Laura Yates + Trine Hughes Slow Food Liverpool Presentation: Social Media and using in your convivium

This discussion will look at…

• Lisa has spoken about using PR to promote your group – this discussion will look at the benefits of social media for your convivium using the tools that Lisa has developed with you. We probably won’t get to the bottom of the psychology of this kind of media today but we can have a good look at it and how it’ll improve communication within your convivium and that of promotion of your events and campaigns. I can also provide help prior to this should anyone need it.

So, What is Social Media?• Social Media has been around for maybe 15 years in

one form or another but it’s only in the last 5-6 years that it’s become so very popular. Social Media contains in its very title the clue to its characteristics that its ‘social’ meaning it allows users to interact and add information to a web-based page that can be altered by users.

• It is also called ‘participatory’ media because of the very essence of its power as a tool for online participation which is very different from the post-internet usage of pre-2000 which was merely as an information source.

Ways of communicating: Flickr

• Flickr – online photo sharing website controlled by yahoo.(others include piccassa) You can build a contact book of people uploading images or following causes that will be of interest to your convivium for example, local environmental groups etc

Ways of communicating: Facebook• Facebook – arguably the most

famous and well-used of all the ‘social networking sites’ users can generate content on their personal pages (profile) as well as joining groups and becoming ‘fans’ of pages that interest them. This acts a bit like an online interest group and is separate from your personal page – you can make these pages private or public and generate events, upload photos and videos and generate discussion through the ‘wall’ you can also link this to your…

Ways of communicating: Youtube

• Youtube – online video sharing website which includes tools for webstreaming (web TV) but essentially works best for uploading your videos to share with convivium around the world who can then comment and interact. You can create your own channel…

Ways of communicating: Twitter• Twitter – micro blogging

site which allows you to ‘follow’ and be ‘followed’ by individuals and orgs who are of interest to you. At the moment slow food Liverpool is being followed by 99 people from across the world – some of these include food groups and other conivivium

Ways of communicating: Livestream + wordpress

• Livestream.com. Slow food don’t have a live stream buts it’s a useful tool which I use in my day job as a medium through which to capture and stream live events – we call these webcasts

• Wordpress is a blogging site which is ‘open source’ meaning free to use. Slow Food Liverpool use this to produce articles on our work and document through text – it basically acts as our website.

Collective Audiences – the power of the crowd!

• You may be wondering why? Why when we can e-newsletter, straight-forward letter and promotion.

New debates, strategies and over-kill of information

• A good strategy is to set up a blog, twitter, flickr and facebook page first before looking into any other platforms. You will find these are the most effective for communicating. (which we’ll do together in a bit maybe?)

• As I have said before you must be careful what you send out to your contacts, in how many rounds and be selective with the images you upload – its all about quality rather than quantity.

The technical side – what is web 2.0? And more specifically what is social

media• Web 2.0 (2004-)• Information sharing• User-centred design• Allows its users to interact with other

users an change website design.• Highly interactive and scalable

publishing – pretty easy to use…• Uses web-based technologies to

transform boradcast media monologues (one to many) in to social media monologues (many to many)

• Content consumers into content producers.

• It basically empowers the every-day layperson into a web using whizz..(if you let it!)

Social Media and Slow Food links

• www.flickr.com• www.youtube.com• www.twitter.com• www.livestream.com• www.facebook.com

• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slow-Food-UK/81364605271?ref=ts (slow food UK facebook page)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

Contacting the liverpool convivium

• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=139606432919&ref=ts

• Twitter: www.twitter.com/slowfoodliv• www.slowfoodliverpool.wordpress.com• Trine Hughes, convivium leader

slowfoodliverpool@yahoo.com• See this presentation on slideshare after the

workshop.