Transcript Social Media - School of Management and Labor Relations

SOCIAL MEDIA,
AN INTRODUCTION
NE UNION WOMEN’S SUMMER SCHOOL
Donna L. Schulman, SMLR, Rutgers, University
What is Social Media?
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a new set of internet tools that enable shared
community experiences, both online and in person.
It allows people with basic computer skills to tell their
stories using publishing tools such as blogs, photo
sharing, podcasting, wikis, social networks, to network.
it can help us filter and organize the overwhelming
amount of information on the web.
Social media tools make it easier to create and
distribute content and discuss the things we care about.
It can be used for personal passions, advocacy,
business, and fun.
Types of Social Media - BLOGGING
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Journals written by individuals or groups of individuals.
Allows for lots of writing and images, flexible.
Most blogs allow for comments from their readers.
Simple
Complicated to do.
Use Blogger, Wordpress, Moveable Type. Also called CMS –
content management systems.
Popular with journalists, people passionate about an issue who
like to write or photograph.
Some labor organizations incorporate blogs into their web
sites. Important to keep up-to-date.
Types - TWITTER
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A text service owned by Twitter, Inc. It is free.
Allows users to send and read text-based messages of
up to 140 characters, including punctuation + spaces.
All “tweets” are public! You can follow certain
Also called “microblogging”
You can send and receive messages on the Twitter web
site, http://twitter.com/,
Or through your PDA/smartphone (this may cost $)
Twitter has helped bring back the Haiku
(short poems of 17 syllables - 5-7-5)
Types – FACEBOOK, MYSPACE
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Social Networking Platforms
Originally developed for personal use for younger
people
Now used by nonprofit organizations, businesses, causes,
etc.
Global
Set platform—limited flexibility, dependent on
company’s rules.
Privacy issues.
Extremely popular.
Types – PHOTO SHARING
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Share and store photographs (and videos) with friends and
people with common interests.
Hosts photos that you can use for your blog, Facebook, etc.
Free and fee-based.
Flickr.com, Photobucket.com, Picasaweb.google.com
Some sites, like Flickr, encourage networking activities like
creating groups, tagging favorites, etc.
Flickr Creative Commons:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
Flickr: The Commons: http://www.flickr.com/commons
Types: Wikis
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A way of sharing information and expertise in a
structured format. Collaborative groupo web site.
Wikipedia, WikiHow (http://www.wikihow.com),
Memory Alpha (the Star Trek wiki), WikiLeaks
(http://wikileaks.org/)
Free and fee-based.
Software - PBWiki (http://pbworks.com/), others
available
Types: Social Bookmarking + Reading
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Document and share your Internet Bookmarks +
Favorites
 Delicious
(http://delicious.com/)
 My Delicious page: http://delicious.com/queensgirl
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Catalog your books online, see what other people
are reading
 LibraryThing
(http://www.librarything.com/)
Top U.S. Social Network Sites
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Facebook (2) - 34.93% of global Internet users on 7/28/10
YouTube (4) – 23.38% of global Internet users on 7/28/10
Twitter (8) - 8.25% of global Internet users on 7/28/10
Blogger.com (11)
MySpace (13)
LinkedIn (17)
Wordpress (20)
Flickr (23)
PhotoBucket (39)
Yelp (48)
Getting Started
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1. Create a Plan
2. Create + Develop Content
3. Making Friends
4. Keep Them Coming Back
Resources
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TechSoup - tech advice for nonprofits http://home.techsoup.org/pages/default.aspx
New Organizing Institute – community and labor
organizing techniques - http://neworganizing.com/
http://www.neworganizing.com/resources/noi-and-fieldresearch/one-pagers
Strategic Organizing - blog focusing on using
technology for organizing - http://www.unionorganizing.org/
PROJECT
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Your Union president has asked you, as a graduate of the NE
Union Women’s Summer School on generational issues, to
develop a plan to integrate Social Media into the union. (S/he
has no idea what Social Media is, but thinks it sounds cool.)
You need to come up with 2 plans:
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A Fantasy Plan, the best there could be, with an unlimited budget.
A Real Life plan, that your union may be able to implement.
To come up with this plan, consider the following questions:
Project - Goals
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What are the goals + objectives + challenges of your union?
Which SPECIFIC Social Media tools would help achieve these
goals, overcome these challenges?
Is your union already using Social Media tools? Is your
international? Which ones?
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Are they goal-oriented?
Are members involved?
Could they be used more effectively?
Project – Target Community
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Who is your target community?
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Members
Staff
Officers
Committee
Community
Coalition partners
Employer(s), management
What are the ages and economic status of your target community?
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What Social Media tools are they using or could be using?
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Would a survey be helpful?
Would they be interested in learning how to use Social Media? Could the
union provide training?
Project - Resources
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For each Social Media tool you recommend, think
about:
 How
much time would be involved in doing updates,
answering comments, monitoring for problems?
 How many people would be needed? Who? Skills
required?
 Tech
staff – needed? in-house? Consultants?
 Volunteers – members, retirees, school interns, etc.
 Remember
Real plan!
– you are envisioning a Fantasy plan and a
Project - Payoff
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What would be the benefits of using Social Media
in your union? (you don’t have to think about all of these activities, these
are suggestions).
 For
Collective Bargaining?
 For Organizing?
 For Member Mobilization?
 For Coalition Building?
 For tell your story to the Community? (even to
Management?)
 For Fun (as in making the world a happier place?)