When Social Media mavens want to rub antennae with the gurus of their field, they go to Mashable or TED. But what about the rest of us who are struggling just to understand 21st century technology, not attract venture capital?
For that goal, the Maryland Association of CPAs just might be our new best friends. They have created an innovative and extremely approachable Website called CPA Learning 2.0 that is so user-friendly and fun to use that you'll never look at green eye shades or April 15th the same way again!
The self-study, self-guided program features 34 Steps to social media literacy that are designed to be sampled over the course of nine weeks. That might sound like a lot, but the tutorials are completely flexible. You can skip around, change the time frame to suit your schedule, or completely ignore sections that don't interest you.
For instance, there were whole sections that I know in advance that I would never use such as joining MySpace or blogging about my friends' photos on Flickr. But the good news of that is that you will feel your comfort level and competence with social media growing just by being able to discern what is right or wrong for you or what seems like it would be a meaningless black hole vortex of wasted time.
If blogging in particular interests you, the Maryland accountants also have a terrific one called CPA Success. And even if you never blog a word, it's great reading for all professionals who want to explore new ways to market themselves in a recessionary economy.
I'll finish with some great advice for social media beginners, courtesy of Tom Hood, CEO of MACPA, and its chief blogger. When asked by the Journal of Accountancy how a CPA should get started using social networking, he replied, "I would say the answer is to start small. So go out there, set up a profile, get on these social networks, and then step two, listen. Don't start throwing a lot of stuff out there right away--just watch some conversations, make some friends, talk, find out what the conversations are, and then begin to add to those communities. And then step three would be to continue to experiment and have fun."
Fantastic social media advice for any beginner, or veteran for that matter. One more question, Tom: Does this mean a new iPad or 3G phone would be deductible?
Social media is everywhere we turn these days. Facebook makes the cover of Time magazine. Twitter is the first to report the Times Square bombing attempt. Blogs and wikis and apps and 3G networks seem to be taking over, and every new mention can make a person—especially someone quite a ways north of fifty such as I am—feel like a secret language is being spoken and there’s no translator in sight. It’s like hearing about a party that you weren’t invited to and bluffing by saying that you didn’t want to go anyway but secretly knowing that isn’t true.
In fact, if social media were a real life party, you’d love an invitation! But in real life that invitation would include other helpful hints as well, like driving directions and some advice as to dress code that would make things seem a lot less intimidating.
Which brings me to the reason I’m starting this blog: To help you start from Square One in greeting the brave new world of social media. To begin at the beginning in discussing and overcoming your legitimate fears—of identity theft, privacy invasion, wasting too much time--and give you the step-by-step support you need to overcome your not so legitimate ones--of silly questions, of not knowing where to begin, of looking like a dinosaur in the kids' world.
In the blog posts ahead I'll teach you what I've learned and share my personal story of how social media took me from being yesterday's news in the job market to being a key part of a dynamic office filled with young people half my age. I'll get you up and running at a level that is both fun and comfortable for you and help you come to see social media as I now do--as 21st century friendship for busy, vital people.
