Posts Tagged social media
Twestival and social media for social good
Posted by Julie Delaforce in social media, social networks on 25 March, 2010
There are many cynics who will say that we live in a hyper-connected world and its actually over-complicating our lives, rather than simplifying them. They say social networking keeps us at home in front of the computer and encourages anti-social behaviour. Some even think that there are too many brands just pushing their advertising messages in social media. Hopefully charity events such as this week’s second annual Twestival will go some way to muting these critics.
On March 25th, more than 175 cities will participate in Twestival, a global charity event. According to the Twestival website:
“Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good. All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects.”
At the time of publishing, Twestival had raised over $200,000 for Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organisation that provides access to education for poor children.
Mashable.com suggests five ways you can get involved in Twestival:
- Attend a Twestival event
- Donate online
- Bid on the Twestival eBay auction
- Tweet your support
- Listen to Twestival FM.
Can’t get involved in Twestival, but still interested in how you can do good via social media? There are many other ways you can get involved. It’s no accident that charities are beginning to make their mark in social media, it’s all about community and helping one another, so the two go hand-in-hand.
Charity: Water is one organisation who are making an impact. They do the simple things right: they’re on Facebook and Twitter to bring attention to their cause and encourage viral sharing and word-of-mouth, they have a website with rich content: counters showing how much has been raised for particular projects.
Sometimes its hard for us to relate to big, international causes. Think about how social media has helped during natural disasters, such as the Victorian Bushfires in 2009. Photos and videos were shared on UGC sites which brought attention to the disaster and lead to people mobilising on Twitter to share links to charity donation information. Many showed their support for the victims by joining Facebook groups.
So now you’re inspired to do good, but don’t know where to start? It’s easy for anyone to get involved. Here are some tips on what you can do to help humanity online:
- Update your Facebook or Twitter status about a cause to let your friends know about it, don’t forget to include a link to the site of your chosen cause
- Show your support to a multitude of charities by signing up to the Causes application on Facebook
- Create a Chip-In counter and ask friends to donate to your favourite cause
- Sign up to Yahoo! for Good and add a badge for your favourite cause to your website, social network profile or blog
Showing support for a good cause has been made much easier with social media tools and applications. Now there’s nothing from being able to do more to help.
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Traditional news vs Social Media
Posted by Julie Delaforce in social media, traditional media on 7 March, 2010
Is there really a war between traditional news outlets and social media? The way we consume media is changing and traditional news is not as trusted as it once once, they need to get smarter in the way they deliver news to consumers to maintian relevance.
According to Rory O’Connor, Randi Zuckerburg of Facebook believes that ‘expert’ journalists still have their place, people still want an unbiased news source. I completely agree with this. However, the fact remains that many people trust news they hear via their friends more, so if a friend recommends they read a news story, chance are they will. The chart below (from eMarketer, retrieved 7 February 2009) shows that Australian consumers place trust in peers well above both TV news and newspapers. Interestingly enough, online news is also trusted above TV news & newspapers. None of this indicates that people believe journalism is no longer relevant.
In Australia, it seems many traditional news publications feel as though they’re in some sort of war with social media, and rather than embracing it, they simply want to discredit it. But the public has embraced social media, and so traditional media needs to as well to continue to be a relied-upon source of information. Many news outlets are missing out on a great opportunity to find breaking news stories on social media sites such as Twitter. When natural disasters occur – such as the recent Haitiearthquake or last years bushfires in Australia – the news is actually breaking on Twitter as people are able to share updates from their mobile phones whilst on the move. Eye witness reports appear online long before a TV station can secure an exclusive interview, and by the time it makes their 6pm broadcast, it’s old news. This being said, just because something appears on Twitter, doesn’t make it credible, and this is where traditional news has its strength – they have the resources to conduct further research and provide broader and more insightful information. But it needs to be delivered in more thought-provoking and non-traditional formats (no that doesn’t mean a slideshow that will generate 100 clicks for your news site).
Social media provides opportunities for deeper engagement with news content. Imagine, an article is published on a news website, the popularity of this article is based on how many times it is shared (via bookmarking, Facebook & Twitter shares etc.) AND read, rather than a traditional page view metric. The newspaper publisher creates a poll on the popular story to see what more information consumers want on this issue. A follow-up story is published, it is even more widely shared as the consumers feel valued by the newspaper publisher and they tell even more of their friends about it. Ultimately news outlets control what issues we’re privy to, but imagine if the general public were allowed to do the agenda-setting rather than media agencies? There would be MORE news publications, but they would be focussed on smaller niches, be more relevant and we’d end up with news we actually valued!
