1) Social media has become a democratic platform where anybody can share opinions and recommendations, which has significantly impacted traditional media outlets and businesses. 2) When engaging with customers on social media, companies cannot control communications and must establish policies around anonymous commenting and respectful responses. 3) In Australia, 9 million people use social media sites like Facebook, where people increasingly rely on others' recommendations and feedback when making decisions. Businesses must find ways to engage with customers on these influential platforms.

1. The food and drinkconversationon the internet How to be social

2. What happened to the net? It became democratic Anybody could become a critic People can say what they want Word of mouth rules The old media are losing power Huge opportunities to communicate direct

3. The new rules You can’t control communications Internet communication policies needed Define who can say what Every communication must be identified with your company No anonymous commenting Show respect Respond to positive and negative comments

4. 9 million Australians interact through social media sites Facebookdominates social media sites Twitter records strongest growth in social media usage Mobile social networking gaining traction Source: Nielsen

5. 9 million Australians interact through social media sites 9 out of 10 look to other users for recommendations 75% have visited Facebook 59% have a Facebook profile Over 8 hours spent on Facebook each month 43% of online Australians own a Smartphone 26% of online Australians participated in mobile social networking 66% of mobile networkers are under 35 years old Source: Nielsen

6. Focus on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Flickr Source: Nielsen

7. People are engaging with companies online Source: Nielsen

8. Restaurant review sites

9. People power

10. People power

11. People are in general positive

12. Restaurant review sites becoming more popular

13. How come Earl is better rated than Gordon Ramsay?

14. Urban Spoon aggregates old media reviews

15. People say the service is bad

16. How to handle criticism?

17. The same goes on Twitter

18. The next Twitter?

19. The future is geolocation

20. Geolocated special offers

21. Special offers drive customers

22. Integration with Twitter

23. The crowd is here

24. Real people give tips

25. Partnership drives customers

26. Make your website the hub

27. Make it news focused

28. Integrate with emails via RSS

29. A website as a dynamic business tool Auto tweet news to Twitter Auto update Facebook Flickr feed and galleries Youtube videos Integrate email newsletter with RSS Wordpress as a content management system Comment enabled for feedback Flash animation loses you valuable visitors

30. How to start Find your target market Identify key blogs and websites Read, watch and listen Focus on a couple of key social media, for example Facebook, Twitter, Youtube Become part of the community Understand feeds and distributed content

31. This means a feed With Feedburner of Feedblitz you can monitor and turn it into emails

32. So does RSS or ATOM mean a feed

33. Monitoring tools Feedreaders – Google Reader, Netvibes Google and Yahoo! Alerts Tweetdeck search and #hashtags Scout Labs NeilsenBlogpulse NeilsenBuzzmetrics

34. Play by the rules Do not take what is not yours Ask permission Do not hard sell Make it personal and conversational Don’t use corporate speak Share and give Credit sources, reply to comments and link back

35. Do not take what is not yours The rules on words and pictures are different to Youtube It is better to ask permission for words and pictures You don’t need to ask for Youtube You can republish feeds but be careful how you do it If you do it in the correct way, people may give you content for free There needs to be a reward– kudos, traffic

36. Ask permission Unsolicited emails are tiresome “If you would prefer not to receive any more emails from us, please let me know. Alternatively, if you visit this web form and let us know what kind of material you are interested in.”

37. How to comment Keep it to the conversation in question A link back to your page is okay Don’t try and sell Subscribe to comment feeds to follow Don’t be nasty Remember it is somebody else’s space

38. Critics? There are plenty of critics being mean Take a deep breath first Be polite but not patronising Be constructive Your rude email will go viral

39. Starting your campaign Be committed. Don’t join the social media graveyard Be flexible and look out for what is next (Did you see Twitter coming?) Profiles: tell us who you are Use a conversational voice; not pre-approved statements It may take time to establish credibility

40. Tag everything Because you want to be found Use online tools to optimise Words Pictures Video

41. Distribute Make content available for download Make content available through RSS feeds Pictures, video, facts Use the web’s free (or cheap) distribution Tubemogul – a single point to publish and monitor across Youtube, Metacafe, Vimeo, Myspace and more.

42. Monitor The conversation Feed subscribers Google analytics Twitter numbers But do not be a slave to statistics

43. www.slideshare.net/tomatom