SESSION ONE: INTRODUCTION

BY: Dickens OOKOMAIL: ookoguma@gmail.com TEL: 0707200880 SM: Dickens Kasami

Traditional media provides mainly a linear model of communication that’s simply a one-way process where the sender broadcasts a message to a receiver.

Then a more sophisticated interactive communication model was developed via mediums such as talk radio or online discussion forum that allows feedback to transpose over the linear communication model.

SOCIAL MEDIA has changed all this by encouraging a highly transactional model of communication in which people build shared meaning that assumes reciprocity.

You’re not just telling others what you want them to understand but also conveying your understanding of the relationship you have with them. The conversation becomes more attractive when you can relate to your audience.

Social Media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking/virtual communities.

Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.

Social media differ from traditional or industrial media in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy, and permanence.

Social media takes and age old business concept and makes it work today: brings entities and clients together; people serve as foundation; it allows you to observe and listen to consumers; and it humanizes (gives personality) to an entity.

People are going online to hunt for information; in the other hand, brands are hunting consumers. These two ultimately meet on Social Media.

People are the foundation of Social Media: Exposure > Client> Endorser > Evangelist

Time + Exposure= Conversion

Time Have realistic expectations and understanding results take

time. Be willing to invest. Continuation: Consistence voice over the period with

supportive content Acceleration: Impact generates power

Exposure Reach: Expand your audience by building a presence on

multiple platforms Targeting: Find out where your audience connects with each

other online Appeal: Does your message speak to them in a way that

catches their eyes?

According to Jan H. Kietzmann, the honeycomb framework of social media is based on SEVEN functional building blocks:

Identity: The identity block represents the extent to which users reveal their identities in a social media setting.

Conversations: The conversations block of the framework represents the extent to which users communicate with other users in a social media setting. Many social media sites are designed primarily to facilitate conversations among individuals and groups.

Sharing: Sharing represents the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and receive content. In many cases, sociality is about the objects that mediate these ties between people—the reasons why they meet online and associate with each other.

Presence: The framework building block presence represents the extent to which users can know if other users are accessible. It includes knowing where others are, in the virtual world and/or in the real world, and whether they are available.

Relationships: The relationships block represents the extent to which users can be related to other users. By ‘relate,’ we mean that two or more users have some form of association that leads them to converse, share objects of sociality and meet up.

Reputation: Reputation is the extent to which users can identify the standing of others, including themselves, in a social media setting.

Groups: The group functional block represents the extent to which users can form communities and sub communities. The more ‘social’ a network becomes, the bigger the group of friends, followers, and contacts.

There are thousands of social media channels and it is virtually impractical to cover them all.

List of Social Media and Social Networking Sites http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/

However, the channels can be broadly grouped as:

BlogsSocial SharingSocial NetworkingMicro BloggingSocial Reviews

Blogs are considered the oldest type of Social Media and are mostly the ‘home-base’ of social media campaigns.

They offer opportunities to motivate, educate and congregate.

Benefits:

Constant link building

Be viewed as a resource

Soft-sell: support content, social

Gather deep topical links (links into the article)

RSS distribution

Open conversation for feedback information

Are platforms that allow one to say what they are thinking in: a short (sentence), social (followers), sharable (broadcast) post.

Twitter: Has the largest user base, strongest app choices, network integration and best search functionality.

Tumblr: Is an overlooked micro-blogging site. It is a mash up of twitter and wordpress popular with younger (high school – college age) crowd. Mashes twitter and pinterest and has a lot of multimedia information.

Allows hand chosen connections which leads to access to an extended network; a broadcast and receive-from network.

Facebook: Is the consumer social networking king and the most visited site on the web. It is socially focused with great categorization controls with good social sharing ability.

LinkedIn: A sort of a dynamic resume that has become to a kind of online rolodex with great topical groups and a place of making corporate inroads.

Google+: It is the second-largest social networking site having surpassed Twitter in January 2013.

YouTube: Google has highly integrated it into universal search. It has the ability to embed (to blogs and sites) and social sharing (like to Facebook and Twitter).

Pinterest: Is a web based inspiration board. Average time is 90 minutes per month and is viewed as a starting point, a collection and as an inspiration board. Is a great place for attracting fans.

Instagram: Is a pictufied version of twitter. It’s all about sharing photos. A mobile photo based social network. It has a chance to connect with people visually based on relationships, topics and hashtag campaigns via mobile.

Allows people to get feedback and reviews about products and services. Can review restaurants, service providers, products… Yelp.

NB: Keep in mind that you cannot be everywhere. You do not need to be in all the social sites. Choose the important ones and concentrate on them based on your goals.

Social Media helps build credibility to small businesses through reviews and exposure; and brings personality to big businesses thus influence and change perception.

Upper Management: Make connections Marketing: Know what is being said about

you PR: Handle reputation Sales: Networking to get recommendation

Is about making sure that people know about you, and what you are doing. They should be able to define you correctly. It also helps to build preference and make customers choose your brand.

-It gives you a chance to tell your story: who you are, what do you offer, what makes you unique?

-Allows you to spread the story: outreach efforts to influencers and word of mouth impact

-A chance to prove you story: show that reality matches up with expectations; third party confirmation exist; and consistency is demonstrated

The Brand Impact at work:

Awareness Association [with an activity]

Assumption

Acquisition

There is small amount of active voice and large amount of passive voices on Social Media.

There will be people who are:

-Against [active] -Dislike [Active/passive]-Don’t Know/don’t care [passive] -Like [Active/passive]-Love [Active & some passive]

With these various levels of people’s views, you need to get in the mix and start engaging.

Figure out how to neutralize people who dislike or are against you e.g by talking to them to find out what the problem is or by doing more positive stuff.

INFROM those who don’t know/care about you and MOBILIZE those who love, like you.

Why SM impacts engagement: You can find them; what channels, who they

are, what topics do they discuss? You can reach them; via social sharing,

content creation, outreach efforts and targeted advertising

You can engage them; through contests, comments, conversations and confrontations

Engagement Impact at work:

Respond

Deliver Entice

Exposure + Credibility = Conversions

A tangible business goal defined by conversion points gives you a REASON to build a social media plan.

There are socialized conversion points: shares, subscription, downloads, discounts

There is a direct click access: everything is linkable Great content integration: conversion points included

in shared content Implied credibility: information is received/endorsed

by contacts e.g. someone RTing.

TACTICS: What social tactics are most effective?

ENGAGEMENT: What are the best ways to engage my audience with social media?

MEASUREMENT: How do I measure the return on my social media campaigns?

TOOLS: What are the best social management tools?

AUDIENCE: How do I find my target audience with social media?