With so much focus and effort put into social media, it’s important we step back and make sure we are sailing smoothly along. Here are a few things you may want to double check on with your social media accounts:

TWITTER
1) If you want something specific to be retweeted, 140 characters is too much. Make it easy and keep it to 140 – 4 (for “RT @”) – the length of your Twitter username – 2 (for a space after your username and the “:” that many Twitter apps insert). So for @slopefillers, I’d keep it to 122 so there is room for the eightteen characters needed for “RT @slopefillers: ” before the message.

2) Thanking people for RTs is not always necessary. When you do so, most people prefer that you add another comment or piece of content to drive the conversation. Mike Henderson ran a short survey that got some interesting discussion going on a Facebook group wall.

3) On Twitter, check the “@mentions” on your Twitter “home” screen or setup a filter on your Twitter app to do so. Most people aren’t going to DM you if they have a question, they’ll ask it via an @reply. I checked some of the @mentions skiers and riders had made toward their resorts asking questions about opening days last week and only about 30% had been answered within 24 hours.

FACEBOOK
4) If you are going to try a clever Facebook profile pic where you place that blue shaded background behind your transparent image, make sure your status updates don’t wrap to the next line or it will look like this. That light blue shaded area is not a fixed height.

5) On Facebook, just typing @ in front of someone’s name does not link to their profile. You must type @, wait a moment until the “type someone’s name” box comes up, type their name, and select the individual you want to tag.

6) When you view your Facebook page, make sure you click the filter at the top that says “Just Others” or “Your Name + Others”. Chances are you’ve had a handful of people write on your wall who are waiting for some sort of response.

CONTESTS
7) If you are going to start a contest, you’d sure as shootin’ better deliver. A local radio station got a lot of heat from their listeners for promising 8 tickets to a local sporting event and only giving away 4 while “claiming” but having no proof the others were ever given out. They may have given them out, but this is social media after all, and the winners were not socially announced.

8) Read the Facebook Promotion policies page. The contest I highlighted last week is extremely powerful, but as Greg pointed out, you do so at your own risk. I’ve updated that post and posted reminders on Facebook and Twitter, but I still get questions about it so I’m saying it one more time. That method doesn’t quite roll with Facebook’s policies.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.