Demystifying Social Media: Tools and Techniques

Demystifying Social Media

Tools & Techniques

Dawn Foster
dawn@fastwonder.com
Fast Wonder Consulting
http://FastWonderBlog.com

07/08/09 FastWonderBlog.com 1

Topics
● Guiding Principles & Strategy for Participation
● Social Media Activities / Tools
● Twitter
● Facebook
● LinkedIn
● FriendFeed
● Blogging
● Monitoring
● RSS
● Monitoring Twitter
● Yahoo Pipes
● Managing your social media efforts

Social Media Takes Many Forms


Guiding Principles: It's All About the People
● Focus on the individuals: Participate as a person, not
a corporate entity
● Be Sincere: Sincerity = believability & credibility
● Not all about you: Community is about conversation,
which is by definition two-way
● Be a Part of the Community: Don't try to control it
● Everyone’s a Peer:
You are not the expert;
knowledge comes from
everywhere


Building Your Social Media Strategy?
Clear Purpose / Goals are Key
● Do you need to build new or can you join an
existing site?
● What do you hope to accomplish and what are
your goals for social media?
● What is your overall strategy and how do your
social media efforts fit within it?
● What are your plans for achieving your goals
and how will you measure it?
● Do you have the resources (people & $) to
maintain it long-term?
Answer these questions before you start


Play Nice
"I'm the Lorax who speaks for
the trees which you seem to
be chopping as fast as you
please.

NOW...thanks to your hacking
my trees to the ground, there's
not enough Truffula Fruit to go
'round.
Translation:
Play Nice: Be polite and And my poor Bar-bar-loots are
all getting the crummies
respectful in your
because they have gas, and no
interactions with other food in their tummies!"
members

Where and How NOT to Participate
● Do not participate on
competitor's sites
(considered slimy &
bad manners)
● Do not participate in
communities solely to
pimp your products.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriafee/2740896609
● Do not mention your
products in every post.
Talk about the industry first
& your products second


How to Participate ...
Listen First: Understand the Norms
● Each site has it's own norms
– Language and terminology
– Acceptable behavior
● Participate gently at first
– Pick one site to start
– Spend more time listening http://www.flickr.com/photos/niclindh/1389750548

– Take the time to understand how people participate
– Participate with an individual account first
– Engage in additional sites as you get comfortable
– Begin participating for your organization

People are Watching You

“My eyes see.
His eyes see.
I see him.
And he sees me.

And so we say, Translation:
“Hooray for eyes! People see everything
Hooray, hooray, hooray... you do in the community.
... for eyes!” Be a good example of
the “right” behavior.


Twitter
● Short messages (140 characters)
– Talk about interesting things, engage in
conversations, and interact with others
– Be careful how often you promote your work
(blog posts, community discussions, etc.)
– Not all about you
● Following:
– You follow people to receive their messages
– People follow you to receive your messages
– Only as interesting as the people you follow.


Twitter Best Practices
● Know what people are saying about you
● Respond frequently and sincerely
● Follow back where appropriate
● Have a personality
● Variety is important
What to Avoid
● Don't be a link spam account
● Don't go overboard with messages
● Don't be self-promotional
● Don't use direct messages to promote anything
● Don't proactively follow too many people


Twitter Language & Terminology
● @reply: Reply to someone publicly on Twitter.
– @geekygirldawn thanks for the link
● Direct Message: Reply to someone privately
– d geekygirldawn call me at 555-867-5309
● OH: Overheard & not attributed to a specific person
– OH: I took shop & didn't lose fingers. I could use a chainsaw
● RT: Retweet to re-send something from another user
with attribution it to the original author.
– RT @geekygirldawn: Don't forget to RSVP for BarCamp!
● #: Hastags are used to tag Twitter posts.
– The bubble tea has arrived. #barcampportland

Facebook
● Personal Profiles (private)
– For real people
– Not for your company
● Pages (public)
– Used for products / companies / organizations
– Fans, not friends (anyone can view a page)
● Groups
– Often used to collaborate or organize
– People become members of the group
● Applications

Facebook: Getting Started – Personal Profile
● Build your personal profile first (people, not
brands)
● Add a picture that helps people recognize you
● Spend a few minutes on your information
(personal info, education / work, etc.)
● Post status updates and add a few pictures.
● Add a few friends (personal, work, past lives)
● Go easy on your friends – save the poking,
zombie requests, etc. for close personal friends.


