Getting reconnected with social media

Love this project and especially am impressed with the intergenerational approach. I have always felt that social media has the ability to make real change in how we interact with each other.

In regards to people who find themselves isolated, be they older, infirmed or simply physically distant, learning the basics of Twitter, Facebook or Blogging goes a long way towards having them connect to their family, friends and the world in general.

This is a very worthwhile project that I hope will be replicated everywhere.

Parkway Seniors 'Get Connected'

Use Your Facebook Fan Page in this CREATIVE WAY for Fresh Blog Content!

 via Angela Giles

Dipping into the Social Media pool.

I wrote my first blog just over a year ago.  The reason: to motivate me to write more and to share my thoughts with whoever would listen. I had just hopped onto the FaceBook and Twitter bandwagon and was picking up any information that I could about this new media 2.0.

Blogger made setting up a blog easy. This was great because I have absolutely no experience with setting up web pages - HTML might as well be hieroglyphics.  I wanted this site to be a personal magazine filled with articles I found interesting.  Among the assorted special interest essays, I intended to write "letters from the editor" personal postings to get things off my chest or to just have a whine outlet.


Surprisingly, I stuck to it and now I have another blog; newraycom that deals almost entirely with my new  social media and marketing.

I've become very passionate about social media in spite of having little marketing and no technical experience (I've never played a game of Dungeons & Dragons).

Yes, I've heard all the tedious comments about how Twitter was for people who wanted to broadcast their doughnut choices and Facebook users were friending everybody  to make up for being a such loser in High School.  To be honest, I was sleptical as well.  Contrary to how I may appear at a cocktail party, I am quite a private person.  I desserted Facebook a number of times before it and I became friends.

There's always a danger of backlash when anything gets too popular.  I remember people hating the Beatles, and look at poor Britney . And don't get me started about Disco.  There is such a buzz around social media that people, especially those who have no clue what it is, are digging  their heels in the sand resisting the mob mania.  That's a shame.

What inspires me most about social media is my feeling that it will have a profound impact on how we communicate with each other.   Reaching out to others by engaging with them in conversations and sharing with them news, ideas and support will filter down into our day to day relationships with family, friends and workers.

Social Media is a great democratizer, we all have the power to exchange tweets, blogs and news-feeds with whomever we want. There is only one rule; we must engage.  We must share, exchange and offer something interesting.  Hey, just like in the real world.

So now that I am immersing myself in this world, ( I'm even participating in my first social media seminar - The Social Media Success Summit 2010 - #smss10).   I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed though at the density of information coming at me.  I listen to podcasts while commuting to work, I dip regularly into the Twitter stream for whatever floats by, and I have subscribed to numerous RSS feeds on my Reader.  I haven't thrown myself into something so intensely since my early performing days when I spent hours at the library researching everything there was written or recorded about musical theatre. (Ask me any question about Sondheim or Fosse!)

 One concern I have is that from what I have been reading and hearing, social media seems to be all about marketing, SEO's & ROI's.  That could be because I have been listening to Marketing professionals who seem to be at the vanguard of this phenomenon. 

I find marketing very interesting. I'm a big fan of The Age of Persuasion and Six Pixels of Separation, but I'm a bit worried that I haven't come across much information relating to social media and the community.  How is it being used in charitable organizations; in the arts?  As far as politics is concerned, we saw how it was used in Obama's campaign, and the news worthiness of Twitter has been demonstrated over and over again.

It's place in everyday life, in our society, in our schools and workplaces is what I would like to learn more of as I embark on my Social Media career.  While I will be working with companies on building their Social Media strategies and explaining as persuasively as I can that organizations should be all over  social media, I also hope to assure people that once the social media hype deflates, we will be left with channels of communication that will make us a global village of neighbours chatting over our broadband  fences.

Facebook for Grownups- Are you Marketing with Social Media? « Jeffbullas's Blog

Facebook for Grownups- Are you Marketing with Social Media? « Jeffbullas's Blog

Facebook for Grownups- Are you Marketing with Social Media?

 

Still think Facebook is for kids and college students? According to O’Reilly Media (2009), over half of all Facebook users are out of college, and their numbers are growing each year. Why are so many adults getting on board? Well, while younger people are using Facebook primarily for socializing, the older crowd is using Facebook to market their businesses.
Facebook offers several tools for business promotion, and there are also a number of apps available that give Facebook marketers even more options. Facebook can create buzz and help you stay in touch with customers. If you’re interested in getting started, here’s a basic tutorial:

Profile Page
This is where you create your business profile. Enter information that will help people find you, based on what you want to promote. This is a good place to tag your page so that both consumers and the search engines can find you, so make sure you choose the correct category. Profile pages can generate a lot of page views, so make yours interesting!
Facebook Pages
Your Facebook Page is where you’ll post everything you want people to see- photos, news, videos, messages and any other information. Establish your brand presence on your page, and customize it with Flash, apps and relevant content. Anything you do here is broadcast to your fans, so they can get updates in real time.
Facebook Groups
Once you create your profile, you can build groups centered around people who share your interests. This creates awareness of your business and brand through conversations and interactions. Users can’t become fans with this feature, but you can communicate in a more personal way with members by sending messages to their inboxes.
Facebook Events
Facebook Events is a free application that you can use to promote events, such as parties, contests, upcoming sales and product launches. Each event gets its own page where fans can request invitations and sign up for notifications. Facebook marketers use Events to build a community of interested people who want to become involved.
Notes and Photos
These are applications that allow you to share blog posts and pictures. They offer a way to create branded content that helps your Facebook pages rank. Just be sure to stay away from salesy verbiage, and don’t spam people with a lot of company information or logos. You’ll maintain your credibility if you just stick with text and photos that are more educational in nature.
Another nice feature for marketers is the ability to tag photos and notes. If you want to bring them to the attention of certain people, you can tag them to be sent to those people.
Messages
Facebook Messages help you target your marketing efforts. You can look at it as an alternative to email. While it doesn’t have all of the functions and features of email, it does prevent spam by monitoring the volume of message sent to users.
Marketplace
The Facebook Marketplace is like a classified, or ad section. If you’re looking for goods or services or want to offer yours to fans and members, you can post your ads here. This has the potential to generate leads and sales by targeting people who are likely to be interested. All Marketplaces are tied to actual Facebook accounts, so you can see the profiles of all respondents.
News Feed
The Facebook News Feed gives your posts wide exposure by syndicating it, like an RSS feed. When a user joins your group, responds to an invitation, or engages you in any way, Facebook automatically adds that transaction to each user’s “mini feed” in the form of a “recent news” stream. This stream unifies all actions so that everyone can see what’s been going on with your business.
As you can see, there are many ways to market your business using Facebook. There are also a lot of useful apps available to anyone who wants to take advantage of Facebook to promote a product or service. The best way to learn is to get in there and play around with it to see what works for you. So, get started!
This is a guest post by Beth Hrusch who is Senior Editor at Interact Media, a content marketing software company