Social Media: Contributing to a live event

As part of my social media masters degree course, one of the assignments this semester is to organise a social media 'event'.

I'm looking to contribute to a Facebook live event, which will take place over the course of one week, with the other people in my class.

Each person will go live on social media each day and talk about a different topic, relating to social media.

For my contribution I am looking to focus on the following:

• Creating a profile/persona on social media focussed primarily on being an activist and political commentator.
• Ways in which I have increased my prominence, on Twitter in particular, giving some tips as to how this has been achieved.
• Ways to create more engagement and get the most out of content.
• Instagram, and how content from Twitter can easily be easily re-hashed on Instagram, through things like posting Twitter post screen shots.
• Klout score and how this has been of benefit in terms of increasing my prominence on social media.

As most of my contribution would be related to Twitter I would look to present my segment on Twitter 'live', using the Periscope app.

This will also mean I can hopefully get some of my Twitter followers watching, many of which are newly emerging activists, looking to increase the impact they have on social media.

So in a nut shell the main focus of my segment will be: Audience, Engagement and Prominence on social media.

The importance of having a social media strategy

A few tips and comments on having a strong social media strategy.

This semester as part of my University masters degree in social media, we have started looking at 'social media as practice'.

Straight out of the gate, the key focus has been on having a strategy, and how this is essential for businesses, news outlets, and those wishing to raise their social media profile.

In week one we looked at the BBC's English regions social media strategy from 2012, which begins by presenting the following vision...

This 'vision' appears at the very start of the BBC's strategy, and gives guidance as to what the BBC hopes to achieve on social media.

The 'vision' is for the BBC to produce content on social media, on a daily basis, by BBC journalists and other staff, focussed on the local community (e.g. a social media presence for a local BBC radio station).

I think even as an individual on social media, having a vision as to what you want your presence to look like, and be about, is vital.

I have done a lot of work on my personal Twitter profile in order to increase my prominence on social media among the LGBT+ community.

In terms of a vision for my social media strategy, mine would be...

"To be an advocate for LGBT+ issues, posting daily about topical issues, encouraging engagement, and as a result, increasing my profile as an advocate and political commentator"

I think it's important to have a vision for your social media strategy, it gives you a broad goal to work towards, and helps in terms of sticking to your audience, and posting content which will appeal to that audience.

The BBC, in its strategy talks a lot about individual social media sites and how they should interact with their social media audience, for example they say the following about Twitter...

To me this idea of interaction with those who mention you on social media is vital to not just building, but sustaining a base of loyal followers, who will interact on a weekly, or even daily basis.

If all you're doing is posting endless content each day, people are taking the time to mention you, which in turn gets an @YourProfileHere mention, and you don't bother replying at all, the likelihood is that individual may cease interaction, or even unfollow you.

Of course I'm not talking about the accounts that spam you - For example someone sends you about 10 mentions a day, that of course is over kill, and could be considered bad interaction, and does anybody really have the time to respond to every single mention? (especially from the same person!) - the BBC even mention in their strategy that replies should be to a "manageable proportion" of users.

But if someone does comment on a post to say they agree with a post, or to offer some other insight, taking a few seconds to send a "thank you", can have fantastic benefits for your social media presence.

It may even mean others are more likely to follow, if they can see that the profile has an added element of humanity. I think this is especially important if you're posting on a business account, rather than an account representing yourself as an individual.

You can read more about the BBC and social media strategy at the BBC Academy - Click Here.

LGBT+ Research Project: I need your help!

As part of my University masters degree I am doing a research project looking into LGBT+ activism on social media.

I'm looking to interview LGBT+ people who use social media as a platform to fight for rights, raise awareness and organise action to combat homophobia, transphobia and other discrimination against LGBT+ people.

Whether you're someone with millions, thousands or even just a handful of followers on social media, your insight would be valuable to this research project.

My research question is:

How does social media help LGBT+ people be activists?

The idea is to get to the core of how social media helps LGBT+ people engage with like minded people, and how this contributes to an online LGBT+ movement.

All it will involve is answering a few questions about how you utilise social media. I am looking to send the questions via email, as I would like to tailor the questions to each individual who decides to take part (this is more in depth than a survey and questions will vary person to person).

I am looking to follow up some of the email interviews with a Skype/video call interview with a selection of responders, but this is not essential, so if you wouldn't be willing to do a video interview, don't be put off doing the email interview part.

