Thursday 6 December 2012

Social Media for Practitioners



Why worry about Social media? 


Well there's value in reputation, as there has always been.  It has been suggested that we have moved to a 'reputation economy'.  Social Media offers the Practitioner the opportunity to engage in conversations with other Practitioners and also their potential cunstomers.  But there are many issues not least around attention and time.  It comes down to focus, filtering and practice.

Understanding the power of networks underlies what we are discussing here.  Here is a great video that explains and illustrates this brilliantly.  It also introduces the idea of how knowledge is organised and organisation online will pop up again when you consider hashtags.




Where peoples' interest is aroused then they will propagate what they have found, learnt or experienced.  We have seen things that have suddenly been picked up and gain massive exposure, known as 'going viral'.  This video has been viewed 21, 372, 046 times in under 2 years.




How is it useful to Practitioners?


Here is an example of a band who have clearly spent a long time creating their online presence.  It's consistent but very connected in terms of the services they have used. 

Here is a smaller scale example of a great local (Bristol) artist Nuala Honan she is on;
Tumblr
Twitter
Bandcamp
Soundcloud

But the link to a Facebook is broken.  That's a shame since it's probably her most important connection.  Facebook deserves a whole workshop just on it's own.  Here's FB's recent advert.  It still amazes me!




Twitter basics.


Not one but 2 great guides:

I used Twitterfall in the class which allowed me to enter the hashtag #iciasat and all tweets with that tag where then displayed in real time.  Twitter requires you to understand the importance of the name you use, your 'bio', 140 characters, #hashtags and url shortening.

There are ways of curating Tweets such as Storify, Paperli and Twylar. 

There are Twitter 'clients' (applications) that allow you to tweet and manage several social media streams (accounts) such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.  I can't get on with either!

At Bath Spa University we have been using social media to cover events live.  This is a good example of the uses of SM.  The Social Media Experiment.

What to write or blog?  YouTube created a great resource called The Creator Play Book.  Below is the old version.  The newer is available here.  It gives you a good idea of the way to engage people with video but the lessons are broadly applicable.




Photography.


There is a huge value to images online.  You can't afford to ignore this.

One of the oldest established service is Flickr but sadly it's been left to rust by Yahoo who bought it a few years ago when it was the 'go to place' for photos and photography on the Net.  It's been over taken in some ways by Instagram.  Here's my Instagram displayed with Statigram some things are more popular that others.  Notice the popularity of pets, plates (ie food before and after) and sunsets!

How Journalists are using Instagram (Pinterest, Google+, Soundcloud)

Facebook bought Instagram rather spectacularly and as a result here's the 'mashup' FB meets Instagram.

There is a huge photographic community online.  Tumblr, a blogging platform works very well for photography and has a very active community too - it's very connected.  Here's My Tumblr PhotoBlog.  Here's an example of a themed 'photoblog'.  I think it's rather good. London Shop Fronts 

Blogging basics





I use Blogger for my own blogs and currently with the students I work with.
There are some basic rules - this covers the main points well Do you make these mistakes when you  blog?

The requirement for images and video has become easier to satisfy.  Alot can be done with a modern smart phone.  I would suggest the purchase of one would be a good way into social media both as a way of understanding it and using it.  My current preference is the iPhone 4S.

Video publishing




As well as video there is audio too.  Although this might be less applicable in some situations.



Audio publishing 2.0 from mikejohnston

A large part of social media is in discovery and curation and you should think about fitting into this ecosystem!  Pinterest is worth exploring.

Lastly you might like to explore using Linked in.  You can find me there.  I also have an 'AboutMe' account that provides a useful place to collect all my online activities.