L I B R A R Y A P P S

Module 1.

Reflection on how social media creates a new life for information, generating flows and conversations between businesses and customers, governments and citizens, even teachers and students.

Gary Hayes (2008) reiterates the importance in creating a social media campaign in engaging with a community, by conversing and being  consistent with responses, confirming renown “influencer” Charlene Li’s (2010) podcast, where she provided a good angle from the workplace environment in how to engage and to create a culture of sharing and to “repeat, repeat, repeat.” I also appreciated Li’s opinion on how an organisation must be prepared to "have a dialogue and not just be a promotional page!" It was heartening that she too still reads a lot of traditional media, which I thought I was guilty of in this web 2.0 world and that it is okay to decide on the limits of how much social media you need to be involved with.gue and not just be a promotional page”.  I have come across many Facebook accounts such as this where content and conversation is lacking by the community.  Even if the persistent and imaginative manager of the social media medium is creating questions and trying to engage their community by asking questions to stimulate usage.  My workplace university Facebook page is an example of this and maybe it is early days but where is the community? Are students just still conversing with their friends and don’t want to seem a little exposed by engaging with the frontline university Facebook account. How light should the conversation be and how heavy?  Gary Hayes’s (2008) presentation touches on how effective social network marketing can come from understanding a particular community, knowing how they operate and the need to motivate them by not just throwing them the latest cool technology application, but to “learn the culture and language” before involvement.

In Li’s (2010) podcast it was heartening to hear that she still reads traditional media because that is what her customer base mainly reads.  I have guilt still reading papers such as The Australian and the Financial Review in this Web 2.0 world!  Li also admits that she sticks to a strict social media diet that it is okay to decide on the limits of how much social media you need to be involved withand that it is okay to decide on what social media you don’t need to be involved with, admitting she uses Twitter for certain followers and reads only a few blogs. Now I don’t feel so bad in even filtering my Facebook account! Please excuse me while I now do some spring cleaning in my Twitter, and Bloglovin accounts!

In searching for more meaning for what social media creates between people I looked up both well known and respected human “Brands” on the subject Tim Berners-Lee and Don Tapscott.  The latter  expressed how social media is not about just going online but that it has become a “social production”.  He says that social networking has opened up collaboration and the capability for people and organisations to innovate and produce. However he stresses that first comes integrity and trust before we collaborate, stating that “openness is about collaboration.”   After reading his transcript I was heartened by the direction he thinks social media is going. Tapscott (2012) holds hope that “this smaller, networked, open world that our kids inherit might be a better one, and that this new age of networked intelligence could be an age of promise fulfilled.”

Tim Berners-Lee (2009) simply described social networking sites as taking data (our lives, knowledge and experiences) and using it, or “re-purposing it” or adding it to other data to make data more interesting. He explains that “that is what linked data is all about, it’s about people doing their bit to product a little bit, and it all connects.”

Evan Williams (2009) one of the founders of Twitter states that when you give people easier ways to share information, more good things happen. From these readings it seems possible that through social networking a new way of revealing data can give new life to information.

It was very hard to extract myself away from the TED website, I kept digging deeper and deeper.  Very addictive!

References:

Berners-Lee, T. (Presenter). (2009, February). TedGlobal. Retreived from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

Gary Hayes. 2008. The Future of Social Media Entertainment. Retrieved  from http://www.personalizemedia.com/the-future-of-social-media-entertainment-slides/

Schwartzman, E. (Producer). (2010, September 14). Selling Social Media Strategy to Leadership with Charlene Li [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://ontherecordpodcast.com