Cori Faklaris, known as @heycori on Twitter and on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and other social media platforms, offers her lessons from years curating a her online brand as a news personality and in managing social media accounts for the IndyStar.com news website.

1. #SocialMediaBootcamp
“HeyCori” shares
lessons learned from years
in the social media trenches
By Cori Faklaris

2. 1. Keep up with the conversation
Use your personal Twitter and Facebook accounts. Post at least once a
day.
Follow interesting accounts in your subject area or that just make you
happy.
Sign up for users' or sites' email or texted digests.
Keep an eye on "trending topics." Google.com/trends, Trendsmap.com,
Twitter Trends, Bing.com/News, Facebook Trending Topics
Use Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or similar software to help you filter and sort
through what is being talked about.

3. Google.com/Trends

4. Trendsmap.com

5. Twitter Trends

6. Bing.com/news

7. Facebook Trending Topics

8. Tweetdeck.com

9. Hootsuite.com

10. 2. Grow your follower counts.
Interact at least 1x a day.
Social media is
conversation (2-way),
not broadcasting (1-
way).
Look at Followers and
Friends of similar
accounts. Like or follow
them.
Use ManageFlitter.com
to purge accounts that
aren't following you
back.
Do not follow or friend
more accounts than are
following or friending
you.
Set realistic goals to
increase follower counts
within 3-6 months.
The same advice applies
to the brand accounts
you manage.

11. ManageFlitter.com

12. 3. Analyze similar accounts for ideas.
What posts of similar accounts
seem to be attracting
likes/favorites, or retweets/shares?
Which are provoking the most
conversation? Identify why you
think they are successful.
Keep in mind "quiet" posts may
have generated a lot of clickthrough
on web links = successful as to the
goal of that post.
See if there is a contest or
sweepstakes being conducted that
you can model. I have used
TwitterDraw.com for giveaways on
Twitter. Facebook contests can be
more complicated due to
restrictions in the Terms of Service.

13. Competitionagency.com/tweetdraw/

14. 4. Use data to guide your strategy.
• Google Analytics for your website will start your audience profile.
• Twitter has analytics built in for some accounts, but third-party
services such as Twitterstats.com can also give you rough data.
• Facebook Insights will help guide your strategy for that platform.
"Pages to Watch" feature helps you keep tabs on similar pages or
"the competition.“
• Understand the relationship among followers/friends, engagement
actions and impressions/reach. Identify the influencers in your
network and in your topic areas. Look for opportunities to interact
with them.
• Get in the habit of checking back on a regular basis to see what was
successful. The feedback will help you revise your strategy.
• Sign up with Klout.com or a similar service to help independently
rate your effectiveness on social media.

15. Facebook Insights dashboard

16. 5. Devise a posting strategy.
Personal account: No less than once a day, but no more than every 10 minutes on
Twitter and every hour on Facebook. Don't look "spammy.“
Decide what your mission is for social media for yourself. Define 3 interest areas
you will post about. Suggest that you only use 1 in 3 posts.
Brand account: No less than once a week, but no more than 3 posts a day to
start. As you get more traction, ramp up your frequency. Same maximum applies
as for personal accounts.
While growing your account, only 1 in 5 posts should be direct sell or related to
your own website

17. Everyone has their
own theory as to
when the best time
is to post. This may
just be applicable
for desktop users.
Experiment for best
results.

18. 5. Devise a posting strategy.
Decide your tone and stick with it. For
a personal account, be more liberal in
your use of social media "voice." Such
as: exclamation points!!!,
#hashtagsthatarejustcomments, using
ALLCAPS for emphasis.
For brand accounts: Be conversational
in tone, but use good grammar, watch
your spelling, use proper punctuation.
Be fun, but don't make fun. Always
remember the entire world, in theory,
can see what you post.
Visual content (text on images,
screengrabs, infographics, still photos,
memes, videos) can be very
successful, but also can be time-
consuming to produce depending on
the resources and skills of your staff.
See which have worked in your
segment.
Get in the habit of checking back on a
regular basis to see what was
successful. The feedback will help you
revise your strategy.

19. From http://mmspark.com/what-to-
say-on-social-media/

20. 6. Set limits
• Use the scheduling features in Facebook itself and in Tweetdeck,
Hootsuite and similar services to ease your burdens
• Make a commitment to spend x hours a day not looking at a screen
of ANY type. Avoid screen time before sleep.
• For brands or organizations: Identify an owner for each social media
account. But also, identify backups and policies for sharing control.
• Decide on when the social media account "goes dark.“
• Flip side: Make sure you are subscribed to alerts for mentions of
your accounts.
• Never post anything potentially controversial or that will draw a lot
of engagement that needs monitoring right before the account goes
dark or the owner is offline.

21. 7. Have fun!
Because if you're not
enjoying your work,
your audience likely
isn't enjoying it either.