Social Media Strategist: Blog

This article has been written in order to teach charities & non profits how to use Twitter.

Twitter has seen a massive increase here in the United Kingdom over the last year.

Twitter is now ranked as the 291st most visited website in the UK, up from a ranking of 2,953. Furthermore the average amount of time that people spend on Twitter has more than trebled from less than 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now.

Twitter has been taken up largely amongst the young however the fastest growing age group of users is 35-44 year olds, who now account for 17.3% of UK visitors.

The amount of traffic Twitter sends to other websites has increased 30-fold over the last 12 months. Almost 10% goes to News and Media websites, 17.6% to entertainment websites, 14.6% to social networks, 6.6% to blogs and 4.5% to online retailers.

“Top 5 ways charities should effectively use Twitter”

1> Claim your Twitter URL. If someone else decides take your charities twitter URL such as http://twitter.com/wwf it wil be very unlikely that you will be able to claim it back

2> Reskin the background image so it contains your charities logo, brief description and a link to your corporate site.

3> See what people are saying about your charity by using www.search.Twitter.com. Once you have read their tweets befriend them (especially influential news broadcasters, sneezers etc). Such searches take next to no time and if this process is carried out on a monthly bases your network should grow fairly rapidly.

4> Send out “Tweets” (twitter messages) to announce all new news, press releases etc and make sure that they include hyperlinks to your news articles in order to divert users to the charities website.

5> Use www.tiny.url to make your URLs within your tweets shorter. Twitter will usually carry out this process automatically. However on occasions due to human and/or Twitter error this does not occur. Therefore it is currently a good idea to change your URLs manually.

Everyclick (a search engine in many ways similar to Google) donates money to charity each term a user searches for something. We have been working on the Everyclick site for a couple of years now to help assist their SEO, Social Media and Mobile Marketing campaigns.

Everyclick has recently won the “best search and find site” in the “website of the year” awards. We would like to congratulate Polly and everyone at Everyclick for winning the award.

Diabetes UK lobbied parliament with an army of over 200 young diabetics. Over 100 MPs agreed to meet the children and their parents in order to discuss diabetes and the care for young diabetics within the UK educational system.

The day also allowed children meet others their age with the condition and share experiences. A range of games and activities kept everyone entertained from start to finish.

I attended the event in order to send out the Diabetes UK ‘Bendy Bus’ video (via a Nitro Mobile bluetooth hub) and assist with documenting the day.

Diabetes UK Lobby Parliament video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQuJZXy_qg

Youtube has changed its video player! Videos that have been embedded on websites & blogs now have a Youtube search bar at the top of the video with even more branding.

The player is now ugly and not necessary. If Youtube had to make this change it should only be applicable for newly embedded videos. Videos that fall under Youtube non profits are not exempt. I have advised charities and non profit organisations to embed Youtube videos in the past as the views on Youtube (and many other video sharing sites) help the video to be found within search engine result pages (SERPs)

The main reason why this player should be avoided however is becuase it will encourage people to search for other Youtube videos whilst on your site and drive traffic elsewhere!

If you are a charity, non profit organisation or own a website or a blog do not embed Youtube videos on your website / blog. I would recommend trying Google video, Vimeo or Yahoo, Myspace. You should of course seed your video on Youtube due to the amount of people watch videos on Youtube. However if the aesthetics of your website / blog are important you may wish to reconsider embedding Youtube videos on your site and look for an alternative.

(To see the altered embedded Youtube player in my previous post)

Mobile phone Footage of the Indian terrorist Ajmal Qasab being captured and beaten by Police. He is thought to be the only terrorist who survived the attacks that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boDL-hQfKKM

Today’s Olympic opening ceremony left me both impressed and confused. The two year rehearsal period paid off and produced the most visually impressive performance that I have ever seen. Ironically the controlled manner in which the performance was carried out mirrors China’s total control over its own and the Tibetan people. However the chineese also encouraged people across the globe to submit online posts and content relating to the Olympic Games.

By adding the tagline #080808 to users content the information could be easily retrieved and then syndicated across multiple official and unofficial sites.

