MAKE YOURSELF HEARD
Not loud enough on social media? Up your online presence in 9 minutes...
A scan of the original print feature for GLAMOUR can be found here.
Today, it isn't enough to be talented – you need to be visible too. But don't be put off; new research shows it takes less than ten minutes a day to get on people's online radars.
GET YOUR NAME EVERYWHERE
Google your name: your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and personal website (if you have one) should be on the first page. Spotted a cringeworthy photo on someone else's site instead? You can't remove entries, but you can ensure other are higher. First, change your LinkedIn URL – which defaults to a random jumble of letters and numbers – to your full name (type 'public profile URL' into LinkedIn's help section for instruction.) Then do the same for Twitter – your 'name' should be your full name, even if your '@' handle isn't.
DON'T OVERSPREAD ON SOCIAL MEDIA
"It's better to invest effort on fewer social platforms, than be on all of them, but neglect them," says Sarah Hynes, research analyst at digital think tank L2. Based on likes and comments, Instagram has the highest interaction rate – a study found that brands received nearly 15 times that of Facebook. Take advantage by linking your Instagram photos to your Twitter and Facebook accounts so you don't have to post multiple times.
BE A VIDEO STAR
If you've shied away from video, consider this: YouTube has a larger audience than cable TV – more than one billion unique users each month. Vimeo, a more niche community of film enthusiasts, isn't to be sniffed at either – it receives 170 million monthly users. The main thing is to make your videos findable by putting keywords in the title, description and tags. Total novice? Post quick phone videos on Instagram and Vine. Camera-shy? Publish presentations at slideshare.net
CAPTURE ATTENTION
Your social media channels are virtual windows for your personal brand, so dress them with slick visuals. Reem Kanj, a blogger at fivefivefabulous.com over 21,000 Instagram followers, swears by the VSCO Cam photo-editing app. It was downloaded a million times in its first week, with experts saying the cool filters (especially the Fade tool) trump other photo editors.
TOP TIME TO POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
10am to 1.30pm. Europe, Africa and Asia are up, and East Coast USA is just waking up