Welcome to Social Media

How to facebook, link, and tweet your way around the web

What is social media?

A quick web search yielded the following definitions:

• A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content and interaction

• An Internet-based tool that allows the reader to engage with the writer or with a community online and in public

Examples• Social Networking Sites

• LinkedIn• Facebook • Bebo• MySpace

• social bookmarking• Del.icio.us• Digg • StumbleUpon

• social news sites• Digg • Reddit

Does this sound like foreign language?All of these sites are centered on user interaction

How can social media be used for Council work?

• Educate & Inform • Send info about upcoming events• Updates / news/ helpful links/ resources • Network • Free way to have a “web site” with easy and fast

updating capabilities

Word of caution: Social media can be a part of the mix, but not your sole focus

when trying to engage your audience.

Why is this important for Councils?

According to numbers from Nielsen Online in early 2010, users are spending an average of 5 hours, 46 minutes on facebook per month. To put that in perspective, that’s triple the amount of time they spend on Google.

Why it may work for Early Childhood Councils

• Engage your fans, members/stakeholders, and other service professionals

• Enable Council members or stakeholders to communicate with one another

• Provide a place on line where accurate info about your Council can be found

• Post events, discussions, polls, and gather feedback (data anyone?)

What might not be so good

• Could create duplication of info that can be found on your website

• Council members/ Stakeholders can provide positive and negative feedback, so it should be monitored (more work)

• TMI- sometimes we are already at our capacity with messaging

2010 Pop Quiz: Text Jargon

- BRB

- G2G

- MYOB

- CUL8R

- PIR

- BTW

- LOL

- ;)

- BFF

- OMG- ?4U

- B4

How to create a Facebook Page

• Warnings: – Do not create a person page for your Council– Do not use your personal email address

Creating a facebook page

• Use Council email address

• Create account on facebook with that email address

• Log in to your account and create a profile

The Gunnison Hinsdale ECC Facebook Page

Creating a Facebook page

• Scroll down to advertising • Click on pages• Specify what type of

business you’re trying to promote (this will help users find and identify you)

• Enter the name of your business and click Create Page

FAQ (frequently asked questions)Do you know the answer???

• Do people know when I look at their profiles?

FAQ (frequently asked questions)Do you know the answer???

• Do people know when I look at their profiles?

• What do I do with “Friend Requests” that I don’t want to accept?

FAQ (frequently asked questions)Do you know the answer???

• Do people know when I look at their profiles?

• What do I do with “Friend Requests” that I don’t want to accept?

• I keep getting Invites for those “app thingies” and I don’t know if I should accept them…

A Tweet About Twitter

Twitter allows people to engage in real-time sharing. Whenever a Twitter member has something interesting to share, he or she blasts out some text, 140 characters or less, that everyone who is “following” him or her has the option to see. What differentiates Twitter from Facebook is its extreme simplicity and single focus on real-time exchange of ideas.

Popular uses of Twitter

• Friends (and anyone else) can find out the info that you are sharing at any given time and visa versa

• Link sharing for web sites and news

• Short opinions about current events

• Enabling people to meet up when two people are out and about at the same time.

Linking your Facebook Page to Twitter

• Facebook will prompt you once you have started a page to link to twitter.