What is Social Media

What are Social Media and Social Networks? By Howard Greenstein Co-Founder, Social Media Club And Sr. Director, Non-Degree Programs in Management, NYU SCPS (CC) 2006 By Howard Greenstein - Non-Commercial, Attribute, Share alike -Some Rights Reserved Objectives for this presentation • Show a little about how can you take advantage of Social Media to support your business activities. • Answer your questions, with the panel Why learn about Social Media? • Social Media is the “commons” for the 21st century. • You no longer have to rely on „the media‟ to pass your message to your customers because YOU are now the media. How many people have passed along... • • • • • An email? An article from an online newspaper? An emailed Joke? A funny video clip? A web site or a link? Definition of Social Media • Social media are the forms of media where people come to share their ideas, interests, passions, and opinions, and give people the ability to share the message with others. • Social Media are created by “the users” - interaction is possible and interaction can make the content more valuable. What are some examples of Social Media Sites? • YouTube  Sold to Google for $1.42 Billion Dollars -obviously someone thinks there‟s money in homemade videos. • My Space  > 80 Million users  The new way music gets discovered • Flickr  Photo site - users share with exactly who they want to share and form groups around interests.  Bought by Yahoo >$50MM • LinkedIn  Social Network with 8 Million users. Business is facilitated as users connect other users. What do these sites have in common? They’re all about communication. They allow people to express themselves They ALLOW CONNECTION with the content, and with each other. The content of these sites is VIRAL. It passes from person to person. Let’s talk about business and marketing in the past.. Now your customers... • Talk with each other Teach each other Tell Each Other Stories about what they care about Tell Stories? • Probably the oldest form of learning/sharing of information • Effective way to pass along information • The original “Word of Mouth” marketing • It is a form of Informal Learning (see the book Informal Learning by Jay Cross, published Nov. 2006) The Cluetrain Manifesto --As in “Get a Clue” 1. Markets are Conversations 2. Your customers are already talking about your products and services 3. You can join the conversation or ignore it (at your peril) • http://www.cluetrain.org/ -The Cluetrain Manifesto - The End of Business As Usual was a 1999 business classic which has proven to be incredibly prescient about the world of 2006 So, now we know • Social Media is changing things. • Customers are out there, talking about your products and services without you. It is time for you to join them. Listen to them. Speak to them as they wish to be spoken to. How can you listen? • Google Alerts  A “Stored” search. Everytime someone makes a web page that matches your search, and Google indexes it, you get an email. • http://www.google.com/alerts • Net News reader     Google Reader http://www.google.com/reader/ MY Yahoo Reader http://my.yahoo.com/ News readers rely on RSS It is a way to “subscribe” to content you care about, just like subscribing to a newspaper. Picture of an RSS Reader Blog Bridge Don’t just listen - Create Your Own Stories to pass on! • Messages through newer media  Web, Podcasts, Weblogs, Email, • Messages from Person to Person  The oldest method around! • Search Magic!  Blogs often get higher rankings than other content. The secret is links. Having people like your content, quote it elsewhere, point to you, has value. Your pointing to others has value too. Create a Blog to publish stuff you care about • Example: Nancy Shenker‟s OnSwitch Blog  Something about a single topic, like “gift bags” at events, about once a week.  Blogspot - Blogger - like a word processor on a web page. • Publishes your content in chronological order • Can be a reason for people to come to your website - fresh content on a regular basis  People can also subscribe to your blog and get the content delivered to them like a newspaper Social Networks • Social Networks are a form of social media • The more people participating, the more valuable the network.  Reed‟s Law: The value of the network increases LOGRYTHMICALLY as people are added to the network. (Tell your friends). Social Networking • Definition of a Social Networking Site according to researcher (and friend) Danah Boyd: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/200 6/11/10/social_network_1.html • A 'social network site' is a category of websites with profiles, semi-persistent public commentary on the profile, and a traversable publicly articulated social network displayed in relation to the profile. • An example of this is http://www.myspace.com, http://www.linkedin.com/ My Space is the new place for Bands • For several years now, bands have made their songs available for people to try (and buy) • Fans can show their affiliation • Fans pass on songs to friends • One band who has “made it” - Clap Hands Say Yeah Notice the IPOD Has its own Profile Page on MySpace Some of my top friends MySpace Promotion Marketing Example: • BORAT movie promotion with MySpace  Add Borat to your MySpace Page as one of your Top 8 Friends  INSERT PICTURE HERE  People who did that got special invites for prescreening  Those people went, watched the movie, told their friends about it before it came out. Media represents Opportunity • Proper use of media allows expression of the message to the many • This can be many constituencies • Embrace media as a tool for your benefit, to assist in getting the word out • Social Media is a different animal than traditional media - you can‟t „control the message‟ - you have to participate as part of the community. Call to Action • Things you can try:  Visit MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, if you haven‟t already. Don‟t just look at the media, check the comments, the links, Join the site.  