Certain businesses have become overnight starlets in the world of social media. Somehow, things just clicked right from the start, and they “get it.” As it turns out, these social media divas all have some essential practices in common. With just a little effort, you too can enter the social media stratosphere.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for fans.
  Let your email subscribers know about your social media efforts by including “Follow Us” buttons in each message you send, including customer service messages. You can also create a special campaign to request followers. Templates are free and easy to integrate into your newsletter format.

• Incentivize subscriptions.
  One-time incentives such as a coupon or discount for liking a Facebook page can be excellent tools to acquire likes. You can also tempt would-be followers with promises of regular Twitter-only specials, sale previews, or VIP access to sales events.

• Integrate your promotion efforts.
  Email marketing is a great way to spread the word about your social media efforts, but don’t ignore other promotion opportunities. Include a link on your website, solicit followers in your print advertisements, and pin your emails to your Pinterest board with keyword-enriched descriptions so your business shows up in a search.

• Encourage your fans to interact.
  Engagement is one of the keys to succeeding with Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm. In order to show up in a fan’s newsfeed, you need to establish a pattern of interaction. Think outside the box and make it fun with ideas like:
  • Post photos of recent community events you’ve worked with.
  • Run a video contest.
  • Ask questions.
  • Invite fans to post their pictures to your page.
  • Link your blog posts to your Facebook page.

• Tailor content to the strengths of each venue.
  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube—each social media venue you choose interact with will exhibit various strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to shove all of your content into one mold. Create conversations on Facebook, provide how-to ideas and inspirations for Pinterest, and tweet about your online sales. While it’s important to integrate your marketing efforts, it is also important to recognize that your fans have different expectations from each venue.

Proactively building your fan list, providing great content and incentives, encouraging interaction, and capitalizing on the strengths of your various social media endeavors will give you all the know-how, popularity, and success you need to catapult you to rock star status.

Is your writing full of jargon and technical-ese? Most writers, myself included, have been guilty of boring readers to death with a hard-to-follow style, just for the sake of sounding intelligent. Unfortunately, in the lightening-paced realm of the blogosphere, readers have become less and less forgiving of such a mistake. But the good news is that you can grab reader attention and communicate your message in a memorable way by paying attention to the new rules of writing for an online audience.

Rule #1: Be a real person.

Share experiences, talk in first person, and let readers see not only your strengths but also your mistakes—especially if you learned something from them that’s worth sharing. Think through every post and determine your message and main points before you just dash off something for the sake of having new content.

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When was the last time you went to a website and thought to yourself, “Wow, this copywriting is really fantastic! Look at all the bullet points!” Yeah, me neither. That’s because good copywriting is like the lighting guy at a concert: invisible, but essential for showcasing the main attraction (your information). Bad copywriting crashes the party by jumping in front of the information and hollering “Look at me! I’m making it harder for you to find what you want!” Writing effective online copy is all about identifying the party-crashers and escorting them from the premises so you can showcase the main attraction.

Party Crasher #1: Complicating the Message

In any given industry, you have jargon, technical terms, and insider idioms that you use when communicating with others in the business. If you bombard you website audience with these things, however, you’re making it harder for them to understand what you mean. So don’t make them get a realtor’s license in order to understand your real estate website. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Party Crasher #2:  Grammar By the Book

I’m a firm believer in good grammar and spelling. However, with online writing you get to break a few rules—discreetly. It’s okay, and even desirable, to use sentence fragments, begin sentences with “And” or “But,” use slang, and write in first person. The goal is to be conversational, talking with your readers rather than at them.

Party Crasher #3: Disguising Your Main Points

You’ve got fabulous information that your target audience needs to know. But if you disguise it as a long, boring paragraph, they’ll never get around to reading it. Show off your main points with bullets, numbered lists, and bolding.

Party Crasher #4: Becoming a Slave to Keywords

Keywords are an essential SEO tool, and every website needs them. But when your copywriting becomes a slave to your keywords, it can sound stilted and disjointed. Effective keyword density generally hovers between 1% and 5%. Keywords should appear in titles and headings and should sound natural when used in your copy.

Party Crasher #5: Robotic Style

Remember the computer from the original Star Trek series? For any non-trekkie people out there, it spoke in monotone, sounded robotic, and communicated only the essentials. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, however, the computer had acquired a personality. Now she was feminine, warm, and personable. That’s the difference you want to achieve in your writing style: the difference between “it” and “she.” Let your personality shine through in your writing.

When you simplify your message, write conversationally, highlight your main points, use keywords effectively, and develop personality in your writing, you effectively escort the party-crashers off-stage and allow your fabulous information to enjoy the limelight. It is, after all, what the audience came to see.