I went to a workshop yesterday called “a Guide to Viral Marketing”. Fairly straight forward. The description talked about learning about social media so I thought – perfect!
I went and sat down with my little notepad and laptop. I looked around the room and thought, “Hmm this seems like a really small turnout for a social media event and these guys don’t really look like the computer/social media type.” As I wrote that, I realize that I am not exactly sure what a computer/social media type would look like but that is just what went through my head at the time.
The presenter started chatting with one of the ladies there about the latest book she had read and how her company published the book. Strange.
So the presentation starts – I managed to sign myself up for a Book Publishers guide to social media! “How do you market your books online using social media.”
I took a deep breath and thought, “Ok, it doesn’t really matter what the product is, I can apply this stuff to other clients as well.” So, we go on to learn how to set up an account on www.goodreads.com which is apparently a site where you can keep track of which books you have read, want to read, hated, loved etc.
I am an avid reader so it wasn’t all that bad.
Then we were taught how to set up a Facebook account.
I sat through the rest of the workshop Twittering about my disbelief that two hours of my time was spent learning things I have been doing for at least a year!!!
I did learn a few really interesting things:
Did you know facebook now has 200 million users? And that 60% of these users are between the ages of 35 and 54? Wow! Incredible. So for everyone out there thinking FB is for teeny-boppers and their little friends, think again! FB is becoming much more popular among “adults”. The number of users aged 34 – 54 jumped by 276% in 2008!
Lesson learned – read the small print at the bottom of the site where it tells you that the workshop is put on by a Book Publishing company for other book publishers!! 
Wednesday afternoon well spent!
Stef
