Social Media & CSR: Rules, Tools and People to Know

When you decide to venture out past Facebook there is a lot to learn about social media. At first it seems daunting, but everyone learns the same way: by doing. Just remember, each social media platform has unique rules and processes for communication. They are all relatively similar and once you get the hang of it, youʼll find it becomes fairly intuitive.

Learn the rules

Remember, the rules of society are essentially the same within social media:

• Listen and learn - a lot!

• Be gracious & generous

• Reciprocate & Connect people

• Be personable & Engage others

• Offer actual value

• Donʼt sell stuff

Here is a great infographic on the Do's and Don'ts of Social Media we found on http://visual.ly/

Find your community

We love using twitter. But starting out it can be pretty tough finding quality people to follow. Here are some links that offer great information and lead to other sites with great information. Take some time to browse through them - youʼre community of quality people will increase effortlessly. 

• Find anything on twitter: http://search.twitter.com/

• Find lists of people to follow on twitter: http://tweepml.org/

• Find the right people/places/issues: http://www.twellow.com/

• Find topics and communities: http://www.tweetizen.com/

• Find executives to follow: http://exectweets.com/

• Find people and communities: http://mrtweet.com/

• Find anyone, anywhere: http://www.peekyou.com/

• Discover lists of people on Twitter: http://listorious.com/

• List interests and find others who share them: http://wefollow.com/

• Lists created by other people and easy to follow with just one click: http://tweepml.org/

• Find more executives you want to follow (be sure to check out the lists of even more executives to follow) http://twitter.com/#!/exectweets

• Figure out what the hashtag means: http://tagal.us/

• Find upcoming trends and perform custom searches http://twitterfall.com/

• 8 Easy Ways to Network on Twitter http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-easy-ways-to-network-on-twitter/

More ideas

1. If you want to find and connect with an incredible online community focused on CSR, Corporate Citizenship, Sustainability, Employee Volunteering, and all things Green - here are 16 great sites that will help you build your network.

2. If you want to connect to stakeholders using social media here are some new realities to remember.

3. If you're planning on putting together a conference and you want to know how to make it social media friendly, read this.

4. If you're planning an awards program for CSR, Corporate Citizenship or Corporate volunteering these tips may come in useful.