Social Networking for Business Kathryn McCauley MidYork Library System
WHERE SHOULD I START? 1. What kinds of content do you want to post? Lengthy stories Links Multimedia (video, pictures) Short updates Questions, discussions 2. How much time do you have to update? Every day? Every week? 5 minutes? An hour? 3. How important is it to you to interact with customers (fans, friends, followers) online?
WHAT TOOLS ARE OUT THERE? And lots more!
CREATING A FACEBOOK PAGE www.facebook.com If you are the official representative of a business or organization, you can create a page here. If you don t have a personal account (or don t want one, you can still create a page!
IS YOUR PAGE ALREADY OUT THERE? Try searching on Facebook for your business. You might find the page already exists. This happens when someone tries to Check in at your business, and Facebook automatically generates a page for that address. Just tell Facebook that it is your business. They will call the phone number associated with that address, and give you a code to type in. And it is all yours!
YOUR FACEBOOK HOMEPAGE: WALL Toolbar No search bar! This is the main navigation New posts (written by you and any followers) will appear on your wall
YOUR FACEBOOK HOMEPAGE: INFO Edit your page information location, about, hours, directions, website For different types of businesses and pages, the Basic Information section can change. For example a celebrity or musician page doesn t need an hours open or parking section Depending on when you created your Facebook page, you might not be able to like other pages
THE MAIN NAVIGATION With your mouse, hover over your picture and the option to change it will appear From your page, you can: *Update your information *Add pictures *Create events *Share links Want to know how many people are following your page, or interacting with it?
MANAGING YOUR PAGE No search bar! If you create a Business Account, you cannot search for individuals or other pages. To do so, you need to create a personal profile As an Admin you can check notifications (like new wall posts or comments), purchase Facebook ads, and view page statistics (like new followers this week)
CREATING A TWITTER ACCOUNT
TWITTER LINGO Tweet n. a message posted using Twitter with 140 characters or fewer, or v. the act of posting a message, or tweet. #hashtags form a searchable keyword tag for your post, helping users find tweets of interest Since you are limited to 140 characters per tweet, you might need a URL shortener to fit a link into your post. Try: bit.ly, is.gd, or tinyurl.com You might also see: @username: this calls out to another twitter user, forming a direct link RT @username: called a retweet, this lets you give credit when you forward a cool tweet to your followers
BLOGGING There are many tools out there for free and low-cost blogging. Two examples are Blogger (owned by Google) and WordPress.
BLOGGING TOOLS Like most other online accounts, Blogger and WordPress require: An email address Password Display or username Birthdate Blog title or address If you have a Gmail address you can sign in with that account to Blogger.
BLOGGING: WORDPRESS EXAMPLE New Blog entries are called Posts Use Categories to organize your posts by topic or theme If you have ever typed and formatted an email or Word document, you might find that this looks similar. When you are finished typing, you can save your post, preview how it will look on your page, or publish it to the Internet.
ADDING PAGES Just like adding a blog post, creating a page is as easy as typing in a word document. You can add pictures, video, change styles, and add links. You can also edit HTML if you feel comfortable. Publish immediately or later. Share with everyone, or password-protect content. Parent pages will appear in the main menu bar. Children will appear as sub-items in a drop down.
CHANGING THE APPEARANCE You can change the appearance of your menus by creating parent and child pages: Widgets are sections of content with added functionality. Examples include: social media integration, calendars, extra menus, search, or plain text/html.
DO MORE: FOURSQUARE 1. Create an account and claim your business 2. Create a Special Freebie with purchase, 10% off 3. Reward repeat customers 4. Check real-time data about customers Foursquare is a location-based social networking tool. With a Smartphone app, customers can check-in at business and eventsfinding deals and earning rewards.
DO MORE: CUSTOM PAGES Customize your page with video, coupons, additional tabbed menus, and contact forms with tools like: Pagemodo: www.pagemodo.com Tabsite: www.tabsite.com Example: http://www.facebook.com/uticapubliclibrary.youthservices You can get started with a basic, free version, or pay for additional pages and features.
NEXT STEPS Practice Questions Evaluations Get more one-on-one help
This training session was developed for the Public Computing Center (PCC) and Mobile Public Computing Center (mpcc) at Mid York Library System. The PCC and mpcc are funded by two Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) grants. These grants are part of $9.5 million that was awarded to the New York State Library, a unit of the Office of Cultural Education within the New York State Education Department (NYSED) by the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in order to increase access to computers in public libraries across New York State. Funding for this award is being provided by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. 20