Social Media Training
Tools & Techniques
Dawn Foster
dawn@fastwonder.com
Fast Wonder Consulting
http://FastWonderBlog.com
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 1

Agenda
Guiding principles and behavioral norms in social
●
media
Twitter (with tools / search overview)
●
Facebook
●
LinkedIn
●
Monitoring and information gathering using RSS,
●
Yahoo Pipes, PostRank, etc.
FriendFeed
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 2

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 the
●
community
Everyone’s a Peer: You are not the expert;
●
knowledge comes from everywhere
Like Attending a Party
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 3

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
–
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
–
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 4

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.
–
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 5

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
–
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 6

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
–
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 7

Twitter: Getting Started
Add an avatar that helps people recognize you
●
Spend a few minutes on your bio
●
Post a few quick updates. Share a link, talk
●
about a topic, or say something interesting.
Add a few friends. Start with no more than 25.
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 8

Twitter Demo
Web Interface
●
Applications
●
Search
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 9

Facebook
Personal Profiles (private)
●
Pages (public)
●
Groups
●
Applications
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 10

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.
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 11

Facebook: Public Pages
Used for products / companies / organizations
●
Fans, not friends (anyone can view a page)
●
Many features:
●
Wall with messages
–
Events
–
Video
–
Pictures
–
Notes
–
More
–
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 12

Facebook: Groups
Usually used to collaborate or organize
●
People become members of the group
●
Features:
●
Info
–
Wall / discussions
–
Events
–
Photos
–
Links
–
Video
–
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 13

Facebook Applications / Boxes
Purely fun or useful
●
Be cautious – many of them try to get you to
●
invite all of your friends (don't overwhelm)
Examples:
●
Twitter: Use Twitter feed as Facebook status
–
Upcoming: Displays your upcoming events in your
–
recent activity
SuperPoke: Annoy all of your best friends
–
Games, random fun, and more
–
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 14

LinkedIn: Profiles
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
–
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 15

LinkedIn Usage and Features
Not just for job seeking / finding employees
●
Get introductions to people through mutual
●
contacts
Learn more about your colleagues
●
Use groups to discuss topics with peers
●
Get answers to questions
●
Demo (groups & answers)
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 16

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, feedback and much more
Become more responsive to feedback by
●
proactively monitoring conversations
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 17

RSS / News Readers
RSS: Really Simple Syndication
●
A way to have information that you want to see
–
pushed to you in a news reader (Google Reader,
Netvibes, etc.)
Subscription service for online content
–
Subscribe to blogs in your industry & interest
●
areas
Subscribe to competing efforts
●
Demo Netvibes, iGoogle, & Google Reader
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 18

PostRank
Find the best posts on a blog
●
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 19

Yahoo Pipes: Business Benefits
Know when and where people are talking about
●
you / your industry on blogs and Twitter
Find and respond more quickly and efficiently
●
Be more responsive to your customers
●
Improve your products / services, content,
●
documentation and other communications.
Get insight into your competitors.
●
Keep up with information about your industry
●
Monitoring dashboards to spread info from
●
Yahoo Pipes to the rest of your organization.
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 20

Why should I care about Yahoo Pipes?
Find conversations proactively
●
Respond quickly & efficiently
●
Get insights into a topic
●
The Technology
Combine RSS feeds
●
Filter in or out for increased relevance
●
Modify RSS Feeds
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 21

Cautions
Not a programming language (limited)
●
Does some things really well. Incapable of others
●
Single point of failure
●
What if Yahoo killed it tomorrow?
●
Can be slightly flaky
●
Don't use in production / critical environments
●
See above
●
Don't feed directly onto important web sites
●
At least not without cache / error checking
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 22

Yahoo Pipes Demo
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 23

FriendFeed
Aggregated life streams
●
Twitter, blogs, bookmarks, pictures, events, and
–
more. Add anything with an RSS feed.
Search for topics (from everyone or friends)
●
Group your friends (real-time, best of day)
●
Tools – use it in many ways
●
Demo
●
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 24

Q&A
03/24/09 FastWonderBlog.com 25