About the blog

Welcome to Ask About Social Media!

This blog has been a couple of months underway and evolved as the culmination of several ideas and projects. It started out as sort of e-learning project; a way of organising a series of brief tutorials about social media for a group of colleagues. At the same time, I found myself answering questions about the uses of social media in public relations and other forms of communication over at LinkedIN Q&A or reading other people’s answers and feeling annoyed that there wasn’t an easy way to gather and publish all of that good advice, links and tips.

Speaking to friends in the Public Relations industry, I also came to realise that several of them had been looking for an online ‘library’ of case examples of good or bad uses of social media in communication, marketing etc. that they could use to get inspiration, learn from or show to potential clients to give them a feel for the potential power of social media.

Lastly, I have found myself unable to refer interested parties to a single website with a relatively simple yet comprehensive list of social media networks, tools and services – somewhere you could glance over and understand the difference between e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube.

So that is what Ask About Social Media is about – short tutorials to help you understand and get started using social media, a dictionary of social media networks, tools and services that will develop over time, and a case study library that will also develop over time. On top of this, the blog will contain as much quality information about social media usage as I can dig up from around the internet.

Of course, the blog is called ASK About Social Media, so you should feel free to ask as many questions as you’d like and I will try to answer them as best I can. I am not an oracle, but this blog is intended for novices rather than professionals so if you are just looking for a place to start out, I hope Ask About Social Media will suit your needs.

Author and editor:

Jesper Andersen is public relations professional and social media enthusiast from Copenhagen, Denmark. When Facebook really started to gain momentum in 2007, he became fascinated with the way social media was changing how people communicated and interacted on a global scale. As a result, part of Jespers carreer as a consultant became focused on the strategic and practical uses of social media in communication – from crisis management to product promotion, from raising awareness about issues to dealing with the negative side-effects of e.g. social networks used by groups formed around hatred or anger.

Today, Jesper blogs about media, politics and related issues (in Danish) at Start Snakken! and is  also actively engaged in various networks and groups developing or discussing social media projects. On occassion, he gives speeches on the use of social media by corporations and organisations. 

Contact Jesper at LinkedIN

Guest bloggers:

Kasper Bergholt, Strategist — Mediebevægelsen

Kasper Bergholt launched his first social media channel, Netlock BBS, in 1992.  Fast-forward: Part of the initial SWAT team that established IMT Labs / Spleak Media Networks (2004),  which was later acquired by Draper, Fisher & Juvertson and Danish Sunstone Capital.

Bergholt considers himself an academic turned pragmatist. He holds a Master of Arts degree (English, linguistics, semiotics) from the University of Copenhagen. In 2004, his alma mater awarded him the rare gold medal for his dissertation on Saussure, Peirce and Derrida. Extensive experience with product, project and people management.