Social Media Workshop - Engage Your Community conference 2009

Engaging with your community using free social media tools A workshop for the Engage Your Community conference Wellington | 12-13 November 2009 http://eyc.org.nz Presented by Courtney Johnston twitter.com/auchmill

Hello

Today’s workshop

Introductions | How do you use the web?

Some observations from Day 1

The social web | What’s out there for you to use?

The golden rules | Setting yourself up for success

Planning exercise

Hello

I’m Courtney

I’m Courtney Johnston

I’m @nlnz

I’m Best of 3

I’m @auchmill

I’m not on Facebook

or Bebo

or MySpace

or Second Life.

… they’re not how I like to talk to people online.

LibraryTechNZ blog Poet Laureate blog Create Readers blog @nlnz Twitter Best of 3 blog Nine to Noon spot @auchmill Twitter

WORK

NOT

Some observations from Day 1 Colin The Internet has always been about community. The Internet has always drawn like-minded people together. The Internet is open and free, and we should respect, celebrate & protect that.

Some observations from Day 1 Nathalie Content is King. Content has a shorter lifespan. Increased transparency can work to your advantage – or not. Put real life and real people in the spotlight (but respect privacy and personal boundaries).

Some observations from Day 1 Chris There’s a difference between strategy and tactics. What Chris was talking about was strategy. You need to do this first. What we’re doing today is tactics. and… All communication is the same. Online or off, there are social rules and mores you need to be aware of.

The Social Web

Step 1: Listen in

What are people saying about you?

And where?

Google Alerts

Google blog search

Twitter search

Google Alerts

Google blog search

Twitter search

Join in

Choose your activity after thinking about time, content & audience:

Blogs

Twitter

Flickr

Blogging

Twitter

Flickr

a small detail

Community & collaboration

From joining in to really hanging out

Facebook/Bebo/Myspace: ready-made spaces for you to spend time in

Wikis: useful tools for working together

Ning: create your own social space

Facebook

Wikis

a small detail

Ning

Some useful tools

Statistics

Wordpress, Flickr & Facebook have built-in stats packages

It’s very easy to add Google Analytics to a Blogger site

http://bit.ly to shorten URLs & count hits

Feedreaders (for RSS feeds)

Google Reader

Bloglines

Netvibes

Personalised homepages (like iGoogle, My Yahoo)

I think we should be on … Twitter! Facebook! Bebo! Second Life! Flickr! MySpace!

4 questions to ask yourself …

Why do you want to do this?

What are you offering?

Who is this for?

Who will be doing this?

… before choosing a platform

Why do you want to do this?

What’s the gap you’re trying to fill?

Are you actually just looking for a shortcut?

Have you looked at your existing channels?

What are you offering?

What kind of content do you have?

How can you express it online?

Are there any rights or privacy issues?

Is any sign-off needed?

Who is this for?

Who are you trying to reach?

Where do they live online?

How will you introduce yourself?

Am I ready for two-way conversations?

Who will be doing this?

How much time do you have to give?

Have you used this tool before?

What happens if you leave?

Should this be part of your job description?

Steps for a successful launch 1. Policies and permissions Make sure people in your organisation are aware of what you’re doing Write (or adopt existing) simple policies that help people answer common questions, for example on comment moderation or following. These should support the people running your channel, not scare or hobble them.

Steps for a successful launch 2. Know the platform Think about experimenting personally before operating professionally

Steps for a successful launch

3. Pimp your profile

Fill out as many profile fields of as you can

Use real names & real photos as much as possible

Try to keep some consistency (e.g. same avatar)

Steps for a successful launch 4. Build content first Whatever you’re doing, put some content (tweets, blog posts, photos) in there before you start asking people to be your friend

Steps for a successful launch 5. Go out and make friends It’s a bit like walking into a party full of people who you mostly don’t know. First, go talk to Bob (who you do know). Bob will introduce you to Sue (who you don’t know). Sue will introduce you to her friends. Aand so on. And so on. [Reminder: This is an analogy speaking. The important point is – be proactive, and start with people in your existing circle]

Finally… 6. Review, adapt, enjoy As part of your set-up process, think about what ‘success’ means. Take the time to review the activity against your goals. If things don’t seem to be working, try tweaking timing, content and voice. This is all meant to be enjoyable. Enjoyment should be one of your measures. If you’re not enjoying it, and your audience isn’t repsonding, then think about letting go gracefully.