This is my presentation delivered at the workshop ‘Creating High Impact and Digital Initiative in India’ organised by ITHAKA with support from the Ford Foundation and assistance from the American Institute of Indian Studies, held from 8th to 10th Dec in Pride Hotel, Bangalore. I was invited to talk about social media and web strategy for non profits. You can find more details about the workshop here - http://wp.me/p1xyZ-FA

1. ‘Creating High Impact and Digital Initiative in India’ 8th to 10th Dec 2010 Bangalore, India A Digital Hall of Mirrors: Using social media to expand awareness and loyalty BySanjuktaBasu Social Communication and Media Enthusiast Founder, Samyukta Media. sanjukta.basu23@gmail.com http://sanjukta.wordpress.com http://samyuktamedia.com Please excuse bad spellings and grammatical errors, am sure there will be many

2. For a moment, close your eyes and imagine ‘communications’ What is that one thing… that you reallywant to say to the world… what are your chances?

3. Traditional medium of communication

4. My life, my voice, my blog My Videos My Pictures My writings My Audios BLOG OR SOCIAL MEDIA?

5. So What is Social Media? Web language Website web hosting, Technology Domain name Flash / HTML SOCIAL Anything friendly, belonging to a group formed on common thoughts and principles: Anything that has a sense of togetherness and inclusion An agency that helps us to carry our voices, news, stories, products, businesses, ideas, feelings opinions etc from one group to another MEDIA

7. It is not our friend, it is a powerful entity that sits at a position higher than the consumers

8. There is a ladder that is needed to be climbed to be able to get to that position from where an ordinary person can create and disseminate information.

9. That ladder is climbed by becoming a journalist, author etc.

10. Publications therefore have always been a journalist's privilege. Bloggers have taken that away

11. With www.paper.li you can even have your own digital newspaper (almost)

13. Edited video with Microsoft movie creator

14. Uploaded video on Youtube

15. Wrote a short story around video and published that on my blog

17. In no time a story so ordinary and perhaps so irrelevant managed to occupy digital space, and it is going to stay there for some good amount of time to come. Not all ordinary stories are irrelevant: There are stories in every nook and corner…So many lives, so many voices…poor and ordinary…but they talk about… Struggle, success & failure Caution and inspiration Where are these stories? Who will tell them? And why? Who wants to hear them? Who decides what gets heard? So what if they are not told?

19. Most people initially used blogs as personal journal but currently there are many political or lifestyle blogs most of them being collaborative blogs.

20. Blog aggregators and collaborative blogs following American examples: Insta Pundit – Desi Pundit, Blog Critics – Desi Critics.

21. Tsunami help blogs and Mumbai help blogs: Two great initiatives but hardly any replication

22. Bloggers meet in the physical world became a common trend in the metros, at times cities competing with each other.

23. Celebrity bloggers, Blog Martyrs, Regional language bloggers and Published Bloggers – You have arrived if you could be one of these

25. Intellectual property, copyright violations and plagiarism: second most favourite topics

26. More off line meets, Un-conferences and general socializing around common subjects, mostly technology and related entrepreneurship: Changed culture

27. Youtube entered India around the same time blogs did, it was and is still largely used to share film songs, TV series etc.

28. Flickr entered a bit later and with it we saw a sudden increase in amateur photographers.

29. Several young and amateur film makers, entrepreneurs, consultants including myself owe their self discovery to social media tools.

30. Facebookand Twitter currently the two key player in social media entered India about 3-4 years back and became much more popular than blogging in less time.

32. Who are NOT blogging? My Dad

33. Even after 10 years, blogging has remained a niche online activity in terms of number of users, subjects blogged about, regions to which the users belong Why? Different groups have different perception of Social Media is: NGO staff think its too technical, mostly intimidated with it - “I can barely use email” is commonly heard. Academics are dismissive about it – They love books, are slightly angry that ordinary people messed with their privilege of being publishers and writers. Are upset with low quality of most of the blogs written by ‘lay man’; Worried about their copyright infringement. Girls and women are biased against technology, it’s a gender construct they are trapped with. Senior citizens cannot see the fonts: Internet is not old age friendly and also not friendly to differently able people. Artist don’t get how can social media help their art. They too are worried about copyrights. And what does it mean?

