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The basics of social media fluctuate around the edges. Use your real voice, be useful and go heavy on images when you can.  But if you look at the list below you’ll see some essentials that are harder to spot.

The basics of social media: Facebook

* Consider making a Fan page for your work. This means you can keep your personal separate from your professional connections. Yes, you can still promote your work from your personal page once in awhile (just don’t make a daily habit out of it).

* Put up a great pic in the header with the following specs: 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall on PCs. Loads fastest as an sRGB JPG file less than 100 kilobytes. If it’s more than 100k it will get pixelated!

* Share other posts and Like other pages. This will help people see your taste and influences.

* Post every blog post on Facebook as well. You can link to the post or post it in its entirety, depending on what you want to get out of the post.

* Add pictures whenever possible. Generally, people prefer images to text.

* Use Facebook Insights! This is available only to Facebook fan pages, not personal profiles. The insights will tell you what’s working and what is not.

* Contests are a wonderful way to get new followers. Use Giveaway Tools at http://giveawaytools.com/ and enable their Facebook tab feature, which will place the contest on your Facebook page.

* Post often about what’s going on, but don’t forget to ask questions, too.

 

The basics of social media: Twitter

* You get 140 characters for your bio. Use it well. Engage, amuse and throw in one or two hashtags to show what you’re all about.

* Snag a Twitter handle that resembles your brand/story. This will make it more memorable.

* Post a large-rez image for the twitter profile page. Use a great profile pic. Here are the dimensions:

Profile pic: 400 x 400 px

Cover photo: 1500 x 500 px

Twitter will continue to drive people to use their profile pages so be ready if they flick the switch and make it a primary destination!

* Be nice. You can challenge people, but be respectful too. Same rules that apply to a party, apply here.

* Pin your best tweet to the top of the profile page. Here’s how:

Go to your profile page.

Find the Tweet you’d like to pin and click the ellipsis icon (•••).

Select Pin to your profile page.

Click Pin.

* Use hashtags for your events and deals. This will help you track interest.

* Use Hootsuite! It’s a great app that lets you schedule tweets ahead of time. It also lets you follow “conversations” in their own tab. So you can follow the hashtag #infographics (for example) to see what people are saying about that subject in real time.

* Use a link shortener. These are the shortened urls that you see sometimes that “hide” the long string url. Hootsuite uses its own shortener AND it gives you access to the metrics behind that short link.

* Retweet often. You’ll find buddies this way.

* Always give credit by mentioning “via @[Twitter Name]”

* If the person who follows you shares your interests then follow back.

* Twitter is getting more visual so feel free to share images of your own and others’

 

The basics of social media: Blogging

* What do you bring to the table? Focus on posting about your interests, NOT what you think people are interested in reading. If you just focus on what other people are looking for then you’ll run out of inspiration after a week.

* Plan your posts a full month to one year ahead of time. By doing so, you remove the arduous task of deciding what to write about! Use a calendar to track your content plan.

* Be genuine. Your voice must be your own for it to stand out. People can spot fakery and casual-contrarians from a mile away.

* Post regularly! The kiss of death is silence. Yes, the pressure is on. You can do it.

* Don’t put Share buttons everywhere, just put them in one or two obvious places.

* Use your blog as a tool to grow your fanbase by offering the option to subscribe to your blog. This way people will get an email whenever you update the site. You can put the subscribe button in an obvious place. Every blogging platform offers a version of this feature.

* Every post must have a large title (H1), a smaller sub-title (H2) underneath and preferably some bullet points within the post. This is how people browse a post AND it’s how Google scans your page.

* Guest bloggers are waiting to post on your blog. Ask around. They’ll bring their fans with them, too.

* Guest post yourself. Find new fans by sharing your work with new people on other blogs.

* Pay attention to comments! Answer quickly and give it some thought so people know there’s a real person on the other end of the keyboard.

* Pictures, illustrations, animations. VISUALS! VISUALS! VISUALS!