Fact Sheet 1 - Read, Learn, Do

Social media tools and the ways in which they are used change so rapidly, it is not feasible for a guide such as this to be up-to-date. New tools become available, change their offering, or lose favour with the community. As market penetration increases, new support services emerge such as monitoring, aggregation or management of social media accounts.

As part of establishing and maintaining your official social media presence it is recommended that you conduct research and gain practical experience in the tools available, the value they offer, how they are best used and even trialing them on a personal basis beforehand. The references below provide a starting point.

Read

Sign up to the following blogs via Facebook, email, RSS, Google Reader, follow on Twitter or your preferred application

• mashable
  • five steps to taking customer service social 
  • summary:
    • apply your current service strategy to social media
    • put human relationships back into your service
    • establish a knowledge base
    • set expectations
    • perform quality assurance.
• techcrunch
• guardian.co.uk
• news.com.au
• smh.com.au

Learn

• What is social media
• Social media in plain English
• Twitter in plain English
• Social networking in plain English 
• Wikis in plain English
• The social media guide

Do

Set up your own personal social media accounts and get involved!

• Social media
• Microblogging (To get started follow the advice under the Twitter section.)
• Blog  (Not sure what to blog about? There are communities all over the world for the most unusual topics – write about your hobby, your family, pets, community group, the options are endless!)
• Google Reader  (Start your Google reader list with the suggestions in the 'read' section above)