An Intro to Social Media

Lindsey Robbins — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:52:00 GMT

We talk about social media, just a little bit , on our Blackbaud blogs. But maybe you're wondering why you should care or you know what it is but need to know more. Where do you go to find more information? I had a friend/professional peer ask me that very question this morning. Where do you begin? Specifically she wanted to know..."if I'm looking for basic, very basic information on social media do you know of any good sites to start with?"

Here's how I responded:

Hmmm... I'm not really sure. Most of social media education is just immersing yourself in the different types of social media/networking websites. I would recommend dabbling on different websites like - Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, StumbeUpon, feed aggregators like Google Reader, Plaxo, a wiki site like one from Wetpaint, Hulu, Flixster, Last.fm, LinkedIn, and Digg. To learn social media is to observe how different mediums online encourage community participation. How does bringing the community into the content development process change websites, media, etc? And honestly, the best sites for reading about emerging social media right now are blogs.
Here's a couple good ones to get started with -
Chris Brogan http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ (you can spend a long time on his site, he's a prolific blogger)
Beth Kanter (she does social media for nonprofits) http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/

And like I told my friend, I hope this helps! Good luck getting started and like my friend, feel free to ask questions (of me) and of those you find to observe on social media websites. I find immersion in the practice of social media the best way to learn!

Can you Digg It?

Lindsey Robbins — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:35:00 GMT

I confess. I don’t Digg and I have no idea what to use it for. In fact, just the other day I submitted my first article. And it doesn’t even really count since it’s one of my own blog posts. I just wanted to test the process. Sadly, as of today, 6 days after posting, I still only have 1 digg (my own). I’m sure it’s because it was my own content and I have no idea what I’m doing. However, I wanted to see if I could make sense out of this tool everyone else seems to be using but me. Maybe I’m not really at the cool kids lunch table?...

In case you need an intro to Digg like I do, here’s an overview of the website:

Digg is a place for people to share with others their favorite content they find anywhere on the internet.
Once you post, others vote on your submissions. The more diggs, the better.
People, collectively, determine the value of content.
Most content people submit are news articles, videos, and images.
If your content really rocks - people will submit your content, you’ll get digg’d a lot, and then you’ll get published on their front page. And published on the front page means you are really awesome and will get a lot more publicity.
They make it pretty easy to comment and share the stuff you find on Digg.
And, you can even make friends because you might trust their opinion on good or bad content and want to follow what they digg. And if not, you can always digg for content by topic category (technology, science, gaming, entertainment, etc).

So what do you think? Should I Digg it and how should I use this site?

Chatterbox : Digg

An Intro to Social Media

Can you Digg It?