Media Emerging

I’m delighted to be teaming up with Lori Ives-Godwin of Your Community Connector on a series of social media workshops for Charlotte’s holistic community. Your Community Connector is sponsoring four mini bootcamps beginning in November:

• Facebook for Your Business
• Twitter for Your Business
• Beyond Facebook and Twitter: Other Social Media Tools for Your Business
• It’s Not About the Tools…It’s About People

Each workshop is $25 per person. The first classes are Nov. 11 and 18 at Unity of Charlotte on Arrowood Rd. Dates and times for the other two classes are still TBD. We’re working on venues to offer the workshops in Uptown Charlotte and North Charlotte, too.

Here’s a quick overview:

Facebook for Your Business

Wednesday, November 11, 7-9 p.m.

Facebook offers powerful tools to spread the word about your company and engage your customers in compelling new ways.

In this session, you’ll learn how to create a Facebook Page for your business. You’ll come away with tips to grow your audience and connect in ways you never thought possible.

We’ll answer your most pressing questions, such as:

• Why do I need a Facebook Page?
• How do I create a Page for my business?
• How do I gain more Facebook Fans?
• How do I get my audience to spread the word for me?
• What is good content?
• How do I convert fans into customers?
• I have fans…now what?

Register for Facebook for Your Business.

Twitter for Your Business

Wednesday, November 18, 7-9 p.m.

Everybody’s talking about Twitter! You’ve heard what it can do, now learn “hands on” how to makeTwitter work for you.

In this session, you’ll learn how to get started with Twitter, how to grow an audience, and how to tap into your online community and grow your business.

You’ll learn invaluable “how to” lessons, such as how to:

• Create an effective Twitter account
• Use Twitter more efficiently and save time
• Find people who are interested in your business
• Use Twitter on your mobile phone
• Monitor public Twitter conversations for topics of interest to you
• Learn more about your followers and customers
• Send out links and useful resources to your audience
• Analyze your Tweets to see what your readers care about

Register for Twitter for Your Business.

Beyond Facebook and Twitter:
Other Social Media Tools for Your Business

Date and Time TBD

The social web is bigger than Facebook and Twitter. There are countless tools that make it easy to share your message with the world. Interacting directly with your target audience has never been easier

In this session, we’ll discuss social media you may not currently be using, such as blogging, photo/video sharing sites like YouTube, social bookmarking, online reviews and more. You’ll learn about:

• Why listening first is so important
• How to tell if blogging is right for you
• How to discover where your audience hangs out online
• Becoming part of an online community
• How to integrate new tools into your social media mix
• When it’s okay to automate social media and when it’s not

Register for Beyond Facebook and Twitter.

It’s Not About the Tools…It’s About the People

Date and Time TBD

You’ve learned about Facebook and Twitter. You’re considering a blog. Now learn why being a “social business” means more than using the tools.

In this session, you’ll learn how to create a social media game plan. We’ll discuss marketing vs. customer service, when it’s okay to sell, and how to influence people online.

We’ll cover the following topics:

• Creating content? Sharing content? What is your content strategy and why does it matter?
• Why ridiculous generosity trumps always asking for money
• Why a well-written, well-designed website is more important than ever
• How to create a strong call-to-action
• Defining success
• Staying motivated over the long haul
• …and more!

Register for It’s Not About the Tools…It’s About the People

Sharing good content is a heckuva smart social media strategy. But how do you share a blog post or article with audiences scattered across multiple networks?

I post content directly from Google Reader to Delicious, Friendfeed and Twitter in a single motion. The step-by-step configuration instructions are below, but first read these five reasons not to automate your social media program.

Back? Good.

Step 1: Configure Google Reader to Share to Delicious

Google recently added a “Share To” option that lets you customize which networks you want to share content to. The feature lets you share content from your feed reader to a dozen sites like Twitter, Friendfeed, Delicious, Posterous and more.

Click “Settings” in the upper right corner, then click the “Share To” tab. Add whichever sites you’d like, but for this exercise, be sure to add the social bookmarking site Delicious.

Step 2: Configure Friendfeed to Pull Bookmarks from Delicious

Like other “lifestreaming” or “aggregation” sites, Friendfeed lets you pull in your activity from across the social web, including Facebook, Amazon, Flickr, YouTube, music (Pandora, etc.), comments (via Disqus, BackType, etc.) and more. You can pull in activity from nearly 60 sites.

Click on “Settings” in the upper right corner, then click “add/edit” in the Services section. Again, select whichever sites you’d like to add, being sure to add Delicious.

Step 3: Configure Friendfeed to “cc” Twitter

Click on “Settings” again, then click “Twitter publishing preferences.” Make sure “Post my Friendfeed entries to Twitter by default” is checked, then select which of your social activities you’d like Friendfeed to push to Twitter. Again, keep an eye on Delicious.

Step 4: Use Google Reader’s “Send to Delicious” Button

With steps 1-3 complete, you can now send a post from Google Reader to Delicious. It will be pulled into Friendfeed, which in turn pushes it out to Twitter.

HERE’S AN IMPORTANT TIP: When you bookmark an item to Delicious, pay careful attention to these two points:

• Include “by @author” in the title (change ‘author’ to the appropriate Twitter handle). This way they’ll get an @mention when it hits Twitter.
• Keep the headline to about 100 characters to allow room on Twitter for the URL and ReTweets.

Why This Works

The “5 Reasons Not to Automate” post notwithstanding, this is useful for many reasons. Each service in the chain meets a different need. For me, Google Reader is for finding content, Twitter is where I build relationships, Delicious is for saving articles I’ll use later in seminars and workshops, and Friendfeed is for conversations that require more than 140 characters.

You can use this approach with other tools — your blog, for instance. Just be sure to remember the human element. Relationships aren’t built with automation.