Social Media

Think about your business plan, it should answer the following questions:

* Who are you and why are you here?

* What is your organizational structure?

* What is your goal?

* What is your communication strategy?

* Who is your audience?

* What is your message?

The Web and social media are only delivery mechanisms  

Why Social Media?

* Primary discovery platform

* Cost effective delivery compared to traditional methods

* Instant feedback

* Two way street

* A person is more likely to trust the word of a complete stranger than the company selling the product.

How to behave on social media:

* Follow those who you want to follow you

* Cross link your efforts

* Tweet about a YouTube video you uploaded or the Blog you posted

* Be welcoming & friendly - say hello to your new followers or folks that you would like to get to know.

* Engage people - ask questions and respond to queries that interest you.

* Be humorous - funny Tweets really help to break up the timeline.

* Inform - provide useful information and news items.

* Monitor self-promotion - it is fine to promote your projects and work, but nobody likes to be spammed all day

* Promote others - “retweet” liberally and highlight good work.

* Listen - there’s no need to dominate the conversation all the time, so spend some time just reading what others are saying/Tweeting.

* Be human - not always obvious but most important, being a “real” person is probably the most important trait of any effective Twitter user.

* Search – search.twitter.com has all the answers. What hashtag do aerospace engineers use?

Many ways to measure social media:

* Fans

* Followers

* Friends

* Growth rate

* Rate of virality

* Change of virality rates over time

* Embeds/installs

* Downloads

* Uploads

* User-initiated views (videos)

*...