Social Media Tips from @PeteMFBoyd

Social Media Tips from @PeteMFBoydLocal bearded tweeter and “purveyor of beer” Pete Boyd is a Narragansett rep who tweets about the best of the Boston beer scene. His tweets cover great events in Boston (and beer, beer, BEER!). Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

 

People need to engage in conversation, not just retweet everything. A simple retweet can let people know that someone hollered at you. Engaging in conversation will lead to a much more open dialogue. It can give people a better idea of who you are or what you meant, rather than limiting them to your 140 character blast.

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Social Media Tips from @OnlyinBOS

OnlyInBOSOnlyInBOS is one of Boston’s newest and most popular Twitter accounts. Whether they’re tweeting about events, sights, and goings-on in Boston, the beauty of yoga pants, or the hottest celebrities visiting the city, OnlyInBOS is forever in-the-know in terms of Boston Twitter. Find more “General Boston” Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

Lots of people on Twitter always wonder how they can get a celebrity or Twitter celebrity to respond. Here’s a couple tips:

1. Follow them. Even if they don’t respond publicly to a tweet, you might have a shot at them responding via direct message. You can DM anyone who follows you, but you don’t have to follow back to send a DM.

2. Whatever you tweet, use the hashtag the celebrity’s been recently using.

3. Make your tweets interesting with a photo. It’s an attention-grabber for sure.

4. Tweet at celebrities right after they’ve tweeted. That means they’re actually on their account looking through their timeline. That would be the best opportunity to get a response.

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Social Media Tips from @TheDrewStarr

Social Media Tips from Drew Starr (@TheDrewStarr)Drew Starr is a guy who likes food and things — NOT to be confused with a foodie (don’t call him that, per his request). While his main focus is on food, he tweets a lot about Boston as a whole. Look forward to his snarky, yet informative tweets on food, Boston, and more. Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

 

1. Psst, restaurants: try not to retweet every damn compliment. Did a celebrity say they loved your burger, or did someone take a better picture than you could of your special? Go ahead and hit RT. Someone with 16 followers took a bad picture of your menu? Not so much. Reply and thank them for the compliment, but don’t fill our feeds with it.

2. As for diners, there is little more off-putting than seeing people tweeting petty complaints about fixable things while in the damn restaurant. These aren’t airlines. The people most empowered to help make your life better are unlikely to be manning the restaurant’s Twitter account. Talk to your server, or ask to talk to a manager. If they don’t make it right, fire away, but you should probably sleep on it first anyway. If it still feels necessary in the morning, you’d have had the night to come up with some really good lines, anyhow.

3. Food bloggers / writers / people-about-town / anyone else who manages to get themselves invited to PR events. go and have fun, I certainly go to my share – it’s often the only chance I have to get a feel for a place that I’d be unlikely to get to on my own. But when you’re tweeting about them, make it clear to your followers that it is a PR event. Not disclosing it strikes me as unethical: but worse, it doesn’t clue your followers into the fact that your experience was tightly curated (and free!) and they should not necessarily expect the same.

4. If your tweet starts with an “@,” the only people who will see it are those following you and the account you’re mentioning. So a tweet that says “@NewRestaurant is now on Twitter, go follow them!” is absolutely useless, since it will only be seen by those who are already following @NewRestaurant. Ever wonder why you’ll often see tweets start with a period, or a meaningless “Hey, @soandso …. ?” Those people know this rule. Worth noting: Starting a tweet with an @ when your desired goal is only to reach that person and common followers is a-okay.

5. Twitter works best if you engage with people. That doesn’t mean beg them to promote you. That means respond to the things they’re saying — not only if it’s about you. If you check your Twitter analytics (you DO do that, right? They’re now available for free to all users, even if you don’t advertise), you’ll see most tweets reach a very small percentage of your audience. Most Twitter users are only checking their feeds a few times a day, and rarely scroll back more than an hour or so. The more you engage with individuals, the more likely they’re going to mention you to their audience at different hours.

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Social Media Tips from @TheWriteStuffSK

Social Media Tips from Scott Kearnan (@TheWriteStuffSK)Scott Kearnan (@TheWriteStuffSK) brings a lot to the table when it comes to his Twitter account. The lifestyle/A&E writer extends his talents to many publications, including Zagat, HotelChatter, and Boston.com, where he explores food, drink, great events and even greater places. Toss in the occasional hilarious musing on life and pop culture and you’re golden. Plus, he’s huge in Japan. You want to follow him. Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

1. DO you. Everybody else can do themselves. Real people have complex personalities, but Twitter lends to certain groupthink: When topics trend, you can start to predict how the members of each respective demo will respond. (Really? Surely there’s a single person under age 35 who thought that Beyonce performance we all just saw was not actually “flawless,” but just “pretty good!”) A person shouldn’t be able to predict your every opinion on every topic in real life – they shouldn’t be able to online either.

