Sunday, November 22, 2009

Link, Tweet and Friend Like a Pro

Social media is a hot topic! Google returned 89.4 million hits for social media on the morning that I announced the program and 131 million hits today. We had a panel of social media experts who shared their tips on how to "Link, Tweet and Friend Like a Pro" at our recent Sterling Bank Women's Business Initiative Luncheon in San Antonio.

Our well-qualified panel included:

Katie Harvey, President and CEO of KGBTexas

Nan Palmero, Chief Inspiration Officer at SalesBy5

Christine Pechayco, New Media Editor at Sterling Bank

Donna Tuttle, Project Coordinator at San Antonio Business Journal

Their excellent advice included:
  • Listen, inform and engage
  • Use feedback to improve services
  • Push headlines thru Twitter and Facebook
  • Provide tips that journalists might use for stories
  • Be aware of the legal implications for financial institutions and public companies
  • Benefit from research and customer service opportunities
  • Recruit Gen Y employees through Facebook
  • Invite your audience to special events using social media platforms
  • Treat social media as an additional communications tool
  • Create instructional videos on You Tube
  • Build communities
  • Access experts and share expertise using LinkedIn discussions
  • Get sucked in to the fun of these platforms
  • Expand your mind, friends and business
  • Social media adds communication channels
  • Assess an organization's culture
  • Stay active, particularly if you are using these platforms for your company
  • Remember that it is extremely difficult to regain credibility if it is lost
  • Maintain conversations
  • Treat interactions as you would face-to-face conversations
  • Do not bombard your audience
  • Alerts will allow you to follow topics of interest
  • Social media levels the playing field between large and small companies and it's free
  • Offer journalists sneak peeks
  • Tweet up in your areas of interest
  • Be curious and step outside your box
  • Transparency and honesty are essential
  • Be helpful, courteous and do not disparage
  • Avoid cereal/sandwich communications - most others don't care what you are eating
  • Lose control of communications by engaging others
  • Apologize if you offend
  • Push your own message
  • Inform
  • Create guidelines and add them to the employee handbook
  • Realize that you don't know what employees are saying in face-to-face conversations to alleviate SM fears






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