34. Digital content created by men’s rights group ‘Save Indian Family’ occupies the first spot on search results when searched for “domestic violence case studies India.” The link will take you to a page that will claim, domestic violence is a non issue, real victims of DV are the men, section 498A of IPC should be banned.

35. Close your eyes and think of a farmer Think of Indian Farmer and Canadian Farmer

36. That’s how cool is the Canadian farmer My question, if there is any agriculturist here, while its true we have the farmer’s suicide but is there really no other image of our farmers?

37. Beef and pork producers in Perth County have teamed up for the first time to use social media as a way of telling their stories. They'll use a new website as well as Facebook and YouTube.

38. What happens when all those people don’t blog? Insufficient digital content Misrepresentation and non-representation of causes and issues. Uneven digital space allocation Indian digital activity not representing and not being inclusive of the masses What was supposed to be social is once again being captured by a handful of people focused on a money making model Dark areas earlier ignored by mainstream media continues to be ignored by social media – dark in terms of region and subject Representation and imagery

39. Who will blog? Taken from www.i4donline.net

40. People who engage with the source of information – each one of us will have to integrate social media with our core work

41. Few essential steps of creating content for Social Media platforms Maintain a simple wordpress.comor blogger.com – no need to book domain or buy hosting space, just get a free blog like you have a free email. Link that blog to either Facebook or Twitter or to both – there are pros and cons to this, needs a greater discussion Start writing about, lets say, your research work - write about the people you meet, issues you face, interesting anecdotes, trivia about the place. Use correct tags and categories. No need to give away vital details just share your experience with the world, just like you share it with your friends and family While travelling to a village for fact finding / data collection, quickly take a picture on your way and publish it on the blog – it takes 10 minutes and doesn’t cost you any extra

42. Few essential steps of creating content for Social Media platforms (cont) If you are in a conference or workshop cover it live on blog or twitter – or at least write a report / review on it at the end of the day. Don’t wait for 2-3 years to finish your research and then share the work – keep the blog updated with the process of your research. (Read about SamitBasu’sNovel Race) There is no doubt your research is invaluable but if it’s an academic work of 200 pages – many wouldn’t read it. So give brief notes about it on your blog to increase interest in the work. All social media tools come with both versions, paid and free. The free versions are good enough to help you create an impact – I for one have never spent any money on Social Media and it has got me this far

43. Site created using free social media tools like free blog, twitter, Facebook etc. aamisamanyanoi.wordpress.com sanjukta.wordpress.com

44. Web Strategy Each organisation or project has its own web strategy. The basic idea is that instead of traditional websites which were meant to be digital versions of a physical office the new age websites are meant to be digital representation of the whole organisation / campaign with all its objectives, mission statement, team etc. They are based upon the principles of social media: Social, inclusive, interactive, dynamic

45. EXAMPLE http://www.cflr.org/ http://www.theypfoundation.org/

46. The Buck Stops at You So Start today

48. Selling a product as boring as OATMEAL www.goodmorningheart.com

49. Even if it is business for you, make it sound like it’s a noble task, a great social cause.

50. What is Bihar doing with Youtube? Turning it to YouBihar http://www.youbihar.com/

51. ShubhaMudgal’s initiative underscore records http://www.underscorerecords.com/

52. Visually impaired person using social media - RaghavaPerri’s blog http://raghava.in/

53. See what Mr. Mahabir Pun is doing to get on internet Photo taken from Nepal Wireless website Nepal Wirelss - bringing internet to villages in Nepal where there is not even electricity, using home devices http://www.nepalwireless.net/

54. Thank you for your patience I can be reached at 9953936006 My blog is: http://sanjukta.wordpress.com My Twitter: http://twitter.com/sanjukta My Facebook: http://facebook.com/samyukta.basu