The benefits of social learning

My name’s Zoe Breen and I’m producer of the WebWise a BBC* website which promotes adult digital literacy.

I’m also a blogger for Manchester Girl Geeks a group which aims to engage women and girls with science and technology.

Having produced websites for the BBC for 12 years I felt it was time I had a look at how my counterparts in the third sector and commercial worlds use search and social media marketing techniques.

A major perk of attending the Search and Social Media Marketing professional course at the University of Salford was the opportunity to network with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

I got to benefit from the knowledge of  a public relations expert, someone working at a creative agency, marketing professionals,  a local authority media manager and the UK’s foremost Yorkshire pudding blogger!

The Search and Social Media LinkedIn group set up for the course has been a great forum for asking questions, debating issues and sharing knowledge and ideas.

Experiments in generating social capital

It was a post in the LinkedIn group by fellow student Liezl Hesketh that got me thinking about the value of my personal social media activity.

Liezl highlighted a news piece from online magazine TechCrunch which reported that airline Cathay Pacific were offering free business lounge access to anyone who could prove they had earned a score of 40 or more on social influence website Klout.

I hadn’t checked my Klout account for a while so was delighted to see that I had a score of 46. Not only did I qualify for business lounge access, but that I had the basis of my end of course presentation.

Looking back at my social media activity, I realised that I had employed a variety of techniques over the years to boost my rating on social influence websites like Klout and PeerIndex – sites that generate a score reflecting your reach and activity across a number of social media platforms.

Raise your personal web profile at low to no cost

Here are my top tips for boosting your personal web presence:

1. Plug your social media accounts into Klout or PeerIndex to keep an eye on your progress.
2. Set yourself targets, get your first 1,000 Twitter followers or aim to join the 500+ club on LinkedIn.
3. Use Twitter to engage with people who share your interests – follow, reply, favourite, retweet.
4. Create lists as a way to group related Twitter accounts to follow trends in a specific field.
5. Use a tool like paper.li to automatically generate an online newspaper from your Twitter list or other social media platforms.

Connect with me on Twitter as @ZoeEBreen and on LinkedIn

*Views expressed here do not represent those of my employer.

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