ii Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland Welcome to Social Media was created as a place for the Cleveland Social… [623478]

ii Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland

Welcome to Social Media was created as a place for the Cleveland Social Media Club to share
educational materials designed to help individuals and businesses navigate the quickly evolving world of
social media. This is the first of what we hope will be many e -books offering social media tips and advice
to users of all skill levels. Please visit http://www.welcometosocialmedia.com/ for access to this volume
and future volumes.

Editor -in-Chief: Jim England
Copy editors: Heidi Cool, Jim England, Jeff Hershberger, George Nemeth,
Stephanie Jansky, Tony Ramos
Project leader: George Nemeth
Print/PDF design & layout: Tony Ramos
Web site design and development: Heidi Cool

Welcome to Social Media by Cleveland Social Media Club is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution -Noncommercial -No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://clevelandsmc. ning.com . Read
the full license here .
You are free to share —to copy, distribute and transmit the work —under the following conditions:
 Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author s (but not in any
way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
 Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
 No Derivative Works — You may not alt er, transform, or build upon this work.
…with the understanding that any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the
copyright holder. Thank you.

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland iii

INTRODUCTION —DEFINING SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS RELEVANCE
What is Social Media? ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 1
How Social Media Changed My Life ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. .. 1
THE BREAKDOWN —ANALYZING AND EVALUATING SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGY
Using Social Media to Better Meet Your Needs ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 2
Conversation: The Catalyst for Connection ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 4
Micro -Media & The Future of Narrative ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………. 6
DISCUSSIONS —FEATURED RECOMMENDATIONS , OBSERVATIONS , AND INSPIRATION
Social Media for the Working Mom or Dad ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 8
Social Media Makes Pepper Pike a Hub of Activism ………………………….. ………………………….. ………. 9
What Does Your Profile Photo Say About You? ………………………….. ………………………….. …………… 10
PERSONAL BEST PRACTICES—UTILIZING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR PERSONAL GROWTH
Using Social Media to Help Your Job Search ………………………….. ………………………….. ……………….. 11
Using Social Media to Make Face -to-Face Connections ………………………….. ………………………….. … 13
Writing Well for Social Media ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 14
PROFESSIONAL BEST PRACTICES—SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE WORKPLACE
Setting Goals to Plan Your Social Media Strategy ………………………….. ………………………….. ………… 18
Introduction to Measuring Social Media for PR/Marketing ………………………….. ……………………….. 21
Social Media and Social Change: A Guide for Nonprofit Organizations ………………………….. ………… 23
Promoting Events Via Social Media ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. . 25
TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS —THE POWER AND POSSIBILITIES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media and Presentation Technology ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………… 27
Privacy and Security in Social Media ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………………. 30
Social Media Case Study: messy magazine ………………………….. ………………………….. …………………. 32
Things to Consider When Building a Social Media Web Application ………………………….. ……………. 34

1 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
o there is this onl ine phenomenon that is
attracting troves of people to participate
in these online websites. They all claim to
be a part of a revolution called “social media,”
but what is social media anyway?
It is easiest to begin with something we
understand —media. Media is a means for
communication. It involves a content medium —
like pictures, sounds, videos, or text —and it
conveys meaning and information to an
audience. Sometimes that audience is you,
sometimes it’s your friend, or sometimes it’s
your crazy uncle who mov ed to Timbuktu.
Take TV for example —someone decided to
make a TV show, chose you as the audience,
and sent information to you through a box in
your living room. This is an example of
traditional media as we have become
accustomed to. Old media, like TV, ra dio,
newspapers, and even most websites are
unidirectional. They talk at you, not with you.
However, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
represent something different —everyone can
make pictures, sounds, videos, or text. Everyone can convey meaning and informat ion
to an audience. Everyone is an equal player
with equal ability to share his or her
perspective. But most importantly —when you
say something, people can talk back. They
respond and discuss, and you respond and
discuss. Instead of talking at your friends and
colleagues, you actually are talking with them.
This discussion, powered by the Internet, allows
people to form online communities around
their interests. These communities have been
freed from geographical and other limitations,
allowing people to work together in ways never
before possible. This revolution has
transformed the Internet into a medium of
communities and conversations —social media.
Tim Gasper, CMO and cofounder of
CorkShare , is a senior at Case Western
Reserve University, Economics and
Marketing major with a web/tech focus.
His interests include social media,
blogging, music writing, and running.

My life changed in January 2008.
That's when I attended a forum at the
University of Akron featuring David Tapsc ott,
the author of Wikinomics . In the course of an
hour, I learned about social media and found a
new career. In some ways, I think I have always been a social
media person. My parents always had
newspapers around the house, while TV was my
best friend. In college, I studied public relations,
but I was heavily involve d with radio and the
newspaper.
While working at Cleveland.com in 2000, I was
in awe of the techies because they had the S

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 2
know -how to actually do the things that I
pondered in my head. By 2008, social network
tools like Blogger allowed me to turn my ideas
into a reality.
After seeing Mr. Tapscott's speech, I immersed
myself in social media and read books like David
Meerman Scotts' “N ew Rules For Marketing and
PR”.
In February 2008, I attended a s eminar where I
met Michelle Veronsky, author of the blog
Foodie Critic, (who was a great help to me) and
Matt Dickman, who introduced me to Twitter.
I took this information and used their advice for
a social media campaign for Lock 3 Park, the
downtown ent ertainme nt venue for the City of
Akron.
From April to September, I was a social media
maven —with the focus of Steve Jobs and the
swagger of Jay -Z.
I created a blog called lock3live.blogspot.com ,
where I previewed performances, posted
pictures on Flickr , created viral contests and
uploaded behind the scenes interviews via
YouTube . I used Twitter to remind Tweeps
about shows and MySpa ce to interact with
performers.
However, social media became real to me when
a woman walked up to me and said “Thank
You”. The woman recognized me from the Lock
3 Park tour video I had uploaded to YouTube Originally from Akron, the woman had moved
to Dayton years before Lock 3 Park was built.
She decided to come after w atching the tour
link her sister had sent from YouTube.
This is the power of social media.
While measuring tools, like Google Analytics,
are a great way to measure online traffic, you
don't always know if your social media efforts
are really making an impa ct. But when you see
the results in person, as I did when meeting the
woman who had traveled from Dayton, the
results are made real.
While winning the Emerging Leader Award from
The Summit Awards for my Lock 3 Park
campaign was great, there's nothing more
satisfying than hearing someone say “Thank
You” for your work.
That's the true meaning of SOCIAL Media.
Kevin Lockett is a social media consultant
in Akron, Ohio. In late 2008 he
successfully used Facebook in a social
media awareness campaign to help bring
back canceled stations on Sirius XM
radio. Recently, Mr. Lockett launched
Hirejam.com , a Web site dedicated to
green jobs in the State of Ohio. Kevin can
be found on a variety of services
includin g LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook ,
and email .

Why are people wasting time on Facebook/
Twitter/Flickr/Ning, etc. when they shoul d be
talking to people face to face? This type of
question is asked a lot by people who don’t yet “get” social media. Socializing with others is
only one of the reasons to use social media.
People are turning away from newspapers and
television and turning to social media to obtain

3 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
news, learn new things, and entertain each
other with pictures, videos, music, and games.
The reason this shift has begun is simple: social
media can gratify certain needs better than
older forms of media.
The uses and gratificat ions theory of
communications uses the media consumer
rather than the media message as its starting
point, and explores a person’s communication
behavior in terms of their direct experience
with the media. Individuals are not acted upon
by media and its me ssage, they make a
conscious choice of what medium to use and
what messages to receive depending on how
certain needs are met. These needs can be
broken into four different categories:
1. The need for entertainment and escapism
2. The need to develop personal re lationships
3. The need to affirm or further develop a
personal identity through knowledge and
interests
4. The need of surveillance, or the
understanding of the surrounding world
We all use media to gratify these four needs.
The type of media we choose to use d epends
on whether or not we feel our need is gratified
by that media. The more gratification we
receive from a particular medium, the more
likely we are to return to that medium time and
time again. Some people are content using the
newspaper to obtain inf ormation about their
community, escape, and develop an identity.
Others develop a personal identity through the
television shows they watch, and the personal
relationships they feel they have developed
with television personalities.
Ask anyone who regularl y uses social media
why they do so, and every reason they give can
be attributed to one of the four needs. By using
the Internet and mobile devices, social media
has the advantage of utilizing four concepts that
that are unique to the Internet, making it a
medium that better gratifies the needs of the
user:
Interactivity The more the consumer has the ability to
customize and interact with social media to
better meet their needs, the more gratifications
will be obtained, and the more the user will be
depende nt on that social media in the future.
Obtaining news through television or the
newspaper does not give one the ability to
immediately interact with those that produce
the news. Social media outlets such as Twitter,
however, allow the user to immediately
respond to a reporter and their audience
directly and hopefully receive a response.
Demassification
No longer are we limited to socializing with
those in our immediate surroundings. Through
social media, similar interests, not geographic
space, defines who we socialize with. Ning is a
social media site designed specifically to bring
people together based on their similar interests.
There is a Ning community for almost every
type of interest. Being active in an online
community about something you are interes ted
in is much more gratifying than passively
watching a television program that you are only
somewhat interested in. Additionally, interests
define who we are, and social media allows us
to further express and develop our personality
with others.
Asynchro neity
The Internet has given the consumer more
control over how and when to receive their
news & entertainment. Consumers now control
when they decide to consume media. This, of
course, includes social media. If you are busy,
do what you need to do, your s ocial media
friends will be there when you have a free
moment. It is easy to catch up on the news of
the day, respond to tweets, or comment on a
friends’ picture when you have the free time.
Socializing and consuming media on YOUR
watch is far more gratify ing than rearranging
your entire day to fit a predetermined schedule.
Hypertextuality
Hypertextuality refers to the ability to create
links to other web sites through pictures, words,

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 4
graphs, and keywords. This can create a non –
linear way of obtaining info rmation online, like
channel surfing on the Internet. Social media
allows you to share links easily with anyone you
want. Likewise, you are able to quickly see what
several friends are interested in by following
links they have posted. Once again, you and
your friends are now in control over what
media you consume and when you consume it.
These four concepts are ways that the Internet
has made all of our lives a little easier, whether
it’s by obtaining news, being entertained,
socializing with friends, or e xpressing our
personality. These are needs we all seek to
gratify on a daily basis. Social media has proven
to gratify all of these needs in a greater way
than older forms of media. That is reason
enough to believe that social media will
continue to grow a s it meets the needs of more
and more people.
References
Littlejohn, S.W. (1999). Theories of Human
Communication (6th edition). Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Publishing Company. Ruggiero, T.E.
(2000). Uses and gratifications theory in the
21st century. Mass Comm unication & Society,
3, 3-37. JD Drake is a marketing communications
professional currently seeking
employment in the Northeast Ohio area.
In 2008, following the publishing of his
thesis “Uses & Gratifications: How
marketers can utilize emerging media to
better meet the needs of their audience,”
JD received a MA in communications
management – public relations through
John Carroll University. Prior to that JD
earned a BS in television/radio
production – scriptwriting from Ithaca
College. He then spent two ye ars in Los
Angeles working on various television
shows including Malcolm in the Middle,
Boston Public, and the Jim Henson
Company. In his spare time he wrote and
produced short films, television shows,
and a full -length musical. JD currently
lives in Cleve land Heights with his wife.
He enjoys film, cooking, music, a good
joke and Cleveland sports teams. You can
find him at johndaviddrake@gmail.com ,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter ( @JDDrake ),
Ning, FriendFeed, Del.icio.us, or his blog
potkettleblue.blogspot.com .

