Guest Post – How Do You Use Social Media? – from Doniree Walker

by Doniree Walker on February 23, 2010

First of all, a thank-you to Matt for letting me rent some of his blog real estate space for the day! I’m here because I’m looking for feedback and opinions from my network and their network, and know that Matt’s got a great network of brilliant minds I want to tap into.

Last year, I had the privilege of speaking in a Promotional Communications class at The College of St. Catherine’s in St. Paul, Minnesota. The class was mostly comprised of working women returning to school, and covers more traditional marketing than new media and social media. I was asked to come share my experience with some of those pieces.

A conversation

It was a blast. I’m one of those “I don’t love public speaking!” people, but it was FUN, for one thing, since the subject matter is something so ingrained in my life – personal and professional. For another thing, it was conversational, because I prefer speaking with people rather than at them.

This year, they’ve asked me to return (:::picture my happy dance here:::). I honestly didn’t think I’d make it back there, seeing as it’s THIS weekend in Minnesota and I’ve run out of my “relocation savings” and am just now starting to get paychecks coming in; I didn’t think I’d make it because of the airfare. Fortunately, that all worked out and Boyfriend and I will BOTH get to hang out in Minnesota this weekend!

I’m excited because 1) I can’t wait to get back to St. Kate’s and talk with Melinda’s class again; 2) I miss my family like whoa and I can’t wait to catch up with them, even if it’s just for a couple of days; 3) Boyfriend got to spend all of a couple of hours with my parents when he came out to Minnesota in January to help me pack up and move out to Colorado; I’m excited for them all to get to know each other better finally!

I want to pick YOUR brains

All that being said, I got some great feedback from my own online social network, and figured I’d tap into that again.

So here goes! It’s a fun presentation, and I’d love to include some quotes and notes from you. Below are the questions I’m going to be discussing, and your added perspective is greatly appreciated!

Ok, folks – in YOUR experience, perspective, and just plain ol’ opinions (there are no wrong answers here, obvi)…

  1. How do you use social media, either personally or professionally? Are you working with a company that uses social media to build their brand? If so, what’s awesome about that? If you’re using social media purely as a personal tool, how are you using it? Self-promotion? Relationship-building?
  2. Name a brand, campaign, or company that used social media in a way you thought was brilliant, engaging, or just downright interesting. Or completely flopped.
  3. What do you think is the biggest change in the social media landscape in the last year? A new product? An acquisition? What has been the biggest change in YOUR use of social media?
  4. What’s your favorite online social network or application?
  5. What do you think is the Next Big Thing?

Thanks for your feedback, folks!

Tagged as: guest post

  • http://www.kitchenettedc.com/ Gayle

    Woo, extra-long comments, here you come!
    1. I actually try NOT to use social media professionally. Because I am a journalist, I don't want to give any one a chance to accuse me of bias. Maybe I worry too much about that, but having my professional likes and dislikes out there is not cool. Also, explaining that I am a FacebookFan of Coke and not Pepsi (not real examples) only because Pepsi doesn't even *have* a FanPage still means that someone is examining my FacebookFan-ness. This is probably going to have to be rethought in the near future, but it's working for now. The line between personal and professional has long been blurred but it's still hard to deal with it (for some of us).
    2. Frankly, I think every newspaper in the world is sucking at using social media at the moment. It seems a lot of editors think opening up comments on a blog post counts as social media. Booo! When there is a big news event, reporters should be expected to Twitter. For main stream press, that means the Olympics should have a zillion Twitter feeds, one feed per sport per news outlet; Haiti should have (had) a Twitter feed. For trade press, that means Twittering the SodaPop Convention (also not a real example), the Pairs Air Show or CPAC (real examples). Reporters should be expected to *Twitter the Damn News* and *not their opinion*. Can you tell that I believe that social media can keep the news biz alive if the old fogies get on board? What if congressional reporters were Twittering hearings and markups? What if you could actually hear about it when someone added some crazy amendment to a bill? Awesome. Anyway…. Marketing + Social Media + Newspapers = Goodness. Moving on.
    3. I am behind the curve, so I probably can't be helpful here. Maybe for me it's been FB Fandom even though I don't participate?
    4. Facebook, probably. Does my RSS reader count?
    5. Twittering people money instead of giving them cash or even PayPal-ing. See yesterday's Wired: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_future…
    Have fun in Minnesota!

  • ericamayer

    1. I use social networking in two ways, personally. A.) to spread a message of awareness, love, conscious thought and B) To network w/other professionals in the broadcast/ad industries. I work for WCCO-TV, and I think they've been doing a better job than most as connecting w/viewers through social media-i will be a contributor for our new project “The Wire”-a new way to view news through social media. Rad.
    2. Pepsi. I am mildly obsessed w/their social media campaign “The Pepsi Refresh Project.” -an awesome example of using social media to create buzz, and help others. Win.
    3. Well, I didn't really become an active participant in social media until about a year ago (besides simple socializing on facebook), but…from what I can tell the longer social media is around, the shorter the attention span some people have. I think twitter will continue to grow, as people crave fast, instant information.
    4. I'm a tweetaholic. <3
    5. New big thing in social media? Not sure…I think you'll see more and more companies implementing internal social media. My husband works at Target, and says he uses their internal version of twitter a lot. Interesting, to say the least.

  • http://curiousillusion.com curiousillusion

    Okay here goes…
    1. I use it personally only, definitely not professionally. Relationship-building, and maybe self-promotion for my photography. But not seriously.That doesn't make sense does it?
    2. Ummmm. Nothing comes to the top of my head. That can't be good.
    3. I would just say that twitter exploded, and become popular the last year. I mean, I know it's been around for a while but nearly a year ago to the date I re-joined twitter and it seems around that time, everyone joined too. And as a result, it's everywhere.
    4. Um… I like it all. Twitter, facebook. Flickr counts too right?
    5. I never know, I'm always late to the game. You tell ME what's the next big thing and then, when its popularity starts to fade, I'll end up joining.

    • http://curiousillusion.com curiousillusion

      Although… I do have high hopes for google buzz being the best big thing. But methinks, it won't be.

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