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In March 2010, as part of the National Student Enterprise Conference, NACUE invited Carl Jeffrey of FellowCreative.com to share his experiences, insights and beliefs surrounding Social Media and the ever-changing digital-landscape. Although Carl insists he’s neither a Social Media Consultant nor an academically qualified Marketer, in recent years his reputation as a design innovator, educator, trend spotter, commentator and facilitator has grown rapidly through involvement in social media communications and the wider social-web – his clients include UK Universities, the Worlds #1 Sustainable Technology Company and the UK’s #1 Specialist Social Media Agency – his bio reads ‘Creative Midwife™ & Joiner-of-Dots. Brand-Communication, Digital-Ideation, Sustainable-Creativity, Social-Enterprise… attracted to inspiration & shiny things…’

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The Introduction

Hello. I’m Carl *~) Accepting NACUE’s invitation to support, inspire, connect, and become an advocate for over 65 university enterprise societies across the UK, representing in excess of 35,000 entrepreneurial students is both a great honour and a great responsibility.

As I sit down to write this I’m acutely aware the NACUE Learning Programme provides a critical knowledge base for ever-changing Student and Academic Society Presidents and Committee Members; it aims to deliver you a thorough collection of guidance documents to cover all aspects of establishing, running and developing a successful University Enterprise Society. However, in some specialist and complex areas, delivering such complete, comprehensive, failsafe documentation can prove challenging and sometimes impossible – ‘Social Media’ is one such topic.

Searching Google.com for the term ‘Social Media’ puts ‘About 276,000,000 Results’ at your instant disposal – some results are very worthy of investigation, others are not. A growing abundance of information, video tutorials, case studies, search-engine-optimisation (SEO) strategies, and marketing techniques to ‘build a brand on Facebook.com’ and ‘increase your number of Twitter.com followers’, etc. – for this very reason I’m not intent on re-inventing the generic wheel – at the end of this document you will find a short list of my recommended reading and resources, but first I intend to cover what I believe to be the important stuff.

This ‘How To Use Social Media’ guide can’t promise you a one-size-fits-all step-by-step manual of Social Media techniques and strategies. Instead, I’ve prepared this document for those whom don’t speak in Technobabble (mostly), to explore the values inherent in NACUE and the words: University, Enterprise and Society. I write from the heart of my intuition and experiences, from between the lines of all I’ve read, done and think I’ve learned from. I underline one fact: ‘communication channels, technologies, social-norms and the digital-landscape evolve globally, by the second – this means what exists today, may change tomorrow’. I really hope to inspire you to question your perception of Social Media and its potential value to you and others, thus empowering you to ‘work beyond What Is to deliver What Can Be™’. As the quote reads: “we can identify trends for the future but accurate predictions are impossible”.

In the realms of the World Wide Web (commonly called the Internet) and its related technologies, my most important advice is to: place strategic bets but always retain your ability to pivot – prepare to fail forward!

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What is the Social-Web?

The Internet now provides an increasingly diverse and innovative set of tools that allow people to connect with others, share information, socialise and collaborate together. The term ‘Web 2.0’ is commonly used to reference the specific websites and applications (Apps) that help facilitate such interactive information sharing, interoperability and collaborations across the Internet as a whole (and I mean across multiple platforms and online spaces, not just within ‘so-called’ social-networks like Facebook.com that are in fact silo’s of information where lots goes in but very little can be shared with people on the outside of its walls).

New websites, platforms, applications and features launch daily if not hourly. Information Architects Inc. created the diagram ‘Web Trend Map 3’ (http://informationarchitects.jp/trendmap3-countdown-sneak-peak). It is a brilliant example of information design and it does an extremely good job of visualising the connected and distributed ecosystems of Web 2.0. The diagram conveys a complex and interrelated version of an Underground Tube Map, with different zones and layers, each tube-line represents a different Web Trend (E.g. Gaming, Technology, Photos, News, Video, Social Network, Politics, Innovation, Music, File Storage, Blogging, etc), and travelling along each tube-line you find community stations at every stop (E.g. Google.com, Facebook.com, YouTube.com, Flickr.com, Twitter.com, BBC.co.uk, Guardian.co.uk, MySpace.com, Amazon.com, WordPress.com, etc).

The term ‘Social Web’ loosely describes how people socialize or interact with each other throughout and across this interconnected map and World Wide Web. It is also important to note that these connections and interactions aren’t now limited to computer screens, many of the latest devices, phone-handsets, iPads and games-consoles now provide both Internet and App integration and connectivity – and remember, this connectivity isn’t just stationary, its now ‘mobile’ and on the move.

The ‘Web Trend Map 3’ mentioned above, was in fact released in January 2008; much has evolved since. The Web Trend Map 4 (’09) and Web Trend Map 5 published in 2010 demonstrate just how quickly the Internet evolves; and how the ecosystems and connecting structures of today will undoubtedly adapt and develop to suit the trends and technologies of tomorrow.

Until recently most people formed their online-connections and social-networks through friends, contacts or shared interests. However, today a growing number of connections are being made through a geographic location, a point of interest (POI), or another form of locational (GPS) data – the fields of Augmented Reality and Social Gaming are growing, and applications like Gowalla.com are gaining traction and investment.

Increasingly, our Social Media activities and assets can be searched and identified not just by the Username(s), Publisher(s), Title(s) or Tag(s) but also by their context in time and space – E.g. a Digital Photograph taken on an iPhone or Nokia device already equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) receiver, will now likely contain (encoded into the digital file meta-data) the actual map-able location (latitude, longitude, and altitude; plus the time) the photo was taken.