Traditional journalism still has it’s place. There are naysayers out there who will argue that. But we DO still need an unbiased source for our news. To remain relevent I believe news needs to be delivered in more convenient formats (at the moment that may be via Twitter or a Facebook Application) and cater to smaller, but more engaged audiences by supplying niche news.
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Social media 101: What is social media?
Posted by Julie Delaforce in introductory, social media on 27 February, 2010
You’ll find many meanings of social media online, and there’ll never be one definitive explanation. For me social media is quite simply defined as:
“People having conversations online” (Kagan, 2008)
The internet used to be a one-way (broadcast) communication tool, websites were more like interactive brochures, a way of disseminating information. There were some exceptions to this, with traditional online forums/bulletin & message boards, and relay chat, but those formats were not mainstream, were not integrated into online communications and still only allowed for one-to-one or one-to-many communication.
The online/digital space has now become a many-to-many communication tool, with online dialogue or the ability to interact with others online. THIS is social media, it’s not necessarily separate to what the internet is, but a term coined to more easily define what it’s evolved into. It’s also sometimes called web 2.0 or new media. Email is becoming obsolete, as people use social networks and instant messaging to contact family, friends and colleagues. You can even communicate with businesses online, mostly via Twitter (a micro-blogging platform) and Facebook, who have a ‘Pages’ for businesses to set up their official presence on the social network.
A few of the most popularly used types of social media include:
- Social Networks – Facebook, MySpace, Bebo
- Blogs, Micro-blogs – WordPress, Blogger, Twitter
- UGC – YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr
- Online communities – forums, Whirlpool, Essential Baby
- Wikis – Wikipedia, WikiHow
- Social sharing – news, bookmarking & tagging – Digg, Delicious, Reddit
- Information aggregators – RSS readers, Google Reader
- Virtual worlds & gaming – Second Life, World of Warcraft
And that’s just a VERY small sample, Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism gives a more comprehensive overview of the myriad online communication channels and methods.
Social media has become very pervasive, for any business not yet using it as part of their marketing, communications and customer service mix, Social Media Revolution (YouTube video link) should act as a wake-up call.
“Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.”
References:
Kagan, M What the f*** is Social Media, 2008
Solis, B Conversation Prism, 2009
Qualman, E Social Media Revolution, 2009
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A rant about social media experts: mach I
Posted by Julie Delaforce in Uncategorized on 3 February, 2010
One thing that really bugs me about social media, is all the self-proclaimed experts out there. Just because you have your own blog or work in the digital space, does not mean you are an expert on social media. I’ve called the post ‘mach I’ because I’m sure I’ll have further comment on this topic in the future.
This was highlighted to me last night when I attended the Anthill/Mumbrella event “Online Marketing by Design” – which was actually a talk about social media.
I was really disappointed by this event, and found it boring, with the same sort of discussions that have been rehashed for the past 18 months. It was a ‘for the dummies’ approach for marketers and SMEs who could’ve been provided with much more valuable insights.
There were a couple of questions their four-member panel stumbled over that weren’t that difficult if you actually have practical working experience with social media rather than just proclaiming yourself as an expert because you have a blog or work in digital *big eye roll*
One of these questions in particular was around metrics and campaign measurement. The specific question was (paraphrasing): “If a marketer came to you and told you they wanted 1,000 Facebook fans by next week, what would you do.” There was a lot of, ummm I don’t really know answers. Tim from Mumbrella said something about wondering if measurement was actually required or not before starting a campaign. Of course it’s required! How are we going to show people marketing is a valid option for their business?
If a marketer told me this (back in my agency days ;o) ) I would have educated them on the fact that this is not in fact a useful measure. I’d advise them on the myriad options they have in social media, which extend far beyond Twitter and Facebook. If they pursued the Facebook idea I’d assure them that yes I can get them 1,000 fans, but would that be meeting their objectives? If I simply agreed with said marketer and got them the 1,000 fans they’d look back in a few months and wonder what that is actually doing for them, and doubt that social media is in fact an area they should invest further time and money in. This would be bad for social media marketing as a whole. What I would do would be to talk to the marketer about other useful measures within Facebook, such as their engagement score, number of likes, comments, fan-initiated comments and content. Social media is about ENGAGEMENT, old metrics based simply on a number of hits, views, eyeballs (or Facebook fans in this case) are simply not providing a valuable measure on their own.
Why should you listen to what I say instead of these ‘experts’?
1. I don’t claim to be an expert, it’s hard to be an expert on something that changes from hour-to-hour, day-to-day. I’m a social media enthusiast and evangelist.
