2. Officially, social media is “an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.” http://www. wikipedia .org
3. More simply put… Social media is people having conversations online.
24. SHARE CONTENT ON PAGE FOLLOW PEOPLE OF INTEREST BE CONSISTENT ASK AND ANSWER QUESTIONS
25. The rules of engagement: SOCIAL MEDIA Be judicious Be smart It’s a conversation Create some excitement Be a leader Did you screw up? Before you hit enter…
31. Connect with me (please!) Siobhan Dolan Social Media Evangelist + Director of Communications Mobile: 323.854.9657 Email: [email_address] AIM: msvdolan1 Website: http://www.desalresponsegroup.org Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/desal_response Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/whoiamtoyou
Notes de l'éditeur
WELCOME MY NAME It’s a term we hear all the time but what does it really mean??
We can argue the merits of turning conversation electronic or keeping it retro, but we can’t deny that this is effective use of what we call social media today.
It was a one-way street of dumping info onto people yet never caring to consider what they thought of it, or if it worked, or even if it was complete, clear and correct.
The new way is the ability to be able to converse with your “followers” in ways that make your relationship stronger. Talking things out builds trust and transparency that agencies need.
Get on board with it or get left way behind. It has got to be incorporated into everyone’s work. You can no longer be an isolated agency, you are for Californians and needs to be closer to those Californians. On a recent episode of Government 2.0 Radio, the point was raised that government agencies are now listening to the conversation happening online, but there's still some hesitancy to actually engage in conversation. Nielson statistics now state that visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity - ahead of personal email. Its democratizing communication.
There are six different types of social media: collaborative projects, blogs and microblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds. Communication * Blogs: Blogger, ExpressionEngine, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, Vox, WordPress, Xanga * Microblogging: Foursquare, Jaiku,, Tumblr, Twitter, Google Buzz, * Social networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Collaboration/authority building * Wikis: Wikimedia, Wikispaces * Social bookmarking (or social tagging: Delicious, Google Reader, StumbleUpon * Social news: Digg,, Reddit, Newsvine Multimedia * Photography and art sharing: deviantArt, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, * Video sharing: Vimeo, YouTube, * Presentation sharing: scribd, SlideShare
Remember that the social aspect does outweigh the media aspect. You will not engage people solely by being another news source pumping out links and updates. It can be personal, it can show empathy, it should connect and engage.
From the campaign of Barack Obama, we have introduced social media to government big and small. An actual memo was sent from the White House to Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies outlining the need for Open Government and in it it lists these three principles: Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
Creation of sites Getting content on to create history Siphoning off time a day or several days a week to update and respond Accessing these sites during meetings or on field trips You will have to determine how you want to carry the load among staff to maintain your social media EXAMPLE: plastic bag ban in state house and tracked by twitter updates for people unable to attend or view online
In 2009 alone, the monthly growth rate of Twitter users FROM JANUARY TO FEBRUARY was 1382% Twitter.com states that the number of tweets per day PER DAY is 3 million.
To explain some functions of twitter, let’s break down a few of these terms. Once you've started using Twitter, it won't take long before you come across what's known as a hash tag. That's when you see something in a tweet that has a # prefix. (The # is a hash symbol, hence the term hash tag or hashtag. For example, if you've seen tweets related to the recent U.S. government stimulus bill, you may have noticed some of them had #stimulus in them. It took me a while to wrap my head around what the purpose of this thing was but, once I "got it," I realized it's not as complicated as it seems. A hash tag is simply a way for people to search for tweets that have a common topic. For example, if you search on #LOST (or #Lost or #lost, because it's not case-sensitive), you'll get a list of tweets related to the TV show. What you won't get are tweets that say "I lost my wallet yesterday" because "lost" isn't preceded by the hash tag. In a way, hash tags allow you to create communities of people interested in the same topic by making it easier for them to find and share info related to it. URL Shorteners are great for minimizing URLs in a Twitter message or keeping links clean in an email Q: What is ReTweeting? A: ReTweets are re-posted updates that give credit to the originator of the message. In other words, you’re simply cutting and pasting someone else’s tweet and posting it on your own feed, linking to the person who first wrote it. ReTweeting builds goodwill within the Twitter community, as long as you don’t overdo it. There is no need to reTweet every update that makes you giggle, but, if something strikes you as particularly interesting or funny, you can reTweet it by