The term ‘Semantic Web’ describes the methods and technologies that allow machines and devices to understand the meaning (and meta-data) – or “semantics” – of information on the World Wide Web.

Only a few years ago online communication and audience engagement would have focused on a single location, your website, and broadcast monologues and advertising would have been used solely to drive customers to it. Today, we recognise that people increasingly hangout and socialise across multiple locations, different online-spaces and social-networks, they frequent multiple groups and tribes, and what’s more they’re now used to home-delivery and on-demand – if you wish to engage them it must be within their territories, where they choose to hangout, on their terms not yours, and you must respect and value them as an individual, not as a number or mass-market. Respect has to be earned, and value(s) must be shared beyond price-point.

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What is Social Media?

It is safe to suggest that you, fellow academics, students, entrepreneurs, business-leaders, marketers and technologists perceive, describe and wish to use Social Media in different ways; most focus on ‘Social Media for PR’ or ‘Social Media for Marketing’ – hence the now somewhat throw-away terms ‘Social Media Marketing’ and ‘Social Media Consultancy’.

It seems that attitudes to the term ‘Social Media’ differ greatly and its definition seems increasingly meaningless – perhaps the inevitable result and downside of any buzz-terminology.

However, I presume: A) your University Society’s primary aim is to communicate your people-focused benefits and value(s), and B) you actually wish to engage and inspire conversations, and connect too and share in activities with fellow academics, students and members. This document should help you focus on the inherent value(s) of using ‘Social Media for Audience Engagement’ – and not the questionable hijacking of Social Media channels and platforms for one-directional broadcasting of monologues or self-interested-selling as is so often the case with monetised-minds and quick-win-business-ventures, sadly.

Quoting his article ‘Social Media for Audience Development & Building’, Christian Payne @documentally (the man I personally recognise as the UK’s #1 Social Media Journalist) says:
“If you’re using social media properly your audience is your community, social media is about communication, and community building. Community Building is developing your audience. The moment you have a community, you have participants, not observers. People. Not Bums on Seats.
In the modern world of millions of people vying for your attention, it’s not your presentation; it’s your connection to your community that’s important. This is where social media comes in. Social media offers invaluable tools in accessing the hearts as well as the minds of your participants. To people bombarded every day with ‘brand’, it’s the human touch of organisations that gets your interest and loyalty. Put more simply, social media tools aren’t about you; they’re about the people you want to speak with.”

Wikipedia.org (the worlds largest encyclopaedia, which is both freely available and user generated) defines Social Media as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques”. It goes on to say: “Social Media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues”. Now, assuming you’ve already heard some webby-speak banded about by your University ICT Department, and without wanting to get you technically lost or turn all geeky, Professor’s Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein’s definition serves as a good introduction to some of the tech-terminology often associated with the realms of Social Media: “a group of Internet-based applications built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”

Parking the reference to ‘ideological foundations’ aside for later discussion I will attempt to demystify the different types of media and user-generated content that might be created or exchanged through Social Media. The acronym used by the threaded-conversation platform Phreadz.com serves to suggest most people converse, connect and share through V.I.T.A.L: Video, Images, Text, Audio and Links (such Links may be to an online news article or website, a particular map location or point of interest (POI), a digital artefact of sorts; the possibilities grow daily…).

Thinking about Social Media in terms of socially VITAL exchanges and interactions makes it perhaps a little easier to understand the difference between Broadcast Media and Social Media. I use the acronym V.I.T.A.L with great emphasis on the essential definition of the word ‘vital’. Social Media is not about tools, technologies, websites or even the medium. It is about understanding the accepted social norms and enablers of human behaviour; it’s about retaining the core values of society, social engagement, inspirational conversation and participation, not eroding such norms or values with self-interested monologues or promotion – being social is VITAL to inspiring, connecting, and engaging advocates, likeminds and people; truly supporting the development of an audience, tribe, society and community of inspirational friends and connectors.

In the introduction to his book ‘Life Inc’, Douglas Rushkoff writes:
“Sometimes it feels as if there’s just not enough air in the room – as if there were a corporate agenda guiding all human activity. At a moment’s notice any dinner party can slide invisibly into a stock promotion, a networking event, or an impromptu consultation – let me pick your brain. Is this why I was invited in the first place? Through sponsored word-of-mouth known as ‘buzz-marketing’, our personal social interactions become the promotional opportunities through which brands strive to be cults and religions strive to be brands”.

I constantly wonder to myself, and now I question you: Does the term ‘Social Media’ deserve a rethink?

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Social Media, Social Norms and ‘Elementals’

The theory of ‘Elementals’ is my own, it’s not an industry-recognised term or philosophy. I introduce it here not to confuse you, but to convey my continually developing thinking and ideology. Many of my concepts build upon already recognised principles: ‘Media Richness Theory’, ‘Media Naturalness Theory’ and Brian Solis’ ‘Hybrid Theory Manifesto’; and I remain inspired by the works of Sir Ken Robinson and motivations of Dan Pink.

Written by Sir Ken Robinson ‘The Element. How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything’ is an amazing book which I highly recommend to everyone – it’s certainly a must-read for anyone involved or interested in improving Education, Entrepreneurship, Creativity, Social Enterprise, Community Development or Civics and Society.

The book explores real people, as individuals, from the perspective of empowering passionate creativity, engagement, conversation and sharing, by firing up imaginations and motivations. Robinson suggests that when collections of people engage to create something much greater than any of them could create individually, they become more than the sum of their parts – he defines this as ‘the alchemy of synergy’. ‘The Element’ is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion.

