All new revamp for Soc Med SG course

There has been a lot of interest in the new Social Media for Small Groups course being run at the Broadway Cinema. Following invaluable feedback from last terms class the course has been given a face lift and rewritten to reflect more what small groups would like to get out of the experience. To help you decide if the course is right for you here is the session by session outline.

The course begins on Thursday 23rd September at 2pm at the Broadway Cinema. To book your place please call Caroline on 0115 985 8203
Week 1

Session Introduction
Course Paper work to be completed
Setting up a Google Mail account
Commence writing a group profile

Week 2

Session Introduction
Present completed profiles to the group for evaluation
Set up a WordPress Blog
What is a Post and a Page in WordPress
Create a page on the blog for the profile
Homework – create a profile of your audience

Week 3

Session Introduction
Present audience profile to the group, receive feedback
Re write profile if required
WordPress tips and tricks
Homework – Write a ‘What we do’ page for the blog

Week 4

Session Introduction
Add the ‘What we do’ page to WordPress
Group evaluation of the content
Using WordPress themes
Homework – investigate WordPress and bring in any questions for the next session

Week 5

Session Introduction
Content – Scheduling and what to write
Write a list of topics that will be used to generate content, share this list with the group
Twitter – setup an account
Homework – Tweet something, follow other groups and individuals

Week 6

Session Introduction
YouTube – setup an account
Film a 60 second(ish) interview with a group member
Post to YouTube
Add to a WordPress Post
Homework – Post content to WordPress

Week 7

Session Introduction
Review the group blogs, discuss issues with posting content
Facebook – Groups and Pages
Create a Facebook group, page or both
Homework – update WordPress with posts

Week 8

Session Introduction
Flickr – create an account
Add pictures to Flickr account, one will be a picture of the blog author to go onto WordPress.
Tagging images in Flickr
Homework – update WordPress with posts

Week 9

Session Introduction
Share blog updates
Review of content scheduling created in session 5
Importance of Interviewing to generate content
Create a Profile page in the WordPress blog. Add a profile picture
Question and Answer.

Week 10

Session Introduction
Complete Learner profiles and Course evaluation forms
Presentation of the group blogs
Question and Answers and Group Discussion

I am Missing you!

Okay, the sun is shining, but do you have that feeling you should be somewhere, well you know who you are and the Social Media for Small Groups is running today.

Make sure you make it for next week (the last session).

Vimeo for movie evidence

This short film counts as evidence for a small project that I delivered last February. Rather than bury the evidence on a DVD somewhere that I’d lose we thought it’d be better to share the film for others to enjoy. Obviously our funder reaps the benefit too!

Vimeo is a video hosting website just like YouTube by the way. It is slightly less mainstream and slightly more effort to upload a movie, however the picture quality os better. Visit www.vimeo.com to find out more.

Your blog and google – a top tip

Think carefully about how you write your blog title – the name of my blog, getnotted.com, is short for ‘Get Nottinghamshire Education’. In an effort to make sure people understood the name I listed it as Get Nott(inghamshire) Ed(ucation) and while this made sense to me it made absolutely no sense to google. Because of the brackets, google couldn’t see the words, so my blog was pretty much invisible. Not good. So, the brackets are gone, a tagline has been added and I’m working on using more keywords to help try and improve my google rating.

Lindsey Tasker
www.getnotted.com

I came, I blogged, I flickr’d…..

As a recent blog convert I am still discovering cool new things on WordPress that are easy to do. The latest one is adding photos to your blog by linking it to your flickr photostream. If you go to ‘Appearance’ and then ‘Widgets’ on your dashboard, all you have to do is drag the ‘flickr’ widget across to the right-hand sidebar and then add your flickr account URL into the relevant box. All you have to do then is decide how many photos you want to display and the size you want them to be – and you’re done!

Lindsey Tasker
www.getnotted.com

Write Once Publish Lots

Did you know you can publish a post and get it to automatically appear on your facebook page?

Well you can! Just follow the instructions on this post and save time and energy.

WordPress Twitter integration

To get tweets to display in a WordPress side bar is dead easy. Go to “Appearance” and select “Widgets” then drag the Twitter widget across to your side bar. Fill in your account details and then job done.

 However, to get Twitter to tweet automatically every time you post a blog article is a little more complicated but eminently more worthwhile.

Here’s how…

Step 1. Log into your WordPress dashboard and select “My Blogs” which you will find under the “Dashboard” menu on the left hand side.

Step 2. From the “Blogs You’re A Member Of” list choose which blog your would like to intergrate with Twitter first. In this example we are members of only one blog so our choice is straight forward. SocMedSG it is!

Step 3. A pop up box will ask you to authourise a twitter account. When you click on this button you will be taken to Twitter and asked to fill in your Twitter account user name and password. If you do not have a Twitter account then you can set one up at this point. Details of how to do this are available in the Resourses section of this website.

Step 4. Now write a post and publish it in WordPress. Pop across to your Twitter account and you should find that your post title and a shortened web link back to your item is now in Twitter as a tweet. Great Stuff.