The term social media has emerged to provide a
broad categorization for a collection of unique,
Web -based tools for personal expression and
communica tion, including blogs, podcasts,
video and photo sharing sites, social networking
sites, social bookmarking sites, and the latest
social media juggernaut, Twitter.
The rapid evolution and extraordinary
popularity of these technologies has not gone
unnotice d by marketing professionals. However, the challenge for marketers who wish
to make effective use of social media lies in
recognizing that these technologies do not
constitute yet another channel for the same
tired message. (Every time I see a press releas e
disguised as a blog post I want to stab myself in
the brain with a pencil.)
What makes social media so uniquely powerful
as a marketing tool has far less to do with the
technology than it does with an entirely

5 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
different approach to connecting with an
audience. That connection is defined by its one –
to-one-to-one nature, a cascade of individual,
personal connections that stands in contrast to
previous perceptions and definitions of
audience engagement.
Stop Selling —Start Talking
The problem —well, my problem —with
“traditional” marketing communication is that
it’s so obviously fluffy and phoney and devoid of
any evidence of genuine humanity. Yet in my
experience many marketing people seem to
think that the audience won’t notice. The
audience notices. Th e audience has always
noticed.

If anyone here is from advertising or
marketing —kill yourselves…There’s no
rationalization for what you do and you are
Satan’s little helpers.
—a performance by the late Bill Hicks, circa
1993
Despite its startling violence , that routine from
the late comedian and social critic Bill Hicks
elicited enthusiastic applause in performances
in the early Nineties. At about the same time
the World Wide Web launched on a trajectory
that would do for long -established business and
comm unication models what a very large comet
is believed to have done for the dinosaurs.
A few years later the authors of The Cluetrain
Manifesto brought into sharp focus the nature
of the dysfunctional relationship that emerged
between business and the newly networked
consumer in the early days of the Web. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or
serious, the human voice is unmistakably
genuine. It can’t be faked…Most corporations,
on the other hand, only know how to talk in
the soothing, humorless monotone of the
mission statement, marketing brochure, and
your -call-is-important -to-us busy signal. Same
old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked
markets have no respect for companies unable
or unwilling to speak as th ey do.
—The Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999
In 2009, despite the explosion in social media,
how many businesses have evolved beyond
communication that is official, artificial, and
superficial? What those businesses fail to
understand is that businesses don’t
com municate, people communicate. The use of
social media makes old -school faceless,
sanitized, “official” communication obsolete.
And the issue isn’t just about what’s being
said—it’s about who’s doing the talking.
Be a Mensch
A business is a collection of in dividual people, a
kind of techno -organic network within the
larger global network. The use of social media
tools allows individuals within one network to
engage with individuals in other networks on a
more personal, and thereby more effective
level.
For a business, the power in social media
centers on the ability to allow individual
audience members to tap into the thought
processes of the actual people behind the
products or services a company provides.
For that reason the conversation that connects
a per son from within the business to members
of the customer community must be a genuine
reflection of the legitimate interests and
passions of the individuals involved.
The pursuit of those interests and passions
rarely follows a straight line, and the creativ e
spark that triggers innovation might be wildly
off-topic. That’s the nature of human
conversation. The challenge for the business is

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 6
to get out of the way of that conversation in
order to allow a genuine human connection to
form, a connection based on mu tual value to
the individuals.
Look at these two equations and let me know
which one has the most benefit to you:
1. Message 1,000,000 to possibly reach 100
2. Personally reach 100 who influence 1,000
who influence 10,000 who influence
1,000,000
—Redefining reach; the new marketing
equation by Matt Dickman , 2008
That connection is unlikely to form if the people
representing the business in the conversation
behave like an under -quota insurance salesman
at a cocktail party. You wouldn’t want to get
stuck talking to that guy, so don’t be that guy.
Talk shop, talk about projects you’re involved
in. Share your insight and expertise, but don’t
abuse your connections, and never, never,
never resort to fluff.
Each of us is an individual node in an ever –
expanding global network. Social media tools
allow us to create and manage our own
connections. The level and extent of that
personal interconnection is unique in human
history. That’s a tectonic shift in the business
environment, but businesses can survive the
resulting tremor if they learn to unleash —and
trust —the individual voices within and learn to
participate in, rather than attempt to control, the conversation that is the catalyst for that
connection.
A writer, editor, and social media
practitioner/evangelist, Bob Rhubart
manages the Software Architect
Community on the Oracle Technology
Network , the online com munity for
Oracle Corporation. In that role Bob uses
a wide array of social media tools,
including a blog , Twitter , Facebook ,
Friendfeed, del.ici.ous, and others.
Before joining Oracle in June 2008, Bob
was a senior product marketing specialist
for BEA Systems, where he was
instrumental in driving the use of blogs
as part of the BEA AquaLogic marketing
strat egy. Before that he was director of
content and community for Flashline,
Inc., a Cleveland -based enterprise
software start -up, where he spearheaded
the launch of the Flashline blog in 1993,
made extensive use of RSS as part of a
homegrown automated content
management strategy, and also
developed a collaborative, wiki -based
product documentation process. Prior to
joining Flashline in 1999 Bob was a staff
editor at Books.com, the very first online
bookstore, founded in Cleveland in 1992.
He blogs on social me dia and Web 2.0 at
Smallification.com .

Excerpts from “ The Stories that Connect Us ”
(DesigningLife Books 2009)
Micro -media platforms are now dominating the
way we connect with people in our social
networks . These are the media of text messaging, status updating, and micro -blogging
that reduce the richness and complexity of life
to sound bites.
Central to the conversation about the future of
narrative is the question about the impact of

7 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
micro -media on our
capacity for telling
and listening to our
stories. In the
realms of linguistics
and cultural
anthropology,
sound bites are the
opposites of
stories.
Storytelling is the
practice of
informational
generosity, giving us meaningful insights into
characters, und erstanding of contexts, and
appreciation for how things unfold and come to
be. Sound bites are stingy tools, depriving us of
the richness of stories and giving us only crumbs
from of an otherwise lavish meal.
This being so, the logical conclusion on micro –
media is that it will be the bane of storytelling
and the sustainability of a narrative culture.
In practice, micro -media is demonstrating two
observable trends. People who tend to be
stingy communicators anyway, are using it in
the way they naturally expr ess themselves —in
sound bites.
At the same time, people who flourish in a
narrative culture are using the same sound bites
as conversational hyperlinks to accessing all
kinds of stories they would never have heard
without micro -media. People see a message or
posting from someone in the morning and later
that day, or the next, they run into the sender.
This offers an instant opportunity to inquire into
the whole narrative and back story, something
they'd not have been able to access without
micro -media. The haiku brevity of micro -media
can do as much to spark a revolution or fan the
flames of inspiration as anything of greater
bandwidth or volume. Micro -media services are
already figural players in the instigation of
business resurgences and new collaboration
opportunities among people who thrive daily in
the micro -media spaces. As the hyperlink has become a profound
metaphor in hyper -connected times, micro –
media tools can become both serendipitous
containers of hyperlinks and rich hyperlinking
invitations thr ough which we tell our stories.
Here are 5 easy things to do to increase the
power of your stories and leverage the
possibilities of your connections.
1. Build your narrative portfolio
Start creating a collection of your stories,
building a portfolio of s tories that have the
power to amuse others, endear them to you,
and engage them in topics you’re most
passionate about.
2. Turn experiences into stories
The only stories you have are the ones you
intentionally create. Start a journal where you
take your li fe experiences and craft them into
the structure of stories.
3. Lengthen your stories
Use details, companion stories and vignettes to
make any of your stories longer. Make sure
whatever you add increases the delight of
anticipation inherent in the fabric o f the story.
4. Change your sharability footprints
Recraft some stories in ways that allow you to
tell them to more people; decide which stories
you want to stop telling and retelling because
they don’t add value to your connections with
others.
5. Tell ev ery story better
When listening to stories, ask any questions
that will glean more details and insights so that
you can tell the story better than you heard it.
Jack Ricchiuto is a writer and mentor
engaging people in the kinds of
conversations that have the power to
create change. His clients are leaders,
organizations, and communities seeking
new approaches to leadership, strategic
planning, project management, and

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 8
engaging p eople in collaborations based
on their strengths and passions. For 30
years, Jack's work with groups spans 24
industries and as many urban, rural, and
virtual communities. Jack continues
teaching and curriculum design with
undergraduate, graduate, and post –
doctorate programs in colleges and
universities including Kent State and
Vanderbilt Universities. He has been a
leadership mentor to post -doc scientists
at UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, and Tufts
Universities. Jack's books include
Collaborative Creativity (1997),
Accidental Conversations (2002), Project Zen (2003), Appreciative Leadership
(2005), Mountain Paths (2006),
Conscious Becoming (2007), and
Instructions from the Cook / Recipes for
New Conversations (2008). In 2009 he
will release "The Stories that Co nnect
Us." Jack’s undergraduate degree is from
John Carroll University (1974) and
graduate degree from Goddard College,
Vermont (1980). He continues teaching
and curriculum design with
undergraduate, graduate, and post –
doctorate programs in colleges and
universities including Kent State and
Vanderbilt Universities.

