8 Social Media Tips to Maximize Your Exposure

If you follow me on twitter and/or keep up with my weekly roundups, you know that I'm kinda addicted to Bonnie Cribbs. I've never met the guy but I interact with him on a daily basis via social media. Not only is he a genuinely freaking awesome person, but he is constantly dishing out incredibly helpful tips and resources. Plus, he's so positive and inspirational. I'm not just saying this. Seriously. Check out his twitter feed. I recently tweeted, "It's gotten to the point that if I'm feeling down I just look at @boatingbonniec's twitter feed! #positivevibes" and that is absolutely true! 

I could go on and on about how helpful he is, but let me show you instead. Bonnie is guest posting today about a topic that I just can't get enough of. Here are 8 Social Media Tips To Maximize Your Exposure, brought to you by Bonnie Cribbs ---

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Aloha! Do you all ever get jealous that Jessica gets to write her posts from Hawaii every single day? I don't know about you, but I absolutely love all of her beautiful pictures, stories and exciting adventures! Every time I read one of her post I am transported from Nashville to Hawaii in a matter of seconds and get to live vicariously through her tropical life. And how do I find out about her latest posts? It's always through a social media venue.

I want to share 8 Social Media tips with you that will help you maximize exposure to your blog, site or store.

Before I get started let me introduce myself, I am a guy named Bonnie and I blog over at BonnieCribbs.com. I'm so incredibly lucky because I get to help people build their home based business, so most of my posts are about social media, business building tips, marketing, encouragement, etc. I've worked from home almost all of my life, so I've picked up a lot of best practices through the years. You're more than welcome to follow me at @BoatingBonnieC or on my BRAND NEW facebook page.

So let's get with the 8 social media tips!

Have Your Site Enhance For Mobile

If you want social media exposure, you need to first make certain that your site is enhanced for mobile use. Most people are using their phones for social media interaction, which means when they see your links, updates and comments they are on their phone. It's crazy important to have your site easy to view on mobile and tablets. I was blown away a few weeks ago when I discovered that more than 50% of the traffic coming to my blog were on mobile devices.

Claim Your Name

As soon as you can, claim your name on the social media venues you plan to use. If you are branding your blog, claim that name as well as your name. Instead of using your logo as a profile picture, always use your personal photo - for branding and consistency sake, use the same profile picture on all sites. People connect with people, not logos or companies so you definitely want to brand yourself in addition to just branding your blog. Make sure it's a professional photo!

Complete each of the profiles with consistency, but also in the personality of that social media venue. For instance, your LinkedIn profile would not look the same as your facebook profile, and neither of those would look the same as your twitter. You want to attract your target market, but you also want to fit in with each social media platform you use.

Link your blog/store/shop to each of the venues and also include social media buttons on your blog that link to your social media accounts. If someone follows your blog, they will most likely want to follow you on twitter, facebook or Pinterest.

Engage Engage Engage

You can set up 100 different social media accounts, but if you do not engage and interact with your followers, it's all in vain. Without a doubt, social media can suck your time away in the blink of an eye. Try to schedule daily certain times to post, comment, share content, provide value and interact with your followers. Engagement is key and consistency is almost as important. You can post all you want to, but if you do not engage, you're not going to benefit much. Keep in mind that the keyword in "Social Media" is "Social." It's a party, get out there and dance! One of my recent blog post was 12 Ways To Show Your Twitter Followers Some Love - it may help you with some cool ways to interact with your Twitter followers. The principles are the same among all platforms, just tweak them to fit the platform.

Use Lots Of Pictures

Jessica does this so incredibly well! Great graphics get shared more than just status updates and quotes. Graphics from your blog make it to Pinterest which get pinned over and over again. With just the few pins I have on Pinterest, I get a steady stream of daily traffic to my site. Pinterest is a dreamland for shops, fashion blogs, food blogs and lifestyle blogs. Take advantage of Pinterest by having graphics that people will want to share. Also, make it easy to share by using a widget that makes pinning easy. Instagram is a great site for driving traffic to your site if you utilize great graphics.

Encourage Your Followers To Share

As you write post, encourage your readers to share your content and make it easy for them to share with sharing options available close by. There are tons of plugins available to use. On my wordpress site, I use "Get Social" - it's a great plugin! A little encouragement to share will gain you a lot of shares. And as your followers share, thank them and engage with them. Thank them in a way that will extend the conversation past just a simple "thank you." Follow it up with a question or a sincere and genuine compliment. If you want people to share your posts, you have to provide solid content. You can't expect people to share crappy content that offers no value. For personal and lifestyle blogs, be yourself and let your personality shine! People are excited to share what they are a fan of.

Don't Be Selfish

If you want people to share your content, your best bet is to share theirs first. You have to provide value to your readers. This will get you noticed, this will give your audience value (as long as you are sharing quality content) and this gives you a natural way to engage. You can't expect others to share your content if you don't share theirs first. Being selfish on social media is simply annoying. Don't be THAT person!

Look Around To See What Is Working

Is there a blog or shop you are following and you always think "I want that kind of exposure!" If so, study them. Look at what they have done in the past to get to that point of success and duplicate what they are doing with your own style and personality. Social Media is forever changing, so you have to constantly monitor what you are doing and what is working for you. It's definitely not something you can put on autopilot and expect it to grow. The success of others is going to come back to some sort of engagement and the way they interact with their followers. Are you starting to see how important engagement is?

Google Plus

I know Google Plus is not the largest social media venue out there, but they do have a very cool feature that has been amazing traffic source for me. Well, number one, by posting links to your blog and posts on Google Plus, it helps majorly with your SEO and gets you better listed in Google Search results. But within Google Plus, the "Communities" feature is amazing. It's like facebook groups but with a lot more interaction (if you are in the right group). A great deal of my website traffic comes from Google Plus but that did not begin until I started using the communities feature and started engaging in various communities. For maximum exposure for your blog/shop/site you definitely need to utilize Google Plus.

I believe that was much more than 8 tips....

I am currently working on a pretty in-depth webinar series for using social media. If you want to know more about this free webinar series, be sure to follow me at @BoatingBonnieC so can get the details about it when it begins. Let's connect!

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Was I right or what?! I hope this post is as helpful to you as it is for me!

And because he is just THAT awesome, Bonnie is giving you the chance to win a $50 American Express gift card. Enter below!

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