Irish Times and Science Foundation Ireland Innovation Cities Roadshow / Aula Maxima, NUI Galway / 29th November 2011

1. Social media: making it work for you
John Breslin, NUI Galway
www.johnbreslin.com / @johnbreslin

2. Who?
A little bit about me.
Lecturer, Engineering and Founder, New Tech Post
Informatics Publisher of tech articles.
Full-time lecturer from 2000 to Deciphering new technologies and
2004, tenured in 2008. promoting Ireland as a tech hub.
Researcher, DERI Co-Founder, boards.ie Ltd.
Leader of the Social Software Unit Irelandʼs largest discussion forum
in the worldʼs largest Semantic website, 2.2 million visitors/month.
Web research institute. Co-author Began as a gaming forum in 1998.
of “The Social Semantic Web”.

3. What?
Quick overview of my talk.
Getting Onboard
Joining In
Keeping Up

4. Part 1: Getting Onboard
Pick what services should you be on.
Choose Your Platform, Carefully The Social Network Choices
Depending on your audience, do
you need to be on social networks, Twitter: Whatʼs happening? Info streams.
discussion forums (e.g. Google
Groups or boards.ie), or something Facebook: Everyoneʼs here, eek!
else entirely? LinkedIn: The business network.
Spread Too Thin? MySpace: Only if youʼre selling music...
Donʼt waste time on a platform if
your customers just arenʼt there. Bebo: Nearly kaput, even for 13 year olds.

5. Part 1: Getting Onboard
Decide exactly who you are.
Create Your Identity Promoting Your Identity
Try and get a common brand that Make sure you tell people about
you can use across one or more your social media identity where
platforms of your choice. appropriate, e.g. in your e-mail
signatures, on your website, in
Pick Your “Forever” Username presentations.
Have a consistent username for your
Twitter account or Facebook page.

6. Part 2: Joining In
Be part of the conversation.
Does
anyone know
[...]?
Hello!
I think I can
help...
Respond To Others, Choose Who You Are Talking To
Meaningfully! If you want to be a person of influence
Thereʼs no point being a using social media, then the way to do it
standalone broadcaster on is to acquire engaged followers who are
social websites. You must themselves active on the service: http://
engage with others, not just via bit.ly/twinfluencer
your own channels.

7. Part 2: Joining In
Tell the world about your company, your services.
Use An Integrated Strategy Marketing Your Brand
View this great video from Deanna If you donʼt already have a sufficient
Lee (Marketing VP at the New York community of interest around your
Public Library) about how social company that you can leverage into an
media is just one part of your online community instantaneously, you
communications strategy: http:// may want to think about using targeted
bit.ly/leevideo advertising, if available on your platform
of choice.

8. Part 3: Keeping Up
Stay up to date with your interests and competitors.

9. Part 3: Keeping Up
Think about whatʼs coming around the corner.
The Semantic What? The World Is Going Hyperlocal
The next generation of the Web, You may need to think about a web
encompassing the notion of “Linked where oneʼs geolocation is strongly tied
Data” whereby itʼs not just pages to their activities online: Facebook
that are linked on the Web, but Places, Foursquare, Layar, and more:
rather data with an associated http://bit.ly/hyperlocality
meaning: http://bit.ly/ldintro

10. john@bresl.in
Ask John
Thanks for listening.
Image credits: Tom Murphy