Icebreaker – line people up in order, people who have never heard of or used the space at one end, people who use it every day at the other end. Facebook MySpace Blogging Flickr or photosharing site YouTube Twitter Ask what other spaces people have been in? Write these up somewhere?
Disclaimer – this is all from a UK perspective and from my experiences Mobile/ipod/iphone etc It won’t always be myspace or facebook but there will always be something now – change is irrevocable and will only get bigger People getting news from RSS, mobile, apps, Twitter etc. Messages through more fragmented media, which means they need to be hit a few times from different angles during the course of a day to get the message. For last point – see Skittles on Twitter farrago
Flickr has an open Application Programming Interface (API for short). This means that anyone can write their own program to present public Flickr data (like photos, video, tags, profiles or groups) in new and different ways. Data is freely available for anyone to do imaginative things with. Bring up the 1/9/90 creators/contributors/consumers aphorism? Being free with data brings the biggest successes e.g. Flickr and Twitter
Geotagging and Images Images are one of the oldest types of media to use geotagging. Certain formats like the JPEG format allow for geographical information to be embedded within the image and then read by picture viewers, which allows the exact location of where a picture was taken to be saved with a photograph. Smartphones with built-in cameras and GPS have made geotagging images a breeze. Geotagging and HTML A block of text of piece of HTML code can also be geotagged by using specific standards in communicating the exact location to be attached to the HTML. The format for geotagging HTML is as follows: <div class=&quot;geo&quot;>GEO: <span class=&quot;latitude&quot;>37.386013</span>, <span class=&quot;longitude&quot;>-122.082932</span> </div> Read more about Geotagging HTML Geotagging and Blogging Some blogging and microblogging sites such as Twitter also support geotagging. This is especially popular with blogging and social networking sites that cater to a mostly mobile audience. By geotagging blog posts and updates on your social network, you can easily alert your friends to your location. You can also track yourself through your own lifefeed. GEOTAGGING IN ACTION – Haiti, Ushahidi, can use for demonstrating country programme work etc. Will become more part of the normal process of doing things.
Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there were few easy methods available for ordinary computer users who wanted to post videos online. With its simple interface, YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minutes. The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of Internet culture .
Point 1 – one of the biggest things about YT is ‘where do you start?’ – so need to provide a good, well-maintained channel as a starting point for people. We have our own channel, but again much of the use of YT for us is about hosting on YT and then allowing people to embed and use elsewhere. EXAMPLE: OXJAM celeb videos, allowed to be used on around 100 regional event organisers’ myspace pages.
Bit of history – when we started on FB there were almost 100 Oxfam spaces already there, from shops to supporter groups to one labelled ‘why does Oxfam give out such rubbish pens’. Important lesson – you can’t stop people talking about Oxfam online, but you can provide a forum for them to talk to us and get answers. Good place to bring up formation of SNCCT which got us off the ground in social media? Group to fan page – not having both spaces. Fan pages more adaptable, taking over from groups for anything substantial. Groups are more for single statements/support of a statement/organisation. One space – not loads, to confuse people, but try to communicate a single oxfam and the range of stuff we do. Save the kids: 56,000, Greenpeace 367,000, Amnesty 75,000, WWF 259,000, World Vision 191,000, Christian Aid 2,500 – we can do much more to promote this.
There is little doubt that 2009 was the moment that Facebook truly exploded. In January, Zuckerberg announced the &quot;milestone&quot; of 150 million users worldwide. Less than a year later, the social network has more than doubled and now boasts that more than 350 million people log on each month. E.g. Earth Hour nearly 1 million, Burma monks 400,000
Tweetdeck, 3 rd party apps etc. Mashups include twitterfall, picfog, twitterverse etc.
