Developing Social Media Strategy

"To develop a meaningful, engaging social media program, you need a methodology. You need to know why you’re active in social media, for whom you are active, and how success will be identified." (A quote from marketingprofs.com for my Webinar: Putting Why Before How: Seven Steps for Focusing Your Social Media Strategy, Presenter: Jason Baer.)

I enjoyed the Webinar format for a learning platform, because of the comment capability and exchange, instant gratification for getting your questions answered, and current ideas. The presentation shared some great insights on social media ("It's not a conversation. It's where the conversation takes place.") and provided some unique perspectives on designing a business case for social media. Here's my take on what was shared along with a few questions of wonder...

First Perspective: Reason first. Use tools last.

Interesting because didn't we do this in reverse? Although I mostly agree with this general idea, you do also have to be aware of what tools are out there, so that you do know how to accomplish your goals. Provided in the Webinar was a link to the Conversation Prism, which shows a wheel of current Web tools by categories, such as wikis, livecasting, video, social networks and more!

Second Perspective: Learn how your audience uses social media.

Fascinating because I don't recall us spending any time talking about how students use social media. Do you? We did receive statistics that students are using social media. We also received information on how social media is being used in the class. But did we discuss how students use social media? Are they creating social media, or just listening to conversations, or participating in it by chatting, or are they critiquing others' work, or are they a mixed user? I am very interested in learning more about this, and that's why I found this profiling tool from Forrester Research, Inc. to be intriguing. It's set up for companies, and has an 18-24 age group, which is fairly close to high school. In it the females are mostly spectators and joiners, whereas the male, although high in spectators as well, increase in the areas of creators and collectors. Fascinating! I wonder what our Web tools' class profile would be?



Third Perspective: Take your social media offline.

We continued to push our content online this course. But this brought out another important point, which our text referred to, what are you doing around your Web technology to ensure effective learning?

The course, although valuable, added even more questions...Plus, I think I'd like to try creating a Webinar.