Hey baby, not on social media? This might help …

We were all newbies in social media once

It’s been 15-20 years since social media began (depending on who you believe) and 10 years since Facebook launched and yet more than 20 percent of Americans are still not using social media.

If you find that hard to believe, the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project survey - Social Networking - has some interesting data. It found that only 69 percent of men are using the Internet for social networking while 78 percent of women are using it for that purpose. This despite there being slightly more men than women in the United States who are on the Internet (85 percent of men vs. 84 percent of women, according to the Pew Internet study How Americans go online)

So, is it too late to join the social networking party? Absolutely not. Here, for you or someone you know, are… 

5 Questions to Help You Decide Where to Start in Social Media

Why do I want to be on social media? Whether it’s to keep in touch with family and friends, rediscover old acquaintances or keep up with news and information most people find being on a social network adds value to their lives. Not knowing why you’re starting on social media or being there "because everyone else is" are reasons you won’t give this a fair chance. 

How much time will I be able to spend on this in the beginning? You don’t need to spend a lot of time in the beginning. Fifteen minutes a day, once you’re set up on one social network is plenty … if it proves valuable you can always spend more time later.

Am I missing out on something important? For some it’s not seeing family photographs. For others its being the last to hear about big news. Still others are looking for new ideas and insights. Whatever your reason you should know it going in so you can decide if the time you spend is worth it.

Am I willing to give and take? It’s called "social" media and so if the idea of sharing a little of yourself with others is repellent then perhaps social media will never be for you. But if you are willing to share then it’s likely you’ll find kindred spirits on a social network. In fact, if you have an obscure interest or hobby there may be no better place to connect with the like-minded than on a social network.

Will I give it a fair chance? As the numbers of abandoned social accounts shows there are a lot of people who think they want to be on social media, who start an account only to lose interest in a short time. A good plan might be to commit to a daily look in on your social page for one month. If, after that time, you don’t feel it is working for you then you can walk away. At least you will have given it a fair shot. 

Now, all you need do is pick a social media network where you know some people and get going.

Easier said than done perhaps, but here are some resources that might help:

4 Resources for Social Media Newbies

• The Beginner's Guide to Social Media by Moz
• Insights into social network users - some of the Pew Internet study data presented as an easy-to-follow infographic 
• The Sensible Social Media Checklist - although designed for business the tips for each network are equally applicable to individuals as a good starting point
• Best and Worst Times to Post to Social Media is a good infographic guide to when you are most likely to get a reaction/response to what you share on social media 

 So, are you ready to jump into social media? Do you know someone who might need a nudge? Please feel free to share this post with them. If I can help, please just ask.

Twitter 101-3: Getting even more from Twitter

Let’s continue our look at more tools and tips for making Twitter your favorite social media platform. 

A short list:

Twitter can help you find useful stuff

• Probably the least-used and least-understood function on Twitter is its Advanced Search. It makes finding relevant and useful content so much easier. To locate it: After you have done a regular search on Twitter you will get a results page with the little cog icon to the right. Click on it and one of your three options will be Advanced Search. This is where you can narrow down your search with word choices (including or excluding, for example), people, places and sentiment (positive or negative, for example).

For more on Advanced Search see Using advanced search by Twitter or check out this piece from Mashable: 10 Tips and Tricks for Powerful Twitter Search

• Understand how hashtags are used and why you can both use them to be found and to find others and their relevant content. In a nutshell a hashtag is any series of letters (a word or several words typed together without spaces) preceded by the # symbol. These hashtags started on Twitter and are now common across many social media platforms. For more see How to Use Hashtags With Twitter on WikiHow.

• Perhaps you would like to start using Twitter more for business purposes. This post 12 Most Twitterific Ways to Use Twitter in Your Business by Rebekah Radice (@RebekahRadice on Twitter) has some good basic starting points on the how to use Twitter for business purposes.

• Last, but certainly not least, be sure to start sharing your Twitter @name everywhere so that people know this is one more place they can connect with you. Having it on business cards, in your email signature and on your other social media pages (such as Linkedin and Facebook) can only help more people connect with you.

So, now do you feel ready to get more from Twitter? I hope so, but if you have questions that haven’t been answered in these posts please don’t hesitate to ask … I’m on Twitter as @mikejny.

Related posts:

Twitter 101-1: Twitter – You Hardly Know Her

Twitter 101-2: Getting more from Twitter

Twitter 101-2: Getting more from Twitter

So, you’ve committed to using Twitter more often … where to start?

