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Twitterverse aficionado hands out advice By Nathan Howes SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Whether it's for business or pleasure, the key to social media is #engagement. Donna Marie Antoniadis -- voted by Forbes magazine as one of the Top 20 best branded women in the Twitterverse -- shared that message with a room full of social networking users at Sheridan College last week. Antoniadis is the co-founder and COO of ShesConnected. com -- a social networking site for women. "Forbes noticed I made a pretty conscious effort. Twitter has been one marketing tool I used to promote myself effectively early on," said Antoniadis. "I do all my business on social media." According to Antoniadis, the Top 3 social networking sites for companies are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. "If you don't have a LinkedIn account, most people won't hire you now. It's really important to have your LinkedIn profile and make sure you take time to fill it out," said Antoniadis. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site for those in professional occupations to strengthen their existing network of trusted contacts. "From lead generation to contacting people, I think about custom URL link to make it searchable. Posts to LinkedIn should be made weekly for companies and daily for personal accounts. On Twitter, individuals and companies can post 10 to 20 tweets a day ­ "as long as it's relevant and you're engaging with people," she said. "You can post something that is original from you, but what you want to do is engage because people are going to look at your level of engagement," said Antoniadis. "Twitter is probably the toughest one to get people on because they don't know what to do." To get more followers, you should search your locale and engage with users in the area, "pro-actively following them," Marie Antoniadis said. "Twitter gives you a recommendation of 20 people a day to follow. We always recommend you follow those 20 people," she said. Another way to engage users on Twitter is to create 5 · Wednesday, August 1, 2012 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.insideHALTON.com NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER / @halton_photog BEST PRACTICES: Donna Marie Antoniadis speaks about her social media success over breakfast at Sheridan Elder Research Centre last week. 80 per cent of my business has been generated just from being on LinkedIn," said Antoniadis. "For anybody in sales or trying to sell or connect to people, LinkedIn is probably the best tool ever to do that." To optimize a LinkedIn profile, Antoniadis recommends using your name as a Inside Opinion............................................6 Artscene.........................................16 Sports.............................................18 Classified........................................21 Full Delivery: Real Estate, Sport Chek, JYSK, Rona, Shopping News Partial Delivery: West of the City, Home Depot, XS Cargo, Staples, Shaw Festival For home delivery & customer service call 905-631-6095, 5300 Harvester Rd., Burlington New subscriptions call 905-631-6095 or subscribe online @ www.oakvillebeaver.com hashtags ­ the "#" symbol to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. "It allows you to have a conversation in your Twitter stream based on that hashtag. When you're doing chats or Twitter parties, that's how you can trend," said Marie Antoniadis. "You can't trend on a topic without the use of hashtag." One of the most important things you can do on Twitter is create lists because that allows you to filter "those you want to do business with," said Antoniadis. "By creating a little list of people, I can actually segment my list (into) my staff or competitors or companies or clients. That's what makes it really easy to engage." The most important tool for managing multiple social networks is HootSuite, she said. This application allows you to connect to multiple social networks from one website to distribute targeted messages. See Social page 10 MASSIVE DRESS CLEARANCE! 100'S OF DRESSES! $ 19.99 to $ 89.99 Sizes 2 to 20 Limited Time Offer Karen (Owner) Watch Us Fashions 1131 Nottinghill Gate (Glen Abbey) (Store Manager) Kim OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK 905-827-2271