I’m not a celebrity. I’m, however, a social media enthusiast and expert. I’ve been experimenting with and reading about these things since 2007. Yes, that’s a very specific date: That’s when I started using Facebook. I remember because it was a year after my year abroad as a student. I was deeply missing my friends and being bored out of my mind at an internship. I had the technology, particularly no responsibilities (I tried to get them, believe me!) and tons of free time.

Then came blogging, Twitter and Linkedin.

Exceptions: We are friends offline, and I already know who you are. Then none of the below matters. For strangers, take note:

– Write your profile in another language. If I can’t understand what you say, I won’t follow. Simple. I’m trying to learn other languages, but English and Turkish are my only fluent ones at the moment.

– Treat it like content mills treated articles. Don’t make it a keyword dump. There should be some words without hashtags.

– Ignore all the logical advice I happily give.

– Have the picture of an egg.

– Just put a picture of you in your underwear. Really? Unless it’s the cover of erotica fiction you wrote, and it’s not your picture. Then it is fine. Still…do think twice.

– Tell me your marital status, number of kids, what sect of religion you belong to or which prophet you love before telling me what you do and who you are (and no, I don’t think “you” begin with your marital status, number of kids or religion). It’s okay to put them in your bio somewhere if you have to, but I really don’t think they should be the first things I should know about you.

– Don’t be genuine.

– Don’t give any links I can check out.

– Name all the brands you are endorsing.

– Just have an account to offer to get x number of Twitter and/or Instagram accounts for free. Anyone who has spent like a day or two learning about social media will know paid followers mean nothing.

– Follow me, get followed by me, and then drop me because…well, if you lose interest in my work or awesome personality, fine. But unless you are one of my favorite artists, writers or fantasy mentors, I will return the favor. I understand there’s a follower to following ratio. But if you sacrifice me, I’ll do the same. How do you think I remembered to add this here? I’ve just unfollowed people who unfollowed me after following me first.

– Don’t follow me. I’m a rational person. I don’t expect to be followed by Chris Evans, but if you are not him or you’re the editor of Cosmopolitan, I might unfollow you after a while. I’m just saying.

– Never post anything about you.

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That’s it. It’s not that hard, but even marketing needs some personality. And believe it or not, you can be professional and personable at the same time. Try it, and you’ll have more followers that are human beings. Maybe one day they will even turn into fans. For more useful tips on social media, please check out my post Social Media Mistakes Writers Can Avoid on the awesome blog Write Naked by Tara Lynne Groth.