Assuming you’ve already visited Twitter’s Getting started with Twitter page let’s look at other things you can do to maximize your time on Twitter:

Take a closer look at Twitter

• Start with ensuring your Twitter page is as good as it can be. Check out 7 Ingredients in the Perfect Twitter Profile by Jay Baer (@jaybaer on Twitter). As Jay says: "Having a succinct, compelling profile is more critical on Twitter than anywhere else." His seven tips really are essential guideposts.

• For a really good beginner’s guide to Twitter use check out A writers’ guide to getting the most out of Twitter by Michelle V. Rafter (@MichelleRafter on Twitter). The tips here are practical and to the point.

• Be disciplined about checking in on your Twitter activity at least once a day. Twitter is a social network and people who don’t respond are, well, not social. So learn to check the “@Connect” view on your Twitter profile to see who has tweeted to you or retweeted you. A common courtesy is to thank those people who retweet you and doing this as a collective thank you to several accounts at once is also OK. You should also check the envelope icon (at the top and to the right) on your profile for an indicator that you have a Direct Message from someone you follow. You should respond to these too.

• Getting followers (the people who see what you tweet) can be a concern early on, so check out 10 Easy Ways to Get More Twitter Followers by Jess Estrada (@jessestrada on Twitter). These tips don’t involve buying followers or randomly following people (both are questionable practices).

• Learn to develop Twitter lists to sort the people you follow into manageable groups. The article How to Use Twitter Lists Like a Pro by Dave Delaney (@davedelaney on Twitter) tells you why lists are valuable in many different ways and has some good tips on creating and using them.

• At some point you will share stuff on Twitter that you hope others will pass along (retweet, in the Twitter vernacular). But how do you encourage this? Uber blogger and social media maven Jeff Bullas (@jeffbullas on Twitter) has some helpful tips in his post 9 Simple and Powerful Ways to Get More Retweets on Twitter.

• Want to see what all the fuss is about with celebrities on Twitter? Just don’t expect a lot of earth-shattering insights! Here on the Friend or Follow list called Twitter: Most Followers you’ll find the 100 most-followed Twitter accounts, the majority of which belong to celebrities.

So, is this helpful? Do you know of other good resources for Twitter beginners or those returning to Twitter? If you have questions that haven’t been answered in these posts please don’t hesitate to ask … I’m on Twitter as @mikejny.

Related posts:

Twitter 101-1: Twitter – You Hardly Know Her

Twitter 101-3: Getting even more from Twitter 

Twitter 101-1: Twitter – You Hardly Know Her

Millions of people start a Twitter account and forget about it. Which is a crying shame … because in the world of social media they are missing a huge opportunity for a better life … seriously.

Time on Twitter can be well spent

Read on to learn about better living through Twitter. According to Twopcharts more than 2 billion (that’s right: two billion) Twitter accounts have been created. But only 506.1 million accounts are still in use and of those maybe 200 million were active in the past month.

A Reuters-Ipsos poll quoted by Business Insider found that 36 percent of Twitter users don't use their accounts after they've registered.

Why do so many people start on Twitter and abandon it or have an account and yet don’t use it? For most it is that Twitter is so different from other social media sites such as Facebook. But seriously, Twitter has the potential to make your life better. Here’s how it is … 

Your personal news feed: Follow a few reputable news sources and you’ll quickly learn more of what’s going on via Twitter. Over time you’ll also pick up other good sources of news and before you know it Twitter will be a primary news source. To get started, check out 10 Must-Follow Breaking News Accounts on Twitter from Mashable.

A great learning tool: Follow people who share good content that is relevant to you, your career and/or your stage of life and you get a constant stream of useful information. And, best of all, it comes to you in manageable 140-character-or-less bursts – if you want more, you click the link. This article might help: Choosing Who To Follow On Twitter.

Makes better connections than other social media: You follow people who are interesting (and quickly unfollow those who aren’t). Material they share is often material retweeted (RT) from someone they follow. This way you are exposed to new Twitter profiles and find interesting people to connect with. One of the biggest differences between Facebook and Twitter is that the former is closed (you have to be friends with others to chat) but not so on Twitter where you can literally talk to anyone. For example, my interactions with Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) and basketball great Shaquille O'Neal (@SHAQ) will always be highlights.

Going to make you a better writer: Before you dismiss this too quickly, think about it: In Twitter you need to say something of value in 140 characters or less – a lot less if you’re going to include a URL and leave room for others to retweet your message. This forces you to think about word choices … as well as teaching you a lexicon of creative Twitter language and abbreviations. This article might be helpful: The Complete Guide to Twitter Lingo.

