The second theme from the social media event at GA220 is:
2. Don’t jump in and try to do everything social media. Start with one thing.
There’s a lot you can do on social media. There are a lot of sites you could be on, but start with one thing. Do one thing and do it well.
The basic social media site right now is Facebook. It’s a good place to start because chances are you’re already on it and/or someone you know is already really good at it.
Sites like Facebook may feel overwhelming at first, but if you take things slowly and have a go-to person for questions you can learn it pretty quickly. You don’t have to do everything that’s available to do on Facebook. If you don’t want to play FarmVille, you don’t have to play FarmVille. (CastleVille’s better anyway)
When my friend across the country had a baby, pictures were up on Facebook within 15 minutes of birth. Yes, that’s intense. It’s also wonderful.
The great thing about Facebook is that you can share things you like on your newsfeed which is the page you usually get when you first log in. My friends are constantly sharing articles and pictures. I get to see what they’re doing, and I get to share with them what I’m interested in and what I’m doing.
Once you’ve gotten good at one social media site you can start branching out. Often you can connect the sites. Twitter has a nifty feature where everything you tweet becomes a Facebook post.
If you’re working for a church or community with no social media presence, Facebook is a good free space to start; but you don’t want to leave it there. You need your own website… which we’ll talk about in Tip 3 later this week!
