#OAP101 Hashtag it!

What is your favourite hashtag to use?

Hashtags are an important part of living and dealing on social media. Whether as a way of joining or starting a conversation, they help your posts (and therefore, you) to be seen.

Improper use of hashtags however can do more harm than good. For example, if you break one of the hashtag rules, you may find people skipping over your posts, and a platform like Instagram could even 'shadowban' you, making it hard for your posts to be discovered.

What are some of these Hashtag sins?
- Putting the 'hash' key in the wrong place. Always #OAP101 and not OAP101#
- Using too many hashtags. While on Instagram, you can get away with up to 30 hashtags, on Twitter and Facebook, you want to do fewer tags; maybe 1 or 2, 3 maximum.
- Putting them all over the place. While it is okay to sometimes hashtag a word in the middle of a sentence, it can make your captions look clumsy. Instead of a sentence like, 'This is the #OAP101 #blogpost for #today', write the sentence first, THEN place the hashtags below or after the caption.
See an example here.

Now that we have covered some of the sins, what makes for a great use of a hashtag?

1. Unique hashtags
You need a unique hashtag for your brand, like how we have #OAP101. I also have #ShopTosyn and #TosynBucknorDaily.
This one is simply for your brand and you can ask your followers to use it for posts they want you to see or repost

2. Relevant hashtags
Apart from using one or two unique hashtags (if on Instagram), you also need a hashtag that is relevant to the post you have up. In this instance for example, I definitely need to include '#Hashtag' and perhaps '#SocialMedia' in my post.

3. Popular Hashtags
Be careful with how you use popular hashtags because if you use them just to get your post discovered, it can actually be worse for you. If people feel you're using hashtags indiscriminately, they can ask for your post to be removed from that particular hashtag, and like I mentioned above, some platforms will penalise you for it.
Popular hashtags vary from region to region so a quick Google search can show you top hashtags to use.

Another tip is to place your hashtag correctly.
For Facebook and Twitter, write your caption, then place 1 to 3 hashtags at the end of the caption.
On Instagram, to make it neater, write your caption then leave some space before including your hashtags as shown above. You can also simply put your hashtags as a comment on your post.

I hope these tips help.

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OAP 101: Do your SWOT!

Hi Media Guy, or Girl!
Thanks for checking out another OAP 101 post.
Now I am not sure if you know that I also have a podcast series? Check out past sets here, and listen to this week's episode on Anchor.

If you are interested in things like branding and positioning as a media person, a S.W.O.T analysis at its' most basic will be beneficial for you.
What does it stand for?

S- Strengths
W- Weaknesses
O- Opportunities
T- Threats.

Simply put, take a look at your SWOT and then use that to plan your next few steps brand and position wise.
Your strengths are the things you do best AND that make you unique. For example. one of your strengths can be that you can talk about any subject on earth! Trust me, not everyone can do this. Another strength can be that you like something others like you do not like. Take me for example, I think I am one of the few women On-Air Personalities in Lagos who not only love but follow and analyse football games. Trust me, it has been an advantage for me.

Your weaknesses are those things that you obviously don't do well, or don't do better. Opportunities speak for themselves. These are the jobs, brands, and other avenues open to you as a media host to grow and include things like reading the news, hosting a show, speaking at a conference, interviewing guests on the red carpet and more. List them.

Last but not the least, taking a look at the space you're in, list your threats; these are competitors and factors that may prevent you from getting certain jobs. For example, I mentioned that I like football more than most. There are some who DO like football as well though and may be a threat when it comes to football based opportunities.

Once you have done this, and please note that this is not something you do once and forget about but rather, something you may need to go back to from time to time to update, you can then see clearly how to BUILD on your strengths, WORK AROUND your weaknesses, LOOK for your opportunities and POSITION yourself ABOVE your threats.

Feel free to hit me up privately with your own S.W.O.T analysis via my Instagram DM.

#OAP101 Using Social Media to grow your Personal Brand as an OAP

Today I would like to speak a little about using social media for your benefit, as a way to help you build, maintain and grow your brand as a media personality.

The first thing to ask yourself is which platforms should I be on?
To answer that, you need to be clear on
- what your interests are
- where your audience is

A sportscaster for example will definitely enjoy twitter because it offers a great opportunity to talk about games and players, give real-time news and analysis, and have that immediate connection with your audience.

Radio hosts do well on most platforms, and I daresay, Facebook and Twitter are a must.
Television hosts on the other hand should not neglect their Instagram as that is the best tool for them.

Now a brand in Nigeria or that wants to speak to Nigerians should not neglect the big three as I like to call them- Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
This is because Facebook is still one of the most popular platforms as it is easily accessible, and there is a big percentage of Nigerians on the other two as well.

Having clarified that, the next thing to think about is your UserName.
If you do not want to be easily found, by all means, use hard to identify or search for names. If you do want to use your social media for your brand though, ensure the name is a name you are known as, whether it is a Nickname or your Real Name.
Whether or not you use your real or a nickname, ensure you have your real name in the profile so that when people search for your name, your account will still pop up.

Your Profile should state what you want people to know about you clearly and simply.
I have checked quite a few celebrity profiles and there does not seem to be any agreement as to things like, number of lines or whether or not you should have a bio at all. What is clear is everyone keeps it simple and tells you who they are.
You can try something as short and direct as 'Official Page of Your Name', or tell us what you do like 'Radio and TV Host'.
See Steve Harvey's, Dotun's, and Mine.


Your content is of course the main thing as no matter how cute your description is, if there is no content on your page, you may have followers but no engagement.
How often should you post? The jury is out on that. What everyone does agree on however is that being consistent is the key. The quality of posts is also crucial so keep your pictures and captions classy and distinct.

In my next post, I will go into a bit more detail with examples, as regards content types.

In the meantime, if you have comments and questions, do leave them below, reach me via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, or send me an Email.

#OAP101 Want to get on radio? Start a podcast now!

Hi all.

I do hope your week is off to a great start.

Mine sure is. I feel very productive today and i have been able to do a few of my to-dos before 12pm which means i can count this as a productive day for sure.

Today i wanted to touch on a question i get asked a lot in varying ways. The summary is- how do i get on radio? You can listen to the OAP 101 podcast here where i go in depth with different tips.

While the podcast gives different tips, i am tackling one tip- starting a podcast.

When people ask me about how to get on radio, i advise them to get a podcast first. Why?
- Podcasts are relatively free and easy to begin. With your phone and a host platform like Soundcloud for example, you can start broadcasting to the world.
- Starting a podcast and working on it regularly will train you for when you do get on radio. And thirdly
- You can start gaining a following which means you become more attractive to potential employers.

If you do want to start your podcast, here are three quick things to do
- Think of WHAT you want your podcast to be about. I personally have the OAP 101 podcast which is tips for aspiring media personalities, the Tosyn Bucknor Show podcast which is like a summary of my show on radio with extras, the daily news podcast, and i am about to kick off two new ones.

Decide what you want your podcast to be about and you are off to a great start.

- Decide on the style, and time. Also, think of a schedule in terms of when you record, if you edit, when you edit, and lastly when you publish and where.

- START! s.h.a.r.e and tell a friend about it!

If you have follow up questions please do ask in the comments. Otherwise you can shoot me a quick dm on Twitter or Instagram