A quick post to let people know that Megan Roberts and I are running a one-day course for UKeIG, on social media for organisations. It's open to all but aimed mainly at information services - and it's all about using social media at an organisational level rather than a personal one. Anyone who's started a library twitter account or facebook account will have quickly come to realise that the needs for library accounts are very different to the needs for librarian accounts! The idea of the course is to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to be able to use social media successfully - we'll be exploring best practice, seeing how the leaders in our industry use the tools, and answering thorny questions about how to deal with tricky situations online. Pretty much every information service needs to be using social media in its marketing these days; it's not that intimidating when you know what you're doing, and it represents a fantastic opportunity to achieve a lot without spending a whole bunch of money...
Details, including a the booking form, are on UKeIG's website.
When and where
The course takes place in York, at the York St John University, on the 4th of September, from 09:30 - 16:30.
What the course covers
We'll be talking about what social media is, how it works, and how the approaches involved differ from traditional forms of marketing. We'll cover why you should be using the tools available, how you can tell if it's working, where to start in terms of platforms, netiquette, identifying stuff to talk about online, and using tools to manage the burden. Specific platforms covered include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Slideshare, LinkedIn, Flickr, and yes, Google+ and Pinterest!
There'll be plenty of hands-on experience of using the tools in question.
A potential follow-up workshop...
I'm running a separate workshop in December (also for UKeIG, at the same venue) which operates both a stand-alone session and a follow-up for attendees of the social media for organisations course. It's called the Digital Marketing Toolkit, and it's all about using emerging technologies to market your service: full details are on the UKeIG site.
Hope to see you there!
- thewikiman