using 'web 2.0' and social media tools for small projects

Using ʻweb 2.0ʼ and social media tools to support small projects30 April 2009, Old Trafford Football GroundAlan HoldingManchester Digital Development Agencymanchesterdda.com

1.Examples from two small projects2.Using this stuff to support research3.Day-to-day administration4.Some things weʼve noticed using this stuff

What Iʼm going to talk about

Examples from two projects1.Manchester Book Award

www.manchesterbookaward.com2.Wythenshaweʼs Got Talent

www.wythenshawesgottalent.co.uk

Use of comments and building trust

Comments / reviewsApprox 2,500 published reviews in the four years of the project (400 this year).There was an incentive to leave comments.Though comments were moderated, we didnʼt edit them for bad spelling, etc.First year was a bit of work as the project was new, and had to do more offline work to get people to leave reviews.We were asking for comments on a very specific subject.

Use of photos

Use of Flickr – good things…Value for money – approx £32 for two years – unlimited number of photos, etc.Lots of ways to organise and display photos.ʻWeb 2.0ʼ stuff like RSS feeds, comments (more on them in a second) and the Flickr Application Programming Interface (API).Easy to use, so project officers not ʻthe web teamʼ could administer the Flickr account.The project could get limited statistics on the photos – useful for funders / audit, etc.

Use of Flickr – other things…Turned comments off.Didnʼt name children, though we did name schools.Needed permission to use photos of children – this affected the more ʻsocialʼ aspects of using Flickr, such as children contributing photos to a group.Due to council policy, we have to remove any photos older than two years.

Use of video hosting websites

Use of video hosts…Check how much control you have over where the video will appear.Consider using short clips on services like YouTube, but donʼt ʻpromoteʼ them – just use them as ʻcalling cardsʼ to drive visitors to your project website.Keep an eye on the features. Things change!You usually need to pay a small fee, e.g. Vimeo Plus is approx £40 for 1 year.Keep the original files so you can move hosts.

Use of captioned videos

MovCaptionerMAGpie

Hi-Caption StudioAegisub

…and loads of other captioning applications

Use of captions…The software is out there to do it, so learn how to do it and make it part of your workflow, and contractual arrangements.Itʼs a legal requirement in the U.S., so we can be fairly confident that the more established video hosting services will support captions.Regardless of the legal requirement, itʼs a good thing. You can communicate with more people.

You are here

Wythenshawe

wordpress.org

1 2 3

1 - Site launched2 - Comments turned off3 - Award ceremony

In the three days the comments were on…Approx 720 published comments.Approx 6,000 visits.Approx 46,000 page views.Average time on the site was 5 minutes.

Almost the same figures as the following month when the comments were off.

For small focused projects…

Comments are hugely useful.Gets people involved.But you need to have a comments policy. What happens when someone complains?Ideally, train the people whoʼs project it is to moderate the comments.

Using this stuff for research…

Day-to-day adminThink about using one email account for a projectʼs social media accounts.Make that email account accessible by more than one person. Holidays, sick leave, etc.Strong passwords, please!Keep a spreadsheet of the usernames / accounts of the services you are using.Find and subscribe to the alerts about the statuses of the services you are using.

In closing… some things weʼve noticedItʼs about people talking to people, not faceless buildings talking to people.Be honest when things go wrong.You are your organisation, so be prepared for that if you start using this stuff. Councilʼs A-Z guide to services by your desk, etc.

Thanks for listeningAlan Holdinga.holding@manchesterdda.commanchesterdda.comtwitter.com/mddavimeo.com/mddadelicious.com/mdda