What do you post and when?
Sunday, 29 June 2014
The social media rainbow
Decisions decisions - when you choose your social handle, which is your preferred tool?
Suarez, mashups and memes
Sometimes the wags on Twitter hit the sweet spot - usually at the expense of someone famous.
Suarez and a fleshy Italian
This happened during the past few days following the Luis Suarez biting controversy at the World Cup. I was monitoring Twitter the moment he sank his teeth into Italian defender Chiellini's fleshy shoulder. I can spot a viral news event when I see one.
And within the next few minutes I was right. The network erupted with video mashups and memes of Suarez in a thousand different biting scenarios. Soon enough clever digital marketing folk were quick to follow with Specsavers, Nandos and even an English country pub getting in on the act (see pictures selection below).
"Suarez watch"
News agencies camped outside Fifa headquarters on "Suarez watch", while newspaper editors seized on the Uruguayan's misfortune to dig into his past. There was no escape from Google's all seeing gaze - the minutiae of Suarez's past misdeeds were mashed up into multiple videos and memes and shared across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and the like. It was relentless, sad (he grew up in dire poverty in a broken home) and often very funny - so long as you weren't Luis Suarez.
Hung out to dry - and drawn and quartered
Clever digital journalists and emarketeers know all about viral messaging and how to create viral content off the back of a wave of public self expression - usually in a brilliantly ironic, often savage way, like a 21st century version of a medieval rogue being hanged, drawn and quartered in front of a baying, hostile mob. But these days the ritual disembowelling is even more public and lasts a lot longer (tho admittedly doesn't hurt so much).
Social lesson of the week
The social media lesson learned this week - at the expense of Luis Suarez - is spot what's trending and let loose your creative invective. Go forth with your memes and mashups.
There but for the grace of God...
Just pray the world never decides to use you as the butt of its savage humour.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
What are the risks for using tools linking people online?
After a recent webinar I helped present about social media and digital communities, several people quizzed me afterwards about the risks involved with using social media as a catalyst for building such communities.
(Anyone interested in the webinar I co presented with OLM please see the slideshare post below)
When you're not in the conversation, you're not part of the community
I told one inquisitor - I'll call him Alan - that I was at a
conference of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) a few years ago and this question was
raised several times. I recall that one DCI said his officers had to be
responsible for their actions online - "after all they are grownups" - and he warned that if the police were not part of
the online conversation, they would not be part of the community and the
community would then act without them. A prescient point given that the London
riots happened a few months later, fuelled largely off the back of online networks. These days most police forces have comprehensive
social media strategies as a result.
I guess the
point is that you need to be taking part and that involvement helps you to
mitigate risk. If there’s no involvement then you will not be able to:
- a, have a dialogue with your community,
- b, be able to work proactively within your community, and
- c, importantly, you won’t have the established networks or presence to be able to defend yourself and protect your online reputation if you community turns against you for some reason.
Social media networks want your data
The other side of that debate is about big data and how information is used when people get involved with social networks and freely divulge information about themselves online. It should not be forgotten that Google, Facebook and Twitter are private enterprises that want data about you to make money. This often seems to be forgotten when you’re encouraged to go onto Facebook or Twitter by the BBC or ITV. Also, how is data used by local government, the police, NHS etc? These are debates happening at the moment, ie what about the activities at GCHQ?
But getting
back to the question: there have to be corporate rules around using social
media for every organisation, ie what is the name of the Twitter account, who
runs it, what is the thrust of the messaging and the conversations etc?
Nevertheless, too many corporate constraints will stymie the good work you want
to do regarding community building.
How to kill a tweet
I’ve often heard people in local
government say that the comms team has to meet and agree on every Tweet before
posting them. That level of central control - let alone tedious time wasting - will not allow you to build a network
of like-minded souls nor help you to engage in a dialogue with people who live in the streets near your office.
Social
workers would, of course, never divulge intimate details of the people they help, nor would doctors of their patients. It’s all about striking the right
balance and agreeing this beforehand, but not stifling free debate. It’s a
balancing act. But not to act is far more of a risk than to take part.(Anyone interested in the webinar I co presented with OLM please see the slideshare post below)
Friday, 7 June 2013
Digital communities - how we make them work
Today's blog is about digital communities of interest. How people, particularly vulnerable people, can improve their lives by using digital networks, downloadable apps and tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc.
It's actually worth exploring all these functions in some detail.
Recently I've been working on a website featuring online tools for teaching English as a foreign language. Incredibly, most of the video and podcast tools and apps used by the teachers and students are free, easily downloaded onto laptops, tablets and smart phones. The apps are tools to help people hampered by language barriers to communicate more easily. And it occurred to me that it's only a small step taking these apps and tools from education and applying them to communties. I'll start to explore some of these apps in more details in later blogs, but suffice to say they help create and sustain communities, and these communities are the heart of the matter.
