A lunch and learn I build for the staff of Communitech on how to support their company through social media. Useful information for startups, SMEs, organisations. Email me to arrange a presentation.

1. How to build an amazing social
media presence
Social media, community and knowledge

2. Community
A group of people who share a commonality… a lived
experience, a thought, a group of knowledge

3. Old definition vs new
Communities used to be tied to location primarily, with
thought coming as a second.
Older thought communities: religious affiliation,
universities, political parties

4. Information
Every community relies on information.
Information doesn’t make a community. Information is
vastly interpretable.

5. How a community uses, applies, and builds upon its
information is “knowledge”

6. Our tech community
Tech companies, investors, service providers, universities, colleges,
community at large in Waterloo Region, tech associated companies and
so much more
We have a broad audience so how do we build knowledge, and share
information?

7. Knowledge
• Each group has its own interpretation of the
same text
• Each group builds it’s own knowledge through
lived interpretation
• Community cohesion assured through
common basis of interpretation of information
• Information lived and synthesized into
knowledge

8. Knowledge impossible without community

9. As we build communities, we need
keepers of knowledge
Scribes to record information
Libraries, databases to store information
Elders, leaders to propagate knowledge
An entire community building more
according to its circumstance

10. Without living through this…

11. You couldn’t fully
understand this
installation called
“Blizzard”

12. My grandmother can tell me that this wasn’t romantic… just cold.
And I can understand even though we now pay for the experience.
Our knowledge has changed due to our lived experience.

13. So how to we make people understand this?
Impressive information, but if you can’t get it to an audience, and have them
understand the importance of the information, your efforts are minimally useful.

14. Social Media

15. Communitech Twitter
• A Twitter following of near 6k that reaches almost
500k organisations, companies, and people
• Up to 300 retweets, and 800 mentions per week
on an average of 60 curated tweets by
@communitech
• Reach growth happens often at a rate of 200-
300% each week
• We add 50-100 new followers on average every
week
• Supports all content, events, government
announcements, partner news, and community
associated with Waterloo Region tech ecosystem
from startup to multinational and beyond

16. Communitech Facebook
• Almost 200 “likes”
• A daily reach of 800 – 1300
• Top referrer back to our website
• 2 visits to Facebook renders a 1 - 1.5 click-
through back to Communitech.ca
• Image based. Facebook bought Instagram for a
very specific reason
• Sharing this page generates likes and refers back
to communitech.ca at a very high rate
• Inception: Sept 1, 2012

17. We are a social
media,
knowledge-
leading
powerhouse

18. With social media, combined with
events and in-person interaction
You can go from this… To this…
And get it to…

20. Community and Knowledge
• Who is your community?
• Communities have exclusions and inclusions,
what are yours?
• How does your knowledge come about?
• How is it stored?
• How is it shared?

21. So who can make this happen?
YOU

22. YOU
Can support the
Waterloo Region Tech Ecosystem

23. YOU
Can support companies from startups
to multinationals and everything in
between

24. YOU
Can attract talent and get the word out
about Waterloo Region as the best
place to live, work and play.

25. YOU
Can help to spread our news to the furthest reaches of
the planet

26. HOW?

28. Twitter

29. Why 140 characters? Isn’t that short?
140 characters = a single text message

30. Your Personal Brand

31. Create a profile
Remember, this is your
online digital identity –
your personal brand
Choose a handle
Upload a picture
Write a short bio:
contextualize your persona

32. Think of a tweet as a headline
A blurb, a blast, the gist. If it
needs to be longer, blog
about it and point to it with
a tweet. Tweets that lead to
content present the most
user value.

33. A Headline – If it bleeds, it leads

34. The internet = lolcats and bad grammar
Amidst all the garble and the
importance of cats to the
internet, how can we take our
information and bring it to
relevance?

36. And if content is king…
Context is the master of the universe

37. Pull
marketing
Content?
Lead consistently to content :
generate a reliable audience.
Expect feedback.
Learn to listen.
Push
marketing
Learn what to share.
(Sometime Before Twitter)

38. Context
• Who are you and why does it matter?
• By nature of your workplace and your
position, you are…. (seriously answer this)
• Waterloo Region is…
• Communitech is…

39. Who we are is built on this context.
Our content is how we frame it.

40. A personal feed that supports your
work
• Again, who are you and what do you do?
• What do you like to talk about?
• What will you not talk about (pretty
important!)?
• What supports your career and your
workplace?
• What stories can build all of this?

41. Build a feed - Curation
To be a curator, you need information.
1. Set someGoogle alerts
1. Trade secret: some of mine are
“Waterloo Region Tech”,
“Innovation Canada”, “Innovation
Ontario”, “Communitech” and
many more
2. Take note of other interesting
news that pertains to what you do
3. Sort blogs into Google reader
4. Use these, and their headlines as
twitter fodder

42. Use Twitter and other social media for
information – Curate through thought leaders
1. Find thought leaders
tweeting in your field
2. Follow those leaders
3. Watch how they tweet
4. Retweet what you find
pertinent
5. If they retweet others
often, let curiosity get the
best of you and check out
their profiles and feeds
6. Retweeting is what makes
information go viral

43. This is where you come in.
Viral. We all want viral. Viral = Trend

44. So what isn’t good information
• Try to reduce the noise.
• Things like an average breakfast, or a midnight waking are mundane and
don’t enhance your brand.
• Remember, what are you known for and how you want to project this.

45. What will you not talk about?
• Set this before you start tweeting
• Politics are fun, but do you want your feed to
reflect this?
• Conversation is fun, but where does it become
TMI?
• What are the corporate lines, if you are using
your account personally and professionally?

46. 140 Characters
In 140 characters, you can
establish context.
One of Hemingway’s best
known stories was 6 words
long: "For sale: baby shoes,
never worn.“
Curate information and words
to establish a cohesive brand.
X XX X

47. Keep it pertinent

48. Use hashtags to organize information

49. Ok… this is confusing
@...? #...?
Which one when?

50. Generate
Hype

51. Who to follow?
Follow people who post content that interests you.
Follow people who are inspirational.
Follow people who you know.
Follow people who you respect.

52. Who’s going to follow me?
The right people when you have a well curated feed.
Don’t worry about this. Seriously.

53. The personal IS political

54. Avoid dealing with the elephant in the
room by never putting him there

55. Avoid Mystery Meat
Avoid truncating words to
fit more into a tweet. Stick
to common short forms if
necessary.
Avoid posting links without
context. Tell people where a
link leads.

56. Spam

57. Engage in discussion, but recognize when
someone is instigating, try not to tweet back.

58. Most points on Express your opinion, but remember elephants
this slideshow Humour goes a long way when appropriate
are 140 Personal brand – be free with who you are, you are
likeable
characters or Listen. Learn. Pause. Tweet.
less Try to tweet sober.