Welcome to Social Media

The process of developing Welcome to Social Media

The Book that Social Media Built

Social media isn't just the topic of Welcome to Social Media. It also provided many of the tools we used in developing the project.

The idea began at the September 24, 2008 meeting of the Cleveland Social Media Club, when members were discussing ways to educate people on the use of social media. At that time they proposed producing an e-book on the topic "Advice that you would give someone on how to get started with social media." Later that day, Nader Ali-Hassan posted a message on the Cleveland SMC forum asking people to submit articles on the subject. Articles began trickling in and soon after, George Nemeth created the eBook Workgroup as a place where people could share thoughts and updates about the project. 54 people joined the group and contributed to discussions about the project both online and during break-out sessions and the Cleveland Social Media Club's monthly meetings. George set a deadline of February 13, 2009 for article submissions, members were asked to volunteer as editors and soon the project began to take shape.

As editor-in-chief, Jim England compiled all of the files and posted them on Google Docs to give the editing team easy access without having to worry about sending multiple versions back and forth by e-mail. A system was set in place so that each article would be read by at least 2-3 editors, who would mark the files accordingly. Once a file was deemed final, it was marked as ready for layout. Jim then compiled the articles into the first draft, sharing that file both on Google Docs and as a .pdf on the Cleveland Social Media Club site for the eBook WorkGroup to review. Team members worked on cover designs, final edits were made, and the content was almost complete. It was time to set a final deadline—the launch of the final eBook at the June 24, 2009 meeting—hosted by Greater Cleveland Partnership.

Team members met in person at the May SMC meeting to discuss what it would take to launch the book. Rather than simply publishing a .pdf and offering it from the Cleveland SMC site, we decided to create Welcome to Social Media as a home for an online version of the eBook, future volumes and related resources. Tim Gasper acquired the domain, Heidi Cool volunteered to create and host the Web site while Tony Ramos volunteered to finalize the design and layout of the .pdf for the downloadable version of the book. Meanwhile Stephanie Jansky worked with Cleveland SMC members Dominic Litten, Mark Szczepanik, Jim England, Melissa Koski as well as Richard Batyko and Chris Momon of the Greater Cleveland Partnership to plan the June 24th event.

Open to the public, and promoted via Twitter, Facebook, Cool Cleveland and elsewhere, we expect (as I write this on June 23rd) that the launch will be a huge success. It could not have been done without the work of the many Cleveland Social Media Club authors and volunteers who put their time and expertise to work on the project.

Now it's time to start planning for Volume 2!