social media primer: facebook and twitter

Just what am I supposed to do?

Yes, so? I’ve opened my account, what now?

• Create a personal profile• Join and participate in groups• Join and participate in pages• Start your own group or page

Personal Profiles• DO

– Use a photo– Connect with family and friends– Create categories of friends– Set your privacy settings– Be conscientious about what you share– Create a custom URL at www.facebook.com/username

• DON’T– Answer set-up questions you aren’t comfortable with– Connect with people you don’t know

www.facebook.com

Find friends. Categorize friends.

Be as private as you want.

There are friends. And then there are friends.

Claim your name:www.facebook.com/username

Facebook Groups• DO– Search for groups based on • Common interests• Geography

• DON’T– Post comments that will come back to haunt you

Menomonie area groups

Facebook Pages• DO– Become a fan of pages

• Brands you know and trust• A new way to receive news• Receive advance notice of sales and promotions• Receive special discounts just for Facebook fans

• DON’T– Post comments that will come back to haunt you

Menomonie area pages

News, events, promos

Launch your own page or group• DO– Make sure you have authority to launch the group or page– Promote the site wherever/whenever possible– Create a custom URL once you hit 100 fans at

www.facebook.com/username (pages only)

• DON’T– Give away your personal profile password to other site

administrators

www.facebook.com/uwstout

www.facebook.com/mymenomonie

• It’s not about sharing what you are doing• It’s about conversations• It’s about sharing resources

• DO– Create a user name you can live with

• If you are branding yourself, use the same user name as your Facebook account (or other social media)

– Do use your photo or logo– Find local tweeps using Twellow– Find topics of interest using Twitter search– Follow back those that follow you (and interest you)

• DON’T– Spam or direct sell

www.twellow.com

http://search.twitter.com

Only you see Twitter home page

Everyone sees your profile page

Provide value and conversations

• Common terms– Hashtags (use # symbol in front of topic; makes search easier)

– Direct message (use “DM” in front of @username to send a private message to “username”)

– Retweet (use “RT” in front of @username to give someone credit when you share their original tweet with your followers)

– @replies (on your home page, click @yourname to find all mentions of you on Twitter)

– Tweetbeep.com is a free e-mail alert service when you want to find mentions of a certain word or phrase

• URL shorteners– http://tinyurl.com– http://bitly.com– http://3ly.com

Twestions?

JoinSocial Media Club

Menomonie

Contact

Laura ShortUniversity Relations Specialist

shortl@uwstout.eduhttp://www.facebook.com/laura.short1

http://twitter.com/laurashorthttp://www.slideshare.net/shortdigs