Great free sites that social media beginners may not know about!

So as a part of this blog, I promised to take you along on my journey into the digital age. Let's start with some basic tools that I find invaluable.

By the way, all of these are COMPLETELY FREE. Nada. Zip. Zilch cost to get started or maintain. ALL are essentially Windows or Mac-based, so they are EASY to use and require no additional web or computer skills.

LinkedIn - For business and making connections, research, networking and general happy business-y thoughts. http://www.linkedin.com/in/erinherold

Facebook - Great reconnection tool for people that you want to stay in touch with - but don't have the time to make connections with each person, every day. (Friend me at HarkHerold)

HotMail, Yahoo, Gmail, Rocketmail - Each and every one of them are free webmail sites. Set up one or multiple for yourself, your family, your kids, your business - the possibilities are endless. Additionally, once you set up these accounts, you can often import your contacts from Outlook or other programs directly into the site. THEN, you can take those contacts and upload them directly into LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter (see next) and many other programs to see if your connections are already on the site. harkherold@hotmail.com

Twitter - Yeah. I didn't get it either, until I started dinging around on the web a bit more. It's fantastic. If you wanted to find someone within a 5 mile radius of any zipcode, that tweeted a question about quilting between January of 2008 and today, you can do that. It's an outstanding business tool as well, as you can connect very quickly with other professionals that share similar interests - even beyond quilting! For the first week or so, just get on and lurk - see what others are saying, who you'd like to connect with, and what's being discussed (see next for Tweetdeck). I'm addicted. Love it. In fact, I'm taking a course in online social media and am now connected to three people across the globe that have taken the same class. Great resources I'd never otherwise have found!
@harkherold

Tweetdeck - ...so you're not ready to fully commit to Tweeting, but you're curious about what's being said out there. Or what someone is saying about your company or competitor. Tweetdeck is your tool! You can pull in your Facebook pages to see live updates, and link your Twitter account (or not) for up to the minute updates on your followers. BUT the real beauty of Tweetdeck is that you can choose keywords to monitor throughout the site. For example, last week, a young woman with a Saturn VUE in California had a flat tire. I know this because I made a column that would pop up all Tweets that contained "Saturn" and "problem" - I arranged to have her speak with the Parts Department here in MN. While she chose to go a different route - everyone with "Saturn" keyworded, or her followers, or "problem" keyworded, could watch the drama unfold in live-time. Talk about making an impression! IN.VAL.U.ABLE. Period.

Then the last site I'll pump today is the one I found today - Weebly. Weebly allows anyone to create and host their own webpages - ENTIRELY FREE. Again, as simple as creating a Word document, you can make a website - I did! That's all for now! Stay tuned! http://erinherold.weebly.com