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Among his achievements in the business world: He won
two fellowships to the Poynter Institute in
St. Petersburg, Florida, for publication design and
media ethics studies; was one of 12 UC-Berkeley
Digital Journalism Fellows in 2003; and in 2004,
founded Insider, a free weekly for 20-somethings
in Rochester.
In addition to teaching, speaking, and writing
about journalism, public relations and advertising
copywriting, he has a passion for social media
and how they are changing all forms of
communication.
Take it away, Mike.
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Okay, folks.
I am hoping you can hear me loud and clear.
The technology here is not originally as envisaged
but I'm sure will do just fine.
So welcome to the webinar.
Thank you for your patience.
I want to get right into it here, if I can advance
the slides.
Okay.
Let's try this.
Okay.
If we can advance the slides.
All right.
Okay.
Isn't this great?
I work at an institute of technology, and I'm
challenged by technology every day.
Isn't that a great thing?
All right.
You've heard enough about me.
Probably don't want to hear anymore.
I'd like to start with a cartoon, just as something
to think about.
It's one of my favorites.
It's something I know most students don't think
about, that social media is both the great social
experiment and also the thing that can get you in
a lot of trouble.
What we hope today is to teach you a lot of stuff
about how social media can be helpful and also how
you can stay out of trouble.
All right.
So let's start with you.
And whether you realize it or not, you are surrounded
by this web of things called social media, and
really, it's sort of a question of do you feel
that you're afraid to go near some of these things?
Do you feel trapped in this web of things?
Have you started doing a few things and feel like
you might be stuck, like the unfortunate fly?
Hopefully a few things you hear today will help.
So let's see.
We move the slide.
There we go.
All right.
Getting caught up.
This is Section 1.
Again, we will take questions at the end of
each section.
So first, let's look at what we know about what's
happened.
In the 20th Century, it was probably the century
in communication that really defined the few
controlling the message to the masses.
The 21st Century, however, has become the masses
controlling the media, and social media is a big part
of that.
So what's changed?
Well, in a nutshell, what's changed is that the
power has gone from corporations and
governments essentially to consumers and voters.
Essentially, anyone can have a say.
We are -- the term I like to use -- and perhaps I'm
going - you're going to get used to this.
Perhaps it's annoying.
I apologize.
I'm going to start giving you buzzword alerts.
So the first buzzword alert -- woot-woot-woot -
is that -- the term hyper-communication.
We're really in an age of hyper-communication.
We are, some would say, overconnected to each
other.
In this day and age, you can connect with anyone,
anywhere.
That, in my personal opinion, is a fabulous
thing.
But of course, you know, that does mean that the
days when a few unhappy customers for a product,
for example, probably could tell a few of their
friends they were unhappy, and that would be the end
of it.
Today, those few unhappy customers can start a
tidal wave of opinion on social media, something
businesses should be very aware of.
So also I'm talking about, you know, the days of a
few disenfranchised voters being able to sort of
gather people around an idea in the cartoon there
about what happened in Egypt, where protesters
essentially were able to use Facebook and Twitter
to build a consensus among people that it was time
for change.
Perhaps most importantly, the days when a few
skilled communiques were able to sort of not
necessarily manipulate but control the message are
long gone, and that loss of control for
governments, brands, individuals is palpable
and, for some, quite frightening.
There is good news, though, and there's a lot
of it.
That's what I'd sort of like to focus on.
Because we are in this age of hyper-communication,
think about it.
You can literally be connected to anyone on the
planet.
I mean, how cool is that?
Before social media, would I ever have been able to
virtually meet and have an online conversation with
someone like Ellen DeGeneres or basketball
great, Shaquille O'Neal?
And I've done both.
And, you know, maybe that's my 15 minutes of
fame, and I'm okay with that.
But to actually interact with these people, ask
them questions, get them to answer my questions,
that's pretty darn cool.
Before social media, there were so many barriers to
reaching out to business giants that a teacher like
myself would never have the opportunity of getting
a top CEO into the classroom.
But through social media, I meet these people, get
to know them, they get to know me, and when I ask if
they're willing to Skype into a class, the answer
usually is yes.
That's a very cool thing.
Through my connections on Twitter and LinkedIn, I've
had the top people at Ford Motor Company, Dunn and
Bradstreet, and CEOs of only slightly smaller
companies come right into my classroom because of
connections made on social media.
And just think about this.
