Gerry Sin­dell, my men­tor and col­league, shares three insight­ful social media tips.

1. Cre­ate a pic­ture of where you’re going—where you want to be over time. Every post becomes a piece of that mosaic. What do you want peo­ple to see and know about your world? How can your read­ers under­stand you? Each time you write, share a piece of your pic­ture. If your writ­ing is not a piece of your mosaic, then you’re wast­ing your time.
2. Do seri­ous work before you start on the social media road. It’ strate­gic work. Don’t fig­ure it out as you go along. Your mes­sage will sound as wob­bly as you are. How are you dif­fer­ent from the com­pe­ti­tion? Develop your own unique language.
3. Bring some­thing new to the table sev­eral times a month. Share fresh ideas, new sto­ries, insights—whether on Twit­ter, your blog, or on com­ments you post. There’s too much recy­cled infor­ma­tion out there, and much that doesn’t cre­ate value. Make your mark.

Bot­tom line: Participating in social media is not an option. You must do it. Oth­er­wise, you’re not in the game. If you’re not an active pres­ence in new media, you will be ignored.

Check out Gerry at Agency for Social Media where he shares more “secrets” and can help get your social media strat­egy off the ground and in the cloud!