It’s Change of Venue Day, so I thought I would share some of my odder ramblings. These are just a few of the notes I jotted down as I prepared for a panel presentation on social media. If they don’t make sense, all I can say in my defense is, I think I said it better than I wrote it.
Have a great weekend.
- My skill level is low, but my willingness to risk failure is high.
- Social media is the land of the unpolished but often genuine experience. And if that’s true, it’s perfect for us association types.
- Too much time is spent developing a social media policy, rather than thinking of ways to use these channels. Who can imagine a company in 1980 insisting that a committee be convened to draft new voluminous “Fax policies” before they buy their first fax machine?
- It’s fun. It’s challenging. And it gives me the monthly opportunity to scoop others.
- Roam widely, but with a local angle/target.
- Stop thinking of social media as anything except a new channel.
- Twitter is not just about what people had for lunch.
- Each channel is nothing more than an alternative story form. You wouldn’t refuse to ever have photo essays, or to include sidebars, or charts. Social media is just a new channel that might fit particular content well.
- Perhaps the problem is the title: Many of us are not super-social, so the phrase “social media” seems jarring. Maybe there should be cocktails.
- Speaking of cocktails: Another editor told me that if he attended a 2-hour party and got 1-2 connections/leads out of it, he chalked it up as a success. But if gets the same result out of 2 hours in social media, he feels it’s a waste of time. What does that mean?
- Be fearless. Learn by trying. A mistake scrolls away very quickly.
- It’s rapidly becoming not acceptable to have two-way conversations in real life but one-way communication in e-news. Social media may empower your membership.
- Here’s what’s not true: “If I wait this out, this stupid trend will go away.” But this is not about the particular channel—which probably will go away or morph into something else—it is about learning a new habit, new ways to provide value as a multiple-lane street.
- Social media should be valuable not just for your publication and association. It should be valuable to you too. Join groups, get ideas.
- When I decided to have fun, the readers began to have fun too.
June 25, 2010 at 7:04 pm
What is always a good point to convince the techtards, is the volumes we are talking about, and the diversity in it, and it’s DAILY growth. A company, for example, using Google alone, can hit a potential “NEW” interest pool in the millions; with Google techniques alone. So, with the proper search friendly rationale, a topnotch cyber-social-mediast could basically be going to a digital after hours bytetail party where there is 100,000 people, lol. And all of them heard what you just said! Even an amateur, with an innovative spark, can go to mini-parties with 10,000 people a week. It takes time, but soon it will be another world, for those who learn to love it, and millions are.
June 25, 2010 at 7:52 pm
I’ll give a good tip also, there are hundreds of other social media outlets. One thing you will find, is that anything you are interested in, someone else is as well, and they have been broadcasting it longer, with good knowledge, probably for years now. These people exist in any interest or specialization you may concieve, and a network works around them and others like them. Tip: Pick something you want to know more about, or something you know a lot about, and share and recieve knowledge. Social networks and forums, blogs and free webs are great free places where people interact, globally.