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Social Media
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Monday, 04 May 2009 19:38 |
Still on the lines of the White House blog and how social media tools in themselves are not what it's about. This blog post from the White House is a great example.
Read the post "Shooting Around With the Huskies", watch the video and follow the link to the press release ....
What is this blog post doing? It is showing us that:
- Special ordinary people are shown round the White House.
- The women's basketball team is honoured and appreciated.
- Their reception at the White House was informal, personal and fun.
- Obama takes time to play for people (and even wins in games they play)
- Obama inspired Maya Moore, one of the basket ball players to say: "The way he sacrificed some extra time out of his day to shoot a few shots with us made me remember what life is all about. It is about investing in people and having faith that the love you impart on them will somehow make the world better than it was."
- Someone in the White House blog team is capturing the essence of the new Administration in some smart posts
Having a blog in itself is not the smart bit about the White House social media strategy. It's the intentional and unintentional things that it tells us about the inspiring people and things going on within it, and having the nerve and the resources to do it. And if that's not talking to you, the tools won't either.
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Monday, 04 May 2009 19:11 |
You can now find the White House in all sorts of places - from Facebook to MySpace to Twitter as well as Flickr, Vimeo, Youtube and iTunes (username WhiteHouse)
We'll start seeing the "Me too" from organisations who want to follow the new administration's lead. All's well EXCEPT it's not the tool or the platform that will perform for you.
Signing your organisation up to all the in social media sites does not make you hip. And does not necessarily make you effective.
The White House blog is (a heavy, CSS and bandwidth intensive) tool for broadcasting information in a timely way. There are other reasons for keeping a blog and different ways to do it.
Flickr is great for a voyeuristic view into President Obama and First Lady Michelle's life. But that's because he is the American President and they are not just any old people ...
If these tools work for the White House it will be because they are using them in ways that support their objectives - like broadcasting what the President does and opening up the lives of the Presidency and the Obamas to ordinary people. Those aren't necessarily every organisation or group's objectives.
Another reason it's effect is because it involves star performers who are both charismatic, inspiring and natural. Not all flickr pics of organisational activities are interesting.
Another reason it will work is because there is a team of skilled writers working full-time to actually write and produce stuff. It's easy to underestimate the time and resourcefulness needed for creating quality stuff on new tools.
So while it's good that organisations get more hip and start realising that there's more to communication than a website, email and making pdf documents available, it's important to realise that the online tools the White House are using are not in themselves an answer.
Some questions I find myself asking organisations who now want to appear on these social media sites are:
- have you got something interesting to say and have you got interesting and inspiring people to say it?
- are you prepared to transfer or create additional resources from traditional IT publishing to social media?
- are you prepared to become more transparent, make mistakes and take PR risks?
- are you ready to hear things you don't want to hear?
- are you reaching for readers or members who have the bandwidth (e.g. to view your blog)? If so, how can you make it more accessible?
- have you considered what your objectives are and what activities you want to support with social media?
- how do these new online tools fit in with your broader strategic objectives?
- are you getting your counsel from people who know about these tools and their integration with each AND who know the human side of people?
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Monday, 04 May 2009 16:29 |
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It's been too long since I blogged. One of the technical reasons is that I'm quite often offline and I can't find an offline blog editor for Joomlah, which I could send directly to my site when I come online. Come back Dream Weaver??? Another reason for not blogging is Twitter, of course. It's so quick and easy. Once you've posted all your important inane stuff, what else is left to talk about? There are, of course, identity issues and whatnot, but let's keep this technical. Who am I and what have I to say to who is a whole other issue. I'm trying to tie up my doctorate at the moment, so I should keep off the blogging - and twitter. There is also a host of fascinating work and life-stuff happening, which will also keep me busy. I'm torn again by the question of many short blog posts or fewer, more significant ones. Just having those options freezes me from writing.
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