3 Key Takeaways from the Introduction to Social Media for Media Professionals Training Course
Posted on 19. Mar, 2010 by Chi-chi Ekweozor in Social Media Strategies
Social Media Process v 1.0
Yesterday I had the pleasure of running an Introduction to Social Media for Media Professionals training course at One Central Park, Manchester.
The half day workshop, billed as a social media for beginners course for media and marketing professionals combined a thorough grounding in using social media in a business context with real life examples of businesses growing and marketing themselves on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Having been delivering social media training courses for over a year now, it’s been interesting to see how attendees concerns and opinions about social media change over time.
Last year privacy issues concerning Facebook dominated discussions.
This year social media monitoring tools like Radian 6 and how to use them and questions about the relevance of Google Buzz were the order of the day.
My three takeaways from yesterday’s course is that:
1. Most people want the answer to the question: ‘Am I doing social media right?”
About a year ago, the most popular question asked by attendees at my social media training courses was why they should bother with social media. Things are very different now: most people are aware of the core platforms (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr etc) but want reassurance that they are doing things right.
2. There is a need for clear examples on using social media to build a professional network.
A lot of folk at yesterday’s course agreed with the power of tapping into professional networks on LinkedIn and Twitter.
It made perfect sense as 90% of attendees came from businesses that relied on personal networks on Twitter and LinkedIn for business referrals and recommendations.
The consensus was that a strategy that simplifies the process for marketing using social media and explains what exactly should be done on what platform would probably help!
Clearly as every business is different, one size does not fit all.
Consequently, we spent a lot of time looking at the rationale for communicating on different social media platforms and addressing the key issue for many:
what do I aim to achieve by connecting with people on {insert Social Network}?
This strategic look at using social media for marketing really helped drill home the message that success is about setting goals and monitoring progress, much like with any other marketing medium.
3. Many want a method for checking that social media efforts are working.
We touched on using Google Alerts and Twitter Search for very basic sentiment analysis yesterday.
This time last year that would have sufficed at a ‘social media for beginners course’ but social media has become so ubiquitous that the number one request yesterday was learning more about managing and monitoring social media efforts on sites like Facebook and Twitter to drive the highest return on investment.
It would appear that social media monitoring is very much front of mind for many currently. I’m planning on addressing this by putting on a dedicated social media monitoring course later on in the year. I’ll keep you posted!
Fancy attending the next Introduction to Social Media for Media Professionals course?
The next Introduction to Social Media for Media Professionals course is on 27 April. Book here to take advantage of the 25% Early Bird discount.
Other Social Media Training Courses
We’ve got a number of courses on in April. See the Real Fresh TV training calendar for course dates on all our training courses.
The popular Social Media Starter Course, the UK’s longest running social media for beginners course is on 20th April.
The Learning Social Media by Doing Course, developed due to attendee demands for a more hands-on follow up to the Social Media Starter Course is on 21st April.
All courses take place at One Central Park, Manchester. If you’re based further afield, we’d be happy to organise in-house training to suit your staff development needs so let us know! Don’t be a stranger.
Now come my questions…
I’d be interested to hear what your experiences are with using social media to market your business. Are you concerned about monitoring how well it is working for you? Or perhaps you would rather someone else managed it all?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Image credit: Damien Basile on Flickr
Related posts:
- Introduction to Social Media for Media Professionals Overview
- Introduction to Social Media for Media Professionals
- Social Media Marketing Training Courses for Businesses in Manchester and the North West
- Real Fresh TV’s Monthly Social Media Events Guide
- Book on the next Social Media Starter Course and get 50% off the Learning Social Media by Doing Course
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