FreshNetworks Blog

Social Media Week in London saw a great set of events, thinking and presentations for all things social media. One of my favourite presentations from the week came from an event I wasn’t able to attend: Steve Bridger‘s keynote from the Media140 Third Sector and the Real-time Web event.

Steve’s presentation is based on his experience of working with charities and not-for-profits and highlights the importance of the internal change that must take place in any organisation if they are to make the most of using social media:

1. Social media is disruptive to an organisation. It changes the way you do things, whether you intend it to or not. We see this a lot with organisations we work with at FreshNetworks. Marketing communities often produce customer service queries or ideas; research communities often result in word of mouth about the brand. Customers are not siloed in how they think about your brand or organisation and they way you interact with them in social media cannot be siloed either.
2. Social media is about relationships. It is not about technology but about what you do with it and how you interact with people online.

These observations are as true for corporates as they are for not-for-profits. Social media is not a silo because it is about relationships. It is about how you engage and interact with people on an ongoing basis.

Steve’s full presentation is below and is our Required Reading this week. You can also hear Steve talk at the FreshNetworks Breakfast Briefing on Thursday 18th February: Strengthen your membership strategy with social media.

There are many issues of identity online. For some the internet offers people the opportunity for people to represent themselves in a way that suits them. They can make themselves sound much more exciting than they really are in social networks if they so choose, talking about a band they just love and not showing certain photos that might be embarrassing from the weekend.

In online communities, it is less easy to hide behind an identity. Social networks are about ‘me’ and as such it is relatively easy to create the identity that you want to portray, showing photos, having conversations and listing things in your profile that support this. Online communities are very different, they are about ‘us’ – a shared experience, aim, theme or topic. It is not your profile that counts, but your ideas, thoughts and contributions. These are less easy to hide behind an identity that may not be completely true.

This is why the overriding principle for behaviour in online communities is to be open, honest and truthful. In doing so, we often find that people find their own voice and online identity. As an online community develops and matures, we see the members grow and develop with it, finding the way they like to act and represent themselves online.

That’s why I really enjoyed this video from Beth Dunn (via Steve Bridger) talking about her own experiences of finding her online identity. It reflects the process I think many online community members go through and is a useful insight into the development of online communities. As such it’s required reading this week at FreshNetworks.

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Some more reading

• Web Technology: Impact on Social Media and Community (socialmediatoday.com)
• Making the Most Out of Social Networking Websites (nmpnetwork.com)
• Using Social Networking Online (jonggunlee.tistory.com)
• Techniques For Building Your Tribe On Twitter The Right Way (steffanantonas.com)