Before social media, when you wanted to travel, you
probably had to deal with one of those really
annoying 1-800 numbers where you're on hold
forever being told how important your business
was while you sit there for 20 minutes.
But just recently, I had to book an overseas trip,
and so I used Twitter to reach out to the airline I
was going to travel on.
I had a very specific need.
I wanted to cash in on a special, but I wanted to
keep the return date open.
Via Twitter, I was able to get a special number I
could call for customer service, and they were
able to take care of me.
And the whole transaction was done in less than 30
minutes.
I defy you to say that that could have been done
before social media.
Of course, it does mean other things.
So social media is -- can be problematic for large
companies and brands.
So as some of you may have heard the story of
Canadian musician Dave Carroll, but I'd like to
share it because it is illustrative of what can
happen if you're not careful.
But in a nutshell, during a trip on United Airlines
in 2008, Dave Carroll, a member of the band Sons of
Maxwell, was on the plane when one of the other
passengers sort of cried out in alarm that the
baggage handlers were tossing guitar cases and
not catching them.
They witnessed his case being tossed and dropped
by United baggage handlers.
When arrived at his destination, his guitar,
of course, was broken.
And he tried for a year every means he could think
of, email, showing up in person, letters to the
CEO, any way he could think of to reach out to
United and ask for compensation.
They ignored him, Dave Carroll.
What did Dave do?
Well, he's a songwriter, so he wrote this great
little song called "United Breaks Guitars."
He did a little video, which is quite funny if
you want to catch it on YouTube some time, and
released it in July of 2009.
Within days -- four days, I believe -- it had
something like 3 million views within four days.
In those same four days, United Airlines' stock
price dropped 10 percent.
That represented $180 million of value of United
just disappeared because one unhappy customer wrote
a song.
Now, that video, as you can see from the slide
there, is now up to over 13 million views.
It's that good.
You probably should check it out.
And it's been shared on every social network.
It spawned a book.
Dave Carroll's become far more of a celebrity than
he probably would have -- with all due respect --
based on his musical talent.
And - by some estimates, some -- some analysts say
it's still continuing to cost United millions of
dollars a year.
But this is an extreme example, but it is very
much a real example of what can happen if a brand
chooses to ignore an unhappy customer in this
day and age of hyper-connectivity,
hyper-communication.
What does this mean for business professionals
generally and, perhaps, communication and other
professionals specifically?
Frankly, it means a return to democratic
communication.
What do I mean by that?
Well, we all have to be a lot more careful about
what we say and do because it can and sometimes will
show up anywhere and everywhere.
But that doesn't mean hiding under a rock.
It doesn't mean being the turtle and pulling your
head back into the shell.
In fact, that's the exact opposite of what you
should be doing.
And what I hope today is to show you ways that you
can be very public and very open and how social
media can actually help you.
So the most successful companies today are those
who are open and transparent, and social
media is great at helping with that.
And here's another buzzword alert.
What I am hoping to persuade you to do is to
be -- woot-woot-woot -- that's the buzzword alert.
I am hoping that you'll be publicly human.
And by publicly human, as a company, you will be
seen as being approachable and somebody that people
will like and want to do business with.
There we go.
So how do you be publicly human?
Well, like the cartoon says, theoretically,
anyway, on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
So think about that.
If a dog were smart enough -- and you're probably all
familiar with the experiment, give 10,000
monkeys a typewriter, one of them will write a
novel.
But truthfully, being publicly human on the
Internet is something you can discern pretty
readily.
I mean, look at any company that has a social
media presence.
Look at any individual.
This is how they are being publicly human.
They are being present.
They're in the moment.
They are there frequently.
They're being transparent.
They're being honest and open, and they're being
themselves.
They're displaying a little bit of personality.
They're being human and not being the auto --
automaton corporate voice.
So why would you want to do that?
Well, frankly, you do all of this, and I'm afraid
this is one more buzzword alert -- woot-woot-woot --
to build up social capital.
Now, social capital is the goodwill that you, as an
individual, or you, as a company, can build up over
time so that in the event that something goes wrong
-- and occasionally things go wrong -- people will
not only be understanding, but they will rush to your
defense.
Now, when things are going badly and others are
rushing to your defense publicly, how great is
that?
So who does this work for?
Well, it works for everyone.
So, how do you get started?
Well, in a nutshell - and we're coming up to some
questions very quickly.
And I'm throwing a lot of stuff at you, and I
apologize.
