In the begining!

I recently took a new job with a young start-up e-commerce company, and as with most start-ups you can very likely find yourself doing different things at different times. Don't get me wrong that was why I left my old job and started this new one. I craved the change; I want to be able to do something different, as opposed to preparing bills of quantities every day (my old job).

So now I have been given the responsibility of handling our Social Media Networks, an engineer by training, am thinking, oops what have I got myself into. And so I started first and foremost with the king of all social media, Facebook, my predecessor was a trained writer and wrote exceptionally well(big shoes to fill). While all through my 5 years in the university I have never had to write more than 250words, to explain whatever it is that the examiner had asked in the exam. And  now all of a sudden I have to write stuff to earn a living. Life hard oh!

Back to Facebook, for me I kept my eyes on the likes, I needed somehow to make those numbers go up. That would be a good measurement of the work I had been doing. I started out posting deals, which could possibly interest people and attract their attention to “like” the company page. By the way did I mention what the company does? They we (sounds better) are a procurement company; basically customers can place orders for items from the USA online through our web based application (pretty cool stuff, www.circuitatlantic.com) we handle the procurement and deliver to them in Nigeria. Back to the story, I still wasn't getting enough attention and our likes weren't exponentially increasing, it was just the organic increase of perhaps one like a day that we were getting. And so I equipped myself and started reading. Actually my boss (coolest boss ever), after I indicated interest in this aspect of the company (imagine browsing Facebook as your job) bought books to help me increase my knowledge base and also learn more about the various social media networks.

The First book I delved into was “Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen” (maybe because it was the smallest, also I had never been a book person!). I was also asked to write response papers for every topic I read. Where I would articulate what I have read, propose and application with respect to our business, present a report on the application, then form an opinion on the implication of what I have learnt, and we would then discuss topics to help internalize. What a way to learn!
Since I always wanted to start a blog since I got the Social Media job, I just wasn't sure what it should be on. If it was about the company, that would be even too boring for me to write. And like an epiphany this came to my mind I would write my response paper on the blog. It would not only make me enthusiastic to write, I would also have to write it periodically. Also others could read and critique my writing and also discuss the issues raised, there by learning in the process. I know a lot out there just fluke the whole social media network thing, not realizing the power of the social media and how it could make or mare your business. Am hoping this would be a learning point for others out there and also for me too!