Digital Trail

This fantastic video by @Documentally really gets to the heart of what People-to-People can mean for you. Scott Gould’s passion is evident in everything he does. I know that he would far rather shape and orchestrate the Like Minds events around these principles and bring in the speakers he believes can best befit the ideology but I would like to see Scott himself take to the stage to present his model for community based connectivity at the next event*. 

For me, the real thing about this is that it isn’t smoke and mirrors and evangelical posturing that bully you into getting caught up in the moment or Scott’s extreme passion or Trey Pennington’s non –stop smiling; these are real achievable principles for any business, charity or organisation and rather than sticking a hefty premium on sharing the methodologies and strategies and how to apply them, there are a happy bunch of Like Minds people who want to enable everyone with access for all. As one of the official live bloggers of the event, it was extremely satisfying to be part of the process of connecting more people who could not be there.  

The connections we make with the few or the many have depth if used correctly and social communication is the enabler of better community connectivity.

*Incidentally, everyone has an opinion on the next event. ‘The keynotes should be longer’; ‘Don’t change a thing’, ‘The panel discussions were hit and miss’ and ‘The lunches were brilliant’. For me, the event achieves a great deal in as short an amount of time as is available and beyond stretching to a two-day event where we all stay in chalets at Centre Parcs, I am not sure what the solution may be. If nothing else, it is a nice headache for an organiser to have.

Community has been given a new lease of life online. As soon as you hop on to a network of people you are more than just connected. Community offers a range of elements, from support to strength in numbers.

Too often people can fear the idea of a business community because they think that being active within one will mean revealing too many secrets, especially in a community that contains rival companies. From the offset this can create a strained atmosphere, a stifling of group creativity and also, cliques.

A recent example, allbeit offline, of a barista introducing a dis-loyalty card in London’s trendy (Obligatory prefix) Shoreditch, is testament to businesses uniting together for the greater good.

Like Minds is proving to be a bit of a social change movement, with a lofty aim of generating £100,000 of revenue for the City of Exeter and in doing so proving the often questioned ROI from social media. The conference will bring great benefit to more then just the attendees and in turn will make a great gesture of support to the local business community. Other conferences do nothing or simply make a token gesture of planting a tree to offset carbon emissions.

Coming together for social good is something that social media is uniquely set up for. The boundaries are reduced, the red tape of charity is snipped, and things just get done. Take the Twestival organisation, initially, a near impromptu coming together of Twitter users in a handful of cities hosting a simultaneous putting-faces-to-avatars meetup, doubling up as fun-filled fundraising event. In this its second year, it is a more coordinated affair and because of the exponential growth of smartphones and users of Twitter, it will be a more powerful force for good. Bristol’s Twestival takes place on Thursday 25 March.

I am wary that the role of social media is overplayed in circumstances. Social media is an enabler and nothing more but for charitable and community gain it can certainly get things going.

How do you work within a community and what opportunities has community presented you?

Consider this–social media–all bells and whistles and caught up in a storm of hype and false industry. Been knocking around for a while finding its feet and having many people shout about what it is but where is it going?

There is a lot of talk and trumpet blowing by those who use social media about just how great it is. This is dull, I’m guilty of it myself. If we are to take this highly polished conker and to make it last, it is imperative to talk about the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ in order to defend its role and to gather a pool of wisdom on how best to utilise it.

You can varnish and buff up a Conker to make it look good and if your the kid in the playground you can talk it up as you take it into the challenge ahead in a Conker fight. You can blow the trumpet of social media all you want and talk it up as a great thing but that won’t keep it up there or concrete it as a true marketing practice of value and return. Just because it looks good and on the surface does not mean it has a soft and vulnerable core when the challenges come in.

I invited Brrism member Nigel Legg to offer his insight into the matter of how social media can offer value for businesses looking to get in on the act and where it fits in the marketing mix. Based on his expertise as a social media practitioner who researches its nuances and practical applications, Nigel said:

“The only way you are going to be able to measure ROI is with numbers – so it is vital that you decide what numbers you want and how you are going to measure them before you start. And the appropriate metrics for a biscuit company may well not be appropriate for a construction firm – the metrics will depend on who you are, where you are, and what you do.”

In October there is an exciting conference on the horizon that has set it’s stall out from the start in saying it will focus on the ‘How’ and less so on the ‘What’. Of particular and crucial focus is the look at return of investment to be had from social media.

I shall be in attendance at the ‘Like Minds‘ event in Exeter on Friday 16th October and will report back on the ‘How’ and we will see if we can get this sweet social media nut flourishing into a long term practice with true value and purpose.

I think it is very true that as social media users, the honeymoon period is over and the ‘What’ is a known entity. The real way to achieve longevity is to suss the ‘How’ and to use it to supplement marketing practices, not replace them.