And if I'm speaking far too quickly, please put
something in the message area.
First off, you'd want to pick just a few networks.
And I'm here to tell you that you don't have to be
all over the Web.
But just pick a few networks.
Just pick the one or two or three, or maybe even
four -- go as far as four if you have the time and
the bandwidth -- that will work for you.
So it's important that you participate.
But what networks are going to work for you?
If you primarily want to keep up with trends in
your industry, connect with others, and even
explore career options, you should definitely get
on LinkedIn.
And I don't buy this theory that if your boss
sees that you're on LinkedIn, they think you
can't wait to leave.
Frankly, your boss is probably on LinkedIn too.
There are all kinds of good reasons to be on
LinkedIn other than looking for another job.
If you want to get news and information updates in
real-time, you should get on Twitter.
As a former newspaper guy, I can tell you that
nothing is better than following the right people
on Twitter and having news coming to you in an
instant.
It's a great news feed.
So you get on Twitter, follow a few people that
are good suppliers of news and information, writing,
sharing tweets on topics that you care about,
you'll find it very useful.
>> If you like the newsiness of Twitter and
the sorting capabilities of Facebook, then Google+
might be a good choice.
It's sort of like on steroids.
The content can be longer form.
The great thing about Google+ is you can
organize people into circles.
It's also because it's a Google product that
integrates with your Gmail.
It integrates with your blog.
It integrates with everything.
Of course, we're soon to be living on planet
Google, so why not jump on the bus?
And then last but not least, I would encourage
you to think about blogging.
If you want to establish yourself as an expert --
and here's, I think, what's going to be one of
our last buzzword alerts -- woot-woot-woot -- and
establish yourself as a thought leader, then
blogging really is something you should
really look into.
There are plenty of free platforms out there.
And, really, if you find a niche to blog on to help
show off your expertise, it's a great way that
other people, who you don't even know, might be
interested in doing business with you or
connecting with you professionally will find
you.
They will find your blog and search.
So you're probably wondering.
You didn't mention Facebook.
Well, I know it's the largest social network on
the planet, and I have to confess a bias here.
I do like Facebook, but I find it's most useful to
keep in touch with people I really know, the people
I've interacted with personally, friends and
family.
It's really not a place for me to connect for
anything else.
I have yet to meet someone who said they went to
Facebook to buy something, or they went to Facebook
to look to buy something or buy services or get
help for something.
Even to network, it's not a great networking
platform, although it is trying.
So Facebook is great.
I'm sorry, I just don't think it has a lot of
applications for professional purposes.
But now, how can I keep up with all these social
networks and all the new ones coming along?
No, you can't.
No, really, I mean it.
You cannot keep up with all of them, so please
don't try.
But there are three sites I'm mentioning here that
might be helpful, Mashable, Social Media
Today, and Alltop/SocialMedia.
They're sort of aggregators of news in and
around social media.
You can follow one, follow all three.
You'll quickly figure out the sort of rhythm of how
they publish content, but what's going on, these are
the best places to find out.
So we have another slide coming up, but first I
think we might have questions.
What do you say, Talya?
Do we have questions?
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: We do have questions coming
through.
The first one I'll give you is from Susan.
And Susan wants to know if you have a favorite social
media site.
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: I do.
It's Twitter.
And that's probably the old news guy in me who
can't help but want to know what's going on.
I love Twitter for that.
And I have gotten somewhat adept at organizing
Twitter.
It can be a little confusing to start with,
and some people will say, oh, I'm following about 20
people, and this one person shows up all the
time, and I don't really like seeing that person
showing up all the time.
And my answer is, well, follow a lot more people.
The more people you follow, the less likely
that one annoying person will show up in the feed.
But there are a lot of good tools.
You can organize Twitter.
I have lists, for example.
I have an RIT list.
I have a Rochester list.
I have a New Zealand list, my home country, so I can
see what people are saying and what's going on.
And I love that feature of Twitter.
It's also a way for me to share things that I think
might be valuable to other people, and because I
share a lot of material around social media, I've
gained over the years -- and I think I just passed
my fifth anniversary on Twitter -- a lot of
followers who see me as a good source of news around
social media.
And that's kind of a neat thing, a sort of building
this community.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: Right.
The next question is from Kyle, and Kyle asks: Do
you think it's actually helpful to you for job
hunting when people recommend you for skills
on LinkedIn?
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Yes, absolutely.