I firmly believe that technology should be used to inspire and empower us to be better people – the Web’s potential to connect natural talents with passion and inspiration, provides you, us, our Universities, Enterprises and Societies, with a true catalyst for brilliance and value creation.

The term ‘Elemental’ is currently referenced by Wikipedia.org as a “Mythological being”, “the ancient idea of elements as fundamental building blocks of nature.”

Through exploring the differences between the ‘so-called’ Social Media and Social Networks of online, in comparison to the very natural ‘Elementals’ of social norms and human behaviour offline, you can begin to understand the valuable building blocks between the social and the media.

I propose these are the ‘Elementals’ of: fun, authenticity, kindness, usefulness, challenge and inspiration – expressed and experienced through art, story-telling, memes and the wider human sense of friendship.

“Great teachers have always understood that their role is not to teach subjects but to teach students. Mentoring and coaching is the vital pulse of the living system…” ~ Sir Ken Robinson.

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The Value and ROI of Social Media and its ‘Elementals’

There’s constant discussion and debate about the measurement and return on investment (ROI) of Social Media. Traditional industrialists, broadcasters and marketer minds are analytical, linear and strategic. They define measurement through a set of processes and numbers, numbers of followers, numbers of visitors and viewers, the number of potential customers, the number of sales – these minds simply don’t get the Web’s potential to create value (long-term and beyond profit) and develop long-standing relationships with and respect for people, education, entrepreneurship, society, and dare I say it ‘brand’.

For me, and hopefully you, the Value and ROI of Social Media can be found through focusing on ‘retention’, not recruitment. I suggest it’s not about the great numbers in Facebook groups. I propose it’s in forming true communities of people and participants who engage to become more than the sum of their parts – through contacts, conversations and ideas, VITAL to inspiring, connecting, and engaging advocates – Social Return On Investment (SROI).

Through conversation with and listening to your societies and members as individuals, you can learn to answer all their questions and needs, empowering your forging of long-term relationships and friends – this inevitably leads to improved ‘people-centred’ services and societies, and better understanding of future trends and values, and hopefully resulting in some additionally VITAL and much appreciated word of mouth.

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Practical & Actionable Social Media Advice:

In the realms of the World Wide Web (commonly called the Internet) and its related technologies, my most important advice to you is as follows:

What exists today may change tomorrow, so place strategic bets but always retain your ability to pivot – prepare to fail forward! Focus on ‘retention’ not recruitment!

Organizational charts can show your Societies hierarchy and structure; sadly they can’t capture how your organization or Society really works. Social communities are not like mechanisms; they are more like organisms – each is different, each requires a different approach, and all continue to evolve. Logic makes people think, emotions make people act!

Social Media is often viewed as an inexpensive tool for audience engagement, many of the applications and media services are indeed free to use and simple to setup but Social Media is far from inexpensive if your time is valuable – be prepared to dedicate your time and enthusiasm. And be mindful that if something seems to good to be true, it usually is – free tools and services are usually sustained by intrusive third-party advertising, Is this price worth paying or is your audiences full-consideration worth the paid-for version?

Great Products sell companies but Great People sell services and Society’s!

Social Media are enablers for human behavior – It’s about behavior not tools!

People and participants who truly engage can become more than the sum of their parts – Supporting them is VITAL to inspiring, connecting, and engaging advocates!

Students, colleagues and potential advocates weren’t born knowing how to use Web tools and technologies, or how to navigate Legal Requirements, Copyright or Facebook Privacy Settings – explore your organizational policy towards Age Of Majority (legal terms of Understanding and Agreement) regarding student consent (to appear in content, photos or film), and explore Data Protection and Social Media Policy – Lead through example and education!

Investigate your ‘Audience Persona(s)’ (hypothetical architypes) – Understand your people!

Understand your own value(s) and identity – Adopt a relaxed, conversational tone; find your accent!

Listen before you talk – Talk with people, not at them!

Effective conversation and engagement requires different media for, and understandings of, natural human sense(s) and ability (Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic learning and communications) – Make VITAL content for individuals sensibilities!

Good Design, Copy-Writing, and Content Editing matters – Attention to detail delivers 30% more engagement! *

Social interaction encourages dialogue not monologue – engaging conversation and content means ‘compelling, fun, authentic, useful, challenging and inspirational’ – often expressed and experienced through art, story-telling, memes and the wider human sense of friendship. Ask yourself: Is it useful or is it compelling? And is it easily sharable or embeddable elsewhere?

Useful means contextual and relevant – Share other peoples insights and timely goodness! But remember it’s theirs, respect it, and them – always credit the source!

Community Management means participation and facilitation of multiple persona’s, tribes and belief systems across multiple places – Create the Theatre not the Play!

Communicate organizational change, activity and crucial debate – Quickly, simply, as it happens!

Expect and encourage constant dialogue, engagement and comments – The web is a conversation, join in with clear & frequent feedback! And admit your mistakes and lessons learnt!

Test users, tools, features and viewer devices – Accessibility is not an optional extra!

Think long-term flexibility, short-term scalability – Deliver today but plan for tomorrow!

Optimize your content with continuity and useful Account Names, Usernames, Filenames, Permalinks, Categories, Tags, RSS, Trackbacks, Pingbacks and Hashtags (#Tag) – Make sure your content can be searched and linked to, forever!