LinkedIn Usage and Features
● Not just for job seeking / finding employees
● Get introductions to people thru mutual contacts
● Learn more about your colleagues
● Use groups to discuss topics with peers
● Get answers to questions


Doing More with LinkedIn
● Start by completing your profile
– Picture, jobs, education, websites, interests, summary
● Add applications
– Slideshare, blog posts, events, etc.
● Make recommendations
– Recommend some past colleagues that you respect
● Add contacts
– Take advantage of the 'people you may know' feature
– Only add people you know
● Join groups & answer questions

FriendFeed
● Aggregated life streams
– Twitter, blogs, bookmarks, pictures, events, and
more. Add anything with an RSS feed.
● Share your info
● Keep up on news
● Search for topics
● Group your friends
● Tools
– Get info in
different formats

Should You Have a Corporate Blog?
● Can you commit to at least one post per week?
● Do you have people who have interesting
things to say and with good writing skills?
● Can someone manage the process and make
sure that the blog never gets neglected?
● Tips for making it easier
– Group blogs with many
authors (not just execs)
– Short posts are great
– Manage the process and
have a content roadmap

Blogging Best Practices
● Be a thought leader in your industry
● Talk about ideas, passions, industry trends
● Be conversational. Personal posts are interesting
● Manage your content roadmap for variety
● Integral part of social media strategy
● Avoid:
– Do not focus on product updates
– Do not regurgitate press releases
– Do not sound like a corporate drone


Make it Fun
Why do you sit there like that?
I know it is wet.
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have lots of good
fun that is funny!

I know some good games we
could play.
I know some new tricks.
I will show them to you.
Translation: Your mother will not mind at
all if I do.
Have fun! Lighten it up
occasionally!

Monitoring
● Social media is about conversations – you need
to know what people are saying
● Know what people say about you, your industry,
your competitors: critical element of community
management, blogging, and social media
● Information can be used as ideas for blog posts,
marketing messages, competitive analysis, etc.
● Become more responsive to feedback by
proactively monitoring conversations


RSS / News Readers
● RSS: Really Simple Syndication
– A way to have information that you want to see
pushed to you in a news reader
– Subscription service for online content
● Subscribe to blogs in your industry & interest
areas
● Subscribe to competing efforts
● Examples: Netvibes, iGoogle, & Google Reader


Monitoring Twitter
● Don't Underestimate Twitter Search
– Complex search operators, shows new results
● My Favorite Twitter Monitoring Tool: TweetDeck
– Desktop application – sync across mult computers
– Searches with notifications, groups, replies
● Browser-based Twitter Monitoring: Monitter
– Dashboard-style monitoring with searches
● My WebWorkerDaily post with more details:
– http://bit.ly/jkbkT


A Few Great Uses for Yahoo Pipes
● Monitoring social media sites with a list of
keywords across many sites.
● Combining groups of RSS feeds into a single
feed.
● Uber feed of your posts across blogs.
● Filtering feeds to find relevant content.
● More info and how-to videos:
– http://fastwonderblog.com/yahoo-pipes-and-rss-hacks/


Many Other Social Media Monitoring Tools


Community Managers Help Ensure Success

“Jobs of the future, #1: Online What Skills do we need?
Community Organizer
– Patience
... If you were great at this, I'd imagine you'd
never ever have trouble finding good work.”
– Networking
--Seth Godin
– Communication
What do we do? – Facilitation
– Ongoing Facilitation – Technical Skills
– Monitoring Conversations – Marketing
– Content Creation / Mgmt – Self-Motivation
– Evangelism – Workaholic Tendencies
– Strategy – Organization

Incorporate into Existing Efforts
● Look at your overall corporate business strategy
● Find where community / social media fits in
● Articulate a clear purpose for the efforts
● Use the right tools
and technology to
achieve your goals


Be Flexible

Never budge!
That's my rule.
Never budge
in the least!

Not an inch to the west!
Not an inch to the east!

Translation: I'll stay here, not budging!
I can and I will
Be flexible.
Improvements and ideas If it makes you and me and the
come from unexpected whole world stand still.
places.

Q&A
Companies and Communities Book
● Available for purchase / signing $15
● http://fastwonderblog.com/eBook

Additional Resources:
● Monitoring with Yahoo Pipes Training

About Dawn:
● Online Community Consultant
● http://fastwonderblog.com/consulting
● Dawn@FastWonder.com
● @geekygirldawn on Twitter

Demystifying Social Media: Tools and Techniques

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