What do Social Media and Teen Sex have in Common?

"Social Media is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it, but nobody knows how." 

- Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist, Google

As mentioned in my previous blog,  I'm currently taking a class on Social Media Marketing at BCIT. I've already completed the Marketing Management- Public Relations Diploma, but felt that it was mainly paper based, and that I would do well to upgrade my education with a few multimedia courses. Looking at the current job market in Vancouver, solidified this decision. Most of the available jobs are currently for Online Marketing Specialists, fluent in all social media networks, with HTML, SEO and Adobe Indesign knowledge. 

The class started off by having us sign up for a variety of social media tools, some were a bit overwhelming at first, but most of them were quite straightforward. As with most things in life, social media follows the rule that you only really get what you put it. Up until now, I have had a Twitter account but never really used it, however, within the last few weeks, I've increased my Twitter usage and found the more I tweet, the more people tweet back at me or re-tweet something about my blog! The Law of Attraction at its best. 

Another tool I've found extremely useful (as well as ultra nerdy) is Hootsuite. Hootsuite allows me to see all my social media accounts on one deck, as well as update them all at once, and track how many people click the links I tweet. Not to mention Hootsuite does all my job searching for me. I add streams on Twitter such as "Marketing Jobs Vancouver" and I can see all the tweets about this subject! Before this class, I never knew services like this even existed, now Im hooked. Google Analytics is also amazing, and while I've been using it for a couple years already, I still feel like their is a ton to learn.

Through this class I've also been introduced to several interesting websites such as Digg and Technorati. Digg highlights the days most interesting news stories, while Technorati lists all the most popular blog posts. I particularly like Technorati Women. 

Some other tools we've been introduced to that I find less valuable are Flickr, LinkedIn (but just because I'm just starting to collect contacts) and Mail Chimp, as I'm not currently working for a business that needs email marketing, and am already quite familiar with how to use it.  

Apologies in advance for two school based posts in a row, Im trying to make this blog as popular as possible, so I'm currently using it as a guinea pig for all my school projects. Stay tuned for my next post on the harrowing tale of my move back to Vancouver...