So what does communities of interest mean? When using this term I refer specifically to people who live in a local community or neighbourhood. People with mental health issues, disabilities of some sort, older people who can't get out, or community activists who seek a better life for all. The in-term among local government employees is co-production. Nevertheless, all digital communities have the similar aspirations of collective problem solving and collaboration and you can just as easily be talking about English language students, businesses or charities. The template suits all.
In England and Wales, the reforms in health and social care have put unbearable pressure on professionals - and the people they serve - to deliver services to local people efficiently and more cheaply. More for less, is the term used. Of course, it's nonsense, but the reality is that people will need to start fending for themselves as local services are cut and professionals' workloads become overstretched and harder to deliver.
As a result, there is a new emphasis on community and collaboration. Working together. But as this community is at the heart of the evolving social landscape, how can it deliver what’s needed in the future?
The idea is that digital social networks will create vital connections that help people develop relationships within their communities. For health and social care (think doctors, nurses, meals on wheels, home visits to the elderly etc), this needs to be organised and managed.
Using social media for community, consultation and service development has huge advantages, so long as we engage in more egalitarian forms of conversations with the people around us - and let the people talk about themselves and what they want. A problem shared is a problem solved, and most people in their own communities are the best ones to solve those problems.
The overwhelming means of communications on these digital networks is through the written word, texting, blogging, then come images, videos and audio podcasts. Blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter updates, Pinterest pins. They are all forms of content through digital story telling and conversations.
People and their communities have stories to tell and the best way to engage is to listen and act on what they have to say. Their dialogue is now through social networks and increasingly on mobile phones.
Technology – and social media in particular – is changing the way everyone communicates. That's large and small organisations with their employees, partners, stakeholders and customers.
The test for us all is how we use the new digital tools and how we manage and teach communities to use them in a sustainable way. A way that will build digital communities of interest, while solving the painful issues of government cuts in funding and closures of local services vital for people to live relatively enjoyable lives.
Helping professionals to help themselves and the people who they live among; it's an attractive proposition - and we can make it work. In the next post I'll try to answer this last conundrum, while in future posts I'll examine some of the apps that are suitable for using in your professional and personal life.
And, of course, I'll post a few blogs to promote clarity in writing for bloggers.
Bye for now
Andrew
Videos, podcasts and apps
It's actually worth exploring all these functions in some detail.
Recently I've been working on a website featuring online tools for teaching English as a foreign language. Incredibly, most of the video and podcast tools and apps used by the teachers and students are free, easily downloaded onto laptops, tablets and smart phones. The apps are tools to help people hampered by language barriers to communicate more easily. And it occurred to me that it's only a small step taking these apps and tools from education and applying them to communties. I'll start to explore some of these apps in more details in later blogs, but suffice to say they help create and sustain communities, and these communities are the heart of the matter.
Communities of interest
So what does communities of interest mean? When using this term I refer specifically to people who live in a local community or neighbourhood. People with mental health issues, disabilities of some sort, older people who can't get out, or community activists who seek a better life for all. The in-term among local government employees is co-production. Nevertheless, all digital communities have the similar aspirations of collective problem solving and collaboration and you can just as easily be talking about English language students, businesses or charities. The template suits all.
In England and Wales, the reforms in health and social care have put unbearable pressure on professionals - and the people they serve - to deliver services to local people efficiently and more cheaply. More for less, is the term used. Of course, it's nonsense, but the reality is that people will need to start fending for themselves as local services are cut and professionals' workloads become overstretched and harder to deliver.
Working together
As a result, there is a new emphasis on community and collaboration. Working together. But as this community is at the heart of the evolving social landscape, how can it deliver what’s needed in the future?
The idea is that digital social networks will create vital connections that help people develop relationships within their communities. For health and social care (think doctors, nurses, meals on wheels, home visits to the elderly etc), this needs to be organised and managed.
Digital story telling - let the people talk
Using social media for community, consultation and service development has huge advantages, so long as we engage in more egalitarian forms of conversations with the people around us - and let the people talk about themselves and what they want. A problem shared is a problem solved, and most people in their own communities are the best ones to solve those problems.
Blogs, Facebook, Twitter
The overwhelming means of communications on these digital networks is through the written word, texting, blogging, then come images, videos and audio podcasts. Blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter updates, Pinterest pins. They are all forms of content through digital story telling and conversations.
People and their communities have stories to tell and the best way to engage is to listen and act on what they have to say. Their dialogue is now through social networks and increasingly on mobile phones.
Technology – and social media in particular – is changing the way everyone communicates. That's large and small organisations with their employees, partners, stakeholders and customers.
The test for us all is how we use the new digital tools and how we manage and teach communities to use them in a sustainable way. A way that will build digital communities of interest, while solving the painful issues of government cuts in funding and closures of local services vital for people to live relatively enjoyable lives.
Helping professionals to help themselves and the people who they live among; it's an attractive proposition - and we can make it work. In the next post I'll try to answer this last conundrum, while in future posts I'll examine some of the apps that are suitable for using in your professional and personal life.
And, of course, I'll post a few blogs to promote clarity in writing for bloggers.
Bye for now
Andrew
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