Social Media – Experiences from the NAVCA Conference

“We tried soc med and we liked it, Kevin Curley said so!” (With huge apologies to Katy Perry!).

As part of our annual conference this year we set-up a blog, which originally started out as not much more than an on-line version of the booking form, with the added feature where people could leave comments about the workshops and find out more about the logistics of the event (we put up a map of where delegates were coming from and some background information to the area).

But approaching the conference date, the momentum of social media took over as ideas flowed and also we saw what other events were doing.

So in addition to the simple blog, we tried out Crowdvine prior to the event and then over the two days we did much more! We recorded videos – making them available on Vimeo and YouTube; we recorded podcast interviews; we took photographs and put them on Flickr and Slide; we Twittered …. but most importantly we took our organisation forward and we learnt a lot! We made mistakes, we covered up mistakes (ahem !), but we learnt from this, and most importantly we learnt that this is the way we want to move forward.

On the second day of the conference four of us (including our Chief Exec and our Communications Manager) attended workshops run by Jude Habib of sounddelivery (it was so good I even went along twice!). Listening to the Chief Officers and NAVCA members in these sessions confirmed that there is potential and interest, but only if we get the basics sorted out first and show real uses for this technology.

The session covered the whole range social media tools that are available for use in th sector that infrastructure organisations can promote to their members.

Here’s the slideshow Jude presented (oh, that’s another two social media tools in connection with the conference – Slideshare and Scribd!) !

As someone with some knowledge of social media I tried to put myself in the shoes of an infrastructure organisation grappling with how to reach out to their members, how to engage communities in their work and generally how to be more effective and efficient.

Various participants shared their thoughts on the subject – which ranged from bewilderment, fright and lack of understanding to an interest if the benefits could be presented to them simply.

We heard podcast recordings both from Jude of young people she had worked with and examples from within the room of organisations using video to be more effective at gathering meeting feedback and using Facebook for supporters to show their support. Interestingly a significant number of people said they used Facebook for personal reasons – but had not seen its potential in a work context.

A clear message from Jude was Content, Content, Content – I thought it’s easy to see how the written Content we all use (paper and emails) can be enhanced to get our messages across in a fully three dimensional way. Listening to the podcast of the children on the beach or the young mother walking around her run down housing estate it was easy to feel transported into that situation and more connected to the messages they were putting across.

So if we were to also use the audio Content (possible through a podcast) and the video Content (possible through video and picture sharing websites) we have the potential to say so much more and connect with so many more people than just sending out emails or printed newsletters. In addition since social media is a two way communication channel the power to collaborate with similar organisations and be responsive to feedback from stakeholders is enormous.

I have put together a quick FAQ of Social Media definitions that you can read on-line or that can be downloaded for your own use. For more in depth case studies see the booklet put together by the Media Trust which you can also read on-line or download in PDF format (944Kb). Printed copies of the booklet can be obtained by contacting your Regional ICT Champion.

We must be doing something right, as we have been christened “Team Socmed” in NAVCA and are looking at many other uses of this technology for the organisation and at future events.

If you want to know more or would like to see how any of this is can be used in your organisation just drop me or one of the ICT Champions an email.