how to build an amazing social media presence

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How to build an amazing social media presence Social media, community and knowledge

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How to build an amazing social media presence

Social media, community and knowledge

Community

A group of people who share a commonality… a lived experience, a thought, a group of knowledge

Old definition vs new

Communities used to be tied to location primarily, with thought coming as a second.

Older thought communities: religious affiliation, universities, political parties

Information

Every community relies on information.

Information doesn’t make a community. Information is vastly interpretable.

How a community uses, applies, and builds upon its information is “knowledge”

Our tech community

Tech companies, investors, service providers, universities, colleges, community at large in Waterloo Region, tech associated companies and so much more

We have a broad audience so how do we build knowledge, and share information?

Knowledge

• Each group has its own interpretation of the same text

• Each group builds it’s own knowledge through lived interpretation

• Community cohesion assured through common basis of interpretation of information

• Information lived and synthesized into knowledge

Knowledge impossible without community

As we build communities, we need keepers of knowledge

Scribes to record information

Libraries, databases to store information

Elders, leaders to propagate knowledge

An entire community building more according to its circumstance

Without living through this…

You couldn’t fully understand this installation called “Blizzard”

My grandmother can tell me that this wasn’t romantic… just cold. And I can understand even though we now pay for the experience. Our knowledge has changed due to our lived experience.

So how to we make people understand this?

Impressive information, but if you can’t get it to an audience, and have them understand the importance of the information, your efforts are minimally useful.

Social Media

Communitech Twitter• A Twitter following of near 6k that reaches almost

500k organisations, companies, and people• Up to 300 retweets, and 800 mentions per week

on an average of 60 curated tweets by @communitech

• Reach growth happens often at a rate of 200-300% each week

• We add 50-100 new followers on average every week

• Supports all content, events, government announcements, partner news, and community associated with Waterloo Region tech ecosystem from startup to multinational and beyond

Communitech Facebook

• Almost 200 “likes”• A daily reach of 800 – 1300• Top referrer back to our website• 2 visits to Facebook renders a 1 - 1.5 click-

through back to Communitech.ca• Image based. Facebook bought Instagram for a

very specific reason• Sharing this page generates likes and refers back

to communitech.ca at a very high rate• Inception: Sept 1, 2012

We are a social media,

knowledge-leading

powerhouse

With social media, combined with events and in-person interaction

You can go from this… To this…

And get it to…

Community and Knowledge

• Who is your community?

• Communities have exclusions and inclusions, what are yours?

• How does your knowledge come about?

• How is it stored?

• How is it shared?

So who can make this happen?

YOU

YOU

Can support the Waterloo Region Tech Ecosystem

YOU Can support companies from startupsto multinationals and everything in between

YOUCan attract talent and get the word out about Waterloo Region as the best place to live, work and play.

YOUCan help to spread our news to the furthest reaches of the planet

HOW?

Twitter

Why 140 characters? Isn’t that short?

140 characters = a single text message

Your Personal Brand

Create a profile

Remember, this is your online digital identity –your personal brand

Choose a handle

Upload a picture

Write a short bio: contextualize your persona

Think of a tweet as a headline

A blurb, a blast, the gist. If it needs to be longer, blog about it and point to it with a tweet. Tweets that lead to content present the most user value.

A Headline – If it bleeds, it leads

The internet = lolcats and bad grammar

Amidst all the garble and the importance of cats to the internet, how can we take our information and bring it to relevance?

And if content is king…

Context is the master of the universe

Content?Pull marketing

Push marketing

Lead consistently to content :generate a reliable audience.

Expect feedback.

Learn to listen.

Learn what to share.

(Sometime Before Twitter)

Context

• Who are you and why does it matter?

• By nature of your workplace and your position, you are…. (seriously answer this)

• Waterloo Region is…

• Communitech is…

Who we are is built on this context. Our content is how we frame it.

A personal feed that supports your work

• Again, who are you and what do you do?

• What do you like to talk about?

• What will you not talk about (pretty important!)?

• What supports your career and your workplace?

• What stories can build all of this?

Build a feed - Curation

To be a curator, you need information.

1. Set someGoogle alerts

1. Trade secret: some of mine are “Waterloo Region Tech”, “Innovation Canada”, “Innovation Ontario”, “Communitech” and many more

2. Take note of other interesting news that pertains to what you do

3. Sort blogs into Google reader

4. Use these, and their headlines as twitter fodder

Use Twitter and other social media for information – Curate through thought leaders

1. Find thought leaders tweeting in your field

2. Follow those leaders

3. Watch how they tweet

4. Retweet what you find pertinent

5. If they retweet others often, let curiosity get the best of you and check out their profiles and feeds

6. Retweeting is what makes information go viral

Viral. We all want viral. Viral = Trend

This is where you come in.

So what isn’t good information• Try to reduce the noise. • Things like an average breakfast, or a midnight waking are mundane and

don’t enhance your brand.• Remember, what are you known for and how you want to project this.

What will you not talk about?

• Set this before you start tweeting

• Politics are fun, but do you want your feed to reflect this?

• Conversation is fun, but where does it become TMI?

• What are the corporate lines, if you are using your account personally and professionally?

140 Characters

X X X X

In 140 characters, you can establish context.

One of Hemingway’s best known stories was 6 words long: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn.“

Curate information and words to establish a cohesive brand.

Keep it pertinent

Use hashtags to organize information

Ok… this is confusing

@...? #...?Which one when?

Generate Hype

Who to follow?

Follow people who post content that interests you.Follow people who are inspirational.Follow people who you know.Follow people who you respect.

Who’s going to follow me?

The right people when you have a well curated feed.Don’t worry about this. Seriously.

The personal IS political

Avoid dealing with the elephant in the room by never putting him there

Avoid Mystery Meat

Avoid truncating words to fit more into a tweet. Stick to common short forms if necessary.

Avoid posting links without context. Tell people where a link leads.

Spam

Engage in discussion, but recognize when someone is instigating, try not to tweet back.

Most points on this slideshow

are 140 characters or

less

Express your opinion, but remember elephants

Humour goes a long way when appropriate

Personal brand – be free with who you are, you are likeable

Listen. Learn. Pause. Tweet.

Try to tweet sober.