That’s not saying you should be a knee-jerk contrarian (these people are predictable, too). Just, you know, mix it up. Keep them guessing. Don’t join the This Is How Millennial Twitter People Feel About This parade every time it launches. Start your own.

2. DON’T take yourself too seriously. You’re tweeting, not slowing the melting of the polar ice caps. Do not confuse your follower number for clout, your interest for authority, and other real, nuanced human beings for 2D avatars. Twitter is a very useful tool, but people will appreciate a tone that suggests you have enough of an offline life to not make it the core of your existence. (And don’t use Twitter to whine about normal customer service woes. Did the “worst restaurant EVER” really singlehandedly murder your family by serving your sandwich on wheat instead of white, or could you maybe just, you know, chalk that tragedy up to life occasionally being life?)

3. DON’T feed the trolls. Any stranger who thinks that he or she has developed an informed estimation of your intellect, politics, belief system, or taste in music from an isolated 140-character tweet is not rational enough (or more importantly, interested enough) to be suddenly converted to a normal human being through an otherwise appropriate retort. The best response is no response.

4. DO respond to fans. You’re “too busy”? Who are you, Beyonce? You’re on the Internet for attention. (Don’t pretend you’re not, liar.) When you get it (from someone who isn’t horrible), acknowledge them! You’ll engender a more devoted “follower,” probably pick up a few more in the process, and you can always close a quick conversation by fave-ing a tweet in lieu of another response.

 

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Social Media Tips from @BostonMixDrink

Social Media Tips from @BostonMixDrinkTenzin Samdo is the coolest. Really. As bartender extraordinaire at Trade Boston, he’s earned his name over the past couple years as one of Boston’s top bartenders. And he has the social media accounts to prove it. Whether he’s showcasing his incredibly unique and GORGEOUS cocktails or his adorable son, Tenzin shows how quality content on social media can keep the customers (and the followers) coming back. Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

1. The most important thing you can do for your Instagram community is to remain active, engaged and provide value by responding to valued comments.

2. Checking in to an Instagram post with geo-tagging services is very important, especially when promoting small businesses.

3. Using quality photos and meaningful hashtags plays a vital role in gaining followers.

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Social Media Tips From @MidEastClub + @ZuZuBar

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Clay Fernald (@claynferno) is the brains behind the Midde East and Zuzu’s social media. From running the actual venue to running the venue’s social media (which includes keeping guests, artists, and followers constantly informed), we bet Clay had a lot of advice for businesses looking to get their big toe wet in the somewhat murky waters of social media. And we were right.

 

1. Music Monday! #mm
Even if you aren’t in the music business, put your favorite artist in the spotlight on Monday! Have you Heard Aretha Franklin sing Adele? Wooooo! Hashtag #mm means “Music Monday.” Everyone likes music!

2. Follow Back! #ff

In 2012, we got the blue checkmark next to our @MidEastClub Twitter handle? What does that mean, we’re clear for smallpox? No! We’re a recognized professional entity by the almighty Twitter herself! Thanks, birdie!

Anyhoot, we got there by slowly building a great ratio of followers to people we followed. And also we made sure not to follow jerks. Us the #FF hashtag on Friday to engage with your peers, your friends, your competitors and see how fast your list can grow. If you get a #FF notification, follow them back (after checking out their profile, of course!)

3. Report Spammers!
Are you followed on Twitter by a lot of egg icons, or is someone spamming one-of-a-kind Marty McFly sneaker sales on your Facebook Page? Unless it’s Doc Brown himself, use the appropriate buttons to report to Twitter and Facebook that these are spam accounts! Keep the B.S. to a minimum and those news feeds clean for all. It feels like a citizens arrest!

4. Meme it up!
Bored on a Thursday? Send your intern to MemeGenerator to make a clever joke about what you and your team are working on.

See, look what my intern did! She’s a card.

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5. Speak in your own voice!
There are lots of conflicting words of advice about this, but as a brand, you are still a person, or hopefully, a team! Sign your tweets if you need to express who you are.

For example. nerd musicians @PaulandStorm share a Twitter account and they simply sign tweets this way: [P] = Paul, [S] = Storm.

In the MidEastClub Twitter bio, we are a collective team, but we post as “The Box Office, Jill&Steph&Jamie&Clay.” This puts at least a name to the company (four names, in fact!) that people can relate to!

