Incorporating #SocialMedia into your life: A Social Marketing Bootcamp
By: @DougGaehle (PR major)
As the economy moves forward, employers are increasing their presence online to reach wider audiences to market and sell their services or products. As students, we are next in line for those entry level jobs and what professionals are looking for is our online presence and how to work the trending of social media.
Recently I attended the Social: IRL Conference in Springfield. Social: IRL stands for Social: In Real Life which reflects the company’s belief that the real impact of social media is offline. In today’s society employers wanting to use social media effectively as a tool are not just looking for someone to run a facebook page or a twitter account but someone who can use social media to meet a specific set of goals and unique company culture.
The first step when using social media is to know what you want to accomplish and to set goals.
Social Media can be used as a tool for:
- Community Outreach
- Marketing
- Public Relations
- Crisis Communication
- Fundraising
- Customer Service
- Personal
Sarah Evans (@prsarahevans) of Sevans Strategy was the speaker at the event. A public relations and media guru, Sarah spoke on the benefits and uses of social media to businesses and students. Sarah covered the topics of Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, and answered questions on other types of social media. Here are the pieces that I took away from this conference that would be most beneficial to students.
- It’s all about the “Re-tweet”
- Promote other people’s blogs, businesses, ads
- Top 10 posts get a lot of attention
- Add Twitter id to email signature, resume, website when relevant
- Start a hashtag (#), join a hashtag, keep up with the trends other people are following
- Connect with media outlets
- Join an online industry chat such as #journchat or #pr20chat
- Make connections with businesses and important industry people
- Schedule your tweets using sites like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck
- Tuesdays are the best for tweets and media pitches
- All about the “Like”
- Create a fan page for your organization or business for people to “like”
- Create separate accounts for personal and business use, don’t post things your mom or potential employer would not want to see
- Utilize it as a professional source of social media
- Use the groups function to keep in closer contact with an organization or particular group of people, it is like its own separate Facebook for your group
- Use Facebook Connect on other websites to link up
Foursquare
- Check-in as a way of communicating your interests as well as your location
- Look for and advertise deals/discounts
- Establish your presence by becoming Mayor
- Use to analyze your audience and their habits
Students have unlimited potential when it comes to using social media. It is becoming the forefront of typical business practices and is a necessity to modern public relations. As a student it is your job to establish your presence to employers as graduation approaches. Employers will be looking for the movers and shakers and those who will have an impact on their company or organization. By increasing your knowledge of social media you will be better preparing yourself for your career. So start following the trends or start your own, there are benefits in doing both. Start using social media to advertise yourself and your abilities that will help secure you a job in the future.