A word of warning: If you’re only interested in connecting with family and friends you should stick to Facebook. Twitter works best among social media platforms when everyone is sharing interesting stuff and finding new and interesting people to connect with.

Are you convinced? Will you get active on Twitter now?

Related posts:

Twitter 101-2: Getting more from Twitter

Twitter 101-3: Getting even more from Twitter 

Social Media 2013: Looking Back and Looking Forward

The year 2013 on social media will be remembered for being the year visuals dominated social media … and as the year the major social networks began to mimic each other.

From left: Vine, Snapchat and hashtags were big in 2013

From the scorching growth of Instagram and Pinterest for still images to the growing popularity of Vine and Instagram for video 2013 was all about images. Let’s look back on the past year and then predict what 2014 might have in store.

2013 – a look back at three key trends

Photo-sharing: Snapchat, the micro service that allows users to share an image for a few seconds and has become a darling of teens, created lots of buzz when it first turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook and then reportedly a $4 billion offer from Google. But it could also be said that the service prompted changes on other social networks.

Instagram (a Facebook property that introduced video in June and web embeds of video in July) seemed to be trying to compete with Snapchat by launching Instagram Direct, a way for users to send photos and videos privately to up to 15 contacts.

Twitter upped its game by allowing photos to appear in a user’s feed (an idea that mimics Facebook’s news feed). The late October change applied to Vine (owned by Twitter) videos and pictures uploaded to Twitter, not to Facebook-owned competitor Instagram’s links. And, in what is likely a nod to Snapchat’s popularity, it added the ability to send photos via Direct Message, Twitter’s private message service between followers.

All of which reinforced the idea that the biggest social networks are scrambling to be the "one app that does it all."

Hashtags: Facebook launched clickable hashtags this year. Like on Twitter, hashtags help group content on similar topics. Users can click on a hashtag on Facebook and see all the content that's available on the social network for that hashtag. As part of the updates to Google+ in the past year was the addition of the "related hashtags" feature, which automatically adds hashtags related to a post. This means users can find related content via hashtags on Google+.

Other platforms that are now hashtag-friendly: Instagram, Vine, Flickr, Tumblr and Pinterest. And, again, the number of platforms using hashtags is a clear signal that the biggest social networks want more of your time.

For more on hashtags see Mashable’s The Beginner's Guide to the Hashtag or click on the graphic below to see the full infographic.

Brevity Between Vine and its 6-second looping videos and Snapchat and its shared photos that disappear in under 10 seconds, 2013 was about the briefest of social interactions.

Snapchat was likely the new app of the year and the king (or queen) of ephemeral social sharing with users now sending and receiving 400 million photo messages per day. In late December it was updated to add several improvements like "smart" filters and the ability to replay photos and videos. FYI: The update is hidden within Settings - Additional Services - Manage.

Vine, as mentioned earlier, was highly influential and grew rapidly in 2013. Users quickly rose to the challenge of creating fun, interesting and sometimes poignant 6-second videos. Late in the year Vine introduced vanity URLs for users – a first step toward being a mature social platform. For more on Vine see Mashable’s The Beginner's Guide to Vine.

2014 – predictions of what’s to come

Facebook’s decline will become obvious: The service is now too big and too crowded for many users, according to Jay Yarrow in his Entrepreneur magazine article Facebook Is a Fundamentally Broken Product That Is Collapsing Under Its Own Weight. Teens are deserting in droves and moving to other platforms such as Snapchat, WhatsApp, WeChat, Line, Twitter and Instagram (which Facebook owns). All of which are proving popular with said teens seemingly because they don’t "do everything."

"Second screen" battles: The second screen phenomenon has been developing for several years – it’s where people watching a TV show, such as The Voice or the Super Bowl, use a social network to talk about it with other fans. Twitter, the current leader in the battle, and Facebook have been looking to sign deals with TV networks and advertisers. Expect this competition to heat up.

Twitter finally goes mainstream: It’s likely Twitter will become the next billion-user platform, the questions is whether that happens in 2014 or 2015. With more than 700 million users currently and its growth increasing month over month it’s probably a matter of time before Twitter reaches the 1 billion mark. The biggest challenge: Getting more of the those 700+ million users to be on the platform more regularly. Current estimates have as few as 250 million users being active on the platform regularly. The No. 1 reason people are slow to engage? Twitter operates differently from most other social networks.

More pay-to-play for advertisers: It’s getting harder and harder for marketers and others to stand out on the biggest networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin. This means these networks will increase the ways they can help a marketer for a price. For users this will mean a steady increase in promoted posts.

So what do you think? What will be the big changes in social media in 2014?