6 Ways You Haven't Used Social Media To Improve Your Blog

No matter how long you've been doing social media for, there are new tricks and tips coming out every day. Tip #1 and #5 were well worth the price of admission for my organization. Here are my notes from Austin Gunter's (Brand Ambassador, WPEngine) presentation on "Developing Digital Marketing (Social Media) In Your WordPress" at WordPress Camp NYC.1. No One Cares About What You Just Said On TwitterThink about your site from the perspective of a first-time visitor, they're looking for a reason to trust you. Stop using the standard Twitter widget to show the last few tweets you've sent (which could be awesome or random rants). Instead reconfigure your Twitter widget to display your account's favorites. Favorite great tweets about your organization and re-label your widget something like "140 Character Testimonials".2. It's Time To Make Sharing Your Content AwesomeUsing the standard Facebook & Twitter share links are LAME. It's time to do some custom development for elegant sharing solutions. Instead of a tiny Pinterest button above every post, Wedding Chicks does an elegant job of encouraging pins. Every image you mouse over has a "Pin It" badge appear in the lower right.3. You Can't Fight On TwitterThere are going to be customer support issues and people are going to complain. You need to take it off Twitter. Generate a support ticket for the customer and email them or reach out another way. 140 characters is not enough to be logical and really help.5. Facebook is for Developing Your Existing Fans, Not First-Time CustomersYour customers aren't going to follow you on Facebook until they've already experienced your brand. Liking a brand on Facebook is akin to putting that brand's bumper sticker on your car. Use Facebook to develop deeper conversations with your biggest fans, not sell to first time customers. Austin likes integrating Facebook with his blog post comments so the comments on his site spread to Facebook too (and vice-a-versa).5. The One Thing To Use Google+ ForGoogle is now using Google+ profiles to determine who is writing what online for SEO with rel="author". People who have been writing quality content for years will benefit from this move (which fights SEO cheating). To do this, follow these instructions to update your Google+ profile with what sites you write for (or guest post on). This will allow your headshot to appear next to your content on search results (which may increase your click throughs) as well as possibly raise your general rankings.6. Turning Twitter Conversations Into Real StoriesYou can use Storify to collect tweets around a topic or conversation. It allows you to comment and expand on what was said. We've seen great summary posts on conference, news events, and locations.Bonus: Check out Buffer for a super easy way to share what you've read online into scheduled posts that are even faster to use than HootSuite.