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i) Live reporting This has been the most effective and engaging use of Twitter, and should continue to be one of the priority uses of Twitter, particularly as we head towards Copenhagen in December. Since we can at present only link one mobile phone with one account at a time, live reporting is only possible from one person in one location (assuming there’s not online access), and this is the way we should keep things. Live reporting from more than one place at once would be confusing, even if interspersed with news updates from Oxfam House. Therefore if live reporting is taking place, nothing else should go up on Twitter during that time, except in emergencies or if something urgent comes up. ii) Dissemination of newsworthy material This is the most common use – using Twitter as a channel to distribute Oxfam-related news content, either in the form of press releases or other news. The most effective way we have discovered so far of doing this, with regard particularly to press releases, is to post a series of excerpts from the release over the course of a day, with each one linking through to the press release or another relevant page on the Oxfam website. For instance, headline first, followed by a selection of ‘killer facts’ from the release throughout the day. This maintains interest and killer facts increase the chances of the post being retweeted. iii) Miscellaneous Oxfam promotion This can be periodic posts about high-profile job vacancies (and vacancies especially in tech or media positions, where many potential applicants are likely to be following @oxfamgb), posts about online shop sales/offers, Unwrapped and so on at key moments. iv) Conversation/crowdsourcing Asking followers a question in order to gauge a very quick ‘straw poll’ set of responses to something – ideally something we’re thinking of doing that we want opinions about. v) Competitions Competitions asking Twitter followers to do something or come up with something creative in order to win a competition are good ways of getting conversation along a theme going. A good example is the #ecobands competition to win Glastonbury tickets, which asked followers to come up with variations on well-known musicians’ names with an ‘eco-twist’. Running competitions this way increases chances of RTs and spreads the word more effectively and over a longer period than something like a simple ‘first person with the correct answer’ competition. vi) RTing/engaging with others Keeping an eye on what our charity contemporaries and other influential followers are talking about, and making sure we RT and @reply them whenever this is appropriate and relevant to our audience as a whole.
Wax lyrical about Flickr – tone just right for pros and beginners, lots of great features, open API to get Flickr content everywhere, championing Creative Commons licences, and the community aspect of it.
Who here reads a blog? What is your favourite blog and why is it good? Examples from me: digital photo school (interest, learning new things), football team blog (latest news), media blogs (opinion and comment on what goes on in the media), things magazine (links out to interesting places)
1. Be conversational in tone: Nobody wants to be bored to death reading your blog, and you should also try to attract readers who might not be familiar with the subject you are covering. Keep the corporate, policy-heavy tone of voice for press releases. 2. Start a conversation: Blogging is about encouraging comments and discussion amongst your readers, whether by writing something interesting or controversial or even asking them direct questions. It’s not a series of perfectly-formed monologues. 3. Be unique: What new angle can your unique position or experience bring to an issue? Say something readers won’t have heard before, and don’t be afraid to voice an opinion. 4. Link: Blogs thrive and win new readers by linking out to other places, which then in turn track back to our blog. To use a Cranston analogy, a good blog is like a party host introducing its readers to lots of other interesting places to go. Provide lots of links to go with your blog post. Also, try to link to the main bit of relevant content on the Oxfam.org.uk site at some point in your post if there is one. 5. Don’t go on for too long: Blog posts don’t need to be lengthy – many of the best are only a paragraph or two, making a point succinctly. 6. Write regularly: For a blog to succeed, it needs regular posts more than anything else, and for individual authors to develop their own voice as part of the overall output. 7. Catchy, interesting titles are a must: Short, catchy, tabloid-style titles grab potential readers’ attention and will ensure that your posts have a better chance of being read. Blogs are displayed on the news page by title only, so that needs to be what draws people in. Titles still need to be quite clear and self-explanatory though – anything too oblique or obscure won’t work. 8. Respond to comments: If you don’t respond to comments on your blog post, those readers won’t be coming back. Dialogue and debate, along with regular posting, is what keeps a blog alive. 9. Rich experience: Users now expect a rich experience, one that includes photos, videos, links to other blogs/Twitter, etc. We should try to include (by embedding) either a photo or video into posts from time to time, as well as linking out to other places. 10. Don’t assume knowledge: Don’t assume readers are familiar with Oxfam, the issues we work on or the crazy acronyms we use every day. Try to avoid this sort of thing entirely, but if you must use it, be clear what it means.
You can make one of these for your own interest area in ten minutes! An example of how a free, simple aggregation tool can help us do our jobs and make sense of the information overload.
Talk about Oxjam as coherence in social media – MySpace, Facebook, blog, videos etc.
1. Audiences lazy – don’t want to leave the space they’re on (perhaps except twitter), won’t come to our site without very good reason 7. I.e. you need your fans/users to spread the word for you or you’ll be shouting on your own 8. People get hacked off if you post too much and intrude in their fun social media life too much and will unfriend/unfollow/ignore you in droves
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