- Chris Jenkins, Chief Technology Strategist, The Ohio Society of CPAs
I was a little worried when I first sat down for this Learning Lab and the "chief technology strategist" was going to talk to us about social media. He's the IT guy; what could he know? That was my thought. Shame on me.
Then the first words out of his mouth were "Warning: I'm a techie. I'm not a professional speaker." And I immediately liked him.
Before going any further, he asked the room of attendees how they'd like to proceed. Did we want his canned presentation, or an open dialogue on the subject at hand? We voted for a bit of both.
"Create once; use many," Jenkins started. "That's really the power of social media."
Social media enables two-way communications and user-generated content. User-generated content can enhance your message.
"The truth to social networking is that it makes you more visible," Jenkins said. "It's not magical, it's not free and it doesn't happen overnight."
Jenkins suggested that association professionals find blogs that interest them, comment, figure out what's good and what's, get their name out there – only then did he suggest that they start their own blog.
Questions to ask yourself along the way: Are you good at it? Do people respond? Do you have interaction?
"It's not about pushing content," he said. "It's really about interaction."
One thing that Jenkins spoke on that many other social media "experts" haven't lately is social bookmarking. He spoke about gathering and saving knowledge and information, and sharing it with others. He has joined with his counterparts in CPA groups in other states to rapidly increase their online presence through bookmarking. It drives traffic, helps with networking and allows you to share content across other social networking sites.
When you get going with social media, Jenkins said, "don't be alarmed if people start communicating with you, this is a social platform."
