Social Media
Social Media (written for APD’s)
This is an impromptu guide for APD’s to help you get started developing a social media presence!
There are several ways to do this – and several sites to do it on!
DISCLAIMER: These sites change DAILY. As I was writing this guide, Facebook bought FriendFeed, and then deployed a new search engine. Wow. So keep checking back here for updates and new information! Also, this is a work in progress, and new information will be added/changed as we go. I’ll do my best to help you keep up. 
Intro Part 1 – The numbers game
Facebook and Twitter are undoubtedly the most popular right now. Some statistics, to give you an idea of how powerful these tools are:
- According to TechCrunch, Facebook is now the 4th largest site in the world. In June 2009, the site gained 24 million unique visitors across the world. Facebook itself acknowledges 250 million active users.
- Facebook is not ad driven (yet) – there are ads on the site, and advertising on the site remains cost effective (more on that later), but their funding comes from venture capital. To the tune of $716 million.
- Facebook is available on your cell, has tons of apps, and is very user-friendly. It has surpassed MySpace, AOL, and others and established itself as *the* social platform. The accounts (personal and business) are free! Business accounts are handled by “fan pages” and you must have a personal account to create a fan page. More on that later, too!
- Facebook allows pictures, video, notes, pulls in blog updates, and if you use proper apps, you can do just about anything.
- Women outnumber men on Facebook, 1.35 to 1. (link) They also outnumber men in every age bracket, and by over 2 million in the range of 26-54.
Harris Interactive found that 69% of adults don’t know enough about Twitter to have an opinion of it. Sound odd? It should:
- The media loves covering Twitter – so much that Twitter received $48 million worth in media coverage in 30 days. (link)
- In June, Twitter reached 44.5 million users. (link)
- 1,382% – amount of growth from February 2008 to February 2009. (link)
- Twitter uses the ’short messaging system’ for communications, thus limiting messages to 140 characters. You can tweet from your cell phone.
- Lingo: “API” – Twitter allows 3rd party applications to access the API, giving you more tools to enhance and organize your experience.
We can go on all day about numbers and growth and lingo – but, the statistics aren’t the most important thing to your effort in developing a proper social media presence. The key word is “develop” – you must build, and communicate, and share, and most importantly must NOT spam! Social media is called ’social’ for a reason! People want honesty, truth, information – what they don’t want is a message from you every two hours about what you have on sale.
A word of warning: online communities are exactly that, communities. Real people. If you behave improperly or foolish, or spam, they will ostracize you! Accounts can be reported for spam, etc, or worse, you can develop a ton of bad press – in the world of social media, bad press can sink you quickly.
Now, let’s:
“Engage” should be the proper term here. We’re not advertising (directly), we’re not spamming, we’re not just pumping out information. We are engaging our audience – communicating, discussing, requesting, answering…well, you get it! Yes, your audience will eventually become your customers. But the days of banner ads and pop-ups are gone – if you want their business, you have to earn it!
Intro Part 2 – Getting Started
Let’s jump right in! You’ll learn best as you experience everything, so go straight to Facebook and Twitter and create your accounts! If you have accounts already, great!
This section will be focused on personal profiles, not fan pages. More on that later!
- Username
- You can personalize your username, provided it isn’t already taken. DO NOT impersonate someone else! And make sure you adhere to Beachbody and PBP rules regarding using their trademarked names.
- Once your username is accepted, your new Facebook URL (web address) will be like this:
- Profile - all about YOU
- Avatar
- Uupload a picture (or a few) of you! Your avatar is your user picture, the one everyone sees when they look at your account or a post from you. It’s not very big, so try to have the picture frame your face, or you working out, or some form of YOU. Logos are not recommended here, this is a personal profile. If you have a business logo, upload it to your pictures, but don’t use it for your avatar.
- You can change your avatar at any time.
- Info
- This is fairly basic – only enter information you feel comfortable sharing!
- You have to enter your birth date, but you can hide it also.
- In the contact information area, you can enter as many website links as you want!
- Photos
- Just like everything else, only share what you want! Don’t just include product photos though – add pictures of workouts, fun, showing off gear, tradeshows or camps, you “get the picture!”
- Photos lend credibility and character to your account. You want people to know you are real and have a personality. You can even promote events or specials, using your photos! (more on that later!)
- Other Stuff! We’ll cover boxes, notes, tabs, etc later – for now let’s get you some friends:
- First – do the obvious! Search for your friends! There’s a search bar at the top right of every Facebook page. Enter their names. Facebook is smart, it will try to give you results as they are relevant to you. Doesn’t always work.
Usually, if you find someone and add them as a friend*, check out their friend list (once your friend request is approved) and chances are you’ll find more friends! *DO add a comment to your friend request! Don’t be rude! - Second – search by industry – Use terms next, like “San Antonio,” “Beachbody,” or “Turbo Jam.” You’ll more than likely find other coaches, but you’ll also find Mr. Daikeler, Mindy Lawhorne, Chalene, and many more that you should be friends with anyway! These folks create lots of content and guidance that will help you create your online persona. And, more importantly, they are incredible folks to be connected with!
- Third – Once you have some friends (and maybe even added some groups or became a fan of some pages) take some time to learn how they do things. Read over their profiles, walls, and interactions.
- First – do the obvious! Search for your friends! There’s a search bar at the top right of every Facebook page. Enter their names. Facebook is smart, it will try to give you results as they are relevant to you. Doesn’t always work.
- Avatar
Again, this section will be focused on personal profiles, more on that later! Try to accomplish these steps as soon as possible, for incomplete profiles/setups are signs of dastardly activity!
- Username
- Again, usernames are important! If possible, try to keep your usernames the same across platforms, or similar. Minimize any possible confusion. These are referred to as “handles” on Twitter-speak. If “George Roberts” is taken, try “G_Roberts” or even “Coach George”.
- With Twitter, your messages are limited to 140 characters, and your name can take up part of that! Try to keep it concise, if possible.
- Profile
- Personal information – You can add a short summary about yourself, be brief, but be fun! You want to make sure that you complete your profile – spammers don’t usually bother with this, and you don’t want to be inadvertently grouped with spammers!
- Avatar – if possible, make it match or at least similar to your Facebook avatar.
- BACKGROUNDS – here’s the fun part, and the part where you can spend a ton of time getting this setup. The background on your Twitter page is customizable – Twitter has several nice setups you can use, you can use any picture or pattern, or you can make it yourself with PowerPoint or any other graphics software, or visit one of these websites for a FREE custom background:
Now that you’re online and have your image in order, we can work on BRANDING. You must have a plan in place! More to follow…
Intro Part 1a -Videos!
Socialnomics! A video showcasing social media statistics.
What the F**K is Social Media? A presentation by Marta Kagan:
What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later. A presentation by Marta Kagan:
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