introduction to social media for small business

This e-book was created by Beth Schillaci (VillageWorks) and Jessica Hibbard (Frederick Chamber) for conferences hosted by the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce on June 5, 2009 and February 5, 2010. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/

Intro to Social Media for Business

What is Social Media?Social Media ApplicationsGlossaryTwitter GlossarySetting up your Twitter accountSetting up your Facebook accountSetting up your LinkedIn account

This e-book was created by:

23467

1421

C H A M B E R

FREDERICK C H A M B E R

Making connections.

Distributed by Network Solutions

Beth SchillaciVillageWorks Communications, Inc.

Websites: villageworks.net, marketingroadhouse.comTwitter: @bethschillaci

Jessica HibbardFrederick County Chamber of Commerce

Website: frederickchamber.orgTwitter: @fredcochamber and @jesshibb

What is Social Media?

Those who are actively involved in their local Chamber of Commerce will find that social networking online is not unlike attending a business card exchange. The group that gathers is diverse, with many different goals and interests. It’s up to you to join conversations, look for new connections, search for people in different industries, build relationships, and share information about your product or service. Those who master the art of networking find that it contributes a great deal to their personal and professional success.

It’s not easy to define social media. Here’s what Wikipedia* has to say:

Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content. It is transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal and business. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are:

Google Groups (reference, social networking)Wikipedia (reference)MySpace & Facebook (social networking) Yelp.com (product reviews)FriendFeed (social network aggregation)Last.fm (personal music)YouTube (social networking and video sharing)Second Life (virtual reality)Flickr (photo sharing)Twitter (social networking and microblogging)

Social media are distinct from industrial (traditional) media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally require significant resources to publish information. Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license. One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people.

* Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

••••••••••


Social Media Applications

This list is not comprehensive, but is provided to illustrate the large number of applications available for different types of social media communication. Some, like Facebook and Twitter, have become household names with millions of users. Others are niche networks with smaller audiences.

Social Networks BeboBlackPlanetEonsFacebookFriendsterGoogle BuzzHi5LinkedInMy YearbookMySpaceOrkutPeftSpotTagged

Niche Networks

SlideShareScribdGoodreadsShelfariLast.fmBlip.fmPolanoid RSS Readers & Dashboards Google ReaderiGoogleMy Yahoo!NetvibesPageFlakes


Location BrightKiteDopplr FoursquareGowallaRallyUpTripItWhrrl

Bookmarking BlinkListDeliciousDiggDiigoDropJackFFFFoundGoogle BookmarkslinkaGoGoLive FavoritesPropellerRedditSegnaloSimpySpurlSquidooStumbleUponYahoo Bookmarks

Photosharing FlickrMobyPicturePhotobucketSmugmugTweetphotoTwitpic Video Sharing Blip.tvRevveruStreamViddlerVimeovMixYouTube Blogging & Microblogging BloggerDrupalFriendFeedIdenticaJaikuMoveable TypePlurkPosterousTumblrTwitterTypepad VoxWordPress

Glossary

Aggregation – Using a web application or program to retrieve news (syndication) feeds from other sources and combine them, potentially sorting them by date, title, author or topic.Avatar – A profile photo or image that help identify users. The images (usually small square format) often appear next to posts on blogs, web forums, Twitter, and other networks with status update features.Blog (short for Weblog) – An article published via a content management system or a software application to a specialized Web server to appear on the Internet. Blogs cover many topics, from political commentary to technical discussions to personal journals and even weather reports. The term “blog” also refers to a collection of such articles available from a given “blog site.” Most blogs are presented in chronological order and sorted by categories and tags.Blogroll – A linked list of bloggers that appear on a blog site, typical as a recommendation by the blogger of those bloggers he is most influenced by. Often displayed as a list of “friends,” “links,” or “recommended reading.”Bookmarking – Social network where users share and comment on web site links. Examples include del.icio.us, stumbleupon.com, and digg.com.Comments – A response posted to a blog article.Creative Commons – Customizable licenses designed for sharing artistic/cultural, educational, and scientific content. This tool, provided by creativecommons.org, gives authors (individuals and institutions) a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The Creative Commons licenses enable people to easily change their copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” The licenses defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright and the public domain, from all rights reserved to no rights reserved. Authors keep their copyright while allowing certain uses of their work, which is why it’s referred to as a “some rights reserved” copyright. Creative Commons licenses may be used on