A recommendation on LinkedIn is a very
valuable thing on a couple of fronts.
One is if you choose, it can be very public, so
anyone snooping around, creeping on your profile
on LinkedIn, sees that you are being recommended for
something.
It also helps in all these various social and online
influence-measuring tools.
Now, I have mixed feelings about these
influence-measuring tools.
I think they have a long way to go.
But right now, one of the metrics they're measuring
on LinkedIn is how many recommendations you have
from people who have the same keywords associated
or same skill sets associated with the area
that you are currently working in.
So recommendations carry a lot of value.
Another thing that LinkedIn offers is
endorsements.
It's a little bit like a Facebook "like." And you
can collect hundreds of those things.
They're probably not as valuable.
So one thing I recommend to students is that you
should go out, as soon as you can, and find a few
recommendations, actual people who are willing to
write a few sentences down and recommend you for some
skill.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: All right.
Another question came in from Don.
Don wants to know is there a good site to set up a
free or low-cost company blog?
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Oh, yeah, there's plenty
actually.
Blogger is one platform.
It's a Google product now so it integrates well with
Google.
It doesn't give you very many design options.
WordPress is, by far, the most popular.
You can take the free version, and then
eventually, you can upgrade to the paid
version.
And all kinds of companies actually exist only on a
WordPress blog.
You might be surprised to know, for example, that
Huffington Post, a very successful operation, is
essentially a WordPress blog.
Eventually, if you get to that level, of course, you
can make money as a blog or a blog aggregator.
So those are the two most popular platforms.
And they start out - they're both free, but
WordPress does a much more sophisticated job if
you're willing to pay a few bucks.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: All right, Mike, we'll do one
more question.
This is from Mark.
Can you give an example of a company that best
exemplifies incorporating an effective social media
strategy into their marketing and customer
engagement?
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Yes, and I have to declare a
bias here.
I'm a big fan of Scott Monte and what he does at
Ford Motor Company worldwide, and I think
Ford does an excellent job.
They have a regular full-blown marketing
operation, of course, but what they do with social
is they integrate that into it, and their social
is everything from having presences on key social
networks to doing outreach to very specific groups of
people.
So two summers ago, I think it was, they reached
out to a group of mommy bloggers, very popular
group, and offered to give a new at the time Ford
Taurus back into the market, maybe it was three
years ago, and just give it to them for a month and
tell them to travel wherever they wanted to
and all of -- Ford picking up the expenses and with
no strings attached.
So what -- what they did was they got this pair of
moms who essentially got a Ford Taurus and took off
on this trip around America, and they blogged
about it.
And they got huge following.
And the -- the -- the number of people -- of
course, there's not a straight line from someone
reading a mommy blog about a Ford Taurus to someone
walking into a dealership and buying one, but they
do believe that increased sales by more 20 percent
in that first year than what they anticipated.
Another thing they did was they loaned out Ford
Fiestas.
I think this was four years now, loaned out 500
of them and basically told people have fun with them.
And, of course, that led to a big explosion on the
social web of people talking about things like
the Ford Fiesta and the kind of fun things you can
do in Ford Fiesta.
So I am a big fan of what Ford does.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: Mike, we have several more
questions that have come through, but why don't we
move on to Section 2, and then we'll filter those
questions as we go along.
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Sounds good.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: Take it away.
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: All right.
Hopefully everyone's wide awake there.
I know -- I know my voice can put people to sleep.
I've seen it in the classroom.
Kidding, Of course.
All right, which brings us to Section 2 of the
webinar.
And, again, we'll take questions at the end.
So social media and the blurring of the lines
between work and professional or personal
life -- excuse me -- and personal life, you know,
what does it mean?
And frankly, what's this thing called a "personal
brand"?
So we'll get to all of that.
So there are debates all over the Web about whether
you should have multiple social media presences so
that you can separate the professional from the
personal.
Let me say from the outset that I think this debate
is a complete waste of time.
Think about your Internet activities as a stroll
through a village; let's say in medieval times.
I know I am taking you to a weird place on a
lunchtime on Thursday, but just imagine this medieval
village - there's a little Bruegel painting up there
to sort of get you in the mood.
If you were in a village square back in these days,
you didn't walk through the village square saying,
I'm here today to be this person, just to -- to
watch, or I'm here today just to sell something, or
I'm here today just to buy something.
No, you were just you.
And that's really the key.
Online, on social media, whatever you do, you are
you.
And you might be showing off one facet.
