Social Media TechniquesYou Can Begin Using Tonight

Cindy Royal, Ph.D

Associate Professor

Texas State University

School of Journalism and Mass Communication

croyal@txstate.edu

www.cindyroyal.com

www.onthatnote.com

tech.cindyroyal.net

twitter.com/cindyroyal

facebook.com/cindyroyal

slideshare.net/clroyal

Goals for Social Media

• Networking• Connect with others who share similar

interests• Enhance tech skills• Enhance communication skills• Add to knowledge of career field• Develop a personal brand

Start a Blog

• Blogging allows you to explore your passion, improve writing skills, communicate with others who share your interest

• Explore the topic and become current, eventually an authority

• Blogger and Wordpress both allow you to add pages that make it more like a Website. Blogger is a bit simpler. WP more professional.

• Free; but pay for a custom domain

• Allows you to have a Web site without knowing how to make one

• Can customize via templates or CSS, if you know it

• You can add photos, video, links, other social features

• Tag posts with appropriate key terms to help others find your content

• Include a page with your resume

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn is the professional social network

• Your LinkedIn profile can connect you to thousands of professionals

• Search for connections at companies of interest

• Create a LinkedIn profile that reflects your interests and background much like a resume

• Include your Website on your LinkedIn profile

Facebook

• Facebook is a fun place to share with friends

• But remember, any friend can be a potential career contact

• Friend faculty and professional contacts, as long as you keep your Facebook activities professional and above board. Use privacy settings and friends lists carefully. As an alternate, subscribe to people, allow them to subscribe to you

• Get a custom url for your Facebook profile - facebook.com/username

• Start a Facebook Group or Page for your interest. This allows you to communicate with others who share the same interest.

• A Facebook Group is a listing of friends on a separate page, provides its own Wall, discussion, profile

• A Facebook Page allows users to become Fans. People will want to associate their interests with you

• Any time you have new content for your blog, post to Facebook

Twitter• Start a Twitter account; free & simple

• Microblog

• Twitter is not reciprocal, it's one-way; you can follow people who don't follow you and vice versa

• Follow interesting people. Some suggestions at the end of the presentation

• It's not as much about who follows you as who you follow

• Sometimes, it's not about the tweet, it's about the link

• Use RSS feeds and widgets to repurposeTwitter to your Web site or blog. New content all the time.

• Respond to questions

• Retweet interesting items

Twitter• Use a hashtag for conferences or conversations (#)

• Use a url shortener (bit.ly, tinyurl.com) for links, although most Twitter platforms now do this for you.

• Any time you have new content for your blog, Tweet it

• Realtime search

• Trending

• Find desktop and mobile applications to help you manage your Twitter account – TweetDeck, etc.

Photos• Join a photo sharing site like Flickr or Picasa

• Learn how to upload photos and create a slideshow

• Use the embed code from the slideshow or follow your blogs rules to embed it on your blog. Use HTML tab in blog form.

• Learn how to optimize photos for the Web via Photoshop or via a Web-based solution like webresizer.com

• Provide interesting captions to your photos that tell the story

YouTube

• Get an inexpensive camcorder or camera with video capabilities; most phones shoot video now

• Learn to use simple editing software like iMovie or Windows MovieMaker

• Interview people, have a talk show, do a video blog with commentary, make short films, be creative

• Embed the video on your blog. Embed code is readily available to the right of your videos on YouTube

• Your username becomes a channel

• Tag videos with appropriate keyterms to help others find your content

• Other sites, like Vimeo, Viddler

UStream.tv

• Push the envelope with live streaming video

• With a laptop and a Web cam (or camcorder connected to laptop), you can easily broadcast live from an event

• Easy to embed in your blog

• Show pages allow for audience to chat and comment on an episode

Go Mobile

• Get a smart phone and find apps that will allow you to expand your social media activities

• News apps help you stay in touch

• Twitter apps – allow you to Tweet when you are on the go.

• Qik and Ustream – live stream video from phone

Location-based social networks

• Foursquare (NYC) and Path (SF)

• Austin-based Gowalla, recently acquired by Facebook :-(

• Check-in at locations

• Share location, photos with friends

• Locations can provide incentives to users

• Encourage behaviors and reward customers, clients and fans

• Integration with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

• Set up trips

• Lots of potential for platform

The rest• Analytics – use Google Analytics or those associated with

your blog platform to get information about users, locations, link referrals, etc.

• Delicious – social bookmarks. Tag interesting articles, put in categories, share with others

• Slideshare.net – use to upload presentations and pdf's that you can embed on your site

• Google+ - social network from Google; organize friends in Circles, try Hangouts for video conferencing

• Pinterest – pin items you find on Web; organized visually

• Storify – makes it easy to tell stories with social media

• Klout – see how well you are doing on social media; compare to others

Tips• Integrate your social media; include links to social sites on

blog; make it easy for users to share your content• The biggest mistakes you can make are not trying, not

paying attention, not keeping up• Use social media as a platform to practice skills, demonstrate

a passion, draw attention to your work• Think about your personal brand; how do you want others to

perceive you?• Engage, don't just promote• Regular maintenance and updates• Must try tools on your own to understand how you might use

professionally• Pay attention to what others are doing, both personally and

professionally• Have fun; be creative• And, of course, clean up your personal spaces. Even if you

think something is private, it may not be.

Some Twitter follow recommendationsTX State faculty/recent gradstwitter.com/cindyroyaltwitter.com/dquacktwitter.com/jonzmikly twitter.com/mairalgtwitter.com/jacieyangtwitter.com/txst - that's the official txstate twitter

Professional Mediatwitter.com/nytimestwitter.com/mashabletwitter.com/smashingmagtwitter.com/techcrunchtwitter.com/statesmantwitter.com/universitystar

Other people/organizationstwitter.com/jeffjarvistwitter.com/jayrosen_nyutwitter.com/aejmctwitter.com/ojrtwitter.com/sxswitwitter.com/scobleizer

Resources SXSW Interactive Read Tech blogs like Mashable, Read Write Web,

TechCrunch, SmashingMag, 10,000 Words. Tech section of NY Times and FastCompany.com; Wired.

Cyberjournalist.net - Great Work Gallery - www.cyberjournalist.net/category/great-work-gallery

Online Journalism Awards - http://www.journalists.org/ Knight Digital Media Center -

www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org Online Journalism Review Archives - ojr.org We The Media by Dan Gillmor Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins The Long Tail and Free by Chris Anderson What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis Remix by Lawrence Lessig Editor & Publisher Awards Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication -

jcmc.indiana.edu