any content, and are a built-in option for photos shared on Flickr and videos shared on Vimeo.Feeds (also called News Feed, Syndication Feed) – A document that contains both information about the provider of the feed and a collection of entries, each of which provides publishing information about a given blog or similar article, including summary and categorization information. Flickr – The largest photography social networking site on in the Internet. Flickr has more than 2 billion photographs online, with 3 million to 5 million new photographs added daily. Vancouver-based Ludicorp started the service in 2004, and Yahoo! acquired it in 2005.Forum – An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It is the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board. From a technological standpoint, online forums or discussion boards are web applications managing user-generated content.Instant Messaging – A system that allows instantaneous person-to-person conversations over a networkLinkedIn – One of the first business-oriented social networking companies, founded in 2002 and currently supporting more than 24 million registered users across 150 industries. LinkedIn takes advantage of the “six degrees of separation” concept first proposed by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, such that any given user is at most just six personal connections away from any other business person.Microblogging – A form of blogging involving very short messages (around 140 characters) that can inform people of instantaneous updates of content without creating full blogs. Twitter is perhaps the archetypal microblogging format, though competing services are also expanding the concept of microblogging by integrating file transfers and event invitations.Podcast / Vidcast / Vlog – A specialized form of blog post that points to a streaming media file instead of a Web page. Podcasts (audio files) take their name from the Apple iPod. Vidcasts or Vlogs are the video equivalent of podcasts


Post / Update – An individual blog article, photo, or video added to a blog, photostream, podcast, or vlog.Profile – A biography of a social network user. Often personalized with an avatar, other photos/images, text, and links to other personal web sites and social media profiles.RSS (Real Simple Syndication) – One of the earliest syndication feed formats. RSS actually describes a family of different formats, with the most recent being RSS 2.0.SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – The process of configuring Web content in order to gain the highest potential rankings for a given search engine. While early SEO systems involved simple keyword matches, SEO has evolved considerably, to the level of performing semantic searches on content, optimizing the specific layout of a page to make its terms more indexable, and using complex mathematical algorithms to better match anticipated search engine behaviors.SMS (Short Message Service) – A microblogging format devised for use with cellphones, though its use has expanded to other networks as well. SMS, or text messaging, makes it possible for both person-to-person communication and broadcast communication.Status / Status Update – A short message that usually answers the question “What are you doing right now?” Facebook and LinkedIn both allow users to post a status update, and Twitter is built solely upon the use of a 140-character status update to share information.Syndication – A syndication feed for a Web or blogging site contains recent changes (new articles, revisions to existing articles, additional media and so forth) that is read by a syndication client. A syndication client reads the feed and presents a list of the new and changed articles, frequently with publication information and abstracts, to the user of the feed, along with links to the actual articles themselves that the user can click on to load into their syndication viewer.

Glossary

Tags & Tagging – The process of adding categorical information (usually one word or simple two-word phrases) that identifies some aspect of a Web resource. For instance, a picture of a parakeet may include tags for “parakeet,” “bird,” “photograph,” and so forth. Tagging is used both for search engine optimization and for building Web navigation systems, and may either be fixed (the terms in a vocabulary don’t change) or dynamic (users or moderators can add terms to the vocabulary).URL Shortening – Use of an online service (such as tinyurl.com, bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly) to make a longer web site address shorter. This is especially useful when including a link in a Twitter update or other post where the number of characters is limited.Widget – a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. Sometimes called a gadget or badge. Web widgets are often created with DHTML, JavaScript, or Adobe Flash. Widgets often take the form of on-screen tools (clocks, event countdowns, auction-tickers, stock market tickers, flight arrival information, daily weather, etc.) and are frequently used on blogs, profile pages, and other social media sites that allow users to customize their page by adding code.Wiki – A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked (often database-indexed) web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and knowledge management systems.