6. Acknowledge your mistakes.
If we make a mistake or update set times, we say “oops” or “updated set times.”

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Social Media Tips From @Lyft

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Catching a Lyft may be as easy as opening an app on your phone, but Zach Cole, Lyft’s social media manager, doesn’t have an easy job. From mastering Lyft’s “cool dude next door” voice on Twitter to handling Lyft’s responses to the numerous red-tape it faces in many states across the country – Cole has a lot to handle, but he makes it look effortless! We asked him for some advice for businesses looking to emulate that kind of organic presence.

 

 

1. Find out what your audience likes.
Brands that don’t constantly talk about themselves often find great success. Knowing what your audience is truly interested in can help inform your content strategy, so that you’re able to share more content that isn’t centered around your brand, but still communicates your brand values.

2. Create a content calendar.
Brands with strong content calendars do two things really well: they have a regular posting frequency per social channel, which helps brands understand when they can best reach their audience, and they post a variety of content. Content calendars are great tools for bucketing content into categories so that brands can share a balanced variety of content.

3. Set goals.
Talk with your marketing and brand teams to determine your brand’s goals for social media. This way, you can have an idea of what matters most when working to improve your social strategy. Goals vary from one brand to the next — some brands (media and e-commerce) will often measure website traffic from social, while others may want to focus on reaching a target demographic with a specific message.

4. Experiment.
Try new things! The world of social media is still relatively new, so there’s always room to experiment. Try sharing new types of content, playing with copy, working with influencers, etc. You sometimes never know just where you’re going to find the most success until you give it a go — and generally social media lets brands do this at minimal cost.

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Social Media Tips from @boloco

Social Media Tips from @bolocoOne of Boloco‘s most recent retweets asks, “If you don’t eat Boloco numerous times a week do you really live in Boston?” The burrito company, whose name is short for “Boston Local Company,” earned its fame quickly for its top-notch burritos, but is also superb at social media. With their blend of Boston-based burrito humor, informative posts, and customer service, they know what they’re doing and they do it right. Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

1. Stay human. At the end of the day, social media is just a conversation and we just sell burritos. There’s no reason why it can’t be fun.

2. Be honest. If you messed up, you messed up. Own it, apologize, and try your best to make it right. We do our best to remain 100% honest.

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Social Media Tips from @TheBostonCal

Social Media Tips from Sean O’Connor of @TheBostonCalSean O’Connor is one of the many great souls behind @TheBostonCal. The Twitter account, Facebook page, and website are all dedicated to finding the best events in Boston and broadcasting them to people who like to have fun. With events ranging from food and drink, to film and art gallery openings, to random street occurrences, The Boston Calendar has a little bit for everyone in Boston to enjoy. Find more Event Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

1. Trying to raise awareness for Boston events on Twitter is a little difficult. It’s very noisy on there and sometime we post about an awesome free event and it’s just crickets. Our Facebook page has proven about 10 times more effective. As it turns out there’s not many Facebook pages in the city dedicated towards events. (Ed. Not every platform will be perfect for you. Find which one performs best, and find where your content is most needed, and spend more time there.)

2. Despite being a Twitter handle for “events that don’t suck,” it helps to post about general cool things happening around the city, like a sunset or Johnny Depp filming a movie.

3. For events, it helps to be the first or one of the first to announce an awesome upcoming event. Sometimes we get word before most, but a lot of the time Boston magazine beats us to the punch. Getting on the press release lists of events organizers has been a pursuit of ours, but it’s not that easy.

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Social Media Tips from @mysecretboston

Social Media Tips from Jeff Wallace (@mysecretboston)Ever have a friend or family come up and ask you to show them around Boston? You took them to Faneuil Hall, didn’t you? You were disappointed, weren’t you? Come on.

There’s so much more to Boston than the typical tourist traps and MySecretBoston is there to show you all of them. The account, run by Jeff Wallace, is dedicated to “Uncovering the best of Boston food, music, and entertainment” and does just that, announcing last-minute free concerts, cool bar specials, and random things you never knew Boston had to offer — including the top places to hang out in Allston.

Find more Event Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

1. Offer up enough goods to catch someone’s eye, but not too much to spoil the secret. Make them want to (and have to) click on that link.

2.When trying to to post the same link in multiple posts (i.e. to promote an event or a big article), be sure to vary the hook on each post. Don’t just cut and paste. Get creative.

3. Sometimes it pays to take a break from self-promotion and to share someone else’s content. Just make sure it’s consistent with your voice and brand.

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