This was a presentation given at The Motivation Show (Chicago, Sept 30th 2009). It was part of their conference track for Meeting and Event Planners (but is applicable for just about everyone). It covers: what is social media, the Big Three sites, some tricks of the trade, and simple ways to get started.
5. Chances are, you already are on social media in your personal life…but what about your business ?
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13. Social media puts the customer in the middle of the dialog—like it or not, customers are out talking to each other in droves. What does the new set of expectations mean to you and your business? Full of opinions Ready to share them Lots of outlets Large networks Online all the time Expect to be heard
25. Ten Things to Do: 1. Know what’s being said about you now (alerts). 2. Create your own LinkedIn profile. 3. Link to at least 100 contacts via LinkedIn. 4. Sign up for a free personal account on Twitter. 5. Follow at least 10 industry people on Twitter.
26. Ten Things to Do: 6. Get Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn URLs. 7. Consider using Twitter for your next event. 8. Consider using Facebook event pages. 9. Consider a blog—expertise and time required. 10. Just try it! (and monitor, measure & modify).
27. Resources: 1. “Beyond Buzz, The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing” (Lois Kelly) 2. “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” (David Meerman Scott) 3. “Word of Mouth Marketing” (Andy Sernovitz) 4. “Social Media for Dummies” (Armchair Theorist) ( http://armchairtheorist.com/2008/06/03/social-media-for-dummies/) 5. “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live” ( http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html) 6. “Made to Stick” ( http://www.madetostick.com/blog/) 7. “Mashable: The Social Media Blog” ( http://mashable.com/) 8. “Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business” (Erik Qualman) 9. Beth Albright/ealbright@market-sense.com/Tim Cook/ [email_address]
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Editor's Notes
Some really interesting information in that clip….it’s eye opening to see how fast social media online has caught on and created some very impressive numbers—much faster than traditional media like radio, television and print. Some facts worth repeating from the clip: If the population of Facebook were a country—it would be the fourth largest country in the world. 80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees. 80% of Twitter updates are made on mobile devices—gives new meaning to anytime, anywhere communications. 25 % of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content--- in other words social media content. What does it mean for companies when they are no longer on control of their message in the market? If you are here it because all of this social media is likely something that is newer to you. Perhaps you don’t feel that comfortable with what social media is—or perhaps you’ve have a comfort level but you are looking for ways to apply it to your business. In any case, you are in the right spot. Today we are going to take the fear out of social media with a basic primer on what it is, how it works, how professionals like you are using it and how you can get started.
Before we dive in, we want to do some quick informal polling. Just by a show of hands, how many in the room have a person Twitter account? Facebook Profile? LinkedIn profile? If a lot= this group may be more savvy than you’ve given yourselves credit for! Its great that you’re already participating in social media. Hopefully today will give you some new ideas. If not many= so not too many, but that will all change after today’s session! So of those that are using social media for personal reasons, by a show of hands, how many are also using social media for business reasons? We may call on you a bit later to share some of your experiences. All right let’s dive right in with a short and sweet definition of social media. The big idea is that social media is something that you participate in. Unlike passive media like TV, Print and Radio, social media depends on people like us contributing information. If you’ve ever read a blog (even Perez Hilton), posted a review of a product online, sought out peer opinions of a hotel online, poster pictures or video to a sharing sight like Flickr, or shared your bookmarks on a site like Delicious—you’ve participated in social media. It’s that simple. Social media is participatory, it’s communal, it’s not directed by any one person or one company’s agenda, and it has the potential to spread very far and very fast—what many call “go viral” –the best and most recent example of which is the Susan Boyle audition that caught fire and went all around the world.
Today we’re going to focus on the big three of social media- Twitter, LinledIn and Facebook. But there are many more out there any many more coming all the time. We’ll give you some resources at the end of our presentation that you can use to keep tabs on the different social media that are cropping up. But as with anything else, we encourage you to avoid jumping on any bandwagons for the sake of a trend. Social media does afford some exciting new business and marketing opportunities—as long as you start with clear goals, a clear understanding of the ground rules, and clear understanding of how social media works you’ll be just fine.
