First, if you are not convinced that social media should be used – please check out the following presentation.

[slideshare id=4747765&doc=whatissocialmediayr3pgrated-100713151403-phpapp02]

There are a bunch of quotes in it that I think are worth repeating.

25 billion – amount of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, and notes, and photos) shared each month on Facebook – 6x last year

Social media is the ongoing conversation of the planet…it is my home on the internet. It is far richer than any diary or journal. Kurt Sonderegger, VP Marketing, Ploom.com

Social media is like water. On its own, water does some cool things, but when combined with other compounds it enabled the evolution of all forms of life.

Social media on its own is nice, but when combined with other tools, it is enabling everything to evolve, from communications to business to politics to marketing.” Mike Volpe, VP Marketing, Hubspot

Before you go into the basics of social media, you need the basics of what you are trying to do, right?

What’s your communication goal? This doesn’t have to be a hard question. It’s actually pretty straight-forward.

So what do you need?

First, you should have a website. This is where you keep your information about what is going on. People should be able to get basic information and be able to connect with you for more information (like sign up for newsletter or connect through social media). Two ways to get websites at Notre Dame – Conductor or WordPress. Continue reading