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!

Educate Yourself Using RSS

Lindsey Robbins — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:08:00 GMT

Sometimes keeping up with the amount of information, news, and blogs on the Internet can be time-consuming, unproductive, and frustrating. I know for the longest time I had a routine down where I'd visit my list of sites every morning looking for new content. I still have no clue why I spent all that time searching for content instead of having it come to me.

Enter Google Reader into my life amidst glorious heavenly music. It might seem like I'm being a bit dramatic but I'm not. Now, in the morning (or often throughout the day), I go to Google Reader and read up on news, information, social network updates, blogs, and more all aggregated on one page. How?

Well it's easy. You just take advantage of, the ever growing in popularity, RSS.

RSS, or really simple syndication, is not new. However, I hardly ever hear people talking about RSS aggregators and what it can do for self-education. When you use RSS or atom feeds, you can collect them like links/favorites/bookmarks and add them to a website like Google Reader who collects and displays them all in one location. I also use folders on Google Reader so I can categorize types of feeds. This lets me keep friends' updates separate from Blackbaud updates, Technical Communication updates, my "Geek Feeds," and more.

Using an aggregator helps you collect all your feeds and have information come to you. The aggregator lets you know when something is new instead of having to stumble upon it yourself. I'm sure there are many excellent feed aggregators on the market; I just choose to perpetuate the Google empire.

If you're in Firefox, if a page has a feed, you'll see an icon like the one in this post in the website address field. When you click on it, it helps you "subscribe" to a website. On other sites, they will display that logo, something similar, or even a link to the RSS feeds. ***Hint, this page has a link in the Blog Info section.*** Once you start looking on websites, I'm sure you'll see them everywhere.

Either way, using feed aggregators not only makes sense from a time perspective but it really empowers you to take advantage of the wealth of information online. Because you can organize your feeds, you can start handling more feeds, discover new sites, and then be able to share what you find with others.

Another reason why I love Google Reader? When I find something good, they make it easy for me to share by email with people or add it my personal website of Shared Items. And don't get me started on how easy it is to integrate these features with Facebook! I'll save that for another time.

Anyone have any really cool ways they are using RSS, feed aggregators, or Google Reader?

Chatterbox : Google Reader

An Intro to Social Media

Educate Yourself Using RSS