If you're interested just drop me an email - sam@samwiseonline.com and include your name, location and a link to your social media profile(s). The questions will follow within 24/48 hours of your email being received.

FAQ's:

How will my information be handled (who will see it)?

-Your information will be seen by me, my tutor at Birmingham City University, and possibly an external moderator. If you wish to remain anonymous, there will be an option to do so, this will be when you send your question responses back to me via email. There will be a question on the form which asks if you wish to remain anonymous.

The research MAY be shared publicly online at a later date, however each individual research participant would be contacted for permission before hand and nothing would be published without your prior consent.

The Pitch: 'Insight' My Entrepreneurial Idea

Video Pitch

Introduction

My idea is a Social Media Consultancy (working title: Insight), which focuses primarily on social issues and aims to inform the wider public about them. The aim is to then promote companies/organisations with an invested interest in that field. Some of these companies will have a product they are selling.

For example, Care Protect is a potential first client, whom I will be able to trial this idea with. They champion the idea of having CCTV cameras in bedrooms, in nursing homes.

Through a website/blog setup for my consultancy I will post content relating to the issue in a journalistic fashion, presenting posts more like news articles, than typical advertisements. This content would then be backed up with other content from social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, specifically setup for the consultancy.

The ultimate aim as this illustration shows is that the client will experience an increase in interest/sales in the product/service they provide, or the social issue/area they’re looking to make a change in.

This demonstrates the key value proposition for my potential customers, my thought process for which can be seen in further detail – HERE

I also expanded on this by thinking through in more depth about how my service could relieve any pain caused by barriers in the path of my potential clients, that can be seen - HERE

Target Customer/Audience

My target customer would be any organisations looking to further increase the visibility of an issue they’re involved with. This could be a private company or even a charity. What they’re selling could even be as simple as an idea or campaign for change, not necessarily a tangible product as is the case with my trial client Care Protect.

The audience however would be separated into two parts:

Firstly, potential customers for my client, so for Care Protect it would be organisations in the care sector who could potential pay Care Protect for the service of installing their CCTV operation.

Secondly, general members of the public, due to the sites journalistic approach to content, the content would be accessible to anybody not just potential customers.

This could also work in the favour of clients, as word of mouth could spread the content far and wide, especially since the content would be posted across multiple platforms and shared on social media.

Competitors/Similar Ideas

In terms of competitors I have not come across a competitor who is doing anything identical. Maybe I am wrong! But from looking I can’t find one yet.

It would be similar to a review website. For example, there are websites which review mobile phones talking about their features and benefits and then contain a link to where people can buy the device. They get money from phone companies as this acts as a form of advertising.

Tech Radar is one of the companies, they review the handsets and even offer to email visitors to the site with a reminder when the product goes on sale. http://www.techradar.com

My idea is very similar to this but in a more indirect way. The idea of the content I will produce will be that it won’t look like “in your face” advertising, it will be subtle and the information presented in a much more journalistic fashion.

SCIE (The Social Care institute forExcellence), who describe themselves as a leading improvement support provider and independent charity, publish articles and resources about different issues relating to care. They’re funded by bodies such as the Department for Health.

They post blogs and utilise social media to talk about issues in the care sector.

This approach is very similar to my idea, though there are differences. In that they are centred on publishing resources and are a charity, rather than ultimately being a tool to promote a product/service, which can be purchased by perspective customers. But seeing how SCIE do things could be important in terms of the development of my social media consultancy.

Next steps

The next steps I will take will be:

• Setup the blog/website and social media presence for my enterprise
• Formally meet with Care Protect to discuss using their company as a trial client for the enterprise
• Continue to research any competitors which may be out there
• Draft some content which would go on the blog/website and social media channels to demonstrate the feel of it and get a more tangible feel for what the enterprise will look like

Links to further information

Creative process – a few weeks ago I used creative tools to further refine my idea and much of what is in this final pitch was generated from that process.

Initial thoughts – this shows what the idea has developed from really, I initially thought I was heading down the ‘social enterprise’ route but as I have got further into it, I’ve come to find that’s not what I am proposing here.

(I have not trialled this with my initial client yet, but am open to any organisation contacting me who is perhaps interested to know more, my contact information can be found on the ‘about me’ page of this blog.)