Social Media & Personal Branding

Using Social Media to Promote You and Your Content By Serena Carpenter Arizona State University

Previous Class

Focused on designing and structuring content for social sharing including tagging, alt text, and meta tags

SEO

Today, the other 75% of SEO, promoting your content and yourself

What is social media?

The sharing of information and passions with other like-minded people, communities and collaborators

AKA “user-generated content”

“ Strength of Weak Ties” by Mark S. Granovetter (1973)

Types of social media (Antony Mayfield)

Social Networks – build personal pages to connect with friends

Blogs

Wikis – communal database that can be edited by anyone

Podcasts – audio/video subscriptions

Forums/Online Communities – discussions forms around a topic

Content Communities – sharing of content (Flickr, YouTube)

Microblogging – social networking merges with blogging

One-way Today, build relationships to get permission

Trust in spokesperson, U.S. 08, Edelman Trust Barometer Building Relationships

PR

PR has been defined as journalist relations

a linear relationship between PR professionals and journalists

Communication experts are relationship managers and networkers

Blogger Relations

Prove that you monitor blogs when reaching out to bloggers

Don’t pitch, get involved with their community

Participate in comments

Create your own blog to connect and promote

Bloggers want linklove, so link

Find “ A-list ” blogs by searching blogrolls

Bloggers are passionate experts

Social Media Press Release

PRX Builder - allows anyone to create an online press release

The client, MobileSphere, launched a new product Slydial

Free service that allows users to leave a voicemail message on someone else’s cellphone — without actually ringing them

Created a social media release

In 1 month covered in 381 blog posts

http://smr.newswire.ca/en/cnw/cnw-group-launches-new-social-media-tool

Digg (2004)

News aggregator where people digg or submit stories

Submit story, may get popular through diggs or it may get buried

Comment as well

Employees digg stories to promote their org’s content (Village Voice-MN)

http://www.digg.com

Age Range – 25-44

65% Male

25 million unique visitors

Fark (1999)

A news aggregator that allows user to comment on stories

Fark administrators sift through 2,000 or so news submissions

Greenlit links can generate upwards of 300,000 page views in one month for a recipient

Submissions should be humorous, unique, entertaining

5% of approved submissions will go on the main page

http://www.fark.com/

Others include Furl, Reddit, Newsvine

Sign up for Digg and Fark

Browse it to understand

StumbleUpon (2007)

Delicious 2.0

Bookmark your favorite pages via toolbar and share bookmarks more easily

1.5 million unique visitors

45-54 age

56% male

http://www.stumbledupon.com/

Social Networking

http://rareshare.org/

600 rare diseases (1000)

http://www.mychurch.org/

http://www.momjunction.com/members/exploregroups.aspx?p=1

http://www.blackplanet.com/

http://www.dogster.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Join social networking groups related to your expertise

Facebook – 5yr anniversary

150-million users

10% users update their statuses at least once a day

850-million photos are uploaded each month

Average - 120 Facebook friends

Fastest growing segment: Women over 55

up 175% in the last 6 months

Average stay around 15 minutes

18-25 (43%), 26-34 (23%)

MySpace (2004)

185 million users

More than 8 million bands and artists

18-34 largest group, 44%

Average of 15 photos per user

Average stay around 20 minutes

MySpace v. Facebook

How many have a Facebook? MySpace? Any other?

MySpace v. Facebook

MySpace

Alternative

Music

Perceived that parents cannot monitor it

Facebook

Professional groups

“ Good” kids

Collection, not cultivation

Quantity, rather than quality

151-200 Friends

Less than 100 and more than 500 considered not at popular

Friend vs. Contact (Flickr)

Relationship focused on presentation

Personal Brand

Perception you can create, so ask yourself:

What’s special and unique about you?

What are you an expert in?

Identify your talents, skills

Create a statement that reflects you

Determine your look and visuals that represent you, then build around your brand

Personal Brand Assets

Your Name

Picture

Personal brand statement “I am the best social media expert at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.”

“ Google is the new resume”

47% have search for themselves (Pew, 2007)

60% of those who search for their names actually find information about themselves online

What can David do?

“ David Thomas” is a pretty bad name for Googling

Unique id

Use middle name or use your middle name as your last name

“ Andrew Dice Clay” was Andrew Clay Silverstein

Change your name

James Todd Smith - LL Cool J.

William Bruce Rose - Axl Rose

Add middle initial

Networking vs. Presence

Search engines love LinkedIn

Do not love Facebook, but great networking tool

Focus is on presence today

You create content, you cannot fear posting information

Post your FULL NAME (not user name), address, and phone number

Voluntarily posting self-authored content such as text, photos, and video has become a cornerstone of engagement in the era of the participatory Web

In WordPress, go to “ My Account ” at the top of page > Edit Profile > Type in your first name , last name , and your Nickname to your full name > update profile > display name publicly as your full name

Comments

Leave thoughtful comments on targeted blogs in your area of expertise

When you leave a comment, you’ll be asked for your name (What’s Your Name?) & your blog or Web site (you can use your LinkedIn or other profile if you don’t have one).