What if you’re really new to all this? You’ve gotta be asking yourself: WHY should I BOTHER with all this new media stuff? All these tools? What’s the point?
Here’s my piece-by-piece on why to bother and what to use.
Start with a Blog
Blogging is a nifty little way to throw out a text shingle to the world that says, “Here’s me and what’s on my mind.” By reading someone’s blog, you get a sense of someone. Take, for instance, Tim Knight, incredible singer and otherwise talented fellow from the band, +nurse. His blog is fun, playful, and yet betrays his creativity, his smarts, and his deep feeling nature.
I prefer WordPress running on a hosted server, but if you want to start off easy, you can try either a hosted WordPress , Blogger, or Vox. These last three are all pre-built, but allow you some level of customization.
Try a Podcast or a Video Show
If you want to really connect with people, offer them more of who you are and what you’re passionate about with a podcast or a videoblog or the like. You can do this lots of ways, including shooting video and then using a free video hosting service like Blip.tv, Revver, Veoh, or even YouTube. For audio, there’s a free plug-in for WordPress blogs called PodPress that works rather well, and there’s a for-pay product called Hipcast that works rather well, too.
(For audio editing, try out Audacity for PC or Mac. For online audio recording, try out Odeo. To see some neat Video shows, check out Network2 – Hey, I had to plug where I work, right? )
Comment Systems
An important part of using social media or new media tools is growing your audience, and developing relationships with the people you reach. Some software exists that makes it easier to do this. For an easy audio platform to add to your blog, try Mobatalk. (They’re going video VERY soon). For a swell FREE telephone number (US Seattle area exchange), try K7. Other than this, consider adding an IM widget to your blog, such that if you use any of the more popular instant messaging software programs, you can add real-time blog-initiated conversations via Meebo.
Share Your Life
Lots of us use things like Flickr or PhotoBucket to share photos of the world around us. You can also share video via Blip.tv or another service. This comes in handy to helping people get to know you. The more they see of you and your world, the more they feel like they understand you.
Who’s Talking About You?
Use tools like Technorati and Google Blogsearch and punch in your name, your company’s name, whatever you want to track, to better understand who’s talking about you, and where, so that you might join in the conversation. Track topics you’d want to talk about. It all helps you get further into the conversation.
Keep Up on Your Reading
Using an RSS reader to follow the larger conversation out there in the blogosphere is recommended versus going to everyone’s site one at a time. There’s just too much to track. I recommend Google Reader. It just works really well. Lots of folks still use My Yahoo or Bloglines, or the built in readers that come in FireFox or IE7. Those are okay, too. I promise, though: once you use Google Reader and get used to the features (love those keyboard commands), you’ll never go back.
Oh, Twitter
Twitter is a “what are you doing” service, that lets you answer that question and hold little conversations via SMS, IM, and web-side. It’s really addictive, and has lots of social features built into it. You can even add a Twitter badge to your blog site so that readers who do come to your page can follow your posts throughout the day.
It’s a bit addictive (to me), but what I like most about it, is that it gives you “the pulse” of a group of people at large, can help you get answers quickly, and generally makes the web feel more human.
Missed a Bunch, I’m Sure
And now it’s your turn, my new media friends. What have I missed? What tools do you think would-be explorers should add to their toolbelts? What couldn’t you live without? Let’s really build this list up even further.
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