The Use of Social Media (openEd 2.0 Course / Module 1)

Brendan Barrett Ph.D. United Nations University

How I became a tweeter, tuber and facebooker!

Use of social media

We all worry about our contribution and impact...

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it...

does it make a sound? Source: fatboyke

Learn more from Kyle James at .eduGuru

When no one can find your work

does it really matter?

Source: San Diego Shooter

Who are you trying to reach?

Are we in the middle of a virtual revolution?

Is the web a social experiment?

Web 2.0 is the future that has already happened

3 main characteristics Source: ~Aphrodite

(1) Social software

(2) User driven

(3) Openness

1.9 billion

Internet users world wide (as of 4 November 2010)

50% of global population

under 25 years of age

350 million Facebook users

(bigger than the USA)

200 million YouTube videos watched

each day (one billion subscriptions)

So how can you take advantage of this virtual revolution?

Lets share a story

How things work...

How to ensure dynamic interaction with people who share

similar interests?

17 17

1,865 fans 2,771 followers

1,089,000 views per year

325,000 visits per year

We heard about the...

Perpetual Internet Traffic Machine

Central interactive

hub (Our World)

Content syndication

Posting of quality content

Twitter Youtube Vimeo

Facebook

Social network traffic picked up by search engines

Other blogs can take articles Viral spread of content (Creative Commons)

Optimize site for search engines

More traffic

This is essentially inbound marketing...

where you “get found” via search engines, blogosphere

and social media sites...

Quality content is key! (engaging video briefs)

Picked up by Treehugger: monthly readership of

2.5 million22,137 readers watched the UNU Carterets video on Treehugger in one

day

Videos embedded on UNU-IAS-TKI

website

Becomes an article on Our World 2.0

Statistics on Vimeo for the Carterets video

173,000 plus views from wide range of sites!

Statistics for Producing energy by walking on Shibuya station. Tokyo, Japan.

123,000 views from one site!

Picked up by the Huffington Post

Put it on YouTube!

UNU podcasts uploaded to iTunesU

Download to your iPod/iPhone

Our World 2.0 articles published in the Guardian

Local on-campus screenings/events

Video can be screened by UNU researchers in the field

UNDP Offices in Dushanbe, Tajikistan Conference on Biodiversity Loss in Khorog, Tajikistan

Share your content with the public...

International screenings at film festivals

39 Introductions 3

DVD Available

Know your target audience

Age distribution

79% below 40 years old

Mainly digital natives?

Educational level

68% bachelors or above

Well-educated digital natives?

In which Sinus-Milieus would you locate your target audience?

Source: Stephan Schmidt presentation on Our World 2.0 Campaign (Sinus-Milieus)

The Sinus-Milieus approach is based the observation that -

differences in daily life shape the individual more than differences in

socio-demographic or socio-economic situations.

Which reinforces the idea of connecting to

digital natives... adaptive achievers,

experimentalists and intellectuals.

Who are Digital Natives?

... a person for whom digital technologies already existed when they were born, and has grown-up

using them...

Characteristics multimedia oriented

web-based

impatient

non-linear

multi-tasker

less textual, more modalities

very creative

Quality for the Digital Native

High Quality Low Quality

Addresses my interest Not for me

Well made Badly made

Fresh Stale

Substantive Superficial

Compelling Boring Source: Chris Anderson, The Long Tail

Or visit the Digital Natives blog at Harvard Law School

(http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/

digitalnatives/)

To understand more about digital natives

Five lessons on use of social media

1: Go where people are (don’t wait for them to come to you)

2: Less is more - make your messages clear and focused

3: Be patient. It takes time to build a community

4: Focus on thoughtful contact, rather than continual contact

5: Understand who you are trying to reach

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning

of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the

beginning.”

Winston Churchill

Thank you