It is 7:41 on a Tuesday morning. The two oldest
children have successfully made it on the bus,
and I managed to get them ready for school
without threatening to take away their TV
privileges for the rest of their lives. Now I can
get to work, except the youngest —who is this
close to heading off to kindergarten —wants to
do an “experiment.” This will require water,
paper clips, spices from the Lazy Susan and a lot
of my patience. (The scientific data for this
experiment is still being processed, by the way.)
One more hour until she heads off to pre -school
for three short but hopefully productive hours;
however, I need to make some professional
connections right now. What to do…
Social media to the rescue! While the cumin
and paprika are floating atop the water in my
daughter’s experiment, I am off to the
computer to Tweet, check my LinkedIn accoun t
or work on an entry for my personal or
professional blog.
Suddenly, I am in the midst of professionals
from a variety of fields. Some are already at their offices. Others may be on their way to a
big meeting. As I type and read, and type and
peruse, I im agine that a few of them might even
look like me: a tired mom with untidy hair,
wearing flannel pajama bottoms and an
oversized nightshirt that used to say “Penn
State” but now just says “enn Stat.”
The beauty of social media for a working mom
or dad is th at you can interact with peers,
clients, potential clients and influential
members of the online scene without leaving
the comfort of your home. You can Tweet about
a dynamic project you’ve just completed, and
no one needs to know that you worked on it
overnight and in -between your children’s play
dates. You can blog about the need for
customer satisfaction in small businesses or the
latest trends in interior design after putting the
baby down for a nap and making the three –
year -old a hot lunch.
Never befor e has it been so easy for work -from –
home parents to stay connected with people
around the corner and around the world. Social
media is an excellent way to keep your name in

9 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
the loop and land projects. It also can keep you
sane. Social media offers a chance to step
outside of the home life you have worked so
hard to create, and the day -to-day shrieks and
squabbles that drive you crazy yet make you so
happy, and step into the “real world.” Social
media encourages you to share your wisdom,
pitch your ideas and make new and lasting
connections with other professionals. It also
forces you to have grown up conversations
(even if some of them are only 140 characters
long), and every parent needs that.
As a writer, social media is extremely powerful
for me. Not only does it allow me to share my
musings with people I wouldn’t reach through
traditional media, it also nudges me to write
more and often. So much knowledge, humor
and inventiveness are being shared that I just
crave to be a part of it. In many ways, social
media makes me a better, more well -rounded
writer. These days, as my access to the “real
world” is still limited, it also makes me a more
social being. Social media doesn’t take the place
of face -to-face encounters, but rather augments
them by offering new ways to personally and
professionally connect. You don’t have to charge out of the gates with
social media. It has been a little over a year
since I tapped into it, and I’m still discovering
new opportunities. For now, I’ve chosen a few
outlets that are p owerful yet relatively easy to
follow and maintain. As my free time grows, so
will my level of involvement with social media.
Start out slow. Spend ten minutes creating your
personal profile on a site, responding to a blog
or developing one of your own. Te n minutes of
“grown up” interaction can refresh your mind
after a long day with the kids, and it just may
land you a new contact or a chance -of-a-
lifetime opportunity.
Diane DiPiero is a writer, editor and
proofreader who divides her ti me
between writing articles for print and
online publications and helping
companies strengthen their brand
through strong written communications.
Diane began her career in New York City,
moving to Cleveland in 1995 to become a
freelance writer. Although st ill a social
media novice, D iane currently has three
blogs: www.dianedipiero.com/blog ,
www.asiwaswriting.blogspot.com and
www.calledtobeasaint.blogspot.com/ .

Several months ago, when the movie version of
Sex and the City was opening around the
country, women activists I knew through an
online listserv recognized an opportunity: lines
and lines and lines of women would be waiting
to get into opening night showings of the
movie —and be a ripe audience for voter
registration. Through the listserv, Twitter, e mail lists, texting
and our own blogs, tens of women connected
across the country. A group called Mobilize.org
helped set up people and procedures on the
ground and, by the end of the day, we were
able to tell people that there would be real, not
virtual, humans at the movie theaters, ready
and waiting to register one of the most sought

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 10
after voting demographics in 2008: women,
many of whom would be single and young.
I had a window into this experience —and got to
contr ibute to making it happen —because of
other online social networking with which I had
engaged for several months prior to this event. I
became a member of BlogHer.com —a
community of more than 10 million men and
women wo rldwide, according to the founders,
and, as a result of posting comments and blog
entries there (often linking back to my own
blog), my ideas were noticed by a contributing
editor who, eventually, had been contacted by
a CNN booking agent for new names. An d the
BlogHer contact gave the agent my name.
As a result of my appearance on CNN, the BBC
and other outlets started contacting me for
commentary on the elections and other political
issues in 2008. Simultaneously, I was invited
into the previously mention ed listserv by the
woman who had referred me to CNN in the first
place. The listserv includes very exclusive
political and technologically savvy women,
many of whom are either in the federal
government or in other branches of
Washington, D.C. activism, all incredibly
supportive of each other, and, in turn, me.
I have now met many of them in person —at
conferences where we further scheme about
how to turn our passions —women, leadership,
progress, change —into action. But we continue to use Twitter, ning and other online
organizational tools to take action on the issues
that matter to us, whenever, wherever they
happen.
And I can contribute from my kitchen in Pepper
Pike. Social media can turn any place into a hub
of activism. All I had to do was participate a nd
make my interests known, and put my energy
into it when the opportunity arose.
Jill Miller Zimon blogs at Writes Like She
Talks and co -blogs at The Moderate
Voice . She provided 2008 election
coverage for Newseek’s The Ruckus,
BlogHer.com and from NPR’s election
night blogger war room. WE Magazine
named Zimon one of 101 Women
Bloggers to Watch (Fall ‘08). She is the
first blogger to be named Women’s
eNews Journalist of the Month (3/09).
Zimon has provided commentary for CNN,
C-SPAN, BBC, Cleveland public radio and
television and other outlets. Her writing
has appeared in and she has been quoted
by The Washingto n Post , The Plain
Dealer , Campaigns & Elections , Quill , The
Writer and The Jewish Weekly among
other online and print publications.
Zimon has a dual degree in government
and sociology from Georgetown
University and a joint degree in law and
social work fro m Case Western Reserve
University.

Haven’t we all been told about the importance
of “first impressions?” When we look at
someone’s profile pi cture, we make a
“snapshot” decision on whether we want to engage with that person as a prospective friend,
customer, or even a date —depending on the
type of Web site on which we are viewing the
photo. Therefore, we need to consider our

11 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
photo in two ways. First, how do we want to be
perceived —what do we want to say about
ourselves? And second, who do we want to take
an interest in us?
Keeping the first question
in mind, do we want to
be thought of as a silly
cartoon, an ugly beast, a
child, an animal, or a
design? Some of our
viewers will never meet
us in person so when they picture us in their
minds, they’ll conjure up whatever image we’ve
provided to them on our profile. Consider this
an opportunity to present yourself in
accordance with the reputation yo u are trying
to build.
Considering the second item, shouldn't we
present ourselves in a way that will appeal to
our prospects? If we want to be a magnet for
professionals, should we display ourselves as
anything less than professional? On the other
hand, w hat if we are trying to reach an artistic
audience? In that case, we might want to showcase our creativity where it will be
appreciated.
Social media is used by people of all ages and
walks of life. Even though we want our friends
to view us, we should con sider all potential
viewers. Is it “safe” for our employer to see us
in that photo? Our next profile viewer might be
a best friend or an enemy, a spouse or an ex, an
employer, an employee, a neighbor, a family
member, or a complete stranger. So let’s be
smart and think a little bit about that image we
display to the online world.
Kathryn Eyring, owner of Knockout
Marketing, provides on site assessments
and training to businesses to help
improve their initial presentation or first
point of contact to the pub lic. Provides
training for a wide variety of topics to
improve employee presentation to
customers. Topics include projection of
confidence, posture, body language,
conversation skills, and more that all
lead to better customer relations.

While understanding the Internet’s role in the
job search has always been important for
professionals, the emergence of new Web
technologies, such as social media, blogging and
social networking, has permanently changed
the playing field.
At the heart of the matter is how your time is
spent on the Internet, and it can either be a
blessing or a curse. More and more, prospective
employers are using search engines such as
Google to do a sort of free background check on
applicants. What they find could make or break the job seeker’s chance of getting th eir foot in
the door.
It is crucial in an already -tight job market to
understand the dangers of creating
questionable content that either you or your
friends can post online. One of the first things
you should do is to fully assess how you are
viewed onlin e. Search engines search dynamic
sites like MySpace on a regular basis.
However, protecting your online reputation is
only the first step. You will also want to

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 12
familiarize yourself with business networking
and online profile resources that are regularly
used by companies. These can prove to be a
great deal of help.
In reality, many of the business networking
tools are used primarily by white -collar
professionals. However, as the Internet has
grown, many blue -collar industries are
embracing technology to fi nd the best
employees. No matter who you are, building a
professional online presence will help you to
stand above competing applicants.
Ready? Let's get started.
Just as you would work on your resume,
creating a generic online profile is done by
asking fo r the following information:
 Work Experience —Company, job title and
noted accomplishments
 Education —School name, degree and major,
extracurricular activities
 Skills —Depending on the online format, skills
may be added through the site’s automated
system or by simply adding it to a form field
like you would experience or education.
Building an online presence can depend on your
network. Many of the professional networking
sites allow for users to connect with current and
former colleagues, customers, business
partners and classmates. For that, you will want
to familiarize yourself with the system’s
connection invitation process.
Remember, the rules of face -to-face networking
also apply online. Courtesy is king. Don’t
assume that you will be able to connect wit h
your network automatically. To help this
process, you will want to create a short
personalized invitation to e -mail to potential
connections.
Here are examples of some of the most popular
business networking sites available:
 LinkedIn —At the moment, LinkedIn is the
undisputed king of business networking with more than 30 million users around the
world.
 Naymz —This site allows users to build their
profiles and connections to improve t heir
Reputation Score.
 VisualCV —One of the newest online profile
sites where users can add resume -style
elements and upload samples of their work
to create a fully interactive display to
present to employers.
As with all other dynamic Web sites, business
networking sites are checked regularly by the
major search engines. Once you have
completed building your online profile, be sure
to maintain it on a regular basis.
Being active on these sites, especially when
looking for a job, is vital. For example, think
about participating in LinkedIn Answers by
answering questions related to the field you are
looking into. Not only will this become an
opportunity to expand your network, it will
allow you to increase your value as a potential
employee.
In that same vein, you should also consider
creating an account on one of the social
bookmarking sites, Digg , StumbleUpon or
Delicious . Bookmarking articles and sites tied
closely into your interest in the job market is a
good way to draw the attention of like -minded
individuals and, potentially, get more job leads.
Blogging and micro -blogging are also great
tools. WordPress.com and Blogger are easy to
set up and use, and micro -blogging sites such as
Twitter and Indenti.ca are even easier. If you
are interested in pursuing this route, it is
important that your content is updated
regularly and that it paints you and your skills in
a positive light.
Finally, once you’ve found a new job, update
your profiles with the new infor mation. In a
volatile job climate, positions can easily go as
fast as they came, and again, any advantage you
can give yourself will be beneficial in the long
run.

13 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
Bob McDonald is a career consultant that
specializes in resume writing, as well as
helping p eople create an online presence
that will help job seekers increase their
visibility with prospective employers. His
venture, TOG Solutions , also provides
creative and virtual assistant services to
organizations o f all sizes. The TOG Blog
on the site post regular articles about job
searching, software and training.
When not working on his business or his
own job -search prospects, Bob is also a writer who is curre ntly working on his
Stories from the Forester series. One of
the books, Flagrant Foul, was completed
in 2006, and he is working on finishing
Volume I, which will include the stories
Dilemma (completed in 2008) and
Unwritten (currently living up to its
name ). He blogs about his many writing
misadvantures on the Quest for an ISBN
blog, located on the Stories from the
Forester Web site, wwwflagrantfoul.com .