Monitor value and success every day. Search your visibility metrics with services like ‘HowSociable.com’ and Klout.com, and install ‘Google.com/Analytics’ on website(s) so you can measure progress, success and failure (find out if your existing website already has measurement tools and reporting to help guide your planning) – Google Yourself!

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Recommended Tools and Applications:

If your University, Enterprise or Society don’t already have a website (and even if you do), a good starting point is to sit down with 4-6 people (these should be actual students, potential users and members; not people in the organizational chain) and discuss what actually works and what doesn’t – focus on needs, wants and values – focus on retention not recruitment. Research what others are doing successfully and poorly; and explore your pre-existing websites, communication channels and legal-policies – go through the full list of highlighted points in the ‘Practical and Actionable Social Media Advice’ section of this document (above).

Once complete you should have a good understanding of your existing User Personas and your potential ambassadors. You should also understand your values, voice and tone. You should have a basic understanding of your VITAL media requirements and constraints – What media and application features do you need?

The following list outlines a host of my recommended tools and applications; many of the written definitions are derived from WikiMedia.org and WikiPedia.org for description accuracy. Please make sure you examine your own internal policies and data-protection guidelines, and all the applications terms of service and subscription contracts, before you make any decisions – the responsibility to make the right choice for you and your Society is yours alone, not mine. Many of these services are privately owned and free-to-use (funded by advertising, most of which isn’t too intrusive) – but please remember, what exists today may change tomorrow:

WordPress.com – is a free to use, semantic publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. Often used for personal weblogs (blogs), it provides social media support through embeddable media, widgets and content aggregations; along with basic design/theme customization and community features like commenting, search engine optimization (SEO) and content sharing goodness such as RSS and Analytical Stats. The WP platform is also available as a free open-source product via WordPress.org; increasingly used by self-hosted bloggers and organizations (both personal and commercial websites), with a constantly developing array of community features and Plugins. WordPress.org is fully-customizable, reliable and secure (as now used by Number10.gov.uk).

Facebook.com – undoubtedly the UKs biggest social network; a free-to-use social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. Currently home to 500 million active users globally. Developments like Facebook Connect, Facebook Social Plugin, Mobile App, Facebook Questions, Social Gaming Apps and GEO location features (Facebook Places), mean its here to stay and an extremely valuable channel for audience engagement. But remember, Facebook is currently a silo of information – place strategic bets but always retain your ability to pivot!

Twitter.com – a free-to-use micro-blogging platform with a limit of 140 characters per post or update (commonly known as a tweet). Defined as ‘the best way to share and discover what is happening right now’, much of its success has been built upon dedicated mobile apps and third party services. Increasingly being used by Students, Enterprises and Society’s it is likely to prove a valuable part of your conversational and personal connection toolkit. Daily content and conversation can be searched, shared and aggregated across the Web in the form of RSS Feeds, and embedded into websites and blogs (as well as such things as auto-updating your Facebook and LinkedIn status). Hashtags (#Tag) and Twitter Lists are two ways in which you can organize information, people, members and groups.

Flickr.com – a free-to-use image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media. Free accounts provide some extremely useful but limited features (low quality image hosting and sharing, creative commons licensing, etc.). A subscription fee (approximately £16 per year) provides ad-free browsing and sharing features, archiving and search facilities, high-definition imagery and HD video hosting, accessible viewer counts and statistics and unlimited uploads, storage and bandwidth.

Viddler.com – a free-to-use interactive online video platform for uploading, sharing, enhancing, tagging, commenting on, and forming groups around videos. Competing against the more popular YouTube.com (and services like Vimeo.com and Blip.tv), Viddler provides an ad-free subscription account and some additional business specific services. YouTube.com is likely to remain the Web’s largest community library of searchable video content so I’d certainly recommend Optimising, Tagging and Uploading your content to it but I’d recommend investigating Viddler as your core video sharing service. Equipped with video analytics, HTML5, brand-able and customizable video players and an impressive feature-set of embeddable Viddgets.

Audioboo.fm – because sound is social and real voices are personable. AudioBoo provides a free-to-use mobile & web platform that effortlessly allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world to hear. With a diverse community of users, from Journalists to Independent Podcasters, Musicians to people having everyday conversations. It might just spark your imagination for the potential uses of sound and provide you with a simple insight into the more complicated world of Podcasting, iTunes, non-streamed webcasts and digital media syndication (as well as a host of other audio services: Spotify.com, SoundCloud.com, Blip.fm, Last.fm and RootMusic.com, etc.).

LinkedIn.com – is a free-to-use business-oriented social networking site. It is mainly used for professional networking. With 75 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, it provides a continually developing set of features that allow you to share your career development, contacts, life, blog posts, tweets, upcoming events etc. with a growing network of professionals and industry groups.

MailChimp.com – start with a free account, upgrade at anytime. MailChimp provides an email marketing service to design, send, and track HTML email campaigns with a simple set of tools. An ad-supported but fully-functional account provides the capacity to send 3,000 emails per month to up to 500 subscribers. A Pay-As-You-Go account removes any third-party advertising, and a range of monthly subscription packages can cater for an unlimited number of emails (approximately £20 per month if your mailing list is no bigger than 2,500 members).

SurveyMonkey.com – is a free online survey software & questionnaire tool. Create and publish online surveys in minutes, and view results graphically and in real time. A free account allows up to 10 questions per survey and a maximum of 100 responses, whilst a monthly subscription (approximately £20) provides customizable and branded survey tools with unlimited questions and responses, and downloadable results and analytics.

