Sorry for the shouty caps in the title, just wanted to catch your attention.
For anyone who’s been following #FeelGoodFriday, you would be forgiven for thinking that I’m the most annoyingly upbeat and cheery person ever born. Not so. I spend quite a lot of my time being irritated, outraged and angry about things. I have a rule that I’m not allowed to moan about something unless I’ve tried to do something about it but let’s face it, everyone needs a free for all moanfest occasionally.
So here is a list of things that I’m angry about at the moment. They’re not in any particular order and it’s definitely not an exhaustive list:
1. Our ridiculous and comedic government (though let’s face it, the joke got old a while back)
8. Racism, Sexism, Homophobia and all other discrimination that basically makes one person act like they’re superior to another. They’re not. No one is.
This isn’t very “feel good” I hear you say – correct. However, good sh*t gets done when good people get angry!
Many things on my lists are out with my control (or seem that way anyway) but there are things I can do to make a difference. Too long have we been bombarded with negative images that make problems seem so big that we can’t change them. We can.
Even if all you do is tell people. Raising awareness is your first line of defence against apathy. Apathy is the enemy of positive change!
Next you can support a charity that is working against an item on your HULK SMASH ANGRY list. Get out there and protest, talk to your MP, vote for a different party, start your own political party!
If that last bit sounds ridiculous, have a look at these short clips from the Guardian Activate Summit. Birgitta Jónsdóttir, member of the Icelandic parliament and Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party told their independent tales of changing laws and governments from the inside. At the heart of both movements is the spirit of disruption in order to instigate change. Impressive stuff.:
You know how some people have little motos that they live by (no? just me. ok), well mine comes from an episode of Angel (season 2, episodes 17 to be exact). There, I said it. Frankly, it’s a relief to get it out there.
Now before you judge me too harshly, I’ll tell you what that moto is:
“If nothing we do matters then all that matters is what we do”
Confused? That’s ok, Joss Whedon (genius, god like creature that he is!) lets Angel explain:
Now you could say that this is as cliched as any other quote you see flying around twitter – and it is. However, it’s also completely true.
We’re bombarded by media every day telling us of great disaster and injustice and we feel helpless to do anything about it. No matter how just the cause or convincing the fundraising ask is, it’s difficult to convince people that their donation or act is actually going to make something better.
There are times in life when we’re all faced with our own mortality and limitations. I’ve been there and at the time, to be honest, didn’t really live by my motto and in fact, pretty much decided to check out for a while. Then with small steps I started to realise something. Instead of feeling like I had to take on the world in order to have my life mean something, I decided to find things I could actually have an impact on.
I now spend my time doing things that I love and that I think matter. None of them particularly Earth shattering but definitely world changing to me!
So, in celebration of the little things (or big things) that make a difference, I’d love it if you would share what makes you proud today and why it makes a difference.
There are many, many reasons to celebrate yesterday’s Cybher 2012 and I felt really honoured to be involved. With such a wide choice of sessions, catering to an array of expertise and tastes, delegates each had their own unique experience and opportunities from their day. Bravo!
My day was a mixture of pride, elation, inspiration, excitement and passion! It was truly awesome to be in a room with so many like minded people who were willing to share ideas, laugh at ourselves and encourage each other – brilliant.
I’ll be honest and say I would like to see more technology talked about at future conferences. As bloggers, we are part of the technology space no matter what we write about and we have a responsibility to encourage future generations of girls to get involved in STEM subjects at school and make technology a valid career choice. There is still a lot of sexism in technology (especially on the San Francisco start up scene) so it would be great to see some keynote speakers from the technology sphere.
So why was my day so special? It started with a great keynote from Zoe Margolis of Girl with a One Track Mind fame. We heard from the horses mouth about the opportunities (like being invited to talk on Newsnight about Slut Walk) as well as the discrimination and downside of being the girl behind the blog. It was so interesting and though provoking to hear her side of the media storm. A really great choice of speaker.