You might be representing in a sense your company.
And in another sense, you might just be you.
I think it's very important that people
understand that you interact in social media
online as you first, and if -- and I see a couple
of questions popping up in the Q&A regarding law
firms and so forth.
You may be in a highly regulated industry, but
you're still you, and you can still say things like,
hey, I'd love to give you advice on that, but I
can't do it on the Internet because I'm in a
highly regulated industry, and for me to give legal
advice on the social Web might be a mistake.
You can still be you.
So it really is important that you -- you be
yourself first and think about what you would like
to find when you go into this virtual online
Internet village square.
You want people to be genuine.
So how does it work?
For individuals, it's pretty simple.
Be yourself, you know, or keep calm and be yourself,
as the image says.
You should only be on the networks that you enjoy
and have time for.
I mean, it seems obvious, but I can tell you, I know
so many people that feel like have to be on
LinkedIn, and they really don't like it.
They really don't understand it, but they
have to be on it.
Now, that just doesn't make any sense because if
you have to be on it, you're probably not going
to pay attention to it, and then, of course,
you're not going to be present on it, which is
one of the three things you need to be.
You should talk naturally.
You should talk as though you are face-to-face with
a person.
You should be helpful.
Be kind.
Be forgiving.
I can't tell you how important it is to be
forgiving because, remember, you are dealing
usually in written communication, so lots of
signals about people's real intent behind their
words are not there.
Give them the benefit of the doubt.
And last but not least, you really should not be
selling or promoting anything unless you're
invited to do so.
The fastest way to lose an audience or not get an
audience is do what a lot of small businesses do.
They set up on social media, and they start
talking about themselves and only about themselves
all the time and all the great deals they offer and
how happy their customers are.
They might as well go sit on a rock in the middle of
one of the great lakes with a megaphone and just
see how many people pay attention.
It's a complete waste of time.
For business, it gets a little trickier.
You really have to pick one of the two approaches.
So like the dude there walking in his business
suit pant leg and dress shoe or his jeans and his
high-tops, it can be a little trickier.
So your two choices are you can have a person
represent your brand.
There's a face of the company on social network.
And if you want to see a great example of this, I
would point you to Jennifer Sizni at Kodak,
an RIT alum, who does a great job doing this.
It's her personality.
It's her face that represents Kodak online.
The advantages are that you, you know, you have a
very human person representing the company,
and that personality comes through, and you feel like
you are interacting with a real person.
The disadvantage, of course, is if that person
ever leaves your company, you may have to start over
so the good and the bad.
The alternative approach is to have sort of the
profession-based, all-business online
presence.
In other words, it's the voice of the company.
It's sort of faceless.
You use the company logo for your advertise.
Now, the advantage of this is anyone in the
organization with the right training can take a
turn managing the account.
It can look very professional.
And the activity can be very planned.
Of course, the downside is it can seem not very
spontaneous, and that lack of human voice, the lack
of the human look can actually be offputting to
some people.
And it almost assures that the growth of people who
will follow and interact with you will be a lot
slower.
So does social media blur the lines between the
personal and the work world?
Absolutely.
The little graphic up there -- and I apologize
if you have to magnify it to see it -- but
basically, it's explaining why people go online to
make social connections.
You'll see that the absolute last reason, at
12.8 percent, I think it is, is that people go
online to make connections for shopping, for business
reasons.
It's the last thing they're there for.
So therefore, as a company, you have to be
online and be social for all the other reasons
people are there.
If they like you, if they're interested, they
will ask.
So having said all that, I have one sort of final
recommendation for businesses particularly --
and for people too.
There really is no wrong way to do social media.
If you're being yourself, if you're being genuine,
if you make a mistake, be honest.
We made a mistake.
We probably shouldn't have sent that message.
We're so sorry.
If you talk and interact on social media the way
you would with other people if you are
face-to-face, you really can't go wrong, but one
area that many people may not have considered in
terms of how you act online is this thing --
whoops, I apologize, one more buzzword alert --
woot-woot -- this thing called the personal brand.
If you don't know that you have a personal brand,
I've got news for you.
You do.
If you are online anywhere, you have a
personal brand.
So what is a personal brand?
Well, in a nutshell, it's the accumulated image that
people have of you - I'm sorry.
I'm getting all confused here on my slide.
It's the accumulated image that people form about
you.
Now, once upon a time, that personal brand
existed in the heads of only people you had ever
met or interacted with maybe by a letter or a
phone call.
