tools to build an engaged online community
DESCRIPTION
A PDF slide show of a presentation given at a Social Media Bootcamp given at San Francisco State University on Aug. 28, 2009. The focus is on social media tools that online publishers -- particularly ethnic media publications -- should use to engage and retain an online community.Slideshare doesn't support .movs, and so the widgets here are static rather than dynamic, as in the live presentation.TRANSCRIPT
JD Lasica Socialbrite.org
Social Media Bootcamp!Tools for building an engaged online community
Seizing the MomentPublic Media Collaborative trackSan Francisco State University, Aug. 28, 2009
Relax!
http://delicious.com/socialmediacamp/seizing
Flickr photo “relaxation, the maldivian way” by notsogoodphotography
(all sites in this talk have been tagged for later retrieval)
http://slideshare.net/jdlasica
Today’s hashtags
Twitter: #seizing (to tag your tweets)
Blogs: seizing (to tag your blog posts)
Flickr photo by prakhar
Handouts
Social news tools & platforms
Geotagging, Flickr & Facebook
http://delicious.com/socialmediacamp/platforms
http://delicious.com/socialmediacamp/tools
Making sense of all the new terms
“Social media:Any online technology or practice that lets us share
(content, opinions, insights, experiences, media)and have a conversation about the ideas we care about.
”
http://socialbrite.org/glossary
Flavors of social media
Source: http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2009/03/smm-wiki-analysis.html
What we’ll cover today
Strategies in the sharing economy Tactics to build community: 1. Breaking news 2. Leverage Twitter 3. Enable conversations 4. Community video 5. Online petitions & causes 6. Geocoding and citizen photography 7. Google Map mashups 8. Facebook communities
Think strategically
Social media is a universe, not a toolDon’t start with the tools. Start with a plan.Talk with your users about what you’re planning
Launch pilot projects, get a toeholdChallenge corporate culture of fear
Flickr photo by jonrawlinson
Innovate!
Dare to fail. If you’re not failing at something, you’re doing something wrong. (“Fail often, fail fast.”)
“We have to change our entire corporate-industry behavior. We’ve got to stop overplanning and over-analyzing and turn
our battleship into a speedboat.” —J. Todd Foster, managing editor, Bristol (VA) Herald Courier
"Rocket Man" on Flickr by Dave-F
What’s important: Engagement
"We don't really care about page views as much as we care
about comments. If we get 1,000 video views, that is
good. The comments are a focus group with our
influencers. If they like it, they'll spread it and that helps
get us to our objectives."
- Jake Brewer, PowerShift
Meaningful metrics: Not just page views
Don’t do all the heavy lifting
Partner with smart people. Use your community.Use free: Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, CCUse open source: WordPress (and its plug-ins),
Drupal, et al. Steal good ideas. Build on what’s come before.
Flickr photo by Jason Means
Tap into the sharing economy
• Rich source of free commercial material.
• Flickr: 15 million Attribution licenses
• Flickr: 10 million Attribution ShakeAlike licenses
creativecommons.org
flickr.com/creativecommons
socialbrite.org/sharing-center
Creative Commons
1. Be first with breaking news
SMS alerts
Twitter to break verified news
Live-blogging of public events
Moblogging to upload photos from mobile device
Latinos, African Americans > greater use of mobile devices
Best usage is to drive users to story on your site
Buzznet, Foneblog, Fotopages, mBlog, mlogs, phlog.net, Snap, Textamerica, Webshots
Several free useful tools
SMS alerts
• ImpreMedia: 20 alerts/day, 1 million impressions/month • Popular topics: general news, breaking news, New York, politics, entertainment, sports, Mexican futbol league
www.impre.com/alertas
Useful free tools: • CoverItLive.com • Scribblelive.com • Google Docs
Examples: Sonia Sotomayor hearings, Rod Blagojevich impeachment
Live-blogging to drive conversation
2. Leverage Twitter
China earthquake
Mumbai
Flight 1549 “Miracle on the Hudson”
BusinessWeek: 40 journalists on Twitter.
Twestival: $250,000 raised for charity: water in 202 cities on Feb. 12, 2009
(If you need help in setting up a Twitter account, just ask!)
Make Twitter work for you
“Twitter is just amazing. It's the perfect tool for journalists.”— Arturo Duran, Publisher, ImpreMedia Digital (El Diario, La Opinion, et al.)
Train your staff on how to use TwitterNot a broadcasting medium to distribute headlines
Start by listening & observing, but then:Be human, be conversational, not detatched
Unlearn the conventions of journalism
@ElDiarioNY: after 5 mo., 5% new traffic from Twitter#1 traffic driver: retweets
Tweeting done right: 80-20 Rule
Omar GallagaAustin American Statesman
Twitter accounts page
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/standing/twitter.html
Austin American Statesman
3. Enable conversations
Avert registration fatigue
Identify & engage influencers
Scope out Twitterers with large # followers. How do their interests intersect with your site’s?
