I was recently at a conference for young, up-and-coming social media savants. As you can guess, their ages ranged from tweens to 20's. As I was going through the conference program booklet, there was a large, full-page ad from an electronics mega store. The ad stated, "Follow us at # . . ." The kid next to me started to laugh. He looked at me and said "That's stupid. Everyone knows you can't 'follow' a hashtag."

He was right. A hashtag on Twitter is a search mechanism—a way to categorize posts by topic—but you can't follow a hashtag where all posts with that tag automatically show up in your feed. It was a classic case of a brand creating an ad without understanding the platform or the audience.

In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we share 18 ways to get noticed on social media platforms the right way, as shared by social media expert Scott Ayers, so you won't make similar mistakes.

1. Post at least three to four times a week, but once a day is even better.

2. Don't be "salesy"—follow the 70/20/10 rule: 70 percent informative, 20 percent other people's posts, 10 percent sales.

3. Be personable—people want to see the personal side of your business.

4. Use blog posts to drive traffic to your site.

5. Write "How to" posts related to your product.

6. Post information about your community and/or share pictures of your staff getting involved in the community.

7. Share customer reviews and testimonials, with their permission, of course.

8. Post pictures of customers using and buying your product/service.

9. For brick and mortar businesses—encourage fans to check-in while at your business (even better if they get a discount) for doing so.

10. Choose one social media platform and master it—you don't have to be on every social media channel.

11. Host a live Q&A once per month using a webinar platform or Google+ Hangouts.

12. Do a weekly podcast discussing hot topics in your niche and giving how-to tips.

13. Share posts from "experts" in your niche.

14. Have a weekly or monthly plan of what you're going to post each day.

15. Post informative videos about even boring products or services, but make them funny (and short).

16. When sharing content from others, include a brief text with your thoughts.

17. Dig through Quora and find what people are asking about in your niche—then answer their questions on Quora and Facebook.

18. Be active on your page. Reply to every comment and message—it only helps your ranking.

What social media steps have been successful for your business? Share with PCT.

Co-author of Facebook All-In-One for Dummies and "Ambassador of Awesome" at Post Planner, Scott Ayers became addicted to social media even before MySpace (the first time around). He handles training for the Post Planner app as well as customer support, blogging and social media.