The first break out I visited was from the lovely Mark Solomon, blogger and author of Black Cab Wisdom (which I’m really enjoying!). It was a pleasure to hear Mark speak. I love London and I never get tired of starting random conversations with strangers at bus stops, commuters on the tube and yes, taxi drivers! What a lovely man and a real inspiration and example of someone who blogs for the love of it.
My second session was Pump Up the Volume with my friends The High Tea Cast ladies Sam Sparrow and Lea Rice. Now, full disclosure, I already think very highly of these women. However, I train people for a living and can honestly say that their session was a perfect example of how to run a workshop (a short workshop at that, given that they only had 40mins) where they established why we should listen to them, what they recommend and followed with practical examples and demonstrations. Just because someone is good at what they do, doesn’t mean they can train other people and these ladies CAN! I defy anyone to have left that session without feeling confident that they could create their own podcast. Really well done.
At one point during the break, I was fondled by a lovely lady who wanted to know the make of my bra (if you’re reading, I checked later and it was Freya). Palmers provided probably the most generous and useful goody bag I’ve ever seen (I’m particularly grateful for this as my hubby used a whole bottle of cocoa butter moisturising his new sleeve tattoo *grrrr*) and The Leather Satchel Co supplied possibly the best conference bags I’ve ever seen. Here is said hubby modelling mine (yes, it’s mine Simon – hands off!):
My husband @SimonBegg rockin my Cybher satchel
Despite the amazing freebees, it won’t be a surprise to learn that the highlight of my day was being involved with the Social Good panel. It was a great privilege to promote Half the Sky with Liz Scarff, Christine Mosler and conference organiser Sian To and to talk about how it inspired me to start Janie’s School. If someone had told me in Dec 09 that within a year we would have raised over £20K, built a school with facilities for over 400 children and that I’d then be talking about it at the first conference for women bloggers… you get the picture.
The response to our discussion was so inspiring and if only a fraction of the people in the room end up reading the book and taking action to protect girls worldwide, we will have done our jobs. My mum taught me at a very young age that education was the gift that no one can take away from you no matter what happens in your life. Reading Half the Sky gave me the opportunity to honour that memory and give hundreds of children the gift of education, not bad going really.
If you missed the session, please check out the book and take a couple of minutes to watch this video trailer of the upcoming documentary:
Another video shared during our session was from the awesome Girl Effect. Again, more about the solutions than the problems we face:
I took a cheeky wee break from attending sessions after this one but popped in to the Women Using Their Power for Good panel with Cat Turner, Lori Smith and Ryan Wenstrup-Moore. It’s always difficult to have this kind of discussion in such a large room and some really pertinent questions were raised just as we were wrapping up. I really hope some of the attendees from this session write posts we can weigh in on (maybe I’ll do one myself), especially from the perspective of “defining feminism today” and “I am a Christian and a Feminist”, really great ideas!
We finished the day with a presentation from WorldVision who do some awe inspiring work in developing countries to protect and support women and girls. I’m really excited to follow Sian‘s journey with them in Niger and no doubt will be tweeting about it in the not too distant future…
Phew! There is so much more I could say but I’ll finish by just thanking Sian so much for inviting me and by saying how excited I am to continue following the new friends I made and watching what amazing things we go on to achieve :D
I can’t explain the joy I feel when I get to the stage with a client where they see Social Media as a necessity for their organisation. However, having reached that point, I sometimes get the feeling that some clients still don’t understand why. Sure, they’re willing to invest in training and consultancy and will throw themselves into learning new skills to bring their company further into the digital age but do they know why they want to get there?
I don’t care how good your training is, there is a period of consolidation and adjustment on the side of the trainee before they can really say they’ve learned the content. This is really frustrating for a trainer because you want to feel like you’ve stimulated, excited and engaged each participant to the point where they could do your job. Then you get a comment like this:
“What do you mean I can’t just schedule 1 tweet to go out every Tuesday? That sounds like more than enough”
You then have to go over again the whole explanation of how people find you on twitter, how to engage and how to get new followers who will value your interactions.
This is all fine as it’s part of the learning process and is a good way of giving real life experience of how social media works and why it’s not something that should be passed off to the office junior with no training or guidance.
Then comes the other question. You know what it is, you’ve heard it before:
What does all this do for my organisation’s bottom line?
