A presentation that I gave at the University of Montana in December on the importance of Social media marketing for business students.

1. Facebook for Fun and Profit: Social Media Networking for Business Students Scott Gray December 9, 2009 University of Montana

2. Who am i? Scott Gray Born in New Orleans, LA Grew up in the South Attended High School in Geneva, Switzerland BA in CompSci from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 04 MBA from the U of Montana in 09 Director of SEO Operations for Real Estate SEO Pros Starting Website Clarity Founder/CEO of EDEN Systems Various Consulting gigs EDEN Systems

3. What are we gonna talk about? Introduction Technology/Terminology Overview Ground rules Uses General Future Career Job-hunting Tips/Tricks & Resources Questions

4. Introductionor Why should we care about Social Media? Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio: 38 Years TV: 13 Years Internet: 4 Years Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months

5. More Facts 80% Percent of companies use LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations Only 14% trust advertisements Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

6. What Technologies? Social Networks Blog Microblogs Social Bookmarking Social Media Social Review

7. Social Networks What is a Social Network? Dictionary.com: “a website where one connects with those sharing personal or professional interests, place of origin, education at a particular school, etc.” Some Examples: Facebook Linkedin Myspace Realtown Academia

8. Blogging What is Blogging? Another from Dictionary.com: “To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.” Examples: Blogger Tumblr Wordpress Typepad Blogsmith

9. Micro-Blogging “A blog that allows up to 140 character long posts. Twitter is the most popular and allows text messaging for blog postings via cell phone.” Examples: Twitter Jaiku

10. Social Bookmarking Let’s try wikipedia: “a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources” Which means? Examples: Stumbleupon Digg Slashdot

11. Social Media Sharing Web 2.0 sites where shared media is the primary focus of the site What’s the difference? Examples: Youtube Flickr Vimeo Deviantart Slideshare

12. Social Review a web 2.0 site on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services So? Examples: Yelp Zagat foodbuzz

13. Line Blurring Social Media Graph Very hard to draw firm lines Twitter feeds pulled into Facebook, Facebook pulls into Linkedin User Reviews on Amazon.com Youtube videos inserted into blogs

14. What are some good Ground Rules? DON’T SPAM! Seriously. I mean it. Don’t Spam friend invites, retweet requests, blog comment requests, etc.

15. Avoid Bandwagon-itis Think before you jump on any social network Myspace is great for music, not for accounting Find content specific social networks Acadamia.edu is specific to education Think about your ‘brand’

17. Don’t Lie

19. Is this stuff even useful? It’s still networking! Except on a MUCH bigger scale!

20. Build your Audience What does this mean? Number of people who actively plug in to what you have to say How do you do it? Setup a twitter account Setup a Blog Any medium where you can disseminate information Remember: Quality!

21. Build your Brand Recognition My Brand? Your name/online identity Increase the number of people who know you and what you do How? Become active in online communities Comment on industry blogs & forums Respond to tweets and retweet quality ones

22. Expand your Job Feelers? Huh? The more active you are, the quicker you hear about jobs People want to help each other, it’s human nature The more humans who know you, the more they want to help

23. Future career requirements These technologies becoming common in workplace Especially for international business & marketing Innovative Solutions Int’l Festival Many CRM & management platforms now incorporate social media Yammer is an example

24. Job Searching Specifics Different social norms Calling a classmate you haven’t heard from in 10 years? Linkedin Professional groups Shows connections to companies Other’s blogs/tweets Find industry leaders and become active in their audience

25. Job Searching Online Mentors Use Linkedin to find mentors Many people online are more than willing to help Don’t be afraid to contact someone! Worse case: no response Best case: you now have a valuable contact Remember: give them something Blog Twitter Linkedin Profile

26. What are Some Tips? Add appropriate profiles to Biz Cards And treat them as such! College = Content Generator Lots of papers can be spun for blogs Link all of your social profiles/blogs/microblogs together Add links in profiles to other appropriate profiles Find Groups to join Linkedin has tons of great professional groups Get involved! Don’t just read blogs, but comment Check Settings What can people see?

27. What about Tricks? Automated Content Distribution Onlywire Ping.fm Social Aggregators Hootsuite Tweetdeck Google Tools Google Alerts Google Live Search Google Keyword Tool Google Calendar

28. What should You do as soon as You get home? Create a blog Tumblr Wordpress.com Create your own with Godaddy Buy a domain/url Create appropriate network profiles Join Groups