Eventbrite.com – a free-to-setup online event registration tool, everything you need to bring people together for an event and sell tickets. Creating an event page and adding it to your blog or website takes about 5 minutes, define your ticket types and price, track sales and attendees with an event summary – simple. Eventbrite takes a small commission on the tickets you actually sell. Additional features include event/conference Name Badge design, etc.

Bit.ly – allows you to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier, especially if you’re using services like Twitter.com that limit your updates (tweets) to 140 characters in length. Bit.ly also provides management and analytics for your shortened links so you can track popular links and traffic locations. Bit.ly is still a relatively new service, free-to-use and currently free from ads. It is certainly useful and I recommend it, but make sure any links you use ‘within’ your own website content don’t reference bit.ly because if bit.ly doesn’t exist tomorrow neither do all your shortened links.

Bambuser.com – Live video streaming from your mobile phone or webcam (other live-streaming services include Ustream.tv and Qik.com). Bambuser lets you instantly share your experiences with friends, family and followers all over the globe, whilst at the same time interacting with your audience through web-to-mobile chat. Bambuser also integrates with a wide range of global platforms and social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, as well your blog or website – you decide where you want to share your real-time broadcasting experiences. Commercial packages are available; otherwise ad-support is likely.

Mendeley.com – is a desktop and web program for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online. For a University or student Society, Mendeley’s growing popularity and social sharing features make it a potential gold-mine for inspirational content, connections and advocates – certainly one to look into!

Paper.li – creates an online newspaper built from all the articles, blog posts, videos and photos shared on Twitter – Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or Hashtag (#tag). Paper.li is an interesting example of how content, people and advocates from different places might be brought together (aggregated) to provide something greater than the sum of their parts. Other *filtering by collective trend* services like Flipboard.com help demonstrate what is both technically possible and increasingly popular.

Flattr.com – is a social micropayment platform (somewhat similar to the more widely known Chipin.com). Developed to help support you and the organizations and Societies people like. Adding a Flattr-Button to your website content might well help you fund future activities. Flattr is the newest and least proven service on my recommendations list; but if you’ve got some worthy content and Society activities planned it might be worth further investigation.

Gowalla.com – is a location-based social networking service that gives people around the world a new way to communicate and express. Users ‘check-in’ at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive virtual items from check-ins. With 150,000 active users in April 2010, this is certain to increase into 2011. As crazy as the concept may sound, if you want to explore the potential of social gaming and GEO location for community building and Society engagement this is my recommended place to start.

Google.com/Analytics – is a free web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data – enabling you to write better-targeted content and strengthen your marketing initiatives. Google also provide Email services and a suite of Google Apps (document, presentation, spreadsheet and collaboration tools).

SocialMedia.PolicyTool.net – is far from perfect, but does provide you the ideal introduction to an important topic – Social Media Policy. PolicyTool helps streamline the process of policy development. Answering a brief questionnaire provides you with a customized document upon which to build. Social Media Policy is not yet a legal requirement but there are certain aspects of it that you really should be aware of. Please make sure you examine your own internal policies and data-protection guidelines, and all the applications terms of service and subscription contracts, before you make any decisions – the responsibility to make the right choice for you and your Society is yours alone, not mine.

CreativeCommons.org – is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. Free licenses and other legal tools mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof. Providing a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators.

Dropbox.com – is a digital storage service that syncs your files online for backup and sharing. Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly but securely available to you (and those you choose/invite) via any other computers (or mobile devices) with Dropbox installed (its even cross-compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux). A basic 2GB Dropbox account is free, with additional Pro storage available from £6.50 per 50GB (approximately).

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I really do hope that my insights inspire you to question your perception of Social Media and its potential value to you and others, thus empowering you to ‘work beyond What Is to deliver What Can Be™’. As the quote reads: “we can identify trends for the future but accurate predictions are impossible”. Good luck and positive thoughts, Carl. *~)

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Recommended Reading and Resources:

(This document URL: http://www.fellowcreative.com/2010/08/how-to-use-social-media-the-elementals)

Social Media for Audience Development and Community Building:
http://ourmaninside.com/2009/12/28/social-media-for-audience-development-community-building

Engaging Through Social Media (a PDF Guide aimed at Civil Servants):
http://coi.gov.uk/guidance.php?page=264

Brain Solis: Hybrid Theory Manifesto (broken into three parts):
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/07/the-hybrid-theory-manifesto-the-future-of-marketing-advertising-and-communications-part-one

Information Architects Inc. created the diagram ‘Web Trend Map 3’:
http://informationarchitects.jp/trendmap3-countdown-sneak-peak

13 Qualities of a good Social Media Voice:
http://socialmediatoday.com/ckochster/155676/13-qualities-good-social-media-voice

The Impact of a good Editor on Content: *
http://www.ikiw.org/2010/07/16/ibm-web-team-measures-impact-of-an-editor-on-content

Helen Keegan: Social Media, Education, Industry – and motivation
http://heloukee.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/msc-social-media

RSA Video – Daniel Pink on intrinsic motivation:
http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive

The 15 Web Principles as published by the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/03/ten_publishing_principles_for.html

Sound-bites about social-media usage and strategy – some are worth your attention, others are not:
http://whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com

Habbo Hotel (habbo.co.uk) – understanding and developing your user Personas:
http://www.clubhabboforum.net/showthread.php?p=3262438

How to manage a Sustainable Online Community:
http://mashable.com/2010/07/30/sustainable-online-community

Seth Godin: Tribe Management
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/01/tribal-manageme.html

Where does responsibility for digital communications sit within a large organisation?
http://neilojwilliams.net/missioncreep/2010/death-of-the-web-team

