The holidays are a time to thank those who’ve helped and supported us. Thank you! It’s amazing how far those two little words can go. Realize that, with the use of social media’s expanded communications methods, across one-to-many, one-to-one, and many-to-many platforms, there’s no reason this season not to reach out and thank your family, friends, customers, colleagues and social media contacts.
On social media platforms, saying thank you shouldn’t take the place of engagement. To this end, connect your wishes to the initial activity and be present for the conversation that follows. Further, you shouldn’t use thanking someone as a means of promoting yourself, such as repeating a list of “Follow Fridays” that include you.
Here are fifteen ways to show your appreciation on social media:
1. Engage with friends on Facebook. Leave comments on friends’ walls and updates to let them know that you’re thinking of them.
2. Like a business or blogger’s page on Facebook. Show your social media support.
3. Recommend a colleague, employee, or boss on LinkedIn. This is a great way to share the love and pay-it-forward, especially if the person’s been helpful to you.
4. Answer questions. If you’re a go-to source, help others who share your interests by answering questions on a variety of social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Don’t overlook Q&A platforms like Yahoo Answers and Quora.
5. Reach out to colleagues who’ve change jobs or post updates on LinkedIn. Many people just amass names on LinkedIn like they’re collecting marbles. For your network to support you, you must stay in touch. Use these announcements to send a quick email.
6. Show your appreciation on Twitter and other social media platforms. Give a shout out to highlight what the person’s done.
7. Retweet someone’s tweets with a comment. Go beyond just using the retweet button that involves no effort and show you’ve thought about the discussion.
8. Follow people who follow you on Twitter. Acknowledge followers by following them back. This is important since it helps build a communications channel.
9. Give social media colleagues a shout out on Twitter. Memes like #MarketerMondays and #FollowFridays are great for this.
10. Add people who add you to their Google+ circles. Consider whether these people share similar interests. Do they share interesting content?
11. Leave comments on blog posts. Go beyond the short and sweet “Great post!” Think about a response that helps extend the conversation (Note: It can be useful to have a blog commenting policy on your blog.).
12. Give a shout out in a blog post with link to their social media profile. This is a great way to show your appreciation by spotlighting someone.
13. Ask for an interview for an article. This is another form of highlighting someone’s expertise.
14. Invite someone to contribute to a round up post. Here’s another way to show off specialized knowledge. Here’s a great example of a round up post.
15. Share an article or blog post. Help a blogger or columnist by broadening the reach of a great blog post or other piece of content. It shows that you’re a great curator of important content. Here’s a post entitled 10 Ways to Extend Social Media Sharing to help you.
Show your appreciation on social media platforms to let family, friends, colleagues and social media contacts know you care. Remember it’s important to connect your thanks to a related activity to ensure your audience can follow the flow of the communications.
What other ways can you thank your followers and colleagues on social media platforms?
Happy Marketing!