GLOSSARy SOURCES: In Pictures: 30 Social Networking Terms You Should Know – http://www.forbes.comWikipedia – http://www.wikipedia.org


Twitter Glossary

Twitter – A microblogging platform created in 2005, where users send short (under 140 characters) messages--called Tweets--to subscribers of that user’s twitter feed.@ reply – A public message sent from one person to another, distinguished from normal updates by the @username prefix. If a message contains @username, it’s collected as a reply. Reply publicly to any update on Twitter by using the @username format. Following is not necessary to reply to someone, and all of your replies are visible in the @username tab in your home page sidebar. (Tweets with @username elsewhere in the tweet are also collected in your sidebar tab; tweets starting with @username are replies, and tweets with @username elsewhere are considered mentions.)DM (direct message) – Direct messages are private messages sent from one Twitter person to another. You can only send a direct message to a person who follows you. When you receive a direct message, it’s saved in your inbox, accessible from the Direct Message tab in the sidebar in your home page. You can set your preferences to notify you by email or SMS if you have a new message.Favorites – If you like a tweet and want to save it for viewing later, click the star at the end of the update to mark the update as a favorite. Other twitter users can view your favorites, and you theirs, by clicking on the Favorites link on the profile page.FollowFriday – A theme for posting on Twitter, where users recommend that their audience follow other Twitter users. To recommend a Twitter friend, write a tweet that includes their @username and the tag #followfriday or #ff.Follower – A Twitter user who subscribes to view your updates on their Twitter home page. Followers may also choose to receive your updates (tweets) on their mobile device, via SMS.Friend/Following – Following someone simply means receiving their Twitter updates. When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear in your

Twitter home page. New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so you always get the updates in real time. When you log in, you can see what the latest updates are. You can also choose to receive updates from individual friends on your mobile device, via SMS.Hashtag (#) – Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, YouTube, or a blog, only added inline to your update. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag. To find other tweets with the same hashtag, go to http://search.twitter.com and search for that word.Retweet / RT / via – RT is short for retweet, and indicates a re-posting of someone else’s tweet. This isn’t an official Twitter command or feature, but people add RT somewhere in a tweet to indicate that it’s something they’re re-posting and was originally authored by another person. When posting a link or information originally discovered through another Twitter user, a tweet is often followed by “via @username” as a way of giving credit. “Via” is often used when the text has been changed, whereas RT is usually a direct quote.Trend – The most popular topics on Twitter at any given time, listed under “Trending Topics” in the right hand column of your Twitter home page. Twitter recently introduced “Local Trending,” an option to filter trends by location, currently 6 countries and 15 metro areas.Tweet – An individual update message (maximum of 140 characters) posted by a twitter user. Used as a noun (“I just posted a tweet”) and a verb (“I’m going to tweet this link I just found.”)Tweeple / tweeps / twitterers – People who use Twitter.

GLOSSARy SOURCES: Twitter Support – http://help.twitter.com/portalTwitter Fan Wiki – http://twitter.pbworks.com


1. Go to http://twitter.com

2. Click on the “Sign up now” button to create an account.

Setting up your Twitter account


1. You can do a search for people you know and want to follow by searching for user name or full name.

2. You can also search for users by uploading your email address book.

3. If your contacts are not on Twitter, consider inviting them to join.

1. Use your real name in the Full Name box so that other Twitter users

can find you in a name search.

2. For the user name, you can use a company name or your own.


To change your password, click on the Password tab within the Settings section.

Set up your Profile by filling out entire form.

Link to your site or blog

This screen can

be found under

settings.

Add your bio or

description. Don’t

be overly

promotional.

Make sure this is unchecked.

You want your updates to be viewable by public for searching


To set up what kinds of notices you want to receive, click on the Notices tab within the Settings section.

To send and receive text messages to Twitter from your mobile phone, click on the Devices tab within the Settings section.


To personalize your profile’s design, click on the Design tab within the Settings section.

Note: you can create your own custom background and upload it to your account.

To add your photo to your profile, click on the Picture tab within the Settings section.

