Social media experiment - what works & What don't

So we all know that Social networking can be extremely beneficial to promoting your brand, business or event or even yourself. 

But what works and what doesn't? 

It can be so confusing with some many so called experts sending you all over the place, telling you to do this and do that, so well, I've decided to try them all. 
This is an experiment I am doing with my own accounts. So below I am going to list a few articles links that I have taken lessons from and applied to my own social media influence, but here are the most popular tips and advice I have found and the ones I am willing to try.

As I speak I have currently - 1059 Facebook friends , 343 likes on facebook page , @Cordiervoodoo twitter has 107 followers and @trashbaggery twitter has 95 - for cordiervoodoo i have a klout score of 17.34 and kred score i think was 238/2

needless to say I have never much promoted my social media pages and thought i'd start now. so here we go: 

• Tag Tag Tag - Start conversations on twitter and reply and comment to peoples tweets and posts. sounds easy enough, but i have found its hard to find people posting and tweeting things that are comment worthy. Most people auto tweet from blog posts etc But I will give it my best crack
• Start A convo game - Make it user interactive, after all that is what twitter and Facebook and most social networks are for. Start a game such as caption this or finish this sentence and offer users a reward such as adding them to your follow list or promoting them in some way
• competitions - Run some kind of basic competitions where you offer your loyal followers a reward such as a tshirt, post card, inbox, signed autograph etc
• Submit next weeks topic - allow your users to submit a topic that you will dedicate a day or post for. Give credit to the user for submitting said topic
• Tweet well and tweet often - according to wikihow they say you should have atleast one post per day but preferably two or more. But be interesting, post pics and media links that will peak peoples interest
• Ask people to retweet you - Wikihow also suggests to ask to be retweet - though I don't think il be trying this one, as i would prefer to be retweeted due to content merit rather than because i hounded someone to death.
• Use #hashtags - use hashtag with keywords that refer to your posts. 
• retweet your most popular tweets - If you have found a tweet to get a great deal of interest, then retweet it so more people can find it interesting i suppose??
• use follow websites - Use these sites to find related people and get them to follow you. 
• Follow people that you want to follow you - If you want those people to follow you, follow them first. many have auto follow and will follow you. 
• live tweets and live shows- draw a crowd by hosting a live show and tweets - have people watch and tweet you at the same time.according to Social Engine Journal live tweeting is becoming a big trend and used often in conferences and webinars.
• mention your twitter account everywhere possible - self explanatory 
• post photos - according to mashables photos get the most likes and shares
• post later in the day - posts between 6pm and 8pm tend to get more likes according to mashables
• Thurs, Fri, Sat & Sun - these days seem to be the highest commented days 
• use a like gate - Well its fairly simple, attract people by putting up a coupon or contest on your site and for them to enter the contest or get the coupon they will be redirected to fb and have to click like. Can also be used on youtube etc. 

if you have any tips and ideas that may have worked for you, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. 
Now the next upcoming 

Ok so here is the deal, I will be trying, experimenting and doing all the above (or as much as I can) and dictating what occurs and what changes I experience. 

You can see the transitions yourself on twitter: 
@cordiervoodoo 
@trashbaggery 

on Facebook - 
http://www.facebook.com/ccordier2
http://www.facebook.com/mytrashbaggery

Kred & Klout 
http://kred.com/cordiervoodoo
http://klout.com/#/cordiervoodoo

Some sources and references: 
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-More-Followers-on-Twitter
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-get-twitter-followers/29960/
http://www.inc.com/janine-popick/5-ways-to-get-more-facebook-likes.html
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/23/how-to-get-100000-facebook-likes-for-your-blog-fan-page/
http://mashable.com/2012/06/19/how-to-get-more-likes-shares-on-facebook-infographic/
http://kimgarst.com/how-get-more-facebook-likes
http://allfacebook.com/facebook-pictures-engagement_b66150

wish me good luck and again if you have anything for me to try out then let me know..