Need help understanding social media? Start here.
eriksr on October 10th, 2008
Over the past few months I’ve been in touch with hundreds of public relations and marketing professionals. Through some great discussions about how social media is affecting their work and business, I’ve learned two very important things. I’ll go into detail on them, below, but the reason I bring these up is because I’ve developed a very short, very friendly social media primer. It’s a .PDF file, and you can get it by clicking here: Social Media Primer.
The first big pain point
“There’s so much out there, I don’t know what to focus on.” No kidding! The only way I can keep up is by constantly reading technology news sites, blogs, message forums, leading Twitter users…and then spending time to think about what I’ve just read.
I can do that because I love this stuff and am glued to my computer. Other people aren’t quite that passionate — they have things like stamp collections, dogs, and children. My suggestion? Read my primer, and then go out there and pick a social media strategist blog to read. Like mine.
Pain point number two
“There’s no single source of information that gives me just the very basics so I can get started.” There is now! Again, snag my primer, above. But I feel your pain. What I recommend is that you find a single source you trust and stick with them — they will eventually cover just about everything you need. No need to try to take it all in at once. You can of course read me, but check out my blogroll, off to the right there — I follow all those folks, and ProBlogger is my favorite source for news.
Ultimately, you can always write to me! I’m happy to help.
