Social Media Networking

1. Social Media Networking Loosely based on: The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web

2. First and foremost, It is networking • It is not about keeping score • It is not about what someone can do for you • “The way to get everything you want out of life is to help enough other people get what they want.” Zig Ziglar

3. Business Development - Marketing professionals say it’s a must • Why? • No matter what a business does, a digital conversation is happen about it. • Our choices are to be • Be involve • Bury our heads in the sand

4. What do we gain? • We make contacts • We influence the conversations • We control image • We control relevance of the negative

5. Must have a strategy based upon AMEC strategic plan • As a group or company it must be unified • Peoples use must support the company plan • Must set goals (SMART) S = SpecificM = MeasurableA = AttainableR = RealisticT = Timely

6. Potential Goals • Gain market intelligence • To minimize influence of competitors • To minimize detractors (reputation management) • Create public awareness • Establish relevance and / or become the thought leaders • Networking

7. Strategic Considerations • What is the target market? • What sites do the targets frequent? • What networks are they in? • What tools and services do they regularly use? • What content do they want or need?

8. Properly done this requires • Time • Creativity • Communications skills • Dedication to the task

9. So what is out there? As of August 2009 there were 99 different social networking sites with a multitude of different purposes with varying levels of skill required to use them.

10. Social Networks (Goals-Networking, intelligence, reputation management,..) • Myspace-started by musicians, music file friendly • Facebook-started by college students, allows link sharing but not music • Linked In-professionals, allows some file sharing, groups, event post and lots of widgets

11. Blogging (Goals-Thought leadership, public awareness, reputation management, …) • Various different available sites • Wordpress • Movabletype • Typepad • Sites range from free to expensive • Most use Wysywig editor to make user friendly and have RSS (really simple syndication) • Sites to find blogs (technorati and others)

12. Micro-blogging (Goals-networking, reputation management, …) Twitter is the primary miro-blogging format available.

13. News sites (Goals-networking, thought leadership,…) • News is posted by users • Usually stories rankings are based on • Hits • Votes • Most prominent sites: • Digg • Reddit • Mixx

14. Human Edited Sites (Goal-thought leadership) • People post answers and info for public use • Ability to post can be controlled • Some of sites review post for quality • Editor positions highly sought after • Site types include: • Yahoo answers • Wikipedia

15. Book Marking Sites (Goals-networking and thought leadership) • Delicious.com • StumbleUpon.com • Mento.com • Twine.com

16. Photo and Video Sharing (Goal-networking) • Flicker • Youtube • Photobucket Many more including pod cast sites

17. Things to Remember • Etiquette is critical • Each form and site has unique culture • Generally speaking • If you wouldn’t do it face to face DON’T • Altruism is important • Honesty about your purpose

18. Know the community • Know what they think is important • Learn the rules

19. Contribute consistently • Plan to give more than receive • BE GENUINE • Once it is out there, you know longer have control of it