“Using Social Media in your organization: Examples and Strategies”. Presentation

At the last meeting of the Training Directions Network, Silvia Bethencourt who is the Community Information Coordinator at TRI Community Exchange run a presention titled: “Using Social Media in your organization: Examples and Strategies”.

The value of this presentation is to put in context how the Community and Welfare sector can get positive outcomes from adopting these social media tools and the main challenges NGOs have to deal with.

This is a brief summary of the Silvia’s presentation. You can download a copy of it by clicking the link attached to this blog entry:

· The presentation will be focused on two tools: TWITTER and FACEBOOK
· Current users are moving from Web 1.0 (the information portal) to Web 3.0 which includes smart phones, notebooks and IPADs.
· According to the Nielsen 2010 – Social Media Report: Facebook is the dominant online social networking in Australia. Twitter users have increased exponentially in the last two years and mobile social networking is gaining traction

Issues that come out from using Facebook and Twitter
- Community workers are time and resource poor
- There is a steep learning curve for the sector
- Social media is not free – it needs a time commitment

Questions you need to raise before using these new technologies
- Do we want to expand our reach (clients, networks)
- Do we need to connect with others?
- Do we want to share resources?
- Do we want to share our stories?

Our sector is good at telling stories and networking. So social media will help us to expand that expertise and experience. Social media is not only about technology is also about relationships.

You can obtain a PDF copy of the presentation by clicking this link:

http://www.cnet.ngo.net.au/images/stories/tri_presentation_blacktown_community_services_conference.pdf

MF