In their book Groundswell – Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, the authors present the ‘Social Technologies Ladder’ model which classifies people according to how they use social technologies. This model is highly relevant to business owners who want to better understand their clients. The categories (Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives) are explained in brief in the presentation below. Social Technographics Explained
My focus, however, with 30 Days of Social Media is to help business owners become CREATORS. That is where I believe the biggest impact can be made and where you can establish your thought leadership, credibility and create the most results and enliven your business message. As a business owner you’re naturally a creator (though you may participate on other levels as you engage with different online spaces). You’ve already created an idea, a business, a concept, a proprietary piece of knowledge. Today I present you with some options for being a Creator. Some options will be more ‘natural’ to you than others. Social media tools enable us to create and publish, with relative ease. The challenge for you is to decide which one(s) you want to take on board and then you take steps to achieve some level of mastery at this medium.
A note of warning ;-). Just because a medium exists it doesn’t mean that it will be used well. Really look at what your strengths are and start there.
We WILL look at each one of these publishing vehicles in detail during 30 Days of Social Media. So, don’t get overwhelmed by the options… this post is designed to whet your appetite and start you thinking. At the Australian Businesswomen’s Network we’ve been playing with all these mediums and are still discovering what we’re best at. Words Social media (while it includes non-written communication) still uses mainly words. Whether you choose to blog, use Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or post articles you’ve written to your website or to article websites (and share them) a good understanding of writing for the web is essential. Writing for social media is not the same as writing a newsletter, a letter or even an email. It takes a different approach and traditional PR and corporate speak don’t work very well. I recommend you look at taking a course to better understand how to write of online mediums. If you’re in Australia check out Valerie Khoo’s Sydney Writer’s Centre for courses. Pictures A picture can be worth a thousand words if used well. Photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picasa can be a great asset to telling your business story, AND having your business activities/photos featured on a popular site is good for your website traffic. Aussie business Red Balloon Days uses Flickr to demonstrate the experiences to which they sell coupons. The ABN has started to use Flickr to showcase some of the member events we hold. The ability to tag/comment and share the photos allows us to spread our message. Sound Podcasts – are basically audio files that are shared and can be (optional) downloaded to allow you to share your thought leadership using interviews, presentations etc. The ability to load your podcast onto itunes gives you an international reach for free! If you’re game, you can also host your own ‘radio’ show using online portals like Blog Talk Radio. iphone application Audioboo lets you record and load audio files to the internet within minutes. (I’ve been playing with it this week and it’s great… but does require you to be good at single-take recordings, which can be tricky.) Video Vodcasts (video podcasts), YouTube and (if you’re really game) Ustream allow you to publish video content.
But, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. While shaky-cam is accepted in video publishing and often the best videos work because of the content rather than the production, this is a tricky medium to use professionally if you’re not a competent speaker or have super-unique content that makes the actual quality of the presentation forgivable. (Of course there’s more ways to do video than your face to camera – and we’ll discuss some of these other easy options in a future episode of 30 Days of Social Media).
Slides and Presentations Sites like Slideshare allow you to upload and share your PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Adobe PDF Portfolios. You can share these publicly or privately and you can add audio to make a webinar.
PUBLISHING AND SOCIAL NETWORKS
Social networks allow you to easily promote what you publish. You can easily link your social network profiles to your videos, photos, integrate pics into your Tweets and your Faceobook page, embed content onto your blog. There are many ways to make the most of the content you do publish. (I find this part the most exciting. I can create something once and distribute it many times!) TODAY’S TASK
- Choose one medium to get you started.
- Decide what you want to create using this medium.
- What is it? Tell us here.
(We will study each medium more closely over the coming days. You may be surprised how easy it is to adopt a new technology and integrate it into your marketing activity.) RESOURCES:
