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Social Media…Huh, Say What? 5 Lessons to Teach the SMM Clueless!

Have you ever tried to explain Social Media to some traditional, offline business marketers? If you did, probably they looked at you with a blank face as if you were an alien creature for outer space! Oops, I should've mentioned that before the Halloween!

What if you had to explain the whole social media story to hopeless cases of technophobia playing deaf? Is there a way in hell you can get to them? You bet! Here is how…

Tell a Social Media Success Story of a Famous Person

Here is what I would say: "what if you had a new product to launch, what would be your marketing strategy? I bet you would go for TV, print ads, magazines, radio to name just a few of the ridiculously expensive options. But once you start to do the math, end of story!

What if you can get the same benefits by just sharing your new product with 7 people! Yes, you heard right! 7 people! And hey, before you start giving me the "you are insane" look, Cindy Gordon, the marketing VP at Orlando Resort, already used the 7-people-buzz magic to launch a successful campaign for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and it worked thanks to Social Media!

Now, they are all ears and will start begging for more: pretty please teach me social media.

Now is a good time to say it all.

What are the Main components of a Successful Social Media Campaign?

1.  Blogs

Having a blog is NOT an option! It's a must and if writing is not your cup of tea, hire a professional. You need to interact with your potential clients in a friendly way through your blog and offer them some high quality freebies. These freebies are priceless to your brand awareness if you think long-term.

2.  Let Your Readers Spread the Word

Encourage your blog readers to spread the word about your blog by offering different sharing and bookmarking options. Also give your readers a good reason to subscribe to your blog by constantly publishing quality posts.

3.  Be Socially Active

Start microblogging at Twitter, Tumblr, and Posterous and leverage other social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Be active, engage in your niche network, join a group or initiate your own, and above all build relationships with your hot prospects and customers.

4.  Provide Rich Content

If you want your blog/site to stand out and grab visitors' attention, don't settle for plain text. Add video, audio, photos, and music to the mix. And hey, YouTube is fantastic visibility magnet.  Keep that in mind!

5.  Create a M.A.P. (Massive Action Plan)

This step is the most important of all. You need to devise a realistic SMM (social media marketing) plan in order to ensure boosting your brand awareness by maximizing your social influence.

A word of caution here: SMM rewards are not immediate but they are well worth the effort and the following staggering study says it all: 70% of U.S. based small businesses use social media. I am not a bit surprised after all! Are you?

Finally, if you felt like giving a formal definition of Social Media,this is how Wikipedia defines it:Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.

Do you think technophobes will remain resistant to social media after all? I doubt it! Anyway, give it at shout and keep me posted. Good luck!

About the Author

Aaron Eden, founder and the brains behind Garious, has spent over 15 years in the quest for the holy grail of business innovation.  " I love social media a lot that I'm sharing ideas that make it drop dead simple for everybody! "

Math Teacher - YourTeacher.com - 1000+ Online Math Lessons

How Effective Teachers Teach to Both Hemispheres of the Brain

In math, we are typically taught that when something is broken into halves, it has been divided into two equal parts. The same can be said of the brain.

A Little Background Information

The brain is divided into two hemispheres, the right and the left. The left hemisphere controls the right side of your body and is involved in sequential processing. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and processes in a spatial/relational manner. Although the hemispheres process information in very different ways, they work in a complementary fashion through a connection of about 300 million nerve fibers in the corpus callosum.

While the corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres of the brain physically, there is a need to connect instruction to each hemisphere. In order to be effective in designing educational programs, lessons, and curricula, we must understand a few basic tenants:

Learners use Both Sides of Their Brains

When we indicate that a person is right-brained, it is not an indication that he or she does not utilize the left hemisphere of the brain. What we are saying is that this person uses the right hemisphere of the brain to a greater degree than the left. Hemispheric dominance relates to the part of the brain that handles the majority of the information in any given task; this is the hemisphere that responds first. Everyone uses both hemispheres of the brain. People who have a dominant Green or Gold temperament are left-brained, and those who have a dominant Orange or Blue temperament are right-brained.