This is a conversation I get into as early as possible. I don’t want to waste my time or theirs on a network that doesn’t get them nearer to their goals and that they don’t have time for. However, having gone through this in the beginning, established goals and what success will look like, the question will rear it’s ugly head again and you need to be ready for it.
My advice is to set clear objectives with your client at the very beginning. I ask questions like:
Who are your target audience?
Why do you want to reach them? What kind of interaction do you require?
How much budget / resource do you have for this activity?
What are you doing right now? What works? What doesn’t?
What are your timescales?
What does success look like to you?
Even with answers to the above it is difficult to manage expectations so I would refer back to them as often as possible both when training and when planning their Social Media Strategy.It is important to set up relevant measurements from the beginning of your campaign. Explaining that followers and likes alone do not equal a successful campaign, only gets through if you’ve set tangible aims that are related to the organisation’s end goals.Lastly, we are accountable. The thing about any kind of digital media, not just social, is that it’s traceable and that’s what we should be doing. Track and report back on your campaign regularly and you will avoid difficult conversations further down the line.
What are your top tips for keeping clients switched on to successful Social Media?
So, I’ve shamelessly plagiarised the title from an article I’ve just read for Media Guardian’s Changing Advertising Summit (at least I added a prefix). This is mostly because as it’s a sponsored feature (done in association with Say Media), there is no comment function so I’m making my own here.
Kate Bulkley has written very succinctly about the need for engagement, not just followers and “like’s”. It makes me shudder when I hear targets being talked about in terms of x number of followers on twitter or x number of like’s for Facebook pages. I spend a lot of time explaining why this is only (or not even) half the story so it’s always refreshing to see an article that’s talking sense about the need for interaction rather than just mass.
In an earlier post, I talked about how you can help friends raise awareness of any given campaign without having to always donate. I pointed out there that although “like’s” are great, leaving a comment is better. The same principle applies when you’re looking at a campaign from the other side. Twitter is full of users talking about customer service (good and bad)* and your social media strategy should be about engaging with this feedback and using it to improve. The same could be said for developing new products and campaigns. Don’t just talk about reaching your thousandth follower, make your followers feel like part of your organisations journey. Ask for opinion and DON’T IGNORE THE RESPONSE!
All of this activity increases your engagement and in turn your influence. If you still don’t believe this is as important as your number of followers, have another look at the twitter stats in the article link above… very compelling. Not only that, as mentioned in the original article, products like Klout and PeerIndex (as well as others like RetweetRank) are gaining more traction every day. Importantly, they do not see number of followers as the sole measure of breadth of influence and rightly so.
I have had many conversations on twitter about the merits of Klout and among my circle the jury is definitely still out as like any data, it can be manipulated. However, what isn’t in doubt is the importance of having a strategy which gives high priority to qualitative rather than just quantitative measurements.
What do you think about the importance of engagement for brands in this digital age?
How many requests for sponsorship do you get a week? Do you get e-newsletters from charities and organisations you’ve supported in the past that now just clog up your inbox? Do you ever look at these causes or requests and wish you could help or support them without always reaching for your wallet? Well you can add real value to someones fund raising or campaign without it costing you a penny.
As mentioned before, Facebook uses a very clever formula to prioritise things in your news feed. You help FB to do this every time you engage by liking, commenting, sharing, tagging and messaging. This means that if you see a link on your news feed promoting a cause or linking to JustGiving, for example, you can lend your influence to this message to grow its reach and audience. FB will prioritise items you engage with according to which of your friends you interact with most. This means that the friends who like what you do on FB will see what you do on their news feed (just like you see information on the friends you engage with most appear higher). You might also notice that you sometimes see comments that other friends have made on posts that you don’t have any direct links to. This is helpful to remember when you’re deciding whether to just click “like” or whether to leave a short comment. If you choose to comment, the whole conversation will appear to your most prioritised friends even if they don’t know the person who initiated the post -this is how word gets spread. Just clicking “like” will help but a comment is better.
Here is a great presentation from Jonathan Waddingham on how people use Facebook to spread their messages
Jonathan gives good presentation ;O)
Follow him on Twitter for great links and insights on fund raising (as well as witty comments)
Do you blog? Do you read or ever comment on blogs? Do you use Twitter? These are other ways you can help spread the word. Firstly, tweet links to blog posts and donations pages. Use any “share this” type buttons if they’re available as they will be easier for the webpage owner to track (make sure you add your own comment as this is more authentic). Next, set up a permanent link from your blog to theirs on your homepage.
The most important thing you can do = comment, comment, comment! If you are on a blog with related content, write a little comment and link to or recommend your friend’s content. This has much more kudos and clout than if you go round leaving comments with links to your own blog (read more on this in a future post on the pros and cons of a Blog Party).
Do you use StumbleUpon, Diigo, Reddit, Delicious or any other social bookmarking sites? If you do, this is another great way to increase reach and influence. Take the time to tag the things your friends send you and you’ll not only be getting their message out to a wider audience but will also significantly help with their SEO (search engine optimisation). Even if people don’t use your links to reach the website in question, the more links there are, the easier it is for the Googlebots to find and prioritise content.
If you are the one campaigning, send this post to everyone you can. Your friends want to help you (especially when they realise all it will take is a little bit of time and a couple of clicks!), so let them know how!
The first question you should ask yourself is why you would like a Facebook page. Like any other marketing, PR or promotion, you have to know why you’re doing it and what you expect to get out of it.
Your page should be a platform for discussion, not a one way information highway. How many pages have you clicked “like”, only to later “unlike” because they pour out too much information about themselves instead of engaging with you. Facebook uses very clever metrics in their newsfeed to avoid this but it also means that if your users don’t engage with you, your page won’t appear naturally (unless they religiously use the “most recent” tag).
To make sure you are “Top News”, you need to ensure that your fans have reason to click “like” to your comments, links and pictures. To ensure even higher priority you want as many of your fans as possible to comment on your posts. Similar to your blog, asking questions is one of the most popular ways to encourage comments (that and a controversial topic). On your Facebook page, a great way to ensure shares and comments are pictures and videos.
This is where social media and traditional networking come together beautifully. If you host or attend an event, take pictures! The second most important thing you need to do is tag them. This way your pictures will get seen by friends of fans as they will appear in their news feed. If you are a university or school alumni organisation, this is the perfect tool to ensure all your past students are aware of and like your page.
If you work independently as a campaigner and not for a particular charity, you also want to make sure that your posts on Facebook have as much influence as possible. Just as interaction with a Page means it’s posts appear more prominently on news feeds, your own personal shares act the same way. If you don’t use Facebook as a way of interacting with your friends, your updates won’t have priority in their news feed. As with Twitter, this doesn’t mean a blow by blow account of every cup of tea but it does mean getting involved. Again, if you don’t have the confidence to write a comment, why not share a link, video or picture. Visit Reddit and share something fun and interesting. Look at what your circle of friends are sharing; comment and “like” their posts (if you do indeed like them…).
Social media is just that, it’s social. As an organisation or individual you want it to become part of your social interactions. Facebook, Twitter, Blogs are not replacements for face to face networking but a great way to enhance and expand the reach of your message.
If you’ve ever felt out of your depth when the conversation turns to social media, this blog is for you.
For the past 6 years I have been part of the commercial team for one of the UK’s leading media organisations. During that time, I have worked with many companies, charities and government departments to develop and deliver bespoke communications strategy. Not surprisingly, the last few years have seen a sharp increase in organisations looking to better use social media.
There are a few common misconceptions about social media and for some, the term remains cloaked in mystery. During a recent workshop for charity campaigners (one of my favorite extra curricular activities), the conversation turned to twitter, facebook and blogging. It became apparent to me during this and many subsequent conversations that there is a real need for basic information on the different types of social networking which gives people the confidence to start using them without fear of being “caught out”.
With this in mind, I offered to run some free informal workshops so that we could all learn from each other and break the mystery of being sociable online. This blog is where I will attempt to give simple, effective information on various networks. I also very much hope that it will become a place where we can share our experiences and try new things, so please do comment and let me know what you think.
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