Social Media for Public Engagement

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Social Media for Public Engagement

• Luke Walker
• TakingITGlobal.org

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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)

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Synchronous Tools

• IM
• Text-based (mostly) chat between known contacts,
  video
• Skype/telephony
• Cheap calling, conference calls, video
• Webconferencing
• Training, showcasing, presenting

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Synchronous Tools (links)

• IM - the big two
• Americans use AIM (AOL) http//www.aim.com
• The big one elsewhere MSN/Windows Messenger
  (Microsoft) http//get.live.com/messenger/overvie
  w
• Growing fast - Google Talk http//www.google.com/
  talk
• Skype http//www.skype.com
• Web Conferencing
• http//www.elluminate.com
• http//www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/
• Open source option (?)

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Tagging

• Folksonomies User-defined, social categorization
  of web content
• Tags can help organize and agglomerate content
  about YOU
• Links
• http//del.icio.us
• Search for nptech (techsoup.org)

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Blogs

• Reverse chronological
• Often informal
• Online diaries/journals or op-ed columns
• Blogosphere

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Blog (links)

• http//www.google.ca/blogsearch
• http//www.technorati.com/
• http//www.blogger.com
• http//www.livejournal.com
• http//www.wordpress.com / .org
• http//www.moveabletype.com

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Wikis

• Internal communications
• Reporting
• Knowledge transfer/archive
• External communications
• Audience participation
• Rapid deployment

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Wikis (links)

• http//www.wikipedia.org
• http//www.mediawiki.org
• http//www.wikispaces.com
• http//www.socialtext.net

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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

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Media Sharing (links)

• http//www.flickr.com
• http//www.youtube.com
• http//www.teachertube.com

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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

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Social Networking (links)

• http//www.facebook.com
• http//www.myspace.com
• http//www.orkut.com
• http//www.meetup.org
• Event planning
• http//www.takingitglobal.org
• Social network for social good
• http//www.tiged.org - platform for schools

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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 http//secondlife.com/
• Teen SL http//teen.secondlife.com/

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Virtual Worlds (links)

• Non-Profit Commons
• http//www.nonprofitcommons.org
• http//npsl.wikispaces.com/
• Global Kids
• http//www.holymeatballs.org

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Issues to consider

• Platform You dont own it
• Community You need to know the norms
• Viral spread You dont control it
• Longevity You cant predict fads

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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

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On Online Communities

• Understanding how to use a tool isnt enough you
  need to know how other people use it
• Violating norms, language standards, etc can
  deligitimize your presence very
  quicklyexperienced users can sniff out newbies
  very quickly

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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

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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 wont be the last
• Use these tools to support your presence online,
  not as your sole presence (when possible)