Setting up a Social Media Calendar

So you're a small business and you're going to take social media seriously, you've got all your accounts lined up, URLs pointing towards your main website, logos in place, etc .. but now what? A good thing to do is to start work on a Social Media Calendar. A social media calendar can help create a cohesive layer to an overall content strategy.

To create the calendar use a spreadsheet - I personally like Google Docs because the spreadsheet is there wherever I am and can be easily shared or viewed by others that you may be working with - but even an old school paper calendar will do. Set aside one hour at minimum to brainstorm and plan the content you aim to highlight in the upcoming days, weeks, or even months. Take into account any significant events that may be taking place over the period you decide to plan for, ie. holidays, special business events, local events, conferences, product releases, and other occurrences that might have a significant social buzz. By including all of the information and links to relevant sites in your calendar, you will have developed a single resource that you can refer to when deciding what to post. For Facebook you should be aiming to post at least once per week and probably not much more than 3 times per week, and for Twitter I try for at least one tweet per day.

If you're using a tool like Hootsuite to manage your social media you even have a calendaring tool built right in where you can schedule tweets or facebook posts ahead of time.

Social Media course at Waiheke Community Education

The advent of the Internet and the rise of Social media have had considerable impact on almost all facets of our society. Over four meetings at Waiheke Community Education I will provide an introduction into the foundations of social media, reviewing some of its' history, its' basis in the values of openness and sharing, and its' current dominant platforms.

We will explore and practice how to use social media effectively for a range of use cases and audiences, and review its use in marketing, audience building, and community engagement. We will inevitably need to consider the role of mobile devices. The use of a phone, particularly a smart phone is encouraged in the meetings - please bring them if you have them.

Specifically we will be looking closely at Twitter & Facebook, and the use of a third party client (mobile or web) to access both platforms.

To enrol in the course please visit: waihekecommed.co.nz/courses/social-media-2/

Using Twitter - hashtags and trends

Well I finally made it to Webstock this year, the pre-eminent New Zealand web conference that attracts some pretty big names from a range of tech related fields like usability, start-ups, design, etc. Like most conferences these days the event was well covered on Twitter with the hash-tag #webstock. Using a hashtag (a # followed by a word) turns the word into a link which other users can click on to see all tweets which include the same tag. Tweeting at conferences creates what is called the backchannel - the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks. The almost ubiquity of Twitter on mobile devices makes the backchannel flourish at these events and can facilitate face-to-face networking outside of the presentations as well as providing links to related resources, or just a level of humour to get you through the boring bits! Searching Twitter is a great way for you to see what people are saying about any particular subject you like by performing searches across the Twitterverse. Subjects that are being spoken about frequently can also "trend" and trending topics are displayed on your Twitter page. Trending subjects are also broken down to globally trending and locally trending so you can see what is trending in New Zealand as well as what is trending internationally. If you'd like to know how you can use Twitter for your business or organisation get in touch with us.