After watching the opening ceremony in Trafalgar square and then examining the sheer number and diversity of messages escalating around the blogosphere a true online community was formed and in full swing.

Hopefully due to the huge number of posts that were being published every second a substantial amount made it through the great firewall of china.

Grand Theft Auto has been blamed for the killing of a taxi driver in Thailand. Plice chef investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak said the 18 year old student “wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game,”
New Era Interactive Media, have now stated that they were “sending out requests today to outlets and shops to pull the games off their shelves and we will replace them with other games.”
Chief police investigator Veeravit Pipattanasak said, “[The teenager] said he wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game.”
GTA has been taken of the shelves across Thailand as the student awats trial and a ossible death penalty.

Two years ago I saw a young teenager who appeared to have stolen 2 DVDs receive OTT manhandling first by a security guard and then by two Hertfordshire police officers. Due to their lack of care and their insistence in holding on to his body a number of struggles soon led to the child being forced face down on a busy Watford high street as the frantic police officers awaited further backup! At the time I complained to the policeman who was brandishing most of the punishment. He took immediate offence and directed some of his rage in a mumbled outburst towards me. This led me to brandish my first video Camera phone (a Nokia 7600). After about 10 seconds of filming I was told by a different officer that I was not allowed to film the incident and if I didn’t leave the scene I would be arrested! Despite other citizens also kicking up a fuss none of our comments were listened to.

We were also told that we could only make a statement if we made our own way to the station. (Regrettably I did not find out where their station was and make a formal complaint). Since then I have been increasingly fascinated in how mobile UGC (user generated content) can help/hinder police investigations and trials. A few months ago I brainstormed ideas surrounding a mobile video upload site for a neighborhood watch campaign. However I disregarded the concept due to the fact that someone filming an incident could easily become a victim if they were seen. Therefore I came to the conclusion that such a campaign would never take off in the UK.

In New York however the police are actively encouraging citizens to stand up against crime and use their phone for the good of their fellow New Yorkers. “We’re putting technology in place to enable us to do that. It’s a fact of life, everybody has a camera in their telephones. When people can record an event taking place that helps us during an investigation, it’s helpful.” (New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly) Furthermore the NY police are actively encouraging citizens to film any wrong doings by the police. It will be interesting to see the success of this project and whether such a scheme ay e day be embraced in the UK and across the Globe.

Here is a recent mobile phone video of a NYPD officer assaulting a cyclist. It has already received over 1m views on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAkRweEQxxI

Marketeers have been harnessing the power of video on video sharing sites for years. However submitting videos to sites such as Youtube, Yahoo Video, Metacafe etc is now widely embraced by smaller charities and organisations in order to help further their cause.

Small scale Youtube marketing strategy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaF6oFmZ_qw 

 
Ø Watch and research other charities videos
Ø Make your video interesting
Ø Include a call to action at the end
Ø Seed the video using relevant (Meta) keywords and descriptions
Ø Let your user base know that the video exists by sending out an email with a link to the video
Ø Once you have the embed code seed it on Social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace, blogs etc)
Ø Encourage people to share the video
I have helped numerous charities market themselves within video sharing sites. I am happy to give free advice and recommend a bespoke strategy over the phone.

Last Thursday I attended the first ever Catalyst awards ceremony at the Imagination Gallery. The Catalyst awards is a new awards ceremony that recognises the outstanding use of Social media and technology that leads to social change.

The attendees demographic included a good mix of techies, innovators and social media folk.
An hour and a half after the 8.30am champagne reception had started Gordon Brown (Chairman of the Council on Social Action) delivered an articulate and thoughtful speech. Soon after he presented the first award. Once the presentations was over a speed networking event took place in order to help form friendships and future collaborations.

• Community Award – Savvy Chavvy

• David and Goliath Award – Liftshare

• Chalk and Cheese Award – FreqOUT!

• Enterprise Award – Slivers of Time

• Revolutionary Award – Wheelies

• Self-Help Award – School of Everything

• Individual Hero – Helen Anderson

• People’s Choice Award – Freeconomy Community

For more information about the winners projects go to the Catalyst awards winners page.