I’ve been learning about social media. It’s a challenge to be social, when you’ve grown up being rather aloof. I have Twitter and Facebook, YouTube and BlogTalkRadio. I know about Ping.fm, Pixelpipe and Tubemogul.

In fact, I made a presentation during a conference for infrared thermographers on using social media as a marketing tool. The report was called the ABCs of MediaMojo.

By the way, MOJO is an abbreviation for MObile JOurnalist, not a reference to Austin Powers or Dr. Evil.

There’s a story behind MOJO becoming a meaningful abbreviation, but I’ll save it for later. Suffice it to say that my spin on MOJO is that it is the act of creating valuable content for blogs, websites, and social media posts that is indexed favorably (page 1) by search engines, such as Google.

I’ve realized, you don’t have to be an expert to use social media. You don’t have to master the system. You just need to begin, knowing that, just like in grade school, the more you know, the easier things get.

Speaking of grade school, I had one of the boys contact me recently using Linkedin. He was trying to track down members of the 1962 class at St. Gabriel’s in South St. Louis, Mo. Yes, he was using the internet to find as many former classmates as possible. The class, he informed me, was 97.

Fifty years ago! My goodness, a lot has happened since then.

Early on, things revolved around physical activity, i.e. moving and jobs in different parts of the country. Recently, it’s more mental, trying to figure out the nuances of the internet for fun and profit. More recently, the emphasis is profit, and if it’s fun, it’s a bonus.

I have learned how to take digital pictures and create a dynamic video with royalty-free music. I didn’t know how to do it in 2009. I now have done more than 1,000. I have learned how to podcast and create a live internet radio show that is on iTunes and is indexed by Google. I didn’t know how to do it in 2007. I now have done more than 1,000.

I’m participating in a Webinar on Marketing with Facebook. Webinar? Go-to-Meetings? I didn’t know what is was until 2009. Now, it’s part of the learning process.

My area of interest is online audio and video. I’m self-taught. I tell you that to encourage you to recognize that if a guy who graduated from grade school in 1962 can learn how to use the tools of the Mobile Journalist, you can too. If fact, you have to learn how to create content for your website or blog or social media application of choice.

My focus is on the ABCs of MediaMojo – Animoto, BlogTalkRadio and Cinch. Using just those three, and you could do it with two, you will be able to create content that is considered recent and relevant by search engines, resulting in page 1 indexing for specific keywords.

There are, of course, a few things you need to know how to do, such as take digital pictures and get them from the camera on to your hard drive. If you want to do this right, you need to know how to use an audio editor, such as Audacity.

Check back for the first installment of the ABCs of MediaMojo, and some other things I am inclined to post.