And learn she did ...

Hello again!  As promised in my last blog, this one's all about the Social Media forum that I attended last week, hosted by the Associations Forum.  If you've not heard of them, they're an awesome organisation who host events, workshops, webinars, and more - with the aim of sharing information and learning among the associations of Australia.  You'll find them on Facebook, Twitter, and probably more if you want to follow them!

Anyhow, they put on a small event, hosted by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, with speaker Sarah Stewart from the Australian College of Midwifery presenting on Social Media.  As one would expect, her slides are available on SlideShare.  For those interested, see http://www.slideshare.net/sarahs/associations-and-social-media

Sarah was very personable, interactive, and knowledgeable on the subject.  Some of the key points that I would like to share with you from Sarah's talk are outlined below.

• It's not about the technology - it's how we use it.
• Social Media is about two-way engagement, and having conversations.
• You will have far more success with the 'friendly' rather than 'formal' approach.
• Being personal in Social Media can bring about the most responses and engagement from others.

From the perspective of introducing Social Media use into an organisation, there is just soooo much to consider, and you really need to have thought out very well a whole raft of things.  Key considerations include:

• Should your organisation have a Social Media presence, and why?
• What does the organisation want to achieve and get out of this forum?
• Do you want to have an open forum or closed forum - and if closed, why?
• What resourcing are you going to apply?  What are the expectations for response times, monitoring, who can respond?
• What do you need to put into a Social Media policy?
• What needs to change in your organisation for Social Media to be able to work?
• What professional standards are you going to follow?

If you are a member-based organisation, there are further considerations!

• What does your membership want from you?
• Where are your members?
• What technologies are they using?
• How mobile are they?
• What are their digital literacy skills?
• How could you utilise Social Media to best meet their expectations?

Wow ... of course there is much, much more to be thought of.

I came out of the event with a much greater insight into the background work that needs to be undertaken before you even go anyway near setting up any Social Media accounts in an organisation.  It really needs to be a strategy that is well considered and developed, in order for a successful integration in your workplace and to have a successful impact on your target group.

And that takes time ...