Left Hemisphere Processing = Part to Whole

Gold and Green learners who operate primarily from the left hemisphere of the brain process from part to whole. For these learners, processing is linear, sequential, logical, symbolic, and verbal. They gather a myriad of parts and use them to construct whole ideas and concepts.

Right Hemisphere Processing = Whole to Part

While the left hemisphere is puzzling with the parts; the right is interested in the whole picture. For Orange and Blue learners operating primarily from the right hemisphere processing is random, concrete, and intuitive. Once they have uncovered the relationships and patterns of an idea or concept, they can then take a closer look at the parts that are involved.

Subject Areas Have No Hemisphere Preference

While there are some subjects that seem to lean more heavily toward the processing styles of each hemisphere, there are no subjects that are solely in the domain of the right or left hemisphere. For example, a student in math may memorize theorems or facts (left) for later use in high-level problem solving situations (right).

The Balanced Approach: Teaching in the Nexus

Traditionally, much of what occurs in formal education is within the realm of the left hemisphere. We place a high value on a student's ability to verbalize their understanding of a concept. We instruct, using lecture and text, in a linear progression. This strongly left-leaning approach limits all students and not just student who process primarily in the right hemisphere. Left brain dominant students need to strengthen their abilities to use right brained processes and vice-versa.

To build effective whole brain thinkers, we must consciously strive to teach to the nexus: the place where we connect. We must include activities in our instructional design that build connections between the hemispheres. As a system, we seem to be adept at working in the left hemisphere. So, what do we do to build right-brained processing?

In Teaching for the Two-Sided Mind, author Linda Verlee Williams offers these teaching techniques for the right hemisphere:

 

• Visual thinking: observation, drawing, verbal description without labels, pictures, maps, diagrams, charts, mind maps, cartoons, posting key words, timelines, colors
• Imagery: fantasy, dramatic language. For example, "Imagine you are a seagull soaring over the coast. What do you see or what do you feel?"
• Metaphor: Using metaphors in all stages of a lesson or unit allows students to make connections between new concepts and content and that which they already know. It provides a way to define conceptual relationships. When students create their own metaphors, this strategy becomes even more powerful. For example, "How is a plant like an apartment building?"
• Experience: experiments, field trips, real object, simulation, role-play
• Multisensory: manipulatives, movement, games, dance
• Music: Music has been shown to increase retention of information. It can also be used to examine mood, theme, metaphor, and historical perspective.

 

When using these techniques with students, Williams suggests sharing the name and purpose with students. In this way, students can begin to use these teaching strategies as learning strategies. When students develop an understanding of how they learn, they become better able to adapt these strategies to any learning task.

For most of us, allowing students to behave only in the manner of their preferred temperament style would be inconceivable because we recognize that each temperament needs to practice "doing" other colors. In the same manner, it is vital for our lessons to build connections that allow both hemispheres of the brain to work to their fullest. Williams puts it like this:

 

Children come to school as integrated people with thoughts and feelings, words and pictures, ideas and fantasies. They are intensely curious about the world. They are scientists, artists, musicians, historians, dancers and runners, tellers of stories, and mathematicians. The challenge we face as teachers is to use the wealth they bring us. They come with a two-sided mind. We must encourage them to use it, to develop both types of thinking so that they have access to the fullest possible range of mental abilities. (p. 189)

 

If you're not exactly sure if you are primarily a Blue, Gold, Green, or Orange personality type, then check out the free test at http://gaininginsight.com/ where you can learn more about human temperament. When you subscribe to the free blog, you'll also receive a number of tips and strategies for finding more success with the people in your life, both at home and in the workplace.

About the Author: Nathan Bryce is the inventor of the world's first patented personality system, the Insight Temperament System, which applies the research of Carl Jung, David Keirsey, Isabel Myers (and many others) into real-life settings. His educational company, the non-profit Insight Learning Foundation, teaches hundreds of thousands of people all around the world how to understand people better. Please visit http://www.insightlearning.com/ for more information.

 

 

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