Tools to Build an Engaged Online Community

JD Lasica Socialbrite.org

jd@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

Let’s discuss!

jd@socialbrite.orgtwitter: @jdlasica  @socialbrite