Ken Howell is a senior consultant and an Executive Partner in PCGI Consulting Services with many years of project management and management consulting experience in various industries such as Health, Government, Insurance, Telecommunications, Financial and Custom Application Development in both Winnipeg and Regina. Ken is active in the social media space on a number of platforms. He is an active learner and enjoys experimenting on new social media outlets.

1. Social Media: My Newest Frontier
Ken Howell
PCGI Consulting Services
Best Practice Presentation
Jan 23, 2013

2. Agenda
• Why am I doing this?
• What sites am I on?
• Strategies undertaken
• Lessons learned
• Interesting experiences
• This presentation
• What’s next?
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 2

3. Why Am I Doing This?
• Why am I doing all this Social Media stuff?
– Promote my “brand”
– Expand my networking horizons
– Promote my skills and knowledge in the management
consulting field across North America with special
emphasis on healthcare
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 3

4. What Sites Am I On (and not)?
Significant Involvement Growing Involvement
LinkedIn Blogger
Twitter Instagram
Facebook
Future Involvement No Involvement
Google+ Pinterest
Branch out Foursquare
Klout MySpace
SlideShare
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5. My Strategies
• Understand your audience
– Be clear who your audience is across each platform
– Being relevant to your audience is crucial
• Ian Trump does an excellent job in focusing on IT security
• Your picture (or lack of)
– Your picture is important!
– Be consistent with your intent and your picture
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 5

6. My Strategies
• Automate, automate, automate
– Do a maximum amount of work with a minimum
amount of effort
– Hootsuite allows posting across LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 6

7. My Strategies
• Automate, automate, automate
– Do a maximum amount of work with a minimum
amount of effort
– Hootsuite allows posting across LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and others
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 7

8. My Strategies
• Create messages that can be used across
multiple platforms
– Facebook posts should use an image that grabs
attention
– Keep messages short:
• 144 characters (including link) will enable you to use that
same message across many social media platforms
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 8

9. My Strategies
• Create messages that can be used across
multiple platforms
– Facebook posts should use an image that grabs
attention
– Keep messages short:
• 144 characters (including link) will enable you to use that
same message across many social media platforms
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 9

10. Key Strategies
• Remember why you are doing this!
– You are uber-professional
– Avoid the 2am “opinionated” posts & 3am pictures!
– Use other accounts
• Create an alternate persona for those opinionated posts
• Create personal (non-business) accounts to post personal
news and don’t mix personal and business contacts
• Think twice, type once, never regret!
– You are what you share
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 10

11. Key Strategies
• Remember why you are doing this!
– You are uber-professional
– Avoid the 2am “opinionated” posts & 3am pictures!
– Use other accounts
• Create an alternate persona for those opinionated posts
• Create personal (non-business) accounts to post personal
news and don’t mix personal and business contacts
• Think twice, type once, never regret!
– You are what you share
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 11

12. Tips
• Tip #1: Social media is a trial and error process
just try it!
• Use an effectiveuniquestandard usernames
• Use a standard message posting time with your
automated tool.
– Your clients are not paying you to do your social
media posts during the day
• Don’t buy followers - Quality vs quantity
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 12

13. Tips
• Share and retweet (RT).
– You like it when your followers enjoy your posts and
share them! Do the same for them.
– Share good news or announcements in your posts.
• Understand who influential followers are and
follow them
– Jay-Z and Steve-O may be influential, but do your
professional followers think so?
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 13

14. Tips
• Be wary of privacy settings
– They seem to change frequently.
– Assume nothing is ever private.
• Create a new email address as the primary
contact for your social media activity
– kenhowellpcgi@gmail.com
• Profile
– Make sure your profile is searchable
– Use industry specific keywords
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 14

15. Tips
• Be aware of your Company Social Media policy
• Posting
– Don’t post a high number of posts at one time (social
media spam!)
– One or two posts a day per social media tool
– Know your audience, post items that interest them
– Don’t waste your audience’s time
– Try to use content more than one platform
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 15

16. Tips
• Twitter
– Using the @ symbol when referring to others willmay
get the attention of the person
• @jannarden
• @jennboterill
– Using the # symbol when referring to a topic may
increase the chances of retweeting by those who
follow the topic
• #EMR
• #healthcare
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Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services

17. Tips
• LinkedIn
– Personalize your LinkedIn invitation to connect
beyond “I'd like to add you to my professional
network on LinkedIn.”
– Join Groups
– “Who’s Viewed Your Profile”
– Maximize the content in your profile
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 17

18. Lessons Learned
• Thank you
– Thank your Twitter followers (weekly on Friday)
– Thank your LinkedIn endorsers
• It takes effort and focus to maintain activity
• You will never, ever, ever, actually know
everything there is about Social Media
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19. Experiences To Date
• Live Tweeting:
– COACH: eHealth Conference 2012
• Jann Arden key note
• John Wright, CEO CIHI
– Winnovation 2012 – Life Sciences Assoc of MB
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 19

20. This Presentation
• What I wanted – a Star Trek theme with
appropriate images and phrases and even a
sound bite
• But, when creating social media content,
consider multiple re-uses
– Copyright images cannot be used without approval.
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 20

21. What’s Next?
• Other social media outlets:
– Expand the use of:
• Google +, Branch Out, SlideShare
– Explore new sitestools:
• YouTube, SlideShare, WordPress
• Personal branded site – www.kenhowell.ca
• Increase Blogging – “PM is like scrabble”
• Analysis of links promoted
• Recommendations
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 21

22. About Ken Howell
Ken Howell is a senior consultant and an Executive Partner in PCGI
Consulting Services with many years of project management and
management consulting experience in various industries such as Health,
Government, Insurance, Telecommunications, Financial and Custom
Application Development in both Winnipeg and Regina.
Ken is active in the social media space on a number of platforms. He is an
active learner and enjoys experimenting on new social media outlets.
KenHowellPCGI@gmail.com
– LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenhowellpcgi
– Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/kenhowellpcgi
– Facebook: http://facebook.com/kenhowellpcgi
– Blogger: http://kenhowellpcgi.blogspot.ca/
– Instagram: http://instagram.com/kenhowellpcgi
Social Media – My New Frontier - Ken Howell, PCGI Consulting Services 22

23. About PCGI Consulting Services
PCGI Consulting Services (PCGI) is a member of the Paradigm Group of
Companies. Together, PCGI and Paradigm Consulting Group in Regina
provide business and information technology services to organizations across
North America.
We offer our customers a wide range of IT and business consulting services.
Our experience spans a myriad of customers within several industries, with
particular expertise in Healthcare, Insurance, and the Public Sector. Paradigm
consultants have access to a large body of knowledge incorporating years of
experience and a commitment to professional development.
For more information on PCGI, please visit http://www.pcgi.mb.ca
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