Note: it is recommended to use a photo of yourself rather than a logo to make the account more personal.


This is what your completed Profile page will look like to other Twitter members.

If you allowed a third-party access to your account, it will be found by clicking on the Connections tab within Settings.


Tour of your Twitter home pageWhere you enter yourstatus updates

Click to view any

tweets that mention

your user name

Direct/Privatemessages to You

Retweets

KeywordSearch

Current

trendingtopics

Retweets

Lists You built

Status updates

from people

you follow

Pre-conference suggestions:Set up your Twitter account, using the instructions provided. If you prefer to watch these steps in motion, try this Howcast video: http://www.howcast.com/videos/149055-How-To-Use-TwitterPost at least one update by answering the question “What are you doing?” or “What are you thinking about? If you’re not sure what to say, here’s a sample tweet you can use: “Signed up to attend #frednmt, a new media & technology conference hosted by @fredcochamber on February 5.”Try searching Twitter for conversations that interest you. Go to http://search.twitter.com and enter search terms. You can try searching for Frederick, business, #frednmt, or other keywords.For more in-depth information, visit http://business.twitter.com/twitter101 This “Twitter 101” guide is specifically intended for businesses.Follow the Chamber on Twitter. Go to http://twitter.com/fredcochamber and click “Follow.”

•

•

•

•

•


1. Go to http://www.facebook.com

2. Complete the form to create an account.

Note: If you’re married and use your spouse’s name, include your maiden name so people who knew you before you got married will be able to find you.

Setting up your Facebook account


Facebook will recommend some people you may know to friend.

Note: you may want to skip this step (lower right corner) until you have your profile set up.

Enter the security check words to finish registration.

Note: you are agreeing to their Terms of Service by clicking the Sign Up button.


An email confirmation will be sent to the email address you used in sign-up. Be sure to check your email to confirm your account.

Begin to create your profile by filling out the form with school and work information.

Use this to check for people in your email address book that may already be Facebook members

Note: you may want to skip this step (lower right corner) until you have your profile set up.


Set up your profile picture by either uploading an existing image from your computer or taking one via your webcam.

Based on your profile information, it will pull a list of people you know.


Another screen to use to find and connect with members.

1. Address book or upload contact file.

2. Search by name or browse a list of people from your school or company.

3. Find people from your Instant Messaging buddy list.

Welcome Screen Options

1. See if contacts in your address book are already members.

2. Search for people by name or email address.

3. Or finish up updating your profile before connecting.


Personal Information Form

Note: Again, add profile info that you want people to know about you.

Basic Information Form

Note: Complete with as much information as you want other people to know.


Work and School Information Form

Note: Any schools or companies you enter, will make your name available when people search on them.

Contact Information Form

Note: keep in mind who you will be connecting with as to whether to put home or work information.


Your Facebook Page

Your Profile info is here.

Type your status update here

Wall messages will appear here


Setting up your LinkedIn account

1. Go to http://www.linkedin.com

2. Complete the form to create an account.


Search your email address book to see which of your contacts are already on LinkedIn. You can skip this step if you want to wait until your profile is complete.

Start by setting up your professional profile with your current job.


You will need confirm your email address to activate your account.

You can invite people you know to also join LinkedIn.


LinkedIn will show you other users that share the same company you just entered into your professional profile.

Example of form to be filled out for each job/position you have held during your career.

From this screen you edit your profile.

Edit profile information by clicking on green +

Note: add as much information as possible in each section.

This tracks how

complete yourprofile is.

Guide to what

you still need to complete


Example of form to be filled out for each school/level of education you want to add to your profile.


Add past or present co-workers based on the companies you added to your profile

After finishing your profile and adding some connection, browse for groups to join to meet other people.

Note: Many schools and companies have alumni groups to join.

Pre-conference suggestions:Set up your LinkedIn account, using the instructions providedMake sure you list your current job title and employer so your clients, colleagues, and contacts can find youJoin the Chamber’s group. Go to http://www.linkedin.com/e/vgh/1232277

••

•


introduction to social media for small business

Technology

thefrederick

creative commons

creative commons

frederick

search engine

twitter home

email address

frederick