Spend a while on Facebook and it can begin to
seem like an acceptable substitute for face
time. Don't be fooled. Even if all you're trying to
do is have a conversation, studies have shown
that our words convey only about 7% of our
meaning. The rest is tone of voice and body
gestures. Besides, you might want to do more
than converse —how about sharing an ethnic
meal with an expert, or seeing a concert, or
even dating? So yeah, Facebook isn't
everything.
Let's say you're new in town. How do you find
people to hang out with? A good starting place
is mee tup.com . Meetup usually has a wide
variety of themed groups that meet locally.
(There's probably a film meetup group in every
town.) Here in Cleveland, I'm a member of a
wine tasting group, a blogging group, and a
couple other general -purpose social groups . If I
could describe Meetup in a nutshell, I'd say that
it acts as a filter, bringing together all the
people who are interested in meeting new
people. Just think of the last time you got the
cold shoulder trying to strike up a conversation with someone, and you can see the value
immediately.
I've also gone to social events organized by
more specialized sites, like LinkedIn , the
professional networking service. If you imagine
that professional networking is something you
only do when you're out of work, then you're
doing yourself a disservice. In addition to
finding possibilities for yourself, a conversation
over beers can lead to finding a job lead for a
friend, or a new business opportunity for a
valuable client. The LinkedWorking Cleveland
group threw an event at Rock Bottom and
hundreds of people showed up!
Dating is another application for social media
that's hard to argue against. My wife and I met
on match.com —in 1999. In this case, the social
medium of profiles and escrowed emails exists
for the sole purpose of getting people together
face to face. Let's put that one in the "win"
column!
So find a way to put your interests or areas of
expertise to use. Do you exercise? Are you a

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 14
gardener ? A hardware hacker? Google up a
social medium that caters to your specialty, and
let serendipity happen!
Jeff has his Ph.D. in Materials Science,
which means he gets to melt metal for a
living. He spent seven years as a staff
scientist for the Department of Energy,
working on efforts to improve the
efficiency of the nation's trucking fleet, and is now in the semiconductor industry.
His involvement with social media began
with many years in the geographically
far-flung "gated communities" of
tabletalk.salon.com and www.well.com ,
where he still posts. He is a cook and
wine lover whose burning desire is
always to understand a little more about
the world. He can be reached at
hershberger.jeff@gmail.com .

Each social medium has its own flavor. If the
medium is the message, as McLuhan famously
said, then here’s a corollary to his axiom: every
social medium has unique formal factors that
deter mine the length, depth and even the tone
and style of any message it is used to convey.
To write well in social media, you must know
your medium well and use it often, because
every social medium forces certain limitations
on the writer. The 140 character limit of Twitter
places an obvious formal constraint on the size
of the message, but writers are equally (if not as
visibly) constrained by, for example, the rules of
netiquette that prevail in online communities or
the tone of an established blog on which
they’re guest -posting.
Set against the unique nature of each social
medium, however, are three principles of good
writing that apply across the spectrum of social
media:
1. Make it brief
2. Be as clear as you possibly can
3. Be genuine and generous
Make it brief
Omit needless words.
—Strunk and White, The Elements of Style Brevity is essential in any form of online writing,
including social media. That’s because we read
differently online.
Actually, according to usability expert Jakob
Nielsen, we don’t really read at all. We scan,
“picking out individual words and sentences”
rather than reading the text word by word.
(Nielsen, How Users Read on the Web )
Looking for information on an electronic screen,
we tend t o be “mission -driven.” Whether we’re
scanning a news story online or checking email
and twitter updates on a Blackberry, we’re
scanning to find that bit of information that is
relevant to us in that moment.
So any message sent via social media must not
only be relevant to the reader, it must be
immediately recognizable as relevant.
And the only way to do that is to keep it short
and get right to the point , before the reader's
rapidly scanning eyes flit away.
Revise, revise, revise
In brief, there’s only one way to write briefly.
You revise. You restructure sentences, look for
synonyms, or rescale the scope of your
message.

15 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
As Dennis Roth has said, “If it takes a lot of
words to say what you have in mind, give it
more thought.”
As social media’s briefest medi um, twitter is an
excellent way to practice brevity, writes Mike
Elgan in Put Your Writing on the Twitter Diet :
Twitter imposes a 140 -charac ter limit on posts
(including spaces and punctuation). Nearly
every user I've spoken to about using Twitter
admits to constantly revising each post to
squeeze it into 140 characters. The habit and
skill of revising for brevity and clarity is one of
the sec rets to good writing.
If you use twitter regularly, however, you’ll
discover some shortcuts for shortening your
prose.
Shorten with shortcuts
The web offers some advice and tools for
shortening your prose.
1. For phrases, look for substitutes.
Dan Santow of WordWise provides a list of
common phrases that can easily be replaced by
one word without loss of meaning. Some I’ve
found useful are:
 at the present time: replace with now or
currently
 for the purpose of: replace with for
 in order to: replace with to
 in spite of the fact that: replace with
although or though
 with regard to: replace with about
 on an annual basis: replace with yearly
 at this point in time: replace with now
 a large majority: replace with most
 be in a position to: replace with to or can
 in the event that: replace with if
2. For shorter synonyms, look it up.
Thsrs (The Shorter Thesaurus) at is a nifty tool.
Type in a word and it will give you back
synonyms that are shorter, even if it's only b y a
character or two. It’s particularly useful for
twitter, where every character counts. 3. If your message contains links, shorten their
urls.
Depending on your purpose, links are an
excellent way to give something of value to
your reader and bolster you r own credibility.
Instead of including a long gobble -dee-gook url
in your tweet, instant message, or Facebook
wall post, use a url shortener like tinyurl or
bit.ly .
4. In a pinch, use texting lingo and
abbreviations .
Using the abbreviations popular in texting and
IM can shorten your character count, but
carries definite implications for the tone of your
message. Using 2 (to, too), 4 (for) B4 (before) or
B/C (because) isn’t likely to reveal anyt hing
more than your inability to shorten your prose
through revision. Almost anything else, though,
damages your image (unless the image you’re
aiming for is “sex -starved teenager with
sophomoric sense of humor”).
Achieve Clarity
Don’t Make Me Think!
—The title of a bestselling book about web
design by Steve Krug.
Clarity is the quality of being clear or
transparent. In writing, clarity simply means
that there is nothing clouding your meaning,
nothing that distracts the reader from your
message.
Remember th at any online communication —
particularly short messages sent via social
media —must not only be relevant, it must be
immediately recognizable as relevant.
Your reader should be able to see at a glance
that your message is relevant to them, without
having to think about it.
Poor word choice, confusing syntax,
grammatical mistakes and factual errors will
cloud your message, making it less likely your
reader will see the relevance of your message.

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 16
Review sentence structure and argument
At the level of the sent ence, clarity can
improved by:
 Being careful where you place subordinate
clauses
 Avoiding multiple negatives
 Using the active voice
 Breaking long periodic sentences into
shorter simpler ones
 Making sure your pronouns, nouns and verbs
agree in gender, number, and case.
 Using the simplest words possible. Save your
big vocabulary for another forum.
 Minimizing description and avoiding
metaphor.
To promote clarity in a piece of writing as a
whole:
 Know ahead of time what you want to say.
 Write out bullet points for yourself and stick
to them.
 Give some thought to key words that your
readers will find relevant. Use only those key
words rather than watering the message
down with synonyms.
 Be straightforward rather than cute or
clever.
Organize your message v isually
You can strengthen the overall clarity of your
message by starting with what’s most
important. Jonathan Dube, the publisher of
CyberJournalist.net recommends leading with
the most important information, as journalists
do.
You can’t afford to bury the lead online
because if you do, few readers will get to it.
When writing online, it’s essential to tell the
reader quickly what the story is about and why
they should keep reading —or else they won’t.
—A Dozen Online Writing Tips
You can also make your message easier to read
by providing visual signposts like bullet points
and subheadings. Along with writing short, easily digestible
chunks of text, yo u should also make good use
of boldface, lists and subheadlines. These
elements help guide readers' eyes towards the
most important content, and make it easier to
absorb large content.
—Writing Online: Best Practices
Proofread
Accuracy really does count.
Typos and misspellings turn some readers off
immediately and damage your credibility with
other readers who expect you to sound as if you
know what you're talking about.
Make no mistak e: everyone's writing contains
errors sometimes, even that of English
professors and famous authors. That's why
copyeditors can make their living looking for
mistakes.
So before you hit send, take a moment to look
at your message with fresh eyes. If it's a n
especially important message — a tweet or
posting about your new online venture, say —
have someone else look at it. Or copy and paste
it into a wordprocessing program with
spellcheck.
There are some classic errors of usage that, for
whatever reason, rea lly annoy people.
Confusing “your” with “you’re,” “its” with “it’s”
or “there” with “their” really pushes some
people's buttons. If you fear you may misuse
similar -sounding words or homonyms, consult
Brian Clark’s cleverly -named post, The Inigo
Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused
Words .
Be genuine and generous
Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity,
simplicity, and humanity.
—William Zinsser
Unlike most other forms of online writing and
electronic communication, social media is
concerned first and foremost with people.
Social media's primary function is to encourage
like-minded people to make connections, hold

17 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
open conversations, and participate in group
projects and crowd -sourcing.
To write well for social media, your writing must
convey the genuine desire to connect with
people. Especially, says Dave Walker, if your
primary motive for using social media is
marketing:
Be genuine in your desire to talk to
people.
Social media is socia l. You need to start, join
and participate in conversations. Marketing is
about talking at people; social media is about
talking with people.
—The One and Only Rule for Social Media
Marketing
Your willingness to connect with other people
must be conveyed in whatever you write in
social media.
Keep your audience in mind, more closely, more
intimately, than you normally would as a writer.
Consider w hat you have or know that your
readers could use and lay it out there in the
most accessible, welcoming words you can
think of. In other words, saturate your writing
with what William Zinsser calls “humanity,”
Walker calls genuineness, and I’m calling
“gen erosity.”
In its best application, social media is the
equivalent of an outstretched hand, an open
invitation to start or deepen a relationship.
It really works, too. Let's say you and I are
strangers with mutual interests (we live in
Cleveland; we both ha ve small children; or we
both blog), I can start to follow you on twitter.
One day I reply directly to one of your tweets,
you reply back, and after a few exchanges, you
decide to follow me on twitter.
I send out a tweet about a new post on my blog.
You cl ick on the link I've included in my tweet,
and read the blog post, leaving a comment. I go
to your blog in return and like what I read. You
friend me on Facebook, or I connect to you on
LinkedIn and we find we have mutual friends. Or I discover that you're also a musician, and
get to know a different side of you when I visit
your band's page on MySpace.
Or perhaps one day I read a blog post of yours
on, say, a new fair pay law proposed in
Congress and I've also just read a post by
another blogger about the same topic but from
a different perspective. I tweet each of you the
urls to one another's posts. Next thing you
know, we've started a twitter conversation and
assigned it a hashtag, and now dozens of other
people are contributing to the conversation we
started about the proposed law. I start to follow
a few of those new people on twitter and
discover one of them lives in Cleveland, or has
small children…
There's tremendous potential for connecting,
sharing knowledge and building communities
via social media. All you need are the right
words to start.
Further reading:
 The Unexpected Trap of Writing for Social
Media
 Writing Online: Best Practices
 How Users Read on the Web
 Writing for the Web
 How to Ask Effective Questions on Twitter
 Do you Converse or Broadcast? How to Build
(or Kill) Relationships on Twitter
Lila Hanft has a Ph.D. in English and
three masters degrees in the humanities,
fine arts and social sciences. She has
worked as a journalist, a
psychotherapist, and an English
professor. She taught writing, literature,
film and women's studies classes at the
college level for 14 y ears, until the early
1990s when she fell in love with the
internet and never wanted to work
anywhere else. She has been a content
producer for MomsOnline on
Oxygen.com; the senior writer at
AGInteractive for the
AmericanGreetings.com, eGreetings.com
and B lueMountain.com websites; and a

