Getting started in social media

Posted on February 10th, 2008 by Carl-Johan

Have you heard all the hype about Social Media and are interested in getting started? Perhaps you’ve already taken a few steps in the Social Media arena. This is the first of a series of articles on using Social Media for personal and business purposes. As you’ll see, personal and business interests in Social Media go hand in hand.

What is Social Media?

Social Media is an online phenomenon, which encompasses a lot of things. In fact, the term is so new, that its definition is rather hard to pin down. You can say that Social Media is online interactive media, where information and activities can be shared among users.

Many would say that social media is democratic, in that everyone has a say in whether a provider of social media is popular or not. For instance, a blog that is well written and contains a lot of useful information for its readers will spread by one or more social platforms. It may be mentioned in other blogs, bookmarked in a social bookmarking service, discussed in forums, and so on.

The big idea about Social Media is that information is shared (or sharable). Another point is that content is added through collaboration and syndication. 1+1=3 sort of thing.

What types of Social Media are there?

The list is long.

Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger.com), Discussion Forums, Social Networks (Linkedin, Facebook, Myspace), Photo sharing (Flickr, Picasa, Panoramio), Instant messaging (MSN Messenger, ICQ), Music sharing (Last.fm), Video sharing (YouTube), RSS, Podcasts, Bookmark sharing (del.icio.us), Calendar sharing (Google Calendar), Microblogs (Twitter, Pownce), and a lot of other kinds of tools are all Social Media.

Social Media is any platform that lets you both publish and receive text, sound, video and/or pictures online. In upcoming posts, I will go further into detail about a few of these platforms, with some details on how to get started.

Why use Social Media?

Chances are you are using several types of Social Media already. There are so many providers that have appeared the last few years, and the tools are spreading like wildfire.

Here are a few examples where Social Media can be of use for you.

  • Career development
  • Fun
  • Keeping in touch with friends
  • Making a name for yourself
  • Business networking
  • Productivity your personal life
  • Sales and marketing

There are many reasons to get involved, and there are a lot more than on the list above.

So how do I choose where to start?

The classical answer is “it depends”. It depends on what you want out of it, and how much you want to (or can) contribute. Getting involved with a purpose is better than jumping in without a plan.

The next post on how to get started in Social Media is about which ways there are to get into the game. Later in this series, I will bring it all together with a Personal Social Media Strategy for you to choose.

| Next in series >

TOC: How to get started in Social Media

  1. Getting started in social media
  2. Read, Write and Share in Social Media
  3. Attracting attention in Social Media
  4. Social Media Marketing: Business or Pleasure?

Filed under: Social Media Marketing
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4 Responses to “Getting started in social media”

  1. Read, Write and Share in Social Media | Carl-Johan Hunefalk, on February 11th, 2008 at 14:46 Said:

    [...] Continuing the series on How to get started in Social Media. [...]

  2. Attracting attention in Social Media | Carl-Johan Hunefalk, on February 12th, 2008 at 15:13 Said:

    [...] is the continued Getting started guide to Social Media. In the last post, you could read about how you can get started with some basic social networking, [...]

  3. Social Media Marketing: Business or Pleasure? | Carl-Johan Hunefalk, on February 13th, 2008 at 10:31 Said:

    [...] is the continued guide to Getting started in Social Media. In the previous post, you learned how to attract attention in Social [...]

  4. Implementing a Successful Internet Marketing Strategy | Carl-Johan Hunefalk, on May 9th, 2008 at 13:32 Said:

    [...] and you can subscribe to my lifestream feed as well, if you like. I have written previously about how to get started in social media, and how to use social media marketing. Other resources on social media are DoshDosh, Jennifer [...]

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