I personally am excited about Browder's book and her stance on women in the military. I think it is extremely important for people to remember that their are women out their risking their lives everyday just like the men. The media, of course, does a wonderful job of keeping these stories of female struggle, encouragement and perserverance out of our reach. I believe this book is a wonderful way to bring these stories to the lime light and remind people that soldier is a term that does not represent a person's gender.

Digital Life In 6 words

 Don't deny it, you stalk too.

Tweet, post, blog, just can't stop

I signed on and didn't study

Met him, googled him, dumped him

Wake up, sign in, update status

It saves me from being bored

Gagging over Gaga

Once a year MTV host one of the most exciting nights in music entertainment. The Video Music Awards have been an annual event since 1994. Sunday night some of the biggest names in rock, pop, rap and country graced the LA Live complex ready to amaze and be amazed. With Chelsea Handler hosting and Eminem's opening performance it seemed this was going to be a VMA show to remember.
One thing that normally gets alot of chatter during the VMAs (or any other awards show) is the fashion. This year did not disappoint. It would be impossible to find anyone talking about fashion at this year's VMAs without hearing the name Lady Gaga or the phrase "meat dress." 
Lady Gaga certainly had the night of her career after walking away with five moonman trophies. For her last acceptance speech and final dress change Lady Gaga took the stage wearing a dress made completely out of raw meat. She was also adorned with a hat, a purse and wedges to match. Tnhis outfit needless to say got alot of attention at the awards and even more buzz the following day. Monday morning Gaga was a guest on the Ellen Degeneres show. When Ellen, a vegan, asked Gaga about her meaty wardrobe Gaga's response was outrageous. Gaga defeneded her dress refering to it as a political statement. I'm sorry but what kind of political statement are we trying to make here? We live in a world full of people suffering from hunger and you are wearing perfectly good raw meat as accessories?! I don't understand how this is a political statement, other than maybe saying "Hey, I have tons of money so I will do whatever I want with this perfectly good  meat." Probably Kobe beef too!  Maybe it was a way to get attention but I didn't understand how her wearing food was making a political statement about supporting homosexuality as she claimed. Either way Gaga stuck a fork in the VMAs and definitely had the last laugh. Whether you agreed or disagreed with her wardrobe choice, she walked away a winner. Cheers Gaga, maybe PETA will be able to better understand your heartwarming statement.