21 Ways to Share the Social Media Love

You want people to “get” social media. You’re new to this realm but excited about the possibilities. You get frustrated at the misunderstandings that swirl about.

Well, shall we take a brief vacation from our swimmy little fishbowl? Here’s 21 things that I want you to go do to help teach someone else. Business or individual. Don’t know about some of them? Explore them yourself, become knowledgeable. Then go teach. The only way we’re going to get everyone to believe in this like we do is if they see it for themselves.

1. Recommend a couple of good books. Personally, I often recommend Groundswell, the New Rules of Marketing and PR, Citizen Marketers, Now is Gone, and The New Influencers. There are tons more. Pick your favorites and when you’re done reading, save the shelf space and pass them along to someone.

2. E-books are good too. For small business, I wrote one that might help. And there’s a great post here about some other social media-related e-books that are informational and might be helpful. Share them liberally.

3. If they’re interested in learning how to blog, send them to read some of the benchmarks like Chris Brogan, Copyblogger. In fact, in my estimation you can learn pretty much everything you need to know from them alone.

4. Show them how to use RSS. It’s not too hard, but it’s intimidating to many. Show them the Common Craft video, and help them learn how to use your favorite reader like Google Reader or NetVibes.

5. Now that they’re RSS savvy, help them find blogs to read with Alltop. There are thousands of blogs in every possible subject area. Help them pick 10 to start with.

6. Outline comment etiquette, and encourage them to leave comments on the blogs they read. Be brief, contribute to the discussion, don’t pitch or pimp. (Bonus: Tech savvy folks should also sign up for Backtype so they can keep track of the comments they leave, and others can see how smart they are.)

7. Help someone purchase their own domain name on GoDaddy or your favorite domain registrar. Few realize how easy and cheap it is.

8. Teach someone how to set up a blog on their new domain. Find cheap, reliable hosting with a service like HostGator or InMotion (who I use, and I’m just recommending them because they’ve been easy and helpful). Help them download and install WordPress (the hosts above have one click installation, even, so you can skip that part) pick a theme, and get rolling with a shiny new blog.

9. Show them how to burn their feed with FeedBurner so they can keep track of subscribers and offer email subscription to their blog with ease.

10. Don’t ignore Technorati. Show someone how to claim their blog there.

11. Get them a Google account if they don’t already have one (ha). Help them spiff up their profile, plug the analytics code into their blog, and show them how productivity tools like Google Docs can help streamline their work.

12. Show a newcomer how to set up profiles on the Big Three (and in this order depending on comfort level): LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. For those that are already there, help them make the most of their experience by introducing them to features like LinkedIn Answers or the Blog Networks on Facebook.

13. Make some introductions. If someone’s new to these sites, help them connect with your friends and connections and get their networks started off on the right foot. And don’t forget to explain the ground rules for participating effectively and genuinely: authenticity, transparency, and a sense of humor.

13. Help them set up some Google Alerts, both the vanity searches for their own stuff, or searches about their business, brand, competitors, industry. Explain why listening is as important as participating. Show them Twitter Search and demonstrate how to use it.

14. Introduce Delicious. They’re bookmarking stuff anyway, and this way they can not only share their finds with others, but they can search and see what others are finding too. Explain how to tag items, and add the Delicious toolbar to their browser for easy capturing.

15. Are you video savvy? Are they? Recommend a cinchy video camera like the Flip for recording on the fly. Then, talk them through participating on sites like YouTube and Viddler. Help them customize their videos with logos, tags, notes and get them out there for folks to see.

16. Share your love of music, or help them share theirs. Music doesn’t have to be isolated anymore, so make an introduction to Pandora or Last.fm to listen and share, or send them to Blip.fm so they can be their own DJ.

17. Help a sharp business person put their presentations on Slideshare, and help them search for other presentations that can inspire them to improve theirs. Bonus: if they’re on LinkedIn, help them activate the Slideshare application on their profile.

18. Share the joy of podcasting. Introduce them to something fun, like CC Chapman’s killer Accident Hash music podcast, or something informational like the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Help them use iTunes or another mp3 application to download and listen.

19. Encourage them to take the oodles of photos they have on their computer and upload them to Flickr. Show them how to create sets, tag photos, and make contacts to share with. Bonus round: Show them the Creative Commons area of Flickr to source images for their blog posts, presentations, or other multimedia.

20. Stumble their stuff, and show them how to use StumbleUpon themselves. It can be as easy as Stumbling other’s posts, or as in-depth as getting involved with the StumbleUpon community itself. Double Bonus: Help them install a plugin like Sociable on their WordPress blog to help others share their posts and keep the sharing cycle alive and well.

21. Share collective knowledge and success. Especially in a business framework, the proof is in the pudding. Share case studies. I have some on Delicious here. Mr. Brogan has a pile of them here. This post has a ton of other resources. (No more telling me you don’t have examples of people doing this to make your case.)

So there’s a start. Each of you has favorite applications, tools, sites, and communities across social media. Are you already doing all these things? Won’t you share with someone what you’ve found here, and teach them what you know? And hey, let’s start now. Leave your tips and favorites in the comments.

Photo credit: Ted Kerwin.

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