Learn about how people in your community use social media
Connect with social media influencers through search.twitter.com, PlaceBlogger.com, etc.
Ask people around you (neighbors, students, young people in your newsroom) how they use social media
The power of hash tags
At left, widget found at: http://journchat.info
Find relevant hashtags through hashtags.org or Twitter Search
Join (but don’t spam) conversation threads
Start your own hashtag
Some hashtags to latch on to: #diversity #africa #asia #latino #education #democracy #politics #Obama #news #media #journalism #journchat
Get widget-happy!
Real-timeconversations
Tap into the conversations that are already taking place in your community: Widgets let you post tailored discussions — both by topic and by geographic location.
Create widgets for your business, opinion, culture, sports sections.
4. Community video
Think of your site not just as a way to showcase your own journalism but as a platform to connect users with interesting events taking place in the community.
Streaming video tools include Kyte.com, Qik.com, Ustream.tv and Livestream.com.
Video + chat = engagement
This is the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, student journalism channel. http://www.kyte.tv/ch/109996-jmsnews
Live video streaming
ImpreMedia teamed up with the PBS NewsHour to live-stream the Sonia Sotomayor hearings. Went from 20,000 streams last fall during election ʼ09 to 45,000 streams this past spring. PBS provided the signal & video player, ImpreMedia provided the Spanish translations.
Enable users to make a difference by signing petitions, which offer an outlet for community engagement. Tap into the national spirit of renewal and reform. Tie them to your opinion pages. Embed an ipetitions app. Partner with Care2 or Facebook Causes.
5. Online petitions & causes
Promote community service
Left: AllforGood.org helps you find and share ways to do good in your community.
Right: UnitedWeServe: Bottom-up volunteer opportunities at http://serve.gov
6. Geotagging & citizen photography
Visitors to Flickr could see photos of the 2007 disaster taken from multiple vantage points. Many new digital cameras and mobile devices, like the iPhone, come with geotagging enabled by default.
Minneapolis bridge collapse
Geotagging an art walk
An afternoonwith smart phonesDan Gillmor took a class of journalism students at Arizona State University out for a stroll and created a cool Flickr map with more than 120 photos captured with G1 smart phones.
“It was absurdly easy,” he says.
News organizations should enlist community members with geo-location capable devices to cover designated community events.
Community photo albums
NewWest.Net created a group pool on Flickr for readers to add photos to. People have added more than 16,000 photos. http://www.flickr.com/groups/newwest
NewWest.Net
7. Visualize news with Google Maps
Mash up your data sourcesTeam effort: KPBS worked with volunteers from San Diego State University Geography Dept. to cover the San Diego County wildfires in Oct. 2007: a living, evolving, interactive news story.
http://maps.google.com
The power of map mashupshttp://chicago.everyblock.com/crime/
AtlantaBoston
CharlotteChicagoDallasDetroitHouston
Los AngelesMiamiNew YorkPhiladelphiaSan Francisco
San JoseSeattleWashington, DC
Everyblock
Prop 8 mashup
An anonymous publisher compiled a mashup of public campaign donations records, including the donors’ street address, and published it.
8. Facebook communities
A group of students and citizens, outraged at the lack of free drinking water at the new University of University of Central Florida's stadium, launched a Facebook group.
The Orlando Sentinel ran a story and used Facebook to spread the word. Stadium officials reversed course, installing 50 free drinking fountains.
Tap into self-organizing communities
Facebook pages
See handout for difference between Facebook Groups & Facebook Pages. In most cases,
Pages are the better choice.
Sites to admire www.periodismociudadano.com
Recent comments
Tags
Embedded video
Twitter lifestream
Pointers to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Blip.tv presence
Global Voices en Español
... and to steal ideas fromStatesman.commyurbanreport.comLABeez.orgBlogHer.comIranian.comPlaceblogger.comProPublica.org Themediaconsortium.orgMoms Charlotte charlotteobserver.com/momsThe Local: http://maplewood.blogs.nytimes.comBaristanet.comMashable
See handouts or:http://delicious.com/socialmediacamp/sites
Closing thoughts
Don’t forget: Fail often, fail fast!
Create a feedback loop.
Bring social media experts who are internal evangelists into your editorial meetings.
Get the big bosses to begin using social media so that they understand it.
Flickr photo by trodas
Resources
Socialbrite.org
Knight Citizen News Network: kcnn.org
Social Media Club: socialmediaclub.org
BeatBlogging.org & NewAssignment.net
Spot.us: crowd-funded reporting
CiiJ: ciij.org/resources
Wearemedia.org
(More resources: See your handout sheets)
Readings
http://delicious.com/socialmediacamp/readings
Image: Universal McCann: Wave.3 report, March 2008
