Last week I gave a talk in Manchester as part of the DMEX training programme I’m working on which upskills ‘traditional’ (strange term in itself!) media professionals from TV, radio and film to work in digital environments through a series of work placements, mentoring, an online network (email me if you’d like an invite to join), a collaboration project (we’re currently making a machinima film) and a series of workshops.

This one was on the mixed subjects of pitching (with Stuart Nolan from Hex Induction), multi-platform commissioning (with Mario Dubois from BBC Multiplatform) and I gave a presentation of using social media for benefiting your freelance business.  (The full write-up of the event is available on the DMEX Ning website – email me if you’d like an invite to join).

Here’s my presentation with some videos and links to case studies:

It was a fun, practical session with a lively group where I did a lot of “show and tell” and created a live blog post to show how easy it is to get going with publishing and connecting your ideas to the wider business community.  I’ll no doubt be writing more on this subject soon, but some key points to take away:

All networks are social

Online networks are much the same as real world networks, you need to feed your network and nurture it for it to bloom, but online networking, rather than just time-wasting, is like the telephone and email – just another new form of conversation so treat it as that – immediate and rich with an equal mix of great ideas and bullshit.

Start with the end in mind

Decide on your goals in advance.  It could be to gain profile because you’re new to freelancing or new in town – in this case a frequency strategy of short but high volume “presence” on blogs and other social networks is effective.  You may want to position yourself as an expert – you’ll then need to define your subject and think of carefully crafted links, comments and posts that define your specialism.  Maybe you want to use social networks to further your own knowledge – in which case you’ll do this by becoming a ‘super connector’ giving advice and ideas to others in return for a piece of theirs.

Have fun and value your time

I’ve just started to use the rather excellent CreativePro Office (it’s free and let’s you track projects, milestones, invoices and time spend on projects) and now I monitor how much time I spend as part of my business development on Twitter, RSS and Facebook.  Decide on your goals and don’t let social networking impact on your workload – it takes a while to “work” for you in terms of bringing in work, so I prefer a little but often frequency to avoid internet addiction.  Keep it light and make it fun – you could make deeper relationships between you and your prospective clients, collaborators and peers.

I noticed my old colleague Dave Harte also did a talk recently on social media for business success, so check that out too – he has some interesting complimentary examples.

Hi to everyone I met at the seminar, it was great for me to help other people get a bit de-mystified and fired-up as to the why and how of social media for business.  If you’d like me to give a talk for your group or business on social media, please get in touch.