A Guide to Facebook Social Plugins:
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/a-guide-to-facebook-social-plugins-for-small-business-amy-mae-elliott

A Collection of Social Networking Statistics for 2010
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/01/19/a-collection-of-social-network-stats-for-2010

Information Age vs Attention Age:
http://aaronendre.com/2009/10/26/step-aside-information-age-the-attention-age-is-here

Please be very mindful of Information Gluttony
http://www.toggle.uk.com/journal/information-gluttony

Ken Robinson: the moving case for creating an education system that nurtures
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex
http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html

Seven Lessons from games for transforming engagement
http://tomchatfield.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-ted-talk-seven-gaming-lessons-for.html

57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources:
http://socialmediatoday.com/davefleet/151761/57-social-media-policy-examples-and-resources

Douglas Rushkoff – Life Inc.
(ISBN 978-0-141-04525-2. Book available at http://rushkoff.com)

Ken Robinson – The Element, how finding your passion changes everything
(ISBN 978-0-224-08203-7. Book available at http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/the-element)

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I am not a Computer Programmer or Web Developer, nor am I a Social Media Consultant, but I do pay them to work alongside me.

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I designed and launched this very website 6 months ago but due to time limitations and cashflow its never had all the features I’d ideally like. However, during the past 6 months it has still received over 11,000 visits, equating to over 20,000 page views. In terms of well known blogs or online content resources these statistics are minuscule but I think they may prove to be of interest given some key facts: at no point have I spent any money on marketing or print promotion, nor have I paid for services like Google Adwords or Search Engine Optimization (SEO); but perhaps even more interestingly ‘I deliver services based on experience and ideas, I don’t actually sell any online products’ and I’ve written no more than 22 blog posts (this one now being the 23rd).

I decided to write this blog post for five key reasons:
1) a new client asked me my thoughts on evolving their existing website and content to make it more engaging, measurable and profitable. 2) over recent years many organizations and individuals have approached me to ask similar questions. 3) increasingly I meet traditional marketing folk who now call themselves ‘Social Media Marketeers & Consultants‘ because they’ve recently got a blog and started promoting their clients using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. 4) on a daily basis I see utterly useless blog posts with titles like: ‘20 ways to make money from your website’, ‘50 ways to get your website noticed’, ‘Social Media is the new sales model’ and ‘Top 10 Twitter Tips’… but the 5th and most important reason I decided to publish this post is because I’ve seen very few consultancies or marketeers actually practicing and demonstrating what they preach by making public their very own statistics, mistakes and experiences (separate from the rarely released client case study).

Surely people and organizations are defined by what they actually do, not by what they tell others to do.

Social Media is now a trend, and sadly many individuals and organizations have a tendency to follow the crowd without really questioning or understanding if its actually the right direction or medium for them.

Before you read any further I must make it clear that this very site was not cheap to setup, I spent a lot of my own billable time designing the brand aesthetic and planning the scalable site functionality that sits somewhat behind the scenes, and even though I have long-term partnerships with trusted developers it still cost me over £3000 of my own physical cash to implement at the standard I’d expect (I even used a FREE open-source platform called WordPress) – if I’d delivered the same specification and man hours to a client I would have charged them £6,500 minimum.

Now with the above said, and given my day to day experience of clients, its likely you’ll be sat on one side of a dividing line, one side will be of the opinion that £6,500 is far too expensive for ‘a simple website with no payment facilities’, and the others will be sat enthusiastically amongst some large competitors, but still telling themselves and others that they haven’t got enough budget to create the ’shiniest website with all the trendy features’. I will now attempt to navigate the pro’s and con’s of such a dividing line, but first I offer some context and much needed background:

I was introduced to The Internet and World Wide Web in 1997 (aged 17), by which time I’d already become the family help-desk for programming central heating systems, repairing Microsoft Office macro viruses and fixing Microsoft Windows 3.11 / 95 issues. I was also the sales assistant at Staples who sold ‘the right product, not the most expensive business machine’ to the clueless parent customers who wanted a computer for young Jimmy to do his home-work on. I used plain English and simple explanations instead of jargon terms like Mhz, RAM and Macro Virus.

Before Google was founded in 1998 I’d already designed and hand-coded my first commercial client website compliant with HTML 3.2 and I’d become truly inspired by the potential of digital technologies and shiny things. By early 1999 I’d purchased my first domain name and done enough commercial work to fund my first mobile phone. I purchased my first Apple in 2001 but I’d been using Apple Macintosh’s and Photoshop since Art College in 1996.

I think its safe for me to call myself an early adopter (some might say Geek), but its also clear that I didn’t and couldn’t envisage the Digital World in which we live today, nor could I imagine that I’d now be recognized by the leading technology brand that built my first mobile handset or be facilitating thinking at the UK’s largest specialist Social Media Agency.

With the above outlined I will say again: I am not a Computer Programmer or Web Developer, nor am I a Social Media Consultant. I am a Creative Midwife™ and Joiner-of-Dots; I deliver ‘What Can Be’ by joining dots between ideas, people and technologies.

I must also make clear that my mind and enthusiasm for technology has never been driven by consumerism or the latest materialistic fashion. I am driven by possibility and I believe: 1) if something is not broken then there is no need to fix it. 2) form follows function. 3) if you plan and choose well you buy few. 4) if you opt for the cheapest option it will undoubtedly prove to be the most expensive in the long-term. 5) an author can’t engage everyone by telling a single inspirational story, but if they choose to release a range of short stories amongst a group, at least one is likely to be shared (amongst or beyond the group) to inspire more engagement with their works.

