How to start in social media - Linkedin, Twitter, Blogging: advice given, lists and musings

My first post on this blog and it's not going to be about Interior Design but Social Media and how to do it!

Keren Lerner of Top Left Design and Alicia Cowen from Absolute Alicia (social media gurus - bow down in acknowledgment) gave an excellent seminar on Social Media and the hows, whys and wherefores of it all.  Between the two of them and some excellent graphics the intricacies and effectiveness of this new(ish) medium were explained to the dinosaurs in the room.

Advice Given:

Lots!  But of the many snippets of information one of the phases that most struck home was that "this kind of marketing is an effective online means of getting more people to know, like and trust you".

1. Have a plan
2. Decide how you want to be viewed and carry it across all media
3. Have a good 'landing page' - which should have an intro, great content and if possible a 'call to action' get people to do something so that they are 'engaged'.
4. Be informative
5. Optimize
6. Make sure your labels, tags, thumbnails hold key words to increase your SEO (see below)
7. Share interesting videos, facts and pictures.
8. Use google +

Linkedin

1. Join Linkedin - and ensure that this is a business orientated profile (although some people use it differently)
2. Be strategic about which groups you join on Linkedin.
3. Complete your profile
4. Don't link it to your twitter feed.
5. Do link it to your blog if you blog is business orientated and informative.

Twitter

1. If you join Twitter - remember to Twit!
2. Create lists of people that you are following.
3. It's good to follow competitors.
4. Remember to retweet - and credit the people you are retweeting.
5. A good ratio to work to is 80 others retweeting content and 20 your own.

Blog

1. Get your personality across
2. Put key words in your headline
3. Plan your content ahead of time.
4. There are many different blog hosts they mentioned wordpress, I personally use Blogger which I find easier to navigate.
5. Remember to put good words into your blog that are search engine friendly, also the title should be SEO (search engine optimized - and yes I was the one who asked what that was)!
6. Think of good, punchy, effective titles to you blogs.
7. Lists are good
8. Photo's to illustrate your blogs are also essential - and remember to credit people where necessary. 
9. Lots of white space ie don't make it to busy.  People read blogs differently than books, papers - they scan blogs.
10. Short sentences - punchy information
11. Be consistent about blogging.
12. A blog can be as good as probably better than a static website - it is an effective sales and marketing medium - use it well and it will repay you fourfold.

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So here I am trying to implement all that I learnt and at the beginning of my foray into Social Media.  Please do let me know what you think of my first blog and hopefully eventually, with the help of my dinosaur I will get onto Interior Design!