Harnessing The Power Of The Web

Rotary PR Workshop Module 1: Harnessing the power of the Web By Julian Matthews, Trinetizen Media www.trinetizen.com Feb 22, 2009

3 stories

1: Daniela’s story

2: The WAO story

3. Jamie’s story

“It was an extremely important part of my healing process to make the story. I hope folks in Malaysia have the opportunity to make such stories for themselves. I entered the workshop intending on making a macro political analysis of violence against women, and had a four-page script. The teacher came up to me and circled the center of my script and said, this is actually your story! I couldn't believe it. But she was right. The story was specifically about my mother. What I learned is that people care more about stories when they are in multimedia format, putting them onto video actually allows some people to hear a story where they wouldn't be able to stomach having you tell them the same story sitting in front of them,” Jamie,

abuse survivor.

3 lessons about the Web

Lesson 1: It’s an emotional medium

Lesson 2: No test, no licence, no passport, no age limit

“It’s never too late to learn,” says Haji Mohamed Abu Hassan, 64-year-old retired school teacher, Kg Jana Sambungan, Kamunting. Named oldest Malaysian webmaster by fan at that time, after winning more than 35 awards for website design. Published in Golden Surfers, CNet

Case study: Scubapoint, Tioman Created a simple website for scuba diving outfit in Tioman using free tools, sweat equity  Niche site for enthusiasts can attract global customers at low cost  People prefer dealing with real people  Response time matters, answer your emails!  Customers will pay premium for specialists  Satisfied customers become your evangelists

Lesson 3: One person can make a difference

Case study: Tsunami: Dec 26, 2004

Case study: Crisis blog • In November 2004, Indrajit Samarajiva, a Canadian of Sri Lankan descent was asked to speak at lunch gathering at Colombo Regency Rotary Club, Sri Lanka to talk about blogging… • A month later, when the deadly tsunami struck, the members set up a blog reliefforsrilanka.blogspot.com and used it to raise money + coordinate donation of shelter, food, medicine to aid survivors • "Our club has been successful because we have been able to reach out to the international community through the Web site," said Chamila Wickramasinghe, who is the secretary of the club and was its first president. "You've got to be open to new technology."

Club receives award

3 questions

Is your website a billboard?

Is your website updated regularly?

Is your website useful to your own members?

Re-thinking content

COMMERCE

COMMUNITY

CONTENT

Re-thinking content

Conversation starters Connections + Context VALUE

COMMUNITY

CONTENT

25

is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. http://www.wikipedia.org

Marta Z Kagan

• • • • • • •

Blogs Microblogs Online Chat RSS Social Networks Social Bookmarks Message Boards

• • • • • • •

Podcasts Video Sharing Sites Photo Sharing Sites Virtual Worlds Webcams Widgets Wikis

(…just to name a few)

Where Is Your Audience?

Almost

12,000,000 articles (2.7m in English)

200,000,000 videos/per day

(Source: comScore, Dec 2008)

(65,000 new videos uploaded daily)

200,000,000 blogs

73% of active online users have read a blog Source: Universal McCann Comparative Study on Social Media Trends April 2008

45% have started their own blog

39% subscribe to an RSS feed

57% Have joined a social

55% have uploaded photos

83% have watched video clips

Tomorrow’s members are today’s

“digital natives.”

The old communication model was a

monologue.

The new communication model is a

dialogue.

“In22008, if you’re not on a009 social networking site, you’re not on the Internet.” IAB Platform Status Report: User Generated Content, Social Media, And Advertising - An Overview, April 2008

Why use social media?  COMMUNICATE: Start conversations, engage people, build loyalty, provide insider views, promote upcoming events.  SHARE: Pics, videos, audio recordings can be shared easily, more visual/auditory.  FASTER: More flexible than traditional press releases, can post stuff quicker, useful in a crisis, can go viral.  POWERFUL: Can raise funding globally, can reach wider audience, can tap experts.

“The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet,” William Gibson, author of Neuromancer; coined term “cyberspace” in 1984

(Attribution: Some slides were updated from a presentation by Marta Z Kagan)