As an insight to belief number three: the 1st Generation iPhone (2G) I purchased in 2007 is still my chosen mobile phone handset today (its only my third mobile phone in over ten years). Sure I use almost every feature it has to offer but I see no real ’sustainable’ benefit in upgrading it to the latest iPhone 3GS (or any other device currently on the market). My first mobile phone was a Nokia 6110 purchased in 1999, in 2003 I purchased a Sony CMD Z7 which I used for four years until my iPhone purchase (its also worth noting that I gave my Sony CMD Z7 to my dad and although he doesn’t use the Email or Mobile Internet functionality for which I bought it, he does still use it today).

Likewise to my iPhone, neither of the early devices were the cheapest but because I understood exactly what I needed them to do and how my requirements for them might evolve I managed to make each investment last 4 years (which in terms of technology is a very long time indeed). Yes there is now a newer version of the iPhone available but its not that much quicker than the one I bought two years ago, and even though the new release has video capability, the camera quality still isn’t good enough for me to do with it what I’d like. Even now, probably a year before such a device is released, I can say that my next handset will allow me to create both low and high-quality image/video content at different resolutions at the flick of a switch, the camera lens will swivel 360° and have zoom functionality, it will allow me to live-stream video to the internet without a need for a permanent WiFi connection, as well as be equipped with the existing Mac compatible syncing and web-based feature-set I require for my work (including all the online conversation and application integration I already use on a daily basis). You might also be interested to know that I did in fact type-up, upload and edit parts of this blog post via an iPhone WordPress application; I also have an iPhone application that enables me to view the real-time Google Analytics for this very site.

During recent years my career and enthusiasm has left me privileged enough to play with the latest gadgets and Nokia prototypes, I’ve embraced social networking head-on (I started using twitter.com on 16 December 2007, at least a year after I’d joined Facebook), and before most people had even heard the term ‘Social Media’ I was employing the talents of ‘now widely recognized professionals’ such as Social Media Journalist Christian Payne (@Documentally) and Social & Learning Technologist Josie Fraser (@JosieFraser). More recently I find myself pioneering video conversation platforms like Phreadz and exploring the potential of live-streamed video direct to (and from) a mobile device.

When I purchased my first mobile phone in 1999 I perceived its function as being ‘a central point of contact for me to make and receive phonecalls and txts whilst mobile, so I could keep in touch with and be contacted by others’. In hindsight I now believe the role of the mobile device has evolved to be much broader (some might say its always needed a broader description).

I now suggest it is a device to ‘manage and enhance communication, connection, expression, education and inspiration’ that helps deliver ‘mobile conversation, interaction and content to not only my fingertips and senses but those of my community, wherever we are’ – thus making engaging media increasingly accessible and more ‘digitally social’.

And being bold I suggest that such a description should be the leading thought amongst anyone building or commissioning websites or online marketing from this day forward.

Please note I use the term ‘digitally social’ as a precautionary phrase because I don’t want anyone to think that I see digital ‘virtual-world’ communication as a superior replacement to actual face-to-face ‘real-world’ interaction when in fact I don’t believe anything will ever be better than a conversation in a ‘real-world’ café over coffee or a Guinness.

The main point I’m trying to make here is that ’socially engaging communication’ does not take the form of a traditionally published press release or one-directional article on a static website or homepage. It does in fact arrive in various distributable *multi-directional* shapes and sizes which can be shared across and added to all manner of other websites, devices and applications, and accessed everywhere and anywhere, through monitor, touchscreen, keypad or API, and more often than not without any need for a user login. Most importantly, because different people communicate in different ways and like to be communicated to in different ways, conversational and engaging content is multi-channel, it takes the form of videos, images, text, audio, links and any other expressive medium you care to think up.

Back in 1997, whilst I was hand-coding my first websites, I watched businesses discover the Internet trend, they very quickly went from spending £6,500 on the design and print of 8,000 brochures, to having expectations of ’spending less’ but instantly having more than 8,000 potential customers on their website. Just like many others at the time, I perceived a business website as an online version of a business brochure (with a few interactive bits thrown in to enhance engagement) but for at least the past four years I’ve understood, created and interacted with websites, brands and online content in a completely different way. But I suggest that many key folk still haven’t noticed this fundamental evolutionary shift.

It appears that a difference in perception now forms a fundamental barrier in brand communication, social engagement and most importantly ‘positive social change’ – and I can’t help but feel that many businesses and NGOs (who are potentially key ‘content producers’ and ‘citizen journalists’ for social good) haven’t yet grasped a simple related fact:

Online communication is no longer about having a web-based brochure containing one-directional promotional spiel supported by some retouched photos, a list of positive testimonials and a contact form; nor is it about setting up your own ‘walled and branded’ social network or forum. It is actually about *being ready and prepared* to connect with people on their terms, where they like to hangout, without giving them a sales pitch or trying to distract them with an advertising banner, but by providing them with some useful, thought provoking and inspirational content of actual substance (something that they want to share or engage with). Having a website is in fact only a small part of a much larger network of communication activity (both online and offline), where engaging content, personal inspiration and useful community connection actually rises above the noise – to an inter-connected and open domain; a platform for people to promote your message, support your values and inspire others to engage with you directly – welcome to the social web!

The Web Trend Map below may help put your business website into perspective (please remember that this image is only a small section of a much bigger picture).