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 18
freelance consultant in email marketing,
SEO, and content strategy. Recently laid
off from the Cleveland Jewish News,she
currently freelances as a writer and web
consultant. She works from her ramshackle home on East Blvd. i n the
Cultural Gardens neighborhood of
Cleveland, where she lives more or less
harmoniously with her husband and two
young sons.
If you don't control y our online presence,
someone else will.
When embarking on any new project or
adventure, it helps to set some goals. What do
you want to get out of the project? When it
comes to social media I thi nk we all share a
primary goal: controlling our online presence.
Many people are hesitant to jump into the
world of social media. Some are shy while
others simply don't know what they'll do once
they join the fray.
The advice I give to each is to consider what
may happen if they don't get involved. In a day
when employers Google job applicants and the
charming lass you met at that party last week is
searching the Web to make sure you're not a
psychopath, you want to be in control of what
they'll find.
The fact that you aren't posting about yourself
doesn't mean others aren't. Perhaps your name
and your clever ideas about composting were
posted in the meeting minutes of your
neighborhood gardening club. Perhaps your last
promotion was mentioned in the online version
of your local paper. Then again what if the fir st
thing that comes up in a Google search is your
wedding announcement…from five years
ago…to the fellow you divorced when you
discovered he was pawning your jewelry to
invest in a pyramid scheme? Is that what you
want to the world to see? Probably not.
That being the case, your social media plan
should include some way to present positive
aspects of yourself to the world. But how? Do
you start a blog? A MySpace page? Join
Facebook? That depends on your other goals.
What else do you want to accomplish onl ine?
Secondary Goals: Acquiring knowledge,
meeting people, career enhancement,
taking over the world…?
People have various reasons for getting
involved in social media. Some want to promote
a product or service. Others want to network
with professional pee rs and experts; some want
to meet people with common interests and
hobbies, and others don't care about the social
aspect —they just want a way to better filter
information based on user opinions. Social
media can help with all of this, but it takes time.
If you're just getting started you'll probably
want to start with just one or two secondary
goals. Typical examples could include:
 Discovering new music from those with
similar tastes and buying habits.

19 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
 Networking with others in your field —by
sharing tips a nd best practices —in order to
present your expertise, gain new insights
from others, increase your knowledge base
and learn about career opportunities.
 Trading links and recommending Web sites
or blogs geared to your hobby, sense of
humor, eating habits or other interests.
 Finding people in your area with whom you
can attend concerts, movies, gallery
openings, lectures, etc.
 Promoting your organization's products or
services.
 Recruiting new members to your club or
association.
 Documenting an event or activi ty.
 Conversing with like -minded souls about
your avocation or hobby.
Choosing a social media service or
strategy most likely to support these
goals.
There are thousands of social networks on the
Internet. Go to Web 2. 0 listed 2,746 of them as
of this writing. The number will have grown by
the time you read this. So where do you begin?
There may be a great new service starting today
that will be perfect for you next year. But if you
are just starting out, you'll probabl y want to
focus on services that already have an
established reputation and user base.
The easiest way to find a service or strategy
appropriate to your goal is to ask people you
know who are already using social media tools.
If you don't know anyone perso nally a group
such as Social Media Club – Cleveland can be a
good place to start. Many of the people there
are already experienced with social media and
would be happy to tell you which services they
use for whic h purposes.
Another good place is Google. For instance a
search on social networking music pulls up
Last.fm , a popular music recommendation site,
Wikipedia's list of social networking sites ,
Mashable's Rock On: 12 of the Best Music Social
Network , and so f orth. These are all great starting points, so, using this
approach, you should be able to find a strategy
that will fit your needs.
Popular Social Networking Services worth
considering
Over the past year I've introduced several
friends to social media. Typ ically we discuss
their goals then I show them the services I use
most frequently —so they can see how they
work. Then they go home and start
experimenting. Once they get started I find they
usually develop a preference for one or two
services that best sui t their needs.
My friend E is a classical musician who started a
blog to share her knowledge and experience
and to promote a recording project. Wanting to
both network with other musicians and
promote both her project and her blog, she
joined Facebook wher e she quickly found like –
minded musicians. My friend J likes to share
recipes, photography tips and humor on
StumbleUpon. I liked having long rambling
conversations with fellow Web designers —and
others —on the now -defunct Pownce, while
many of my colleagues preferred the brevity of
Twitter. With Pownce gone, I now spend more
time on Twitter because that is where I'm most
likely to find my Web design and social media
peers.
No matter what your goal, the only way to
know which service will work best for you is to
experiment for yourself. Sign up, explore the
sites, and see where you feel most comfortable.
In most cases it's not a question of whether A is
better than B, it's merely a question of which is
the best fit for you.
Now it's time to set your own goals and start
exploring. Here are a few places to get started.
 Blogging —You can host a blog on your own
Web domain, or use a service such as
TypePad or WordPress . Blogging is a good
way to share your knowledge and gain
valuable feedback from readers, though it

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 20
requires a consistent investment of time and
a clear editorial focus .
 Delicious —Social bookmarking (tag your
bookmarks by topic and share them with
yourself and others)
 Digg —Site recommendations (usually news
and blogs recommended b y the community
and your friends)
 Facebook —Connect with people you know
in the real world or join groups based on
topical interests.
 Flickr —Post photos and network with other
photographers.
 Friendfeed —Follow what your Friendfeed
friends are posting on their other social
media sites while sharing resources in topic
rooms.
 Last.fm —Music recommendations base d on
your listening habits
 Linkedin —Business networking service on
which you can post your work experience,
get recommendations, demonstrate your
expertise by answering questions in your
field and connect with peers.
 Socialthing —Follow what your friends (from
several other networks) are posting on those
other networks.
 Twitter —Microblogging in 140 character
increments. This is good for sharing quick
ideas and links, asking questions and
monitoring what people say about your
organization or products. Twitter can also be
a marketing tool when used with care.
 StumbleUpon —Site recommendations
based on your past preferences and what
your friends recommend
Getting the most out of your social
networking activities
If you're just starting out it's easy to get
overwhelmed. Just start with one or two
services that sound appropriate to your
purpose. Make su re to fill out your profile as
completely as possible. Include a photo and a
brief bio in the space provided. This lets other
users know you're a human and not a robot
promoting the latest get -rich quick scheme. Once you've signed up and filled out your
profile, read the FAQs and any user manuals
you may find. Search Google to find how -to tips
and recommendations for the service you use.
These will give you a roadmap to learn the best
ways to use the service as well as any user
conventions.
Now that you kno w more about the service,
start using it. Make some posts, save a few
bookmarks, favorite a song or whatever else is
appropriate. Look at other people's pages, then
follow their lead. After you've made a few of
your own posts/comments/bookmarks, etc.
then search out people with common interests
and follow or friend them. The posts you've
already made, in conjunction with your bio, will
help them to decide whether to friend you in
return.
Keep in mind that not everyone will follow you.
Some people return all friend requests while
others only return a few. That's O.K. there is no
social stigma or obligation involved in online
friending and you can usually still reply to
conversations started by people who've yet to
friend you back. This is a good way for them to
get to know you so that in time they may
reciprocate. Overall the social media
community is friendly and welcoming to new
users. As you use the service more, people will
learn more about you and your interests and in
no time you'll find people following you of their
own accord.
Now you should be well on your way to
exploring the world of social media. Enjoy!
Heidi Cool is a freelance Web designer
and consultant with more than 15 years
experience in Web development and a
background in marketing. Heidi has
worked in the fields of publishing and
higher education, most recently as
Webmaster of Case Western Reserve
University. You can read more of Heidi's
musings on social media, marketing, and
Web development on her Web
Development Blog .

21 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland

“The main reason to measure objectives is not
so much to reward or punish individual
communications managers for success or
failure as it is to learn from the research
whether a program should be continued as is,
revised, or dropped in favor of another
approach”
—James E. Grunig, Professor, University of
Maryland (From Katie Paine’s presentation,
Social Media Me asurement for PR)
One of the hardest things for people to grasp
about social media is why it is worth their time.
In public relations, often when suggesting social
media to a colleague or a client, the answer I
hear is “How do I know it works?” or “What’s
my return on investment (RO I)?”
It’s important to understand that measuring
social media is different than measuring a
traditional PR campaign. Times have changed.
We can no longer use circulation or impressions
as the sole judgment of a campaign.
Here are the three parts to basic measurement
of a social media campaign:
1. Define your goals
Imagine this scenario: Your boss tells you that
it’s your responsibility to increase the year’s
sales of your company’s product. You convince
him to let you use social medi a, and you create
a funny new video, and upload it on YouTube.
Surprise! Your video gets millions of hits. A few
months later, year -end sales arrive and aren’t
looking so good! In this case, your boss
probably won’t care about the YouTube hits;
and instead will be upset that you did not
achieve the main goal, selling products. Like any campaign, you need to create some
goals from which you can measure your
campaign’s results. Some possible goals include:
 Communicate with customers, employees,
etc.
 Drive Awa reness
 Have a Conversation
 Crisis Communications
 Sell Products
 Launch a new product
 Influence public opinion
 Cause Marketing; and
 Promote an event.
2. Quantitative Measurement
Let’s return to the above scenario. Your boss
probably expects you to provide him w ith a
chart and numbers from your social media
campaign. Quantitative measurement provides
numbers, allowing you to chart your ROI. Some
things you can measure quantitatively:
Activit y
Measuring activity allows you to determine the
number of individuals your campaign has
reached. Activity can include visitor traffic,
frequency of visitors returning, video views,
time spent on your site, number of program
registrants, donations earned and demographic
data you may find. Google analytics helps
measure activity and provides helpful
demographic info, including geographic location
of your audience. Compete also pro vides
relevant activity data, much of it free to users.
Participation
Measuring how people are participating with
your campaign also provides quantitative data.