It was a relatively small pool of people.
It possibly was a few hundred people in a
lifetime, maybe a few thousand if you were an
important CEO.
Today, that pool of people can be in the tens or
hundreds of thousands.
And your personal brand exists online whether you
know it or not.
So what does this mean?
Well, if you want to know what your own personal
brand is, I challenge you to regularly Google your
own name, and you will see on the slide there that if
I Google Mike Johansson, it looks like I'm a pretty
big deal, right, because the first four results are
me.
But that's just Google trying to sort of suck up
to me, and it's what they call semantic search.
It's serving up the results that Google thinks
I want.
If you pay attention to that weird arrow, you'll
see there's a little goldish, brownish-colored
oblong shape there highlighting a toggle
button.
On the left is a personal result button.
On the right I'm global.
If you want to see what the world sees about you,
you should toggle over and click on the global icon.
That's what the world sees when they search on your
name.
And what the world sees, frankly, is, in this day
and age, your personal brand is essentially what
Google says you are.
Whatever shows up on a Google search, that is
you.
That is your personal brand.
Now, one thing to think about with this is, you
know, what does this mean?
Well, you should be searching your name on a
regular basis, probably at least monthly, just to see
what is showing up.
Over time, you'll notice things move up; things
move down.
You'll see a pattern to it.
You'll very quickly notice changes.
You want to do this because if something
unfortunate shows up against your name, you
don't want it to be the thing that 94 percent of
recruiters say the first thing they do when they
get a cover letter or resume is they go and do a
Google search.
It's the way the world is these days.
So your personal brand means you have an online
reputation.
What should you worry about?
Well, we don't have time to get into that.
Frankly, that's another whole webinar, and we're
sort of short on time here.
I believe this -- these slides, this deck, will be
available to you.
But there are three links there to three blog posts
I wrote earlier in the year about how to deal
with your online reputation.
There are also companies that provide services.
Brand Yourself does a lot of free work.
You can upgrade by paying.
Qnary is another one that's free.
Reputation.com, if you want to spend some serious
money and there's a serious blot on your name
online, they will help you bury it.
You really can't get rid of stuff online; you can
only bury it.
All right.
So I think we're coming up here on questions.
What do you say, Talya?
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: All right.
Well, I'd like to say woot-woot just to be part
of your buzzword vocals.
Let me just give you a question that we have
alluded to from Joshua.
And Joshua wants to know when using LinkedIn as a
marketing tool, especially in the more industrial
market segment, you are encouraged to join
discussions and interact with others using your
personal account.
I'm a bit reluctant to do this.
Maybe you have some input.
And there was a similar question at some point
about Facebook and having a personal Facebook and
having people at work want to become friends on
Facebook.
So can you -- can you speak to those a little
bit more?
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Sure.
Well, in terms of LinkedIn, I'm not quite
sure where the reluctance would come from since
LinkedIn really is a professional networking
social network.
So really, when you're on LinkedIn, you are your
professional self.
And so I'm not quite sure where that reluctance
comes from.
Frankly, you'd want to join in discussions.
You want to interact with others at the very least
because you'd be surprised how many times other
people have great ideas for how you can do your
job better or give you a heads-up on a conference
that you might attend or a free white paper that you
can download or a webinar you can listen to.
Being hyper-connected like this to other people in
your industry is pretty darn cool.
You can literally connect to thousands of other
people that do the same thing you do around the
world.
That would not have been possible just a few years
ago.
In terms of Facebook, as I say, that's a little
different.
Facebook, I personally use it for just personal
connections, and I tend to just ignore friend
requests from people I really don't know that
well.
And that's my personal choice.
I know some people will accept all connections.
Then you really have to get very comfortable using
the Facebook tool about controlling what you share
and who you're sharing it with.
If you're comfortable doing that and want to
take the time to do that, have at it.
I don't know that I'd recommend having two
accounts.
It probably means you're paying less attention to
each of them than you should, and a person
finding one of the accounts thinks that
you're, quote/unquote, not really present on that
account.
So I hope that answers your question.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: And we'll just do one more.
This is from Lisa.
How important is it to have unique content,
versus passing along existing content and
links?
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Great question.
In fact, we just covered that in a class I just
finished up called "Session Media Marketing
for Communication."
So what you're talking about is creating content
and curating content, creating, versus curating.
And I think in terms of being a professional and
being recognized as an individual, you should do
a combination of both.