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Image: http://informationarchitects.jp : Web Trend Map 3 Original image uploaded and licensed under creative commons by Evitc–

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Now I’ll try to explain how I followed my outlined principles to float above the noise and deliver over 20,000 page views within 6 months; only publishing 22 blog posts and without spending anything on marketing or promotion (or generating any SPAM or eNewsletters).
I’ll also explain what I believe to be my return on investment [ROI], plus the additional social return on investment [SROI].

I intend to explore how I implemented WordPress.Org as both a Content Management System (CMS) and Blogging Platform to develop a scalable and adaptable website with a life expectancy of at least two years (hopefully four years). I’ll cover both my WordPress Statistics, Google Analytics, Bit.ly URL Monitoring, Comments and Trackbacks. I’ll cover my use of Social Media and what value and time I give to it (in addition to my continuous client deliverables, real-world networking, event attending and presentation commitments). I will also cover the value a well executed design instantly added to my site in regards to Google Rankings and FREE Third Party Promotion. I’ll explain why I haven’t yet paid for Google Adwords or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I’ll close by trying to explain my current Google Ranking and so called ’strategy’ for the next 6 months.

To be continued… this document is constantly evolving, now replaced by this.

An audio only version is available as part of the ECCA podcast series offered to creative students at University of the Arts London, it can also be downloaded for free via iTunes or viewed directly on SlideShare.

If you would like more information on the VITAL Event and the VITAL conversation platform please do click here to download the PDF.

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Quick Response (QR) Codes are two-dimensional bar codes, invented by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994.

Over recent years QR technology has begun to skew the boundaries between 2d, 3d and ‘Reality’ in terms of audience/user engagement/experience – as the 2008 Ford KA Campaign shows.

Over recent months I’ve been inspired by the concept of Augmented Reality for Education. I hope you are too =).

 
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If you’d like to create your own high resolution vector based QR Code for a T-shirt or Large Format Print please feel free to download my Adobe Illustrator 10 Template File. Simply use a QR Code Generator to define your QR Code and then recreate it using this template – should take you no more than 10 minutes, easy! =)

Please do comment if you know of such a resource because the teacher who spurred me on to write the following is also struggling to find ’simple and relevant today’ resources for his GCSE students.

Some background details: In 1997 I started working commercially as a designer for print and web, from the young age of thirteen I dabbled with really basic image-editing software such as Microsoft Paint, and at college I cut my teeth on Adobe Photoshop (then version 3.5) – I came to understand digital imaging in the context of ‘bitmaps and pixels’ and ‘vectors and bézier curves’.

Bitmap imagery explained:

File-types such as BMP, JPG, GIF, PIC, PNG and TIF (to name some of the most common) are built on the concept of a bitmap imaging. A bitmap is quite literally ‘a map of bits’ that forms an image. The ‘bits’ in question are generally referred to as ‘pixels’.

An image that is 10 pixels by 10 pixels has ‘a map of bits’ that looks like this:

An image that is 32 pixels by 32 pixels has ‘a map of bits’ that looks like this:

Image-editing software (also referred to as photo-manipulation software) such as Adobe Photoshop allows the creation of imagery through colouring each individual ‘bit’ of the map. The ‘magnified’ example below demonstrates how a bitmap image is made up of individually coloured pixels.

Bitmap images are not only created in software packages such as Adobe Photoshop, they also form the basis of digital camera photography, digital video and television; and they even form the basis of the media captured on the latest mobile phone handsets.

The greater the number of ‘pixels’ within a Bitmap, the greater its ability to contain detail; and the higher its ‘resolution’.

It is extremely important to note that neither the number of pixels within an image, nor its resolution, define its physical size (cm).

Digital displays such as computer monitors and televisions offer various resolutions and formats. A 30cm high Digital TV using ‘480 Format’ can display 704 pixels wide x 480 pixels high, where as a 30cm high Digital TV using ‘720 Format’ can display 1280 pixels wide x 720 pixels high. This means that if the same Bitmap image (480 pixels x 480 pixels) is broadcast to both displays, it will appear at different physical sizes (cm) on both, as the diagram below highlights:

As shown in the top example, if a Bitmap is enlarged, its ‘bits/pixels’ enlarge and the image that once appeared detailed and smooth (when small) now appears to ‘pixelate’ and reduce in visible quality.

Vector imagery explained:

Unlike Bitmap’s, Vector images do not lose their quality when scaled in size.

Vector images are ideal for logo design and large-scale graphics because no matter what their size (big or small) they always appear smooth and sharp.

Software such as Adobe Illustrator enables the creation and manipulation of vector imagery and illustration (perfectly scalable for print output); and software such as Adobe Flash provides vector based tools for animation and online interaction (perfectly scalable for any size screen or display output).

File-types such as Generic EPS (now commonly called an Illustrator EPS), SVG and DXF are all vector based formats.

Vector graphics are created using mathematics rather than pixels.

Vector shapes are drawn by plotting ‘anchor’ points. Each point is given a coordinate ‘location’ on the page (or artboard); mathematics then enables a computer to perfectly plot a smooth path between each ‘anchor’ point. Each point on a path can be given Bézier handles to control the direction and curvature of the connecting paths.

Because a vector image is based on mathematical coordinates it can be scaled (smaller and larger) without loss or quality or definition.

The example below shows the visible difference between Bitmap (left) and Vector (right) when scaled.

 
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This Vector Tool Exercise published by the amazing team at Tutorial Plus may be of further interest to you if you’d like to learn more about bézier curves, simply follow the guides to create precise paths, using the hints and shortcuts covered in the article. The key tip is to be sparing with your use of anchor points, the fewer the points, the neater path.