copy-and-pasting the update and preceding it with “RT” (for ReTweet) and the person’s username. That person will get a copy of the ReTweet, and most likely thank you for it! (ReTweeting is also a good way to get more followers, by the way.) Q: Can I respond directly to someone’s tweet? What’s the difference between an @reply and a direct message? A: You can respond to people one of two ways: with direct messages, which are private, 140-character exchanges, or with @replies, which are publicly viewable. You can send a ‘@reply’ by simply adding the ‘@’ symbol and the particular user’s name to the beginning of your message (example: “@switched: I really liked that article on Twitter!”). These @replies are ideal for furthering a public dialogue. On the other hand, direct messages, which you can send by clicking ‘Direct Messages’ in the Web site’s right-hand bar (or by preceding a text message with ‘d’ and the user name), are better for things you want to say to an individual, rather than the whole ‘Twitterverse.’ Login into Facebook, check for updates, respond to messages, log off Facebook. Sign into Twitter, check for updates, respond to @mentions, or DM's, log off Twitter. Login into.... Well you get the point. There are so many social media websites out there and whether you belong to all of them or you run your businesses with them, social media is something you just can't get away from. But what if you run multiple accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Foursquare,etc? Logging into each separate account and checking for tons of information can be time consuming right? Well there are solutions such as HootSuite and TweetDeck, which I'll be comparing below. HootSuite and TweetDeck are both social media dashboards. They allow the user to access multiple social networks on one screen. This way the user can manage multiple accounts in one setting. Logging in and out of each social network is eliminated and users can choose to update the same information on multiple accounts if it is necessary. Although both are social media dashboards and both are tools to help manage multiple social networks at once they both are different in their own ways.
According to Facebook, groups are “for members of groups to connect, share and even collaborate on a given topic or idea”. Groups can serve as an extremely effective marketing tool. Most importantly, groups serve as a tool for building awareness around various ideas. The key feature behind Facebook groups is the ability to make them “invite only” or limited to specific networks. In contrast to Facebook groups, which are focused on organizing around topics or ideas, Facebook Pages “allow entities such as public figures and organizations to broadcast information to their fans.” If you are looking to set up your company’s “official Facebook presence” you would opt for Facebook Pages Mass messaging - up to 5000 members, a group can mass email with news and info; pages only do so on the wall Privacy - pages are open to all; groups can limit visibility Search engines - Pages are better suited for search optimization (google search) whereas groups are not so much Vanity URLs - pages can have their own URL, but groups can get an ugly one
Be Judicious If you’re writing about a topic that you’re not completely familiar with you should make this clear to your readers. Don’t get yourself into trouble with trademarks, copyright, fair use, or trade secret disclosure laws. Respect private brands and keep yourself out of court. Be Smart Make sure your efforts to be transparent don’t violate your employer’s privacy, confidentiality, and legal guidelines. Before you plaster that company report all over the web, be sure to clarify if it was meant to be private or kept internal. Be smart about protecting yourself, your privacy, and confidential information. It’s a Conversation Talk to your readers like you would talk to real people standing in front of you or on the phone. Don’t be afraid to bring in your own personality and be open about what’s on your mind. Write your content to be open-ended and inviting a response to encourage comments. Invite other bloggers into the conversation by citing and linking to their post on the same subject. You are creating relationships and they may visit your blog and join in by commenting on your blog just to thank you for the link love. Create Some Excitement It’s a big world out there and there are plenty of voices and opinions to listen to. Look for important contributions to the world and to the future of technology or your personal industry. Be the first in your online community to create a public dialogue on an issue or put your spin on an existing one. Be a Leader There can be a fine line between healthy debate and an argument. You don’t necessarily need to respond to every criticism or jab. Try to frame what you write to invite differing points of view without being disrespectful. Did You Screw Up? If you make a mistake, admit it. Be upfront and be quick with your correction. If you’re posting to a blog, and you choose to modify an earlier post, your readers will appreciate you making it clear that you have done so. Before You Hit Enter If you’re about to publish something that makes you even the slightest bit uncomfortable, don’t shrug it off and hit ‘Enter.’ Take a minute to try and figure out what’s bothering you, then fix it. Ultimately, what you publish is yours—as is the responsibility. So be sure. Remember, what you publish will be around for a long time once it hits the web.