The creating demonstrates what you know and the
value you can add on a given topic.
Curating also says, look, I'm -- I find this other
great stuff, and I'm willing to share it.
If you do this well and find your own balance --
and it depends on your industry.
It depends on your time commitment, but if you do
both well, you're going to find more and more people
looking to you as a source of expertise, whether it's
something you've created or something you've
curated.
That's a great question.
All right.
Let's move on.
I'm going to try to keep it within the time limit,
even though we had a slightly late start.
All right.
So how do you stay ahead of the changes that social
media is sure to bring?
Well, there really is no way to stay truly ahead of
it.
The best you can probably hope for is sort of body
surfing the tide, if you like.
To quote Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City
College of New York, who wrote a great book -- and
if you're interested, you should check it out.
I think it's only a Kindle book called "Gutenberg,
the Geek."
If you graduated from RIT, the term "geek" probably
is not offensive to you all.
Wear it with pride.
Anyway, "Gutenberg the Geek."
In this book, he says, quote, I believe the
Internet could prove to be as momentous an invention,
as profound a platform, as the printing press.
He goes on to say that that power shift from
corporations and government back to
individuals that the printing press began has
been accelerated by social media.
So really, the point is you can't get all the
benefits of social media without being in social
media.
And keeping up really is impossible, but if you're
in it, you're going to find that you're at least
surfing that wave.
All right.
So for individuals, a few things you can do.
First, have a plan.
You want to decide on which platforms are going
to work for you and when you're going to be on
them.
And this doesn't require a lot of planning because
then it's sort of disingenuous, but if, for
example, you want to be on Twitter, you want people
to know that you are on there on a regular basis.
Twitter is really all about being in the moment.
And if you're only going to be on Twitter once a
week, what are the chances you're really going to
interact with or seem to be useful to anyone else.
So Twitter, for example, you probably want to be on
it at least daily.
You also want to think about picking your social
style.
How are you going to be on social media?
So for example, on LinkedIn, I try to be the
helpful person and professional.
On Twitter, I try to be a bit more personable, so I
share information about social media, but I also
might equally tweet out something I find
interesting or cool about RIT or Rochester, the
place I live.
So pick your social style.
You should also set some realistic goals.
I mean, what are your goals for being on social
media?
At the very least, it should be to interact with
other people who can help you and,
vise versa of course, whom you can help in the
future.
That's the value of being on social.
And again, I popped up those three sites,
Mashable, Social Media Today, and
Alltop/SocialMedia is really three of the best
places to start learning about what you might want
to do.
For businesses, again, you really do have to have a
plan.
It's said that the social web is littered with
websites that somebody started because we have to
be on Facebook or we have to be on Google+, and you
can see the posting lasted for two weeks and then
just stopped two years ago.
That's just sad.
You should really take those presences down
because it basically tells the world that you jumped
in lemming-like and then really decided not for us.
So the number one thing to think about is ensure that
social media fits into the overall business plan.
A big mistake a lot of businesses, frankly, make
is they think that social media can be this
cure-all, this silver bullet, to help with
marketing.
We don't have a budget for marketing anymore.
Let's use social media.
Frankly, social media will never work on its own.
It really needs to work as part of an overall plan.
For businesses, you also want to have a standard
operating procedure, or an SOP, for social.
You want to write things down.
How will we, as a company, appear to the world on
social?
How will -- how often will we post?
How will we react when people criticize us?
You'd want to consider training, mentorships.
Most cities in America have social media clubs.
There's a national organization called the
Social Media Club, and here in Rochester, the
Social Media Club of Rochester, and it's a
monthly networking, and it's a great way to find
people who may be ahead of you or even behind you in
social media and try and figure out a mentoring
relationship.
That can be good for everybody.
I know I have done this for a few small companies,
and what I got out of it is I learned a lot about
what they were struggling with in social media, and
it helped me better help my clients in my business
outside of RIT.
You should consider hiring expertise for specific
areas of need.
If you specifically want to get up and running on a
blog, consider hiring someone that has that
expertise.
There are experts all over the place.
And if you need help, I'm going to have my contact
information at the end.
I'll be happy to sort of point you in the direction
of where you might find some of these people.
And there's a few must-dos.
People don't often think about these.
I mean, there's literally hundreds, but I tried to
boil it down to just a few key ones.
Your social tactics should be platform-agnostic
wherever possible.
