15-Day Social Media Lesson Plan

If you're new to social media, the abundance of tools and available information can be overwhelming. It can be difficult to know where to begin. And then once you do start, you suddenly are distracted by site upon site of advice, information, and really cool stuff!

I always start by telling people to begin by figuring out their objective. Are you wanting to use social media to find a job? explore a hobby? market your business? Or maybe you don't even KNOW how you want to use these tools. You just want to get started, but the more you learn, the more you find out that you'll never learn it all.

Here are my tips for staying focused and a 15-day plan for someone who was interested in LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Blogging. This plan can and should be tailored for your needs. I'd suggest any person that wants to learn social media also add at least a week to learn about Twitter. Once you know the basics of the most popular tools, you can start exploring techniques for integrating the tools, gaining readership, internet marketing, forming a network, or ... just playing games, if that's what you want to do!

Staying Focused

• Commit to spending 1 hour a day to learning how to use Social Media.
• Decide at the beginning of that hour what you are going to accomplish. Sample "lessons" below.
• During that hour, ignore your phone, other email that comes in, or any social media sites, other than those that are specifically associated with your purpose.
• Each day, as you're learning, keep a "Notes" document window open that you can use to cut and paste links to sites that you want to explore later. Use the page to keep notes with questions, learnings, or reminders of features that you'd like to check into. Use a word processor that will keep the hyperlink when you cut and paste, so that you will be able to easily link to the interesting sites right from your document.
• Set a timer for 55 minutes. Did you accomplish your goal? If not, why not. Write in your notes what you did and what still needs to be done, if anything to complete the goal.
• If you finish your goal before your hour is up, then use a search engine (like Google or Bing) to search for your topic. Click through to the links that look the most interesting. Often you will find presentations, articles, blogs, tutorials, and many valuable sites. Copy those links to your Notes section to explore at a later time.
• At least once a week use your hour to go back through your notes and explore the links that you have in your notes or to try and get your questions answered.

15-Day Plan

Week 1: Branding and LinkedIn

References:
http://geekgal-yvette.blogspot.com/2009/07/personal-branding-for-next-level.html
http://learn.linkedin.com/

Day 1: - Determine your Brand - Create a folder with photos and documents (ie resume, HUB, etc.) that describe YOU and what you stand for. These can be used when you create profiles in social media tools.

Day 2: - LinkedIn - Create an Account and Your Profile Page

Day 3: - LinkedIn - Find Connections

Day 4: - LinkedIn - Join Groups

Day 5: - Use your Notes to explore more about LinkedIn


Week 2: FaceBook

References:
http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-tutorials/


Day 6: - FaceBook - Getting Started

Day 7: - FaceBook - Learn About Fan Pages

Day 8: - FaceBook - Privacy Settings

Day 9: - FaceBook - Groups

Day 10: - Use your Notes to explore more about FaceBook


Week 3: Blogging

References:
http://geekgal-yvette.blogspot.com/2009/09/picking-blogging-platform.html
http://www.recognizedexpert.com/blogger/

Day 11: - Learn more about Blogging and why people do it

Day 12: - Get a Blogger Account and Start Tutorials

Day 13: - Write Your First Blog Post

Day 14: - Learn about RSS and sign up for a feed reader such as Google Reader so you can subscribe to blogs

Day 15: - Use your Notes to explore more about Blogging