Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

The Top 10 Things to Know When You’re Starting Social Media

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Are you or your organization just beginning to use social media?  It’s a little like being a new driver. “Keep your eyes on the road. Keep your eyes on the rearview mirror. Watch out for pedestrians. Watch out for signs.”

There are so many things to learn and to keep track of. How do you tell which are important for you?

Fear not! I’d like to share with you the top ten things you need to know when you’re putting your social media in gear and hitting the road.

1. What to do before you start social media. https://dennisfischman.com/ten-reasons-your-nonprofit-should-not-be-on-facebook/

2. Why you should listen first, post later. https://dennisfischman.com/listen-up-if-you-want-to-succeed-on-social-media/

3. Who sees what you post. https://dennisfischman.com/who-actually-sees-what-you-post-on-social-media/

4. How to make sure your social media actually speaks for you. https://dennisfischman.com/write-a-social-media-policy-that-works/

5. Where you start. https://dennisfischman.com/social-media-starting-small/

6. Which social media you should use. https://dennisfischman.com/what-social-media-should-i-use-the-answer/

7. How many social media you should use. https://dennisfischman.com/the-magic-formula-for-choosing-social-media/

8. How to find the time to post. https://dennisfischman.com/social-media-how-do-i-find-the-time-2/

9. What to automate and what to keep personal. https://dennisfischman.com/social-media-for-nonprofits-how-do-i-keep-up/

10. What else you’ll want to learn as time goes by. https://dennisfischman.com/congratulations-youre-our-new-social-media-expert/

What are YOU doing new this spring? I’d love to know! Drop me a line at [email protected] or give me a quick call at and tell me about it!

Dennis

 

 

Communications Media Come & Go. How Do We Respond?

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manual typewriter

Someday Facebook will be replaced. It may not be Ello that replaces it. It was not Google+.

But something will come along that does what users want better than Facebook–or shows them new, exciting things to do–and Facebook will go the way of the manual typewriter.

What should we learn from the fact that communications media come and go?

One lesson is to value what doesn’t change.

If you learn this lesson, you will find out as much about your audience as you can, and figure out what they want to hear about, where, and how.  Then you’ll craft your message to make it stand out, and you’ll offer your audience a chance to take actions you want them to take (whether that’s eating differently, donating to causes, or marching on Washington).

A different lesson would be to keep track and keep up.

Focusing on your audience and your strategy will always serve you–but it may not be enough. If you’re trying to reach people by calling their land lines, for instance, you’re going to be missing a lot of people who exclusively use mobile phones.

You might decide that the ever-changing nature of communications technology means you simply have to keep track of the changes and keep up with the technology.

If you take this lesson instead, you still don’t have to fall victim to Bright Shiny Object Syndrome and chase every new, cool trend that comes along.

You will realize, however, that new technologies build on old ones. Imagine nobody had learned how to work a manual typewriter. There wouldn’t be anyone around today who knew how to use a computer keyboard.  Or, suppose you had a fax machine but no email. Other people would be able to join distribution lists, and you would be left out in the cold.

Pay attention to timeless truths. Keep track of the latest thing. Opposite ways of facing the same challenge. Is there a way to do both?

Remember Me? (Free Tools to Help You Track Relationships)

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When you’re building relationships with donors, clients, customers, or business partners, a good memory helps.  But research shows that we can only really keep track of 150 relationships on our own.  Beyond that, we need tools.

You can turn tools you have, right there on your desktop or on the web, into your relationship management system.  All it takes is time.

Microsoft Outlook

You probably already know you can store addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, web page URL’s, and the company and job title of each person you know in Microsoft Outlook.  But did you ever:

  • Use the Search function to find all the people in your Contacts who work at a particular company, or who have a specific title, or whose email address ends with @NameOfTheirOrganization?
  • Add photos so that you recognize them on sight?
  • Use the notes section to store research you did on them?
  • Check your email to and from that person to remind you what you talked about last?
  • Search the Calendar to see when you met with them last?
  • Use the Tasks section of Outlook to remind yourself to talk with them again, or send them something, or do something for them, by a certain date?

Google

If you live in the Googleverse, you can do a lot of the same things that an Outlook user can do, and more.

  • Aside from the usual Contacts information, you can record birthdays, nicknames, how their name is pronounced, and the names of their spouses, children, and other relationships–including the name of the person who referred you to them.
  • Instantly see whether you are on Google+ together, and the Circles to which you have assigned them.  Easily click over to Google+ to see what they’ve posted there.
  • Follow people’s YouTube channels if they have them.
  • Set up a Google search for that person’s name so that anything that appears on the web about them will show up in your Gmail box.
  • Easily share documents with that person without worrying about whether the email bounced, using Google Drive.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, other people do a lot of your work for you.  If you connect with me on LinkedIn, you will find not only my contact information but my Twitter handle and my website information, too.

I put those up.  I also posted:

  • Summary of who I am and what I do
  • Experience
  • Projects I have worked on (with links to the end results, and the names of people who worked on them with me)
  • Professional courses I have taken
  • Languages I speak
  • Skills & expertise
  • Honors & awards
  • Education
  • Interests
  • Organizations

People have recommended me, and I have recommended them, and both types of recommendations are right there on my profile.  LinkedIn will also show you the LinkedIn groups I belong to, the people I follow, and the people who have connected with me.  Now you know more about me than my mother does!

But how am I related to you?  Next to the Contact Info tab on my profile is a tab marked Relationship.  There, you can write notes about me,  set your self a reminder in relation to me, write down how we met and who introduced us.

Use whichever of these tools feels most natural to you, and you’ll never have to wonder again.

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