5 Minute Leaps
How to Sign Up for (Today’s) Top Social Media Sites:
Social media tools are numerous and new ones are emerging everyday. However, there are a few social media sites that have reached such a level of popularity that they have begun to provide tremendous connectivity to your customers and your members. Given Social Media Leaps’ focus on getting you started, we believe that these social media tools/sites can provide the most return on value to you in the shortest period of time. Learning how to use these tools will provide a relatively painless entry into this new set of capabilities.
Each of these tools is described below. If you are ready to jump right in, click on the name of the social media tool and go directly to its website. You can hunt around on the site and its not too hard to figure out how to begin to use them. However, we recommend that you use the “5 Minute Leap” links provided for each tool. This link will direct you to an easy to use set of directions for getting started with each social media tool. In addition, our 60 Day Plan will guide you through various aspects of getting going and the basic functionality that each of these major tools provides.
We’ve also provided a set of resources, how-to articles, and deeper dives into the way you can think about using and applying these tools in the “tools and resources” section of the Social Media Leaps site. We’ve aggregated a lot of information in one place for you—its up to you to decide how much or how little you’d like to do!
The “Majors”:
Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is currently the largest social networking site with approximately 500 million active users. This is a great tool for people that want to connect both socially and for business and there are thousands of facebook applications that provide extended tools to use with your social network from events to posting updates to discussions.
Twitter is a microblogging service; a way of sharing short messages in 140 character increments with friends or “followers.” The brevity of Twitter, combined with immediate information sharing and the variety of delivery systems, make it a powerful medium for connecting with others.
LinkedIn is a social networking site targeted toward professionals and businesses. Members can post work experience and employment opportunities, get recommendations and business advice, share professional expertise, and connect with peers. LinkedIn profiles are kind of like an online resume and it’s a great tool to see who knows whom in your network.
Flickr is one of the most popular photo-sharing sites on the Internet. Members can store and share digital photos as well as create groups and photo galleries. Photos can be easily uploaded from a computer, a website, mobile devices or content management software, and photos can be easily shared with others through Flickr, RSS feeds, email, blog posts and more.
YouTube is a popular site for video sharing which allows people to view, upload, and embed videos within other sites. Registered users have their own YouTube channel which showcases any videos they have uploaded and any videos they have bookmarked as favorites. YouTube channels can be used as a destination page that allows a brand to connect with key audiences.
A blog is an ongoing chronicle of information with each post listed in reverse chronological order. Blog content is your creativity, your voice, and can consist of text, links, video, photos, podcasts or more. Blogs enable you to be an individual publisher and showcase your creativity, knowledge and products.
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