Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab has reported that The New York Times has recently appointed Jennifer Preston to the title's first Social Media Editor. What does this mean? Is The Times finally implementing a strategic plan that they have been working on and are now confident to launch? Or is it a last gasp attempt to find a new life in the fading newspaper business?

Using Social Media Effectively:

• Who you are online should be who you are offline. Social media tools are a means of reaching your offline goals. To do so, you must be yourself when online.
• Use social media to strengthen relationships you are building offline. You do not have time to go to coffee with everyone. Think of social media as virtually building relationships you would build offline if you had the time.
• Each social media tool has different functionality. The right tool for the right job applies to our online activities as much as it does to our offline activities. Before jumping into social media, determine what you want to accomplish, research the tools and determine which tool(s) will help you reach your goal(s).
• Be genuine. Others recognize sincerity. Your online efforts will have much greater impact if you are sincere.
• When expanding your network, get to know interesting folks. That makes being genuine much easier!

What is social media?

Social media is a collaborative means of sharing information online. Sometimes we are the audience. Sometimes we are the author. Often we are both. Social media tools include: blogs (website of text, photos, or videos in chronological order), photo sharing (such as Flickr.com), micro blogs (such as Twitter.com), and networks (such as Facebook .com and LinkedIn.com).

Social media tools enable anyone without knowledge of how applications work to:

• post,
• comment,
• share content,
• mix content, and
• form communities around shared interests.

Why Social Media?

Social media’s greatest value to you is in relationship building. Whether the relationship building is with customers, partners, local community members, peers across the country or new recruits to a particular cause, the purpose is the same. Relationships.

Lots of people are talking about ways to use social media to market your business. You can create a Facebook fan page, start a LinkedIn group, or tell the world about your services on Twitter. These are all great things to do. But for me, the real value in social media is how it enhances my efforts to create meaningful relationships with new people. This is me and Joe Cortez, meeting at Stauf's in real time after connecting on Twitter.

Let's take a look at a before and after scenario.  

How networking used to work: I'd meet someone (let's call him Dave) at a meeting or networking function. Dave and I would chat about this and that, maybe talk about how much we loved the new Star Trek or what a giant disappointment the last Wolverine turned out to be. Then, we'd exchange business cards and move on to meet more people. A day or two later, I'd e-mail Dave and tell him how nice it was to meet him. If Dave was really interesting, I'd invite him out for a cup of coffee. Then we'd go our separate ways. Even though I wanted to stay in touch with Dave, calling him or inviting him out for more coffee seemed a little pushy, if not downright creepy. Dave and I might see each other again, a few months later, at another event. We'd politely say hi and engage in more small talk. But such an amount of time had passed that it was like we were meeting all over again.

Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. And those are just three of the social networks we keep hearing about...

• Which ones are worth your valuable time?
• Can they help expand your client base?
• How can you use them to connect with your clients, partners, and peers?
• Is there a cost to using social networks? And what about privacy?

Join Laura Rees of ShinyDoor as she leads a discussion covering these topics and more. You're certain to leave more comfortable with the idea of leveraging social media. In fact, we expect that you'll be excited about the possibilities!

This roundtable is open to National Association of the Remodeling Industry members only.