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 22
Sure people are viewing your website, but are
they sharing it with others? Participation can
include anything posted on your landing page
from comments to ratings. Participation also
includes how people are involved (online and
offline) with your campaign. You can use
various search sites to determine how your
audience is participating: Are they lin king to you
or bookmarking it on delicious or digg ? Are they
tweeting , commenting or blogging about it? Is
your company generating profit because of your
campaign?
There are numerous websites out there that
help to measure social media campaign activity
and participation. Besides the aforementioned
ones, i t may be worthwhile to check out
webtrends , urltrends.com and socialmeter to
measure how those are participating in your
campaign.
3. Qualitative measurement
Because qualitative measurement often does
not deal with specific numbers, it can be
difficult to conduct. This does not mean that it
should be ignored; qualitative measurement is
just as important. Some things you can do to
measure qualitatively:
Tone
It is important to measure the tone of your
audience’s participation. Out of the comments
you receive on your blog, are most of them
positive? Are the twitter mentions of your
brand simply complaining about your product?
Relevance
If you just use numbers when measuring your
campaign, you’re not measuring accurately. If
your target audience for your new product is
young men, ages 18 -23, how significant is it if
Better Homes and Gardens’s blog linked to your
campaign? It is important to l ook at your target
audience when determining the relevance of
your participation.
Influence Returning to the first scenario: even if your
video had millions of views, if it didn’t meet
your original goal and influence an audience,
who cares? It’s important to ask “Did your
campaign influence an audience’s perception?
Did it generate new ideas, or start
conversations? Did it even influence your target
audience?”
Conclusion
There is no absolute guide to measuring social
media, and each project needs to be mea sured
differently. The more you use social media, the
better you’ll understand how to measure it.
Every day, new measurement tools come out,
new white papers are published, and new
“experts” claim to have answers to social media
measurement. Look at how ot hers have
measured their campaigns, and see how it can
work for you.
This is a very brief introduction on getting
started with measuring social media. For more
details and other tips and ideas on how to
measure your social media campaign, including
some gr eat case studies, I recommend checking
out KD Paine . KD Paine’s entire blog is devoted
to social media measurement. She has given
numerous presentations on how to measure
social media and you can follow her on Twitter .
Also, visit the Social Media Metrics Wiki for
various resources on social media metrics,
measurement and ROI.
Melissa Koski is a graduate of Boston
College (B.A., Communications) and
currently works at Edward Howard, a
public relations firm based in Cleveland,
Ohio. As an account executive, Melissa
has worked for clients such as Synapse
Biomedical, BioEnterprise, Windstream,
Wal -Mart, CFFA, DASMA and BP. A se lf-
proclaimed “social media junkie,”
Melissa takes an active role in Edward
Howard’s social media initiatives. As one
of the founding members of the
Cleveland Social Media Club, Melissa is in
charge of the Events Committee.

23 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
In the late 1960s, the Internet began as a way
for universities, researchers and the Defense
Department to share data. Social networking
tools began as a way for people to share ideas.
According to eMarketer , in 2008 nearly 80
millio n people —41% of the U.S. Internet user
population —visited social network sites at least
once a month. That represents an 11% increase
from 2007. With that many individuals online
and participating in social networking sites , one
would expect that social media marketing
strategies would be incorporated into every
small business, corporation and nonprofit in
America. Within nonprofit organizations, that is
not happening. Fear and apathy are the primary
barriers to using social media, according to Web
Pro News .
As a nonprofit communications and
development professional, social networking
sites and social media marketing strategies are
valuable tools to me. They are not to be
feared —they should actually be embraced.
Integrating social media marketing strategies
into a nonprofit’s marketing, public relations
and fundraising plan will offer more
opportunities to:
 Connect with constituents and supporters
 Become transparent
 Allow your supporters to connect with each
other
 Raise money
 Raise awareness of your brand and the
services you provide to the community
 Share success stories And the best part about social media
marketing —it’s free. All of the platforms
discussed here are available online free of
charge. All that is required is time —time to
learn, time to post, and time to engage others.
There are many social media opportunities; the
ones discus sed here provide a good place to
start. They are fairly user -friendly and are the
most popular with the general public.
Social Networks
Facebook
Facebook , the free access social networking
site, is what most people th ink of when they
hear the term “social networking.” What began
as a way for college students to interact online
has morphed into one of the largest and most
diverse social networking platforms available.
Facebook attracts individuals of all
demographics, making it an ideal place for a
nonprofit to network with its supporters.
Nonprofit organizations can interact with
Facebook in one of two ways. One, n onprofits
can set up their own Facebook page. Rather
than providing information on a person, the
nonprofit is featured. The manager of the
Facebook account can “friend” supporters, post
photos and video, and promote special events,
volunteer opportunities, and other fundraisers.
Two, nonprofits can create a Facebook cause
page . Once your cause has been verified,
supporters can “link” your cause to their profile.
Cause page s also offer the opportunity to raise
money for specific programs or events.
One of the great aspects of Facebook is its
ability to create missionaries, ardent supporters
of your cause who actively recruit new people.

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 24
These missionaries have the potential to create
wealth for your organization simply because of
their influence within social networks and their
passion for your cause.
Online Communities
Online communities are similar to Facebook in
that participants interact with each other
online. Actually, some of the online community
building sites, like Ning, physically resemble
Facebook. The similarity ends there.
Online communities are created for a specific
purpose a nd have a specific theme. Members
may or may not know each other in “real” life;
they simply joined the online community
because of a shared interest. Donate Life
Illinois , a nonprofit focusing on encouragi ng
organ donor registration, created an online
community bringing together patients,
recipients, families, advocates and supporters
to network and connect with each other.
Creating an online community for y our
constituents and/or supporters is a great way
for them to connect more fully with each other
and with your organization.
Twitter
One of the newest social media tools is Twitter ,
a way to post brief messages over th e Internet.
People choose to follow each other and their
“tweets,” the term used to describe messages
sent via Twitter. The catch —the message needs
to be composed of 140 characters or less.
For nonprofits, Twitter provides a tremendous
opportunity to conne ct often with supporters of
your mission, to share current news or success
stories, to remind supporters of special events
and volunteer opportunities, and to raise
money. Some nonprofits use their brand as
their Twitter profile (e.g. @CIFF or
@DonateLifeIL ); others use members of their
staff (e.g. @SAJansky and @jf329 ). I personally
believe people would rather connect with
people than brands, but that decision needs to
be made by each nonprofit. Twitter has the unique ability to rally
“tweeples,” the term used to describe avid
Twitter users, to raise money for nonprofit
causes. A per fect example is Twestival , a global
event on February 12, 2009, which brought
Twitter users together to raise money for
charity:water . Twestival was organized 100% by
volunteers who committed to hosting events
for charity:water in more than 175 cities around
the world on the same day. Individuals could
donate money through tipjoy , a Twitter
application offering simple social payments for
great people causes and content, or purchase a
ticket to any one of the events. The result?
Nearly $1 million raised entirely by volunteers
who spread a viral message.
Next Steps
Before logging onto your computer and signing
up your nonprofit for all these services, there
are a few things your nonprofit needs to be
aware of when choosing to use social media:
Be comfortable distributing control of
your marketing message
Social media provides every individual with a
voice and the power to effect change.
Appro aching social media armed with your
nonprofit’s mission statement and talking
points will not lead to success with these
mediums. Allow your supporters to use their
voice to promote your cause, even if it differs
from your organization’s standard tag lines and
messaging.
Listen more, talk less
Social media is not about disseminating a
message. It’s about connecting with people.
Take time to listen to what is being posted on
your Facebook page or your Ning site or what is
being “tweeted” about your organiza tion and
its services or programs. Discuss this internally.
Cultivating relationships one friend or tweet at
a time will pay off in the long term.
Be enthusiastic
Consumers are more sophisticated than ever
and can identify a talking point or “corporate

25 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
speak” – even from a nonprofit. Be authentic in
all social media communications. Answer
questions honestly. Accept criticism gracefully.
Encourage controversial discussions rather than
trying to stop them.
Take time
Social media platforms may be free, but u sing
them well takes time. It takes enormous
amounts of time to employ these strategies and
gain enough momentum to see tangible results.
Don’t give up. Build your support base on
Facebook, Ning and Twitter slowly – as other
social media users notice your honest,
authentic content and your great cause, they
will join you. Stephanie A. Jansky is the Development
Manager at MedWish International and
the Social Media Strategist for the
Donate Life Rose Parade float . Having
worked in the nonprofit sector her ent ire
career, Stephanie is keenly aware of the
communications challenges facing
nonprofits and believes passionately in
the effectiveness of social media
marketing strategies. She is a member of
the Steering Committee for the Cleveland
Social Media Club, the Cleveland MOTTEP
Board of Directors and the Cleveland Plus
Marketing Alliance Young Professionals
Council. She also authors the blog The
Lake Effect .

As the number of people using social networks
increases, so does the number of grassroo ts
campaigns that leverage social media for event
promotion. Since many tools and applications
from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are free,
cost savings —compared to traditional event
promotion methods —is a primary benefit.
However, building relationships via social
networks requires a considerable time
commitment. But, the payoff —credibility via
friend referrals —can be priceless.
These new methods of recruiting event
attendees still must abide by traditional rules to
achieve success:
 Target your audience a ppropriately
 Include relevant information
 Promote within a reasonable time period
(two to four weeks in advance for
established groups; at least two months for
relationships that need to be established)
 Execute the event well If budget permits, couple a social media
campaign with traditional event promotion
tactics, such as direct and guerrilla marketing,
media relations and/or advertising, to generate
the maximum return on your investment.
At the event, consider surveying attendees to
record the most pop ular mechanisms that
generated awareness and interest in attending.
Facebook

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 26
On Facebook, create a fan page (similar to
individual profile pages) to share information
with people with similar interests via a news
feed. From the fan page, create an event and
post regular information such as updates, links,
photos etc., to drive attendance.
As the date nears, Fac ebook will remind those
who have RSVPed about the event. Event
organizers who have Facebook profiles can post
links to the event on their pages with the hope
of recruiting friends and generating word -of-
mouth publicity.
Be forewarned that if you try to rec ruit fans and
send event invitations to Facebook users
outside of your network, you will most likely be
flagged for spam. Here are some Facebook
event etiquette tips .
After the event, post photos and videos to the
event and fan pages and tag attendees.
Twitter
On Twitter, create an account specific to an
event and post updates about progress in
planning the event and solicit feedback from
followers, etc. Twitter is searchable by
geographic region and interests via Twitter
search . Increase visibility for your event outside
of your network by following tweeps who might
be interested in attending. If they a re a good fit,
odds are they will follow you back and consider
attending your event.
If you use a Twitter aggregator, like TweetDeck ,
you can easily keep tabs on who is tweeting
about similar topics so you can engage them in
dialog and keep tabs on who is replying to your
Twitter account throughout the day.
During the event, create a hashtag for your
event and encourage your followers to use it
when discussing anything related to the event.
You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word
with a hash symbol: #hashtag. For example:
Need a ride to twestival Cleveland from the
West side. #twestival.
Blogs Leverage the event organizer’s Web site to
integrate all social media promotion acti vities.
For example, add a Twitter badge that
showcases recent tweets from the event
account to the homepage. And, post links to the
Facebook fan and event pages to encourage
visitors to join.
Target relevant bloggers with information about
your event and post comments with links, as
appropriate, to create a ripple effect of
awareness among their followers.
LinkedIn

Utiliz e LinkedIn to promote business or
professional development events by creating an
event page or posing a question.
Ning
When established social networking sites
exclude a niche your event is targeting, Ning
offers the option of creating your own social
network site, complete with blog entries,
discussion forums and event listings.
Ning offers easy integration with other social
media sites like YouT ube, Facebook , Flickr and
blogs for posting related messaging, photos and
videos related to your event. Further, it’s fairly
easy to add multiple events.
YouTube and Flickr
Particu larly for recurring events, a YouTube
channel and a Flickr group page provide visual
avenues to keep interested parties involved in
event preparation. At the completion of each
event, organizers can post videos and photos of

27 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
event attendees to give a sense of turn -out and
build excitement for the next event in a series.
Christina Klenotic is a senior account
executive at Dix & Eaton with a specialty in media relations, guerrilla/viral
marketing and marketing
communications. She is available on
Twitter both personally ( @cklenotic ) and
professionally ( @d_and_e ).

