If you already know who Agent M is, you’re already ahead of the class, today.
For those that don’t know, Agent M is the Twitter alias for Ryan Penagos. Ryan is the executive editorial director for Marvel Entertainment’s Digital Media Group and has successfully built a Twitter following of 1.32 million!
How has he done it? You might think: “What’s to marvel? It’s Marvel!”
But even if you’re carrying the banner of a well-known and favorite brand like Marvel, you still need a plan for social media success. Here are six principles he’s followed and shared in a recent Fast Company feature that is a great outline for any social media platform:
Six Ways to Social Media Success
These principles can be used for building your personal brand, church, ministry, nonprofit, business, or any other organization.
1. Make It Part of your Every Day
You have to set up an easy way to access your social media accounts. When you find something cool online to share or have a message you want to send out, how easy is it for you to do it? How many clicks are you away from curating and creating your social media messages?
Keep it close. Make it easy. Make it a part of your every day!
2. Engage with Your Audience
This dovetails with the previous. If you can’t easily engage with your social media accounts, you’ll have a really hard time engaging with your audience. When your account is asked a question or you receive replies to your own questions, do you reply promptly? Or hope about initiating with your followers?
Engaging with your audience will radically transform your social media account from a ‘bot like’ feel to an organic, living account.
3. Understand the Platform
If you’re unclear on what’s ‘uncool’ on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, figure it out. With a few different Google searches and a few weeks of monitoring your social media accounts, you’ll get a better feel for each platform. This goes for frequency, update type, etc…
If you don’t understand the medium you are using, you’ll never effectively communicate — no matter how good your message is.
4. Be Yourself — And Don’t Be Afraid
Don’t be a robot. Don’t be afraid to be honest. Don’t be afraid to be authentic.
However, I really like Penagos bit of social media wisdom here:
“My channel isn’t the place to BS about stuff. I don’t find that fair to fans. If something is good, I want to talk about it.”
Translation: Keep it positive.
Nobody wants to read rants and arguments.
5. Share the Inside Scoop
This is probably the most valuable commodity you have for fans and followers. Photos, sneak peaks and teasers should be augmenting all of your social media channels.
6. Keep a Schedule
It’s easy to let a day or two slip by and not refuel your messaging or reply to messages. The best think you can do is add your social media steps into your daily todo list. It’s the only way to ensure consistency and make sure nobody falls through the cracks. Social media, after all, is about people. It’s not nice to ignore people.
[via Fast Company | Image via John-Morgan via Compfight cc]
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