2. I’ve been working in online PR specifically on social media for almost two years now. Day in, day out.
3. I’ve been interacting in social media since before that phrase existed, in online communities before they were even called that. Think bulletin boards, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and all the very basic forms of online communication that existed when the internet was first born.
4. I KNOW that social media can work for businesses both large and small, brands just need to work with someone who’s passionate about social media and what it can do for them, NOT someone who wants to further their own public persona.
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations.
I also saw a great graphic by mashable today on The State of the Internet, I love the section on how bloggers categorise themselves. I really think that 99.9% of those who think their style is ‘journalistic’ or ‘expert’ are deluded 
)
I wonder how many other people there are out there ‘working in the trenches’ as a former colleague commented on Facebook earlier today, who think the big-name bloggers out there are full of crap? Roll call please!
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Best of the best in social media, web & tech 2009
Posted by Julie Delaforce in lists on 6 January, 2010
Rather than starting my own list, I thought I’d share a few of the lists I’ve seen relating to ‘Best of 2009′.
Ten most popular Facebook games of 2009
Top Facebook status trends of 2009
Best celebrity Twitter stories of 2009
Social Media & Tech
Gizmodo’s best iPhone apps of 2009
Most watched and searched on YouTube in 2009
Australia’s most popular Google searches of 2009
The best social media campaigns of 2009
Best social media blog posts of 2009
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Trends: Most popular social networks of 2009 by search queries
Posted by Julie Delaforce in trends on 18 December, 2009
Here’s a quick insight into the popularity of some of the best known social networks and social media platforms.
The below shows the Google search volumes of Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube & Flickr in Australia for 2009.
Facebook clearly dominates the search queries and has grown steadily in popularity throughout the year. YouTube is a distant second with less than half the volume of searches, which have remained fairly steady throughout the year. It’s interesting to see that as Facebook has grown in popularity, MySpace has decreased in popularity. MySpace garners only about one in four as many queries as Facebook. Twitter and Flickr seem to get a fairly negligible portion of the search volume.
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Weight Watchers: global firsts in digital marketing
Posted by Julie Delaforce in Uncategorized on 14 October, 2009
I’ve spent the last few weeks contracting with Weight Watchers Australia’s online marketing team. I’m really impressed with their committment to the digital space, and especially the direction Online Marketing Manager, Reichel Cheslett is taking their digital strategy.
The work they’re doing online is a first not only for Weight Watchers globally but also within the weight loss category. What are they doing at the moment? They have some great forums as part of their website. This year for the first time they are running a people’s choice vote online for their Healthy Life Awards. You can also participate in Weight Watchers Online - you get just about all the benefits of going to traditional meetings, along with a great assortment of tools such as recipe and food planners, points tracking and weight loss goal tracking.
Weight Watchers have not delved too far into social media yet, which is what I’ve been helping them out on. I’ve helped them to conduct an uncomplicated social media trial based around the Healthy Life Awards. I’ve created a Twitter account and Facebook page and also done a few other things like placing some competitions with online properites important to their female demographic. I’ve also done some peer sharing placements around the HLA site and the competitions to increase traffic being driven to the sites. It’s never enough just to set these things up for a client and hope for the best so I’ve also done some mentoring and pulled together some social media guides to help them understand how to interact on Twitter and Facebook to best engage their audience.
I wish them well with their digital marketing plans for the future, and I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how they do in the coming year.
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Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
Posted by Julie Delaforce in social media, statistics on 3 October, 2009
I recently came accross this brilliant video called Social Media Revolution, from the folks behind Socialnomics.
It is full of statistics and eye-openers for anyone who may still think Social Media is a fad.
If your company is not thinking about getting into the social media space, it’s time to start!
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The reign of The Green Eyed Monster begins!
Posted by Julie Delaforce in Uncategorized on 1 October, 2009
This is the beginning of a very exciting journey for me. My very own social media blog. I do feel as though there are too many people out there who are self-espoused social media experts and too many businesses put too much trust in those who speak loudest, rather than those who speak the truth. I do not proclaim myself as a social media expert, rather a social media enthusiast, or proably even a fanatic. This blog will have a heavy focus on social media and online communities which are my greatest passion, there’ll also be the occasional blog about design and user experience as well as many other things to do with the wonderful world wide web.
I hope you’ll excuse my blog design & layout for the moment, I will be updating it over the next few months, but I just couldn’t wait to start blogging again!
If you’re interested to find out a bit more about me read my Who Am I? section or find out how to get in touch with me on my Contact page.
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