Get a News Reader and Subscribe to some sites.  Create a free blog and practice using it  Join a social network like Linked In. Invite your friends (they may already be there.)  Ask for help if you need it. Contact me! Final Thought “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” -- A.J. LIEBLING Contact and Reference • Howard Greenstein  Howard aSocialMediaClub.com • Books:  The Cluetrain Manifesto - http://www.cluetrain.org/  Naked Conversations - The site is the http://Red Couch.typepad.com (don‟t go to “NakedConversations.com” at work! ) • Meetings:  Social Media Club • http://www.socialmediaclub.com/  NY Technology Meetup • http://newtech.meetup.com  New York Software Industry Association • http://www.nysia.org/ Additional Slides • Extra material for you to learn more stuff. • Some content created by my friend Dean Landsman - www.land-com-net What is a Podcast? • Podcast is a portmanteau, a made-up word … from a combination of the words iPod and broadcast. It refers to an Internet feed of audio or video files that people can download individually, or subscribe to in order to receive the automatic delivery of new "episodes" to their computer for playback there or on their portable media player (e.g., MP3 players, iPods, some cell phones, and other devices). - WIKIPEDIA Creating a Podcast- If you can leave a voicemail... • You can create the very simplest podcast in 5 easy steps.  You need: a Telephone and Service to record the phone call (as an example, we‟ll use Hipcast.com) 1. Call number: 1 415 xxx 2. Enter my telephone # and Passcode: **** 3. Wait for the beep. Record. Press the # key to finish. Done. Voila. 4. Your podcast is published to your web site. 5. There is no step 5. Podcasts are a powerful form of social media • Your own radio station, or cd player • Available whenever • Available where ever More about Podcasting • How do I get a podcast? • How do you do a Very Simple podcast? Getting Podcasts via iTunes QuickTime™ and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are neede d to see this picture. How do I get a Podcast? Using the technology of RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, a person can use a program (such as iTunes, Juice (iPodder.org), or many of the “News Reader” programs to automatically check for new episodes and download them for listening or copying to a digital player. Podcasts used to share best experiences • Examples:     Stories of microfinance projects Patterns of uplift Stories of uplift Stories of growth Web Media Collaborative Tools • Wikis can serve as a town meeting, a conference space, an ongoing conversation. Anyone can participate, on equal ground. “Edit this page” can be standard, neutral, the norm. • Blogs, with comments (moderated!) offer opinions, observations, news reports and threaded discussion. Web buzz is a great tool! • Bloggers, newspapers, news channels cover your story • Links extend and offer exponential growth • Then comes RSS feeds, from your site and the ones that cover your story Word of Mouth – The Oldest Medium • Use the web and your existing network (people you know, your community, your resources and allies) to everyone‟s benefit • Editors & Producers seek material • Talk is not cheap – talk is valuable • Viral marketing builds buzz; buzz is selfreplicating Take Charge! • Media is at your fingertips on the web. Tools abound for creating podcasts, web pages, and for sharing data, file transfer, instant messaging and conferences. • Mainstream Media pays attention to the web. • RSS, e-mail alerts, social skills, and perseverance –along with some savvy- can have “the media” working with you to help spread the word. Clarifying a myth • Do you need an iPod to listen to podcasts?  No, you can use any computer with a sound card. In Iraq soldiers are downloading podcasts at base terminals and copying them to floppy disks or usb keys, and playing them back on non-networked computers where they sleep.  You can also use any portable media player  Podcasts are audio files. If you have a CD burner you can make audio CDs of podcasts and play them in any CD player -my 9 year old car CD player does just fine.  There are some companies offering ability to listen to podcasts via cell phone. Clarifying some techie mumbo jumbo • Most podcasts are created as audio files. These files are typically compressed with the MP3 encoder to take up less space • Podcasts can also be Video. Many are created to run on Macs or PCs via Quicktime or AVI - in other words, most modern PCs and Macs can play them. Listen or Create? • You can contribute just by listening, and sharing the stories with friends or relevant communities • Or, you can jump in and contribute! A Very Simple, ComputerBased Podcast  Screen shot of Audacity QuickTime™ and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are neede d to see this picture. Audacity • An open source audio recording program • Runs on Mac, PC, Linux • Needs only a microphone (built-in or external) • Can save files as MP3 using the open source “LAME” extension What do you do with it, after you’ve recorded it? • We‟ve created a site • We can help you learn to upload • Once it is on our site, anyone can access it. Merge old Media & new • Web sites are quoted in newspapers • Blogs and wikis exponentially extend messages • Sound bites follow podcasts or blog posts • RSS feeds enable updated data and content to be delivered, as though they were personal press releases for you, automatically