And by that I mean don't think about something
you're going to specifically do on Twitter
but never do on Facebook.
That just doesn't make sense.
You know, as a brand or as a person, you really are
the same thing, the same person.
You should be open to modifying tactics based on
success.
In other words, give things time enough to
prove their worth and then ditch them or do more of
them if they are successful.
Be very cautious about spreading yourself too
thin.
A best practice is start with one platform and get
it down, get it running so smoothly, you're seeing
success, you're doing well, add one more.
Get that running smoothly.
Do it well.
Add one more.
A steppingstone approach is, by far, the best.
And take a few risks.
Honestly, think of this, the social web, the
analogy is used a lot, is the cocktail party.
If you walk into the cocktail party, grab
something to drink, and stand in a corner, how
much fun is that going to be?
No, you should walk up to a few people that you have
no idea who they are, what their background is, ask
some questions or listen in on a conversation.
It's really how social is at its best.
All right.
So I think so we are bringing it home.
We're doing it on time.
Any more questions, Talya?
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: Why don't we do two quick
ones?
So I know, Mike, you spoke about your opinions of
Facebook.
But what's your opinion of Facebook business pages,
if someone is going to use Facebook for business?
That comes from Martha.
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: I think they have their place, and
there's some good analytics you can run
around them so that you can actually see what's
working and what's not working.
I think Facebook is absolutely a great
advertising platform.
For example, if you have a Facebook business page and
you get into their pay-per-click advertising,
it is so hyper-targeted.
I hear nothing but good things.
I know from my own experience that the
pay-per-click campaigns on Facebook are a great value
for the money because you can drill down to an
audience that's really small, really targeted,
and you're only paying to reach the exact people you
want to reach.
So I think there's all kinds of good things that
you can do that way on Facebook.
What I don't hear a lot of is people saying that
they're getting a lot of actual business from
Facebook.
So having the presence, being there, having it as
a place to interact, great.
In terms of actually getting business once they
get to a Facebook business page, I think it's more of
a -- it's more of the shop window, if you like.
This is -- this is who we are.
This is what we're about.
This is what we do.
Come on inside.
Have a way for them to get from there to your actual
website, where you can do some business.
I just don't know that people finding people on
Facebook necessarily whip out the wallet and want to
do business in the moment.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: All right.
We're going to have a follow-up on Joshua's
question when we -- when he asked about using his
personal LinkedIn account, and the follow-up is his
reluctance -- reluctancy to use his personal
account because he does consulting and has his own
business.
And there's a concern that he's constantly promoting
or advertising the company he works for on Facebook
and LinkedIn, he feels he might lose the attention
of his personal following.
How do you -- how do you make that the perfect
cocktail there?
>> MIKE JOHANSSON: Well, it's a good question.
I think it's sort of the balance I do myself all
the time.
I teach here at RIT.
I'm very pro-RIT, and a lot of what I talk about.
But I also have a social media consultancy outside
of RIT.
And, frankly, I'm just very transparent.
I just say to people I'm wearing my social media
consultancy hat now, and this is -- this is what I
think about this.
And then people seem to be forgiving; they seem to
understand that I'm not necessarily speaking as a
person that happens to teach at RIT.
So that juggling, as long as you're transparent, I
think people will be very forgiving.
It's when you're try to do both and not being clear
about which hat you are wearing in the moment that
people would be annoyed and perhaps stop following
or not want to connect with you.
>> TALYA MEYEROWITZ: Well, that's all the time we
have for questions today.
Any additional questions or questions that we did
not have time to answer can be mailed to
ritalum@RIT.edu or to Mike's email address,
which you will see on your screen now.
Questions can also be tweeted to us with the
hashtag meRITwebinars, and we will direct your
questions to Mike.
Note that all participants will receive an email from
us in the next few days with a link to today's
webinar's recording.
Thank you so much, Mike Johansson, for being our
distinguished professor today.
We hope you enjoyed hearing from Mike as much
as we did.
And most of all, a big thank you to all our RIT
alumni on the webinar today, and thanks for
joining us.
We thank you for taking the time out of your busy
workday to be with us.
Please consider joining us for Part 3 of the meRIT
webinar series on social media.
Our next webinar is scheduled for June 19th,
and our presenter will be Aaron Thompson, social
strategist at Brand Networks, presenting
"Social Media Isn't an Island."
If you haven't registered already, please look for
an upcoming email invitation to join.
Thanks so much again for joining us.
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