Social Media 101, 202, 303: Self-guided training

By Cassandra Nicholson


These three sessions deal with a social media basic introduction, tips for journalists to use social media as a research tool, and strategies for cutting through the clutter of social media.
The free Webinar series, “Social Media 101, 202 and 303,” was originally held Feb. 8-10, 2011. At the bottom of this page, you’ll find self-guided training links.
Robin J. Phillips, Web managing editor at BusinessJournalism.org, presented these three Webinars. Each session provided tips for business journalists in need of jump-starting their social media initiatives, both personally and professionally. The sessions are designed to help someone with a specific level of experience with social media. But feel free to take any one or all three.

• SOCIAL MEDIA 101: The basics for social media newbies
• SOCIAL MEDIA 202: Tips for reporters about using social media sites as research tools
• SOCIAL MEDIA 303: Filtering to contain the clutter

SOCIAL MEDIA 101:
How do you get started? Should you create both a personal and a professional account on Facebook? On Twitter? Can you join LinkedIn if you aren’t looking for a job? How do you find people to follow? How do you get people to follow you?
Don’t worry about it. Phillips will walk you through the basics of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. She’ll help you get started.
SOCIAL MEDIA 202: How social media can make you a better business journalist.
So you have a LinkedIn page and have been on Facebook and Twitter since the election. What now? Phillips will show you ways to:

• turn social media tools into databases to help find local stories and sources,
• distribute your content and track whether people are reading your links,
• connect with your community,
• find out what real-time conversation is happening about issues on your beat,
• take part in that conversation, and
• use Twitter lists to help you track what people are saying.

This session will also cover ethics, standards of practice and practical tips on using sources that you find on the Web.
SOCIAL MEDIA 303: Cutting through the clutter.
Most everyone hits a point where the information coming in on social media tools begins to feel overwhelming. It can become difficult to know what information is important, what’s worth spending time on, what links are worth clicking on, what articles worth reading.
Phillips will show you tools that help filter, ways to set up keyword searches, tactics for juggling your social media profiles.

Links To The Trainings