A workshop on Web-Based Social Media will be presented by Tom Myslinsky at West Virginia Northern Community College on April 29 from 6-9 p.m. in Room 110. The event is sponsored by WVNCC and is free to the public.

The workshop will explain the roots of social media and why it has become so important to individuals and businesses. Myslinsky will discuss the uses of the most popular social media web site, Facebook, and demonstrate basic account setup. He will review basic site navigation and address concerns raised by many individuals about the distribution of published personal information. This workshop will not be technical in nature and will be informative for those aged 19 to 90.

Last fall Myslinsky presented a similar workshop to the community college that will also be presented in the near future. Making connections on the web was once for personal interaction. Now however, more and more businesses are connecting with customers and potential customers using social news, social media, and social networking. With that in mind, the Wetzel County Chamber of Commerce will sponsor a five-day Social Media for Business workshop to be presented within the next several months.

Additionally, Myslinsky has offered a conventional college course to WVNCC next fall entitled Introduction to Social Media. Recognizing the importance of Social Media web applications, WVNCC has been the first community college in the area to offer such a wide variety of Social Media courses.

Objectives for the Introduction to Social Media course include: Understanding the origins of Social Networks and why they initially were not widely used; discussing dramatic changes in internet culture; learning Twitter, blogging, widgets, RSS, Wikis, Facebook, Social Bookmarking, and Linkedin; learning how social media is being used for marketing; understanding the differences between social news, social media, social networking, and media sharing; and using social media networks in your marketing strategy, among other topics.

Myslinsky has been a student of Social Media from its creation. He has attended numerous social media, internet, and marketing conferences; worked as a national technical director with an internet marketing company out of Charleston, W.Va.; and owned New Martinsville’s RadioShack for 32 years. He stresses that since these tools and services are continually changing, an individual’s current degree of knowledge about the Internet is not important. “For continued effective communication, using these tools is not optional, it’s required,” he said.

For more information on the upcoming public workshop or social media courses offered at WVNCC, contact Tom Myslinsky at 304-771-5700 or Larry Tackett at 304-510-8760.