Natasha Judd » Web

Starting something new

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:54:34 +0000

I’ve recently started a new job, and along with the new colleagues to get to know, the new computer systems and the new tea rules, I’ve also got the opportunity to start up a new social network. It occurs to me that this is a rare privilege. Too often, it’ll be a matter of taking over a Twitter profile or Facebook fan page that someone else has started. Or, even if you have set something up yourself, once a year or two has passed, it’s all too easy to get into the habit of doing what you’ve always done: interacting with your fans or followers in a certain way, writing the same sort of posts, and so on.

The fresh start has allowed me to consider the challenges of social media with fresh eyes, to plan and prepare before I begin. In doing so, I’ve jotted down some questions which may be helpful to others in a similar situation – whether they’re starting a new channel or reviewing something established.

1. What do you want to say (and perhaps, do you have anything to say)?

While I don’t believe in scripting every tweet or having every blog update scheduled and approved months in advance, it can be worth having some sort of content plan. What are the themes you’ll be covering on your channel? Is it for your entire life (if you’re a person) or your entire organisation (if you’re setting up the channel on behalf of one of those), or for a particular interest or project? In the early days, it may help to plan out what kind of updates you’ll want to post and how regularly, and put these dates into a calendar as reminders.

2. Who is your audience?

Once you’ve decided what you want to say, it’s worth working out who (if anyone) wants to hear it. It’s all well and good tweeting your thoughts about what you had for breakfast into the internet void on a personal account, but if you’re doing this as a job, there are likely to be things like targets or KPIs for user interaction (and if there aren’t it might be worth nominating some – see point 5 below). So, who do you want to reach? Are they end-users of your product or service, or other organisations in your field? How old are they? How computer literate? How often do they get online – and when they do, what sites do they go to first?

3. How can you reach them?

One thing I’ve learnt over the past ten years is that, in most cases, it’s far easier to go where your audience are than to get them to come to you. So, thinking about the previous question, how do your audience behave online? Are they on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr? Are they asking questions on Yahoo! Answers? Do they belong to a particular online community? Sometimes it may be easy enough to set up your own profile in these spaces to interact with other users, but in other cases, you may need to get permission from a community moderator or website owner before you make your first post.

If you’re still keen to set up a blog or community on your own website – and there are lots of good reasons to do so – then it’s still worth doing research into how best to reach your audience. Do you see your potential audience members commenting on other blogs? If so, it’s worth noting what sort of posts they feel motivated to comment on, the regularity of the postings, etc. And of course, it’s worth remembering that for a lot of people the internet is still all about email, so building up a list and sending monthly updates remains a perfectly valid way of spreading a message and driving traffic to your website.

4. Who’s going to do the updates?

People say social media is great because it’s free. Technically, in many cases, this is true. However, it doesn’t account for the huge amount of staff time that needs to be spent to set up and maintain a channel. Social media is about conversation. If you go quiet, you’ll be ignored. So, who’s going to do your updates? And who’s going to do your updates when that person is on leave? And who’ll be the person who can provide sign-off on anything controversial or out of the ordinary? Because that’s another side-effect of having a conversation – you’re never 100% sure about what that other person might say.

5. What does success look like?

For some, the opportunity to broadcast a message will be enough. For others, the end goal will be the online conversation itself. There definitely is some reward in being part of a community, in being generous and interacting with your fans and followers, learning from their updates as you shape your own, passing on their messages, leaving comments on their blogs, following them back.

However, for most, there will be some form of measurable action that you want your friends or followers to undertake. This may be visiting your website, signing an online petition, volunteering or donating to your cause, registering for an event or a myriad other options. It is this conversion from conversation to action that, for me, indicates real social media success. It’s what can be monitored as you go along and, through regularly reviewing the answers to the earlier questions, what you can aim to improve.

There’s a real excitement in new beginnings, but what I guess I’m realising anew is that it doesn’t have to end there. I’m looking forward to seeing how this project grows.

Image courtesy of Matt Hamm. Used under Creative Commons licence.

Volunteering #4change

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:53:51 +0000

Social media and new technology are changing the way we recruit and manage volunteers. They’re also changing how we define the concept of volunteering. New forms of participation such as micro-volunteering, and web-generated events such as Twestival, are changing the way people are coming together to raise funds, donate their time and make a difference in their local and global community.

Our next #4change chat, on Thursday 12 November, will look at how the volunteering landscape is changing. Join us for a global conversation, sharing ideas, best practice, links and resources.

How to join the chat

1. If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a Twitter account (it’s free).
2. To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com/ or another application to search on Twitter for “#4Change”
3. Jump in to the conversation by adding “#4Change” (without the “”) to your Twitter message
4. Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.

Rules for #4Change chat

1. #4Change will be structured around a series of questions which all participants can respond to. Send your questions to @tashjudd or post them below to have them considered.
2. Introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join.
3. Stay on topic!
4. Be cool.

A few links

Please comment on the original #4change blog post with other interesting links, case studies and questions you’d like to see raised during the chat. Looking forward to seeing you all online on the 12th.

What’s wrong with face-to-face?

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:09:19 +0000

So, YouthNet’s launched a new report today: a study by Professor Michael Hulme into how young people communicate, interact and seek information online. It’s a really interesting read, encompassing the results of quantitative online research undertaken with 994 young people by The Futures Company, quotes from young people, and comments on the implications for website design and development. It’s also too much to cover in one blog entry. So I can only encourage you to go and read it yourself, blog about yourself, discuss the findings and debate the conclusions.

75% of the young people surveyed said that ‘they couldn’t live without the internet’. That’s probabaly an exaggeration, but I don’t find it surprising. I’d say the same thing. Then again, I spend at least eight hours a week-day in front of a computer, I studied multimedia, and I work for an online charity. I’m going away for a week in the country at the end of the month, and the fact that I’ve been told that there’s no internet or mobile access is already weighing heavily on my mind. Being such an online advocate, I’m often asked ‘what’s wrong with face-to-face?’

After all, the very nature of online communication is that it’s mediated by a machine such as a computer or hand-held device. With the lack of body-language and eye contact, and the possibilities for deception, it’s possible to see the internet as cold, impersonal and isolating. However, what that assumption ignores is the way young people live what Professor Hulme calls ‘hybrid lives’ – their onlines and their offlines are blurred. Their friends on Facebook may or may not be friends from school or work; status updates on Twitter may become conversation starters in the classroom. 80% of young people surveyed said they use social networking sites to talk to friends or family they see a lot; 22% said that they use them to communicate with someone they don’t know.

So, while it’s impossible to generalise the experience of every young person, it seems that for many these online tools aren’t replacing face-to-face communication methods – they’re complimenting them. As Professor Hulme says, “The more we can communicate, the more we will, and do, communicate.” What’s changing is the amount of communication tools available, and people’s ability to choose a communication tool which is appropriate for a particular situation: broadcasting their thoughts in blogs or vlogs, updating a selected group of friends on Facebook, texting or calling an individual, or having a face-to-face conversation.

I don’t have a problem with face-to-face conversation. In fact, it’s often quite useful. I do have more of a problem with the assumption that it’s absolutely-always-without-a-doubt the best form of communication. The internet can be a great way to make first contact with communities of interest, for example. After all, it’s easy to search online for groups of fellow social media geeks – in my case – than try and spot them during my morning commute. Once contact is made, a mix of face-to-face and online interactions often result. The internet also allows us to reach out beyond the restrictions of geographic proximity. And, as the report goes on to say, the internet can also be a great way to source information about issues young people may feel less comfortable talking about face-to-face, with websites like TheSite.org allowing young people to access trustworthy advice on a range of topics.

While it’s important to realise that there are issues or dangers around communicating on the internet – the possibilities of online bullying, the possibilities of abuse and so on – it’s also important to realise that, in many cases, these are either reflected or replaced by alternative issues or dangers when communication occurs offline. Moreover, just as I was taught not to give out my name on the phone by my cautious parents, today young people have learned similar lessons about the internet. 77% of the young people surveyed agreed that: ‘On the internet you can never know if someone is who they say they are.’

The past century has seen huge developments in the way we communicate: from telephone calls, through radio and television broadcasts, to the development of mobile phones, faxes and the internet. While it’s not my place to predict what will come next, it seems obvious that there’s a lot more communication to do, and for each new generation, there’ll be more and more new communication tools as the years progress.

Today, 86% of the young people surveyed loved how new technology helps them communicate with people. Let’s keep creating technology, creating websites and online services, that will help us communicate with people. Face-to-face, hands-to-keyboard, in the twittersphere and in the blog comments below, let’s ensure this conversation continues.

First published on the YouthNet blog