Online communities & linking social media

Small group discussion looking at ways of building online communities on other platforms and the tools which can make this easier. Also covers ‘house’ social networks.

Notes:

Discussion on…

- Building a community
- How do you get supporters to interact more via facebook/Twitter?
- Connecting the social media/platform – exp and tools

• Online strategy beyond content on social media
• facebook connect & twitter feeds
• Own communitiy relating to other sites
• Content-specific networks
• Community management
• What does online community activism look like?
• Closed online communities (members?) and linking
• What worked recently?

Tools:

• Twitter tab on FB page – FB/Twitter overlap = 40%
• Twitterfeed, Ping, Posterous (bad practice)
• Twittering links to FB page
• Caution about automated crosspostings
• Facebook: more momentum, less clickthrouhg?
• Flickr, YouTube for events…
  – ONE: great results if you engage and have good pics (others sceptical)
  – Put links in descriptions
  – Allow people to upload to your flickr (with moderation)
• Blog as homebase
• ‘Amnesty everywhere’ banner for external sites
• YouTube non-profit account has superpowers
• Check Vin Diesel’s facebook page = awesome example of using FB!
• Contact facebook to migrate ‘group’ to ‘page’
• FB tools: involver – put html (email signup) on page
• Volunteer of the year
• Videovolunteers
• Tubemogul uploads to all video sites

Our ‘own’ online communities:

• Local groups login
• Families & disabilities group active but slow
• Fundraising teams
• Everydayhero as alt to JustGiving
• Huge effort to get conversations going online
• ProtectTheHuman.com taking off after 18mths (AI)
• Starting point — what’s the USP?
• Niche audiences
• Service provision, less campaigning