Speaking —plain -old speaking t o an audience —
is the original social medium. You use your
voice to inform, persuade, or entertain. If
you’re good, you do each. If you’re really good,
you interact with the audience to help them get
what they want from you.
Audiovisual aids are as old as s peaking. Think
cave paintings. Today, over one half billion
people use Microsoft Office PowerPoint ™ to
help tell their stories. By one measure, over 30
million PPT presentations are cr eated every
business day.
Increasingly, “slideware” applications, including
PowerPoint, Apple’s Keynote ™, and others,
have been embraced by social media, giving
your presentations longer life and wider reac h.
And the lack of two -way interaction —a
drawback of many traditional presentations —is
being addressed by social media as well.
Let’s look at the current intersection of social
media and presentation technology, starting
with simpler, more entertainment -oriented
applications, then on to sophisticated, business –
oriented options.
The Fun Stuff
Most MySpace users are familiar with
Slide.com . Billing itself as a social entertainment
company, Slide develops widgets, or mini –
applications that users download and paste on
their personal blogs or social networking pages.
Chief among these apps is their Slideshow
widget. Source images may be downloaded from your storage or transferred from social
image -sharing sites like Flickr or Photobucket .
Your widget -based slideshow, in turn, may be
posted on your page at MySpace, Facebook ,
Bebo , Hi5, Friendster , or your blog.
Animoto recently upped the ante. Animoto
takes your photos, combines them with an
audio track you supply, and creates a dynamic,
Flash -based, rendered video file for your
sharing. The website can also host your video;
one example is this 2009 Denver Twestival . (Be
careful with Animoto and Facebook, however.
The app has been known to send a user’s
photoshow video to random FB friends of that
user. It was part of Animoto’s now -questionable
viral growth strategy. They are working on it.)
RockYou.com and Joggle.com are also entrants
in this field, emphasizing the music – and video –
sharing aspects that younger users enjoy . Slide,
perhaps in response to Animoto, recently
introduced the ability to add music to your
creations.
It may be easy to dismiss Slide and other
entertainment apps, but take note that
Slide.com was founded by Max Levchin. Before
Slide, he co -developed Pa yPal and later sold it
to eBay for $1.5 billion. He was 26 at the time.
The Serious Stuff
Let’s assume your pre -existing PowerPoint
slides are ready for sharing via a hosting service.
Where do you go from here?
PowerPoint on the Web

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 28
Before social media was a recognized phrase,
presenters have been posting PPT files on
websites. Web visitors needed either the
PowerPoint application or the free PowerPoint
viewer installed. Security, however, was and is a
concern. Posting an unprotected PPT file to a
public website lets users download a fully
editable copy. Presenters often resorted to
workarounds such as converting PPT to Flash or
HTML, which remains a popular and viable
option. (See How to convert PPT to Flash .) Later
versions of PowerPoint offer a more reliable
“Save as Web Page” option over previous
versions, though not all PPT effects translate to
web viewing.
To find web PPT files using Google, add
“filetype:ppt” to your keyword search query.
Here is an example using the word “Cleveland.”
SlideShare
Started in September 2006, SlideShare is the
dominant website for sharing presentations.
One writer described them as “the YouTube of
presentations.” Presenters can upload
PowerPoint, OpenOffice, PDF, or Keynote files,
share presentations publicly or privately, and
add SlideShare shows to their blog, LinkedIn
profile, or Facebook page. SlideShare shows can
also be “Slidecasts” which include an audio
track. And since February 2009, SlideShare
shows can contain
embedded YouTube
videos . One popular
SlideShare
presentation
recognized for both
visual style and
compelling content is
Shift Happens .
The SlideShare website permits viewers to leave
comments, just like blogs, and authors can
respond. It also permits the author to include
comments about each slide, similar to the
Notes view in PowerPoint. Th e presentation
becomes conversation; this is a huge advent in
online presentations. (I always remind and
encourage PPT authors to type their scripts into the Notes view. If printouts are necessary, the
full context —slide and script —can live on. Also,
colle agues benefit from having source material.
It leaves little guessing about what those
awkward bullet phrases or pictures were
intended to convey.)
authorSTREAM
authorSTREAM is also an online service which
allows you to upload PowerPoint files and share
them via email link, embed them in social media
pages, or play on portable media players. One
notable authorSTREAM feature works with your
recorded audio “Narrations” in your PowerPoint
file. You can create a file i n video format (MP4)
to upload and share on video sharing sites or
show on video -capable devices. One example of
a narrated authorSTREAM presentation is Smart
Choices: Visual Decision Support . Like
SlideShare, authorSTREAM lets viewers interact
with presenters via comments.
SlideSix
Another entrant in the social presentation –
sharing community is SlideSix . Key difference
here is that you can record audio and video
directly within the SlideSix management
console. The media is embedded directly within
your online presentation.
Developer Todd Sharp is chief cook and
bottlewasher at this indep endent, as -far-as-
you-can-get-from -Silicon -Valley startup, a point
not lost on TechCrunch and their recent review .
Mashable took kindly to SlideSix, too.
Others
SlideBoom , OnlinePRESENTER ,
Insta ntPresenter , PresenterNet , Speechi and
Zentation also host your existing PowerPoint
files and enable web -based sharing. Adding
audio , converting to Flash, and education
market orientation are some of these packages’
features.
No PowerPoint? No Problem!
Big movers in social media slideshows have
been software -as-a-service sites which let you
create, store, and share, all online. Beyond

29 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
mere hosting, the promise of cloud computing
has everyone’s attention right now, and
presentation authoring is at that forefront.
SlideRocket
SlideRocket is slick. ( Select and watch a sample .)
Built on Adobe's Flex platform, SlideRocket
gives you authoring tools, transitions, image
and video manipulations, and charting and table
creation. (If you have existing PowerPoint
slides, you can import those to get started.) You
may also import your own fonts or pull in
various elements into your presentation. Their
growing asset marketplace lets you browse and
buy content such as themes, stock
photog raphy, cartoons, audio, video, etc. The
free account option limits you from paid
features like asset sharing and synchronizing for
collaborative efforts. For more, see this
exhaustive independent review of SlideRocket
by Robin Good at MasterNewMedia.
280slides
While still carrying the “beta” tag in its logo,
280slides encourages you to jump right in to a
working editor. After you take it for a spin, it’s
hard to believe this all takes place in a browser.
280slides stores your shows, shares online, and
imports as well as downloads to PPT. Another
nice feature: autosave and recovery.
ZohoShow
ZohoShow is the presentation app of the vast
suite from Zoho. While not as slick as
SlideRocket, the interface boasts most of what
you might ex pect, clipart and all, from
PowerPoint circa 2000. Take the ZohoShow
tour .
Others
Empressr , GoogleDocs , OpenOffice Impress ,
PresentationEngine , Prezentit , Spresent ,
ThinkFree Show , and Thumbstacks all let you
create presentation via online resources and
tools.
Visit JingProject , ScreenToaster , WebSlides , and
Flowgram to see how web pages are
supplementing or even replacing slides in presentation. If you have ever needed to
present, but display only web pages in
succession, then share the sites via RSS, these
tools are for you.
Note: there is volatility in this market space.
Months ago, four additional websites would
have appeared in this grouping, but have not
served live pages for weeks.
Last word: On Design
You might gather from sample slideshows
above that current presentation design has
shifted as much as social media has in recent
years. Here is a trio of resources to find out
more: Beyond Bullet Points , Presentation Zen ,
and slide:ology .
These books, and their authors and blogs,
document this shift in thinking based on new
research on cognitive processes. In part, they
are re sponding to the cries of Edward Tufte and
the “ PowerPoint is Evil ” manifestos.
While everyone agrees with Tufte’s final essay
words “ respect your audience,” he would likely
concede that speaking the right story to the
right audience, in their space, at their pace, and
engaging them via feedback is the best way to
earn that respect. These abilities have been
greatly enhanced through soci al media.
Tony Ramos is a designer and consultant
specializing in presentations and
proposal graphics. For three consecutive
years, he has been designated a
Microsoft MVP for PowerPoint for his
contributions to the PPT user community.
In 2003, he was the first to write a
weblog about PowerPoin t, now titled
"The Presentationist ." His projects range
from pro bono presentations to
government contract proposals worth
$100B. A fan of Twitter , Facebook , and
other social sites, Tony has been involved
in computing since punch cards and
Fortran. Tony is a decent cyclist, a slow
runner and a bad swimmer. He and his
wife and dogs live on Cleveland's west
side.

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 30
Social media is the most remarkable
technological phenomena of the 21st century.
From using social networks to c onnect with
friends and co -workers to promoting and
marketing a business, social media is the most
popular technology used on the Internet today.
Over the last three years, users of social media
have increased beyond expectations. For
example, Facebook alo ne reached 150 million
users in 2008, which would make it the eighth
largest country in the world ! Because of the
amount of users in these social networks and
the increasing usage, it's no su rprise that social
media is becoming the biggest target for abuse,
scams and security threats.
What are the threats?
Many security researchers and privacy
advocates have determined that the top threats
to users of social media are:
 Cyberbullying, Cyberstal king and sexual
predators
 Phishing, scams and SPAM
 Third -party applications used within social
media
 Collection and aggregation of personal data
 Impersonation and Cybersquatting
How can you use social media with
privacy and security in mind?
Let’s face it, social media is the most valuable
and useful set of applications and tools to
network with others on the Internet. However,
there are some simple guidelines that you
should follow when using any type of social
media application or network. By using these
guidelines you can still use social media the way
it was meant to be used, but with safely and
privacy in mind which will help mitigate the
threats listed above. Choose a complex/unique password for
your social media accounts
Many users of social media (an d computer
users in general) set the same password for
social media, email, online banking and other
important accounts. Why do we do this?
Because one password is easy to remember!
The problem is that if just one of these accounts
gets hacked or compromis ed, all of your
accounts are compromised as well. To help
solve this problem, try using a password
manager application like KeePass (free) or
1Password to automatically create c omplex and
unique passwords for each of the accounts you
use on various applications. That way if one of
your accounts is compromised, the rest of your
accounts are safe.
Set appropriate privacy and security
defaults for your social media profiles
Every so cial network by default allows access to
the entire world because this is how social
networks are supposed to function. However,
what if you don't want your profile indexed by
major search engines, or don't want everyone
on a particular social network to b e able to find
you and view your personal information? For
example, limiting who can search for you can be
especially helpful if you don't want future or
current employers to automatically find your
profile. In addition, having completely open
profiles on social networks are what
cyberstalkers and cyberbully's look for. Why
make it easy for people with bad intentions? Be
sure to check out the privacy and security
settings for each social media application and
network you use. If you are on Facebook you
can check out the Facebook Privacy and
Security Guide I put together. By following this

31 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleve land
guide you can appropriately set privacy and
security settings for your Facebook profile.
Be careful installing third party
applications
Don’t install applications from sources you
don’t trust .
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and other social
networks allow you to install third party
applications and widgets to your profile. These
applications all ow more interaction with your
friends. For example, there are lots of
interesting applications that allow you to throw
virtual snowballs at your friends or "Super
Poke" them in Facebook. What you may not
know is that most of these applications will
overrid e your privacy settings even if you have
specifically changed your privacy settings. In
addition, many of these applications are not
created by professional developers. These
applications are sometimes coded incorrectly
and can contain security vulnerabili ties that
could be exploited and expose your private
information. The best advice is to only install
third -party applications from well known
providers (for example, Amazon or Yahoo) and
limit their usage.
Only accept friend requests from people
you know d irectly
As a general rule you should be very cautious
when accepting friend requests from people
you either don't know personally or with whom
you are not currently doing business. A typical
method spammers and criminals use is to run
automated tools to se nd millions of friend
requests to random people on social networks.
Once these friend requests are accepted it
makes it easy for criminals to start sending
unsolicited SPAM as well as attempting to send
phishing emails to others on the social network.
In addition, cyberstalkers use these same
techniques to exploit trust relationships
between you and your friends.
Be cautious with people that you think are your
friends. Another popular technique used by spammers and criminals is to impersonate
people you may already have a relationship
with. This can even include celebrities and high –
profile accounts. Look out for strange messages
and/or behavior from people you are already be
friends with. If their accounts exhibit strange
activity they may have been comprom ised and
could be trying to get you to become a victim as
well.
Read social media privacy policies
carefully
Limit personal information you share .
Social networks all have privacy policies and
terms of use. Be sure to read these carefully.
Most privacy pol icies indicate that you are
giving the social network your personal
information and they can use it basically for
whatever they want. This includes selling your
information to third -parties in some cases. The
reality is that social networks have no obligat ion
to protect your privacy. For example, in 2005
when MySpace was sold to News Corporation,
each MySpace profile (21 million at the time)
was estimated to value around $27. That's 567
million dollars! The number of active users on
MySpace has increased to 110 million in early
2008! These statistics show that the more
information you share, the more valuable you
are to the social network. Remember, it's up to
you to read these policies and limit the personal
information you share if you feel you need to.
Be careful what you post
Consider all information and pictures you post
as public!
Sure, those private pictures of you drunk were
cool to share with your friends, but what if
those pictures made their way outside of your
social network? Consider what you pos t about
yourself and others. For example, US
Representative Pete Hoekstra recently sent
messages on Twitter to nearly 3,000 followers
while he was i n Iraq and Afghanistan. He took a
lot of criticism from the US government and
others that this may have caused a security

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 32
incident or endangered the lives of his party.
Want another example? Go to Google and type
in "site:dmfail.com" (without quotes) and y ou
will see lots of messages that were sent on
Twitter that should have been private. Sure,
these were most likely simple mistakes, but it's
a lesson for all of us! Be careful what you post!
Tom Eston is an information security
professional from Cleveland, Ohio. Tom currently works for a Fortune 500
financial institution as the security
assessment team lead. In his spare time
he researches social media security,
blogs about security and is one of the co –
hosts of the Security Justice podcast .
Tom is also a frequent speaker on social
media security and other security related
topics. He is also the author of the
Facebook Privacy & Security Guide .

messy magazine is an online literary / art /
music / photography / whatever -that-issue –
needs -to-be-at-the-moment magazine. The
basis of the magazine revolves around theme –
inspired work, spanning fiction and non -fiction
writing, reviews, previews, fashion, music and
visual work.
messy magazine is grassroots and non –
traditional. We are grateful for social media
tools that will help us promote our magazine
and the wealth of artistic talent and just plain
interesting people and events here in northeast
Ohio. We look forward to learning from the
masters (most of whom are writing articles
about much fancier stuff in this e -book) and
thank you for the chance to include this little
blurb about how we are using social media at
messy magazine .
At messy magazine , we are exploring the
possibilities of usi ng social media to spread the
word about upcoming themes, special events
and also to distribute our product. We are
currently working on creating an open source
blog where our readers and friends can log on
and write pieces to complement (or contradict)
our bi-monthly online publication. This
interactive piece will help us to further engage
our audience and will help us to achieve one of
our original goals of creating community and encouraging interactions between artists,
creative types and those just star ting out.
messy magazine has a Facebook group page
and we use that to send messages, update
group members on events and submission
deadlines and to basically just spread the word
about what we’re working on. Since our
magazine is driven by user content, we
frequently message and update the page so
that people can keep up on what is going on
and when they should jump in, either to submit,
enter a contest or check out an article, local
business or company that we recommend. Each
staff member also reaches out to their own
personal networks on Facebook, myspace and
twitter, and the response has been very
favorable.
In sum, we were four twenty -somethings with
9-5 jobs, Facebook pages and a huge
commitment to creativity as a force to drive
economic development… a nd now we’re four
twenty -somethings with an online magazine,
the popularity of which is rapidly spreading
thanks to links on our friends’ blogs and
promotion through various social networking
sites.
We don’t always have a chance to be creative
during the work day and understand if you

33 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
don’t either. We want to construct a friendly
online place for people to showcase their work
and build relationships. It’s our own social
networking vehicle – complete with great stories
and compelling visuals.
messy magazine is distributed bi -monthly from
Cleveland, Ohio. We welcome submissions from
all over the world (and have published work
from all over the country). We are currently a
paperless magazine. Why? Because printing is
expensive…and we really enjoy saving trees.
Our paperless format also allows us to promote
our publication online to a greater amount of
people. Print it if you want to. Send the link to a
friend. That’s kind of how we do things.
If you have given us your business card, you will
be added to our emai l list and we will find you
on Facebook and ask you to join our group. It’s
a not -as-stalker -like-as-it-sounds way of saying
we really want you on board for this – and we
want you to tell all of your friends.
Genna is one of the four individuals that
produ ces messy magazine from
Cleveland, Ohio. The rest of the team
includes Vanessa Aron, Lauren Kirk and
Michael Stidham. During the day, she
works for University Circle, In c.
promoting the Greater Circle Living
Program to eligible employees in and
around the Circle. Genna also serves on
the Marketing and Development
committee at SPACES gallery and is
involved with the Great Lakes Urban
Exchange. Her interests lie in true
grassroots marketing and in promoting
Cleveland as a great place to live, work
and create. messy magazine was created
specifically to encourage creativity, both
artistically and in formulating ideas to
move Cleveland forward.

Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 34
While developing our own social media web site
at CorkShare , we found there are a few trends
in the leading social media platforms that are
no longer just neat tricks, but essential
components for success. Any new platform has
the following features on their time line to
attract the user base necessary for a thriving
social media web application.
Enable easy content sharing across
multiple platforms
With the unprecedented reach of social
networks and social media, information can be
distributed virally and reach millions of peo ple
though blog posts, Twitter feeds, email, and
status messages. Why not incorporate this
network effect into your social media startup?
Allow users to easily share and embed content
from your service onto other web pages. Build
in features such as a one click "Post to Twitter",
or enable sharing through an external widget
like ShareThis . People are lazy; removing as
many barriers to sharing content will help your
service reach more potential users faster. All
the major players are including these features
(such as Digg’s recently released DiggBar ). We
think you should too. Allow developers to build new features
with an API

Tweetdeck
An application programming interface, or API,
allows outside developers to build products that
leverage an existing service. These community
software developers can test out and
implement new features of a service while
having access to an already established user
base. Microblogging service Twitter benef its
greatly from an API ecosystem, with hundreds
of API applications ranging from desktop clients
(TweetDeck ) to photo posting ( TwitPic ) to
iPhone applications ( TwitterFon ).
By providing an API, you can crowdsource the
creative discovery of new features to the public.
If a user -developed API project becomes
popular and adds value to the overall
community , you can then make an off er to
acquire and integrate the application. In July
2008, Twitter acquired search engine Summize
for $15 million, thus integrating search
functionality i nto Twitter’s core product.

35 Welcome to Social Media: Volume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland
Provide mobile applications for portable
access to content

Apple App Store for iPhone
If you build it, they will come. As seen by video
game juggernauts Nintendo and Sony, outside
developers can thrive in an open environment
with direct access to paying consumers.
Companies such as Apple and Google are
allowing developers to write third party
applications that add advanced functionality to
our mobile devices. Web service providers
should build apps in the emerging smartphone
market to enhance the user experience.
Applications written for the iPhone, Android,
and Blackberry platforms provide users access
to the complete feature set of their favorite
Web pages, including uploading content from
their mobile phones. This allows for arguably a
superior experience than on a desktop or laptop
computer, as users can access the service at any
time.
Provide users mobile access to your web service
to remove barriers and increase the amount of
time users spend with your service. Mobile
appl ications will increase the popularity of your
overall community through word of mouth. For
example, an iPhone user can demo an installed
application to friends in public.
Engage you r community directly
Diggnation
Social media applications are a product, but also
more importantly a community. In order to
foster lasting relationships and experiences, the
community must be thoroughly and
consistently engaged. Twitter cofounder Evan
Williams uses his platform to converse with
many other Tweeters. Digg cofounder Kevin
Rose uses weekly online video podcast
Diggnation to engage his user base and discuss
top articles of the week. Williams and Rose
stimulate active users to stay involved, causing
a unique culture and identity to emerge within
their sites.
Upcoming social media sites should learn from
the successes of Twitter and Digg. Find activities
for your users to participate in and engage with
them directly to build your brand and foster a
greater sense of community. People want to be
a part of something bigger; give them the
maximum number of opportunities to
contribute and interact.
Moving Forward
Let’s be honest: the social media startup scene
is becoming increasingly crowded and chaotic.
For every success story, there are scores of
failures. With limited resources and talent, it
can be overwhelming to compete against top
dogs such as Facebook or Twitter.
The key is to focus on your core compet encies
while allowing the community to fill in the gaps.
Set up an API and let developers go to town.

Welcome to Social Media: Vo lume 1, June 2009 Social Media Club – Cleveland 36
Have the site spread virally by letting users
share content in one click. Get buzz with the
release of an iPhone app. But don’t ever slow
down, and don’t ever give up.
Jim England and Tim Gasper are
cofounders of CorkShare and seniors at
Case Western Reserve University .
CorkShare is a social media application
to visually share Web content including
photos, videos, links and widgets with
close friends and colleagues using an
easy and intuitive interface. Tim
(@TimGasper ) is studying economics and
management with a marketing focus,
while Jim ( @JimEngland ) is studying
management with an IT focus.