Business of social media write-up.
Anecdote of the day: When asked about setting up social media channels the Head of Internal Communications asked 'Why do people need to talk?'! On Friday 29th June I attended the London Information and Knowledge Exchange inaugural conference. I had been involved in the organising of it, however, I had never heard the speakers before and they were very interesting and insightful. PART 1 External engagement Bertie Bosredon, a Digital Engagement & Social Media expert talking about his work at Breast Cancer Care (BCC), developing and implementing a new social media strategy involving all staff at all levels. He told us how BCC used to act like Marie Antoinette and not listen to its users instead of acting like a true democracy but now they involve all stakeholders. The aim behind becoming more involved in social media was to be where their users were, be involved in their communications and to bring people together. Users shouldn’t have to make the effort to find them. They didn’t want to force the use of social media on people as this would lose the organic and relaxed feel that it must have to be successful so instead they initially encouraged the people who were already interested or just curious to be ‘social media champions’. The organisation has two Facebook accounts, a Flickr account, a YouTube channel and a Vimeo account. Everyone is encouraged to have a Twitter account and, while there are guidelines, they were given the freedom to practice and experiment. The best tweeter of the week was given Twevor the Twophy which helped to bring in a little competitive edge. Giving people freedom to explore was one of the most important messages from Bertie’s talk to me. Another one was to strategically plan your message to get the maximum benefit. Bertie showed a spreadsheet of everything BCC wanted to ensure it was doing and what it needed to do every day to ensure all bases were covered. Bertie’s slides Social media for research
Noeleen Schenk, a management consultant, looked at the challenges and opportunities for research provided by social media. She started the session by stating that social media tools are like shoes – you should choose what’s right for the occasion and what suits you. Social media is building upon traditional research techniques; complementing rather than replacing. She emphasised that research is about collaboration which is exactly what social media is for and which runs through the entire research cycle– by using everyone’s brain staff are engaging in interdisciplinary research which strengthens their work.
UCL research has created eight categories of social media tools: • Social networking • Blogging • Microblogging • Collaborative authoring tools for sharing and editing documents • Social tagging and bookmarking • Scheduling and meeting tools • Conferencing • Image or video sharing However, like many librarians fall into the habit of doing, they are only categorised by their format and not by their use. I think if we are to sell social media to academics then we need to be looking at them from a ‘how can they actually be of use’ viewpoint rather than a ‘what does it do’ angle. Noeleen’s last piece of sage advice: use social media – don’t let it use you. Noeleens’s slides
Using social media internally James Mullan is Knowledge Management Systems Manager at Field Fisher Waterhouse and currently President of the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians. James focused on using social media internally explaining that lawyers aren’t great at it due to their unwillingness to share information which might help others get further ahead on the career ladder. He went through the pros and cons of Sharepoint, Confluence, Jive, Yammer and Pulse. Sharepoint didn’t seem to have any good characteristics being both bad at collaboration and document managing and while Yammer was used much more there is concern over its future after having been bought by Microsoft. His main emphasis was focus on your users: what makes your tools any different to what they are already using? His tips for success are:
start in right place – use the right tools be prepared to do it – don’t go in half-heartedly; put the work in have clear purpose – what do you want to get out of it simplicity – social media should be intuitive and shouldn’t require much training have a sponsor – i.e. someone high up in the organisation who is on your side enjoy – if you don’t then nor will anyone else.
James’ slides
PART 2 Panel discussion: In the afternoon, Virginia Henry, Hank Malik and Richard Hare had a panel discussion about difficulties they had faced and overcome when being involved in social media projects. Main tips and comments:
social media is a process of evolution and experimentation. Find what works and build upon it. Don't plan too far ahead... start small - don't build expectations up or set a rod for own back. Roll out once you've practised
avoid a big PR job, start small and build on success if you can't reinvigorate a failing forum close it down - confront failure and use as feedback, learn from what went wrong show examples of success stories to present to senior management to show worth and benefit when asked for a tip to make it work next time, "Be prepared for it not to work next time."
Risk and reputation using social media Now everyone was enthused by the desire to make social media work for their institution in came the Kingsley Napley lawyers to remind people of their legal obligations. This was a very informative session and a useful reminder to maintain a positive online presence.
The main pointers were:
Social media affects the whole organisation just like the I.T. department does. It doesn’t fit neatly into one area BYOD (bring your own device – not drink) creates new data security issues for organisations We may not like it but we all represent our employers – even in our downtime Minimise risk by having a policy with guidelines but don’t stifle creativity Employers should not be snooping on potential candidates’ social media pages – it is classed as vetting. If vetted – employees must be informed
Kingsley Napley slides The future of social media Stephen Dale brought the session to a close by talking about the future developments in social media and what this means for its users. Firstly he amazed us with statistics; globally, apparently, there are as more mobile subscriptions than toothbrushes in the world and more smart phones sold than pcs. Not surprisingly, with the growth in numbers of in people using social media, there is a definite need to sift through the masses of information and collect what is relevant to our user groups. The next role for information managers and librarians will be to become filters and having already seen an increase in tools like Paper.li and Storify, I can believe his assertion. Online reputation and influence are becoming ever more important as people choose which ‘filter’ to follow. A few more predictions:
Websites will be created with mobile in mind first rather than desktops There will be an increase in gamification
More people will be using their own devices and working anytime, anywhere, using the cloud
Stephen Dale’s slides