Social Media for Public Engagement Luke Walker TakingITGlobal.org
Consider your situation… Purpose: What are you trying to achieve? Audience: Who are you targeting and what are they using? Access: What are the limitations in terms of hardware, software, and bandwidth? Norms & best practices: Who has tried this before and what can you learn? Ownership: How much deeply can you/do you want to rely on external platforms (for audience or functionality) vs. your own (for sustainability)
Synchronous Tools IM Text-based (mostly) chat between known contacts, video Skype/telephony Cheap calling, conference calls, video Webconferencing Training, showcasing, presenting
Synchronous Tools (links) IM - the big two: Americans use AIM (AOL): The big one elsewhere: MSN/Windows Messenger (Microsoft): Growing fast - Google Talk: Skype: Web Conferencing: Open source option (?)
Tagging Folksonomies: User-defined, social categorization of web content Tags can help organize and agglomerate content about YOU Links: Search for nptech (techsoup.org)
Blogs Reverse chronological Often informal Online diaries/journals or op-ed columns “Blogosphere”
Blog (links) /.org
Wikis Internal communications Reporting Knowledge transfer/archive External communications Audience participation Rapid deployment
Wikis (links)
Media Sharing Organized by tags Social networking element User rating/favouriting/”interestingness” common Different sites have different acceptable use/IP policies - read them! They affect who controls yours content
Media Sharing (links)
Social Networking Focus on creation/maintenance of identity & relationships Most allow for the creation of groups, identification of causes, give special status to NGOs and political orgs
Social Networking (links) Event planning Social network for social good - platform for schools
Virtual Worlds What: 3D environments May be games (but not necessarily) Users have avatars/in-world identities Examples: Second Life - Non-Profits in Second Life Second Life: Teen SL:
Virtual Worlds (links) Non-Profit Commons: Global Kids
Issues to consider Platform: You don’t own it Community: You need to know the norms Viral spread: You don’t control it Longevity: You can’t predict fads
Platform: Ours, not Yours Commercial sites are commercial Your information IS being used for their purposes (read the terms of service) As featured/functionality are added or changed, functions you depend on may disappear Support may be difficult or impossible, particularly with free/ad-supported services
On Online Communities… Understanding how to use a tool isn’t enough; you need to know how other people use it Violating norms, language standards, etc can deligitimize your presence very quickly—experienced users can sniff out “newbies” very quickly
Viral Spread: Seed It; Watch It Most social media/Web2.0 sites promote content based on popularity Popular content spreads You can drive up your contents’ popularity using your networks/contacts/friends (get the ball rolling) Controlling your brand/content/image becomes increasingly difficult the further it spreads
Longevity: Have a backup plan Online services appear and disappear everyday, because of: Ownership changes Shifts in trends/popularity/user demand Advertising dollars disappearing/$$ losses Facebook/MySpace are not the first socal networks, and won’t be the last Use these tools to support your presence online, not as your sole presence (when possible)