Social Media Communications for the 21st Century Dan A. Nelson

New Audience, New Media Traditional Media losing followers – U.S. Newspaper readership down as much as 10% Internationally, newspaper circ. Grows 3% annually – More people cite internet than newspapers as primary source of news *Source: The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The New World Order Web 2.0 – New approach to web site design and development, focused on user interactions, rather than static content. PR 2.0 & Social Media – New approach to public relations/communications, focused on direct communication with individuals and groups through digital channels. (see )

Social Marketing Direct communications to individuals One-on-one, in vast numbers, all at once Blog posts alerts Facebook updates Twitter feeds (tweets)

The Basics: Online services and tools – Social Networking: Facebook MySpace LinkedIn Plaxo Classmates Reunion

Social Networking New Media/Social Media – New Tools for old trades – Easy one-on-one communications, on a mass scale. – Fastest growing form of public relations and marketing – Obama was No. 1 Twitter user for months leading up to election, base on number of followers.

The face of Facebook 175 million users, with another 5 five million new users a week. 18- to 24-yo < 25% users. Fastest growth rate = yo

Facebook - components Pages, Groups, Events – Pages: Individual profiles and updates – Groups: “Pages” for agencies, groups, associations, etc. – Events: “Pages” for specific happening, events.

Facebook - content What to Post – Photos: Posters, air quality images, signs, etc. – Videos: Anything from your 30-second PSAs to self-produced digicam vids of smoking burn barrels – News updates, or “tweets”* * More on tweets later!

Facebook - Page

Facebook - Group

Other SM Sites MySpace.com – Plateaued at 130 million members Used mostly by younger audience (teen and college aged) Heavily favored as playground for music lovers LinkedIn – Professional connections, especially for employment/biz networking

Blog Posts Consider regular updates to your website using new blogging tools. – CMS: Content Management Systems Wordpress Joomla – Automatic feeds to FB, Twitter, SMS (short message service), etc. Blogging provides the dynamic content needed keep visitors coming back!

Alerts Automatic digital message delivery to those who register. Services available that can be integrated into any website with LITTLE website/formatting skills needed - free service for limited messaging.

Twitter Micro-blogging service Maximum post = 140 characters Twitter posts are known as Tweets – Twitter’s logo is a small bird

Twitter Registered twitter users can follow any other user, and be followed by any registered user. Used extensively as a social ‘friends’ tool initially Growing business use Obama used Twitter to send headlines to millions of voters every day before the election.

Twitter Registered twitter users can follow any other user, and be followed by any registered user. Used extensively as a social ‘friends’ tool initially Growing business use Obama used Twitter to send headlines to millions of voters every day before the election.

What Tweets looks like: – Lancearmstrong: Another tough day at the ToC. Had a spill half way. Moto with a photog crashed in front of me and I t-boned them. Body's ok tho. Lance Armstrong about 24h ago via TwitterBerry – ORCAA_Dan EPA to improve kids's health, monitor air toxics around schools minutes ago from web Who uses it? – 2.5 million people visit Twitter.com each month, growing at about 300, ,000 users per month and up over 440% since this time last year. (Source PR2.0 blog at )

Twitter - What to Post? ORCAA tweets one or twice daily about Burn Bans, upcoming events, specific programs (news about woodstove change-outs, lawn mower exchanges, etc.) Tweets can be posted from computers, cell phone text messages, iPhones/Blackberries, etc. Tweets can be RECEIVED as text messages, alerts, etc.

Twitter – Other Uses Skills building/technology updates – Use of Hashtags (#) to categorize tweets Weekly twitter ‘Conference’ between PR professionals and journalists – Enter search page of twitter.com or tweetchat.com and enter: #journchat – Moderated discussion about use of Social Media tools in new communications world.

Other Web 2.0 Tools YouTube – Create account and post your agency PSAs, education videos, etc. RSS feeds – Enable RSS on your website/Blog RSS = Really Simple Syndication Provides “news feed” to anyone who subscribes to your RSS Digg, Stumble, FriendFeed, deddit, etc.

THANK YOU! Dan A. Nelson Public Information Officer Olympic Region Clean Air Agency Twitter: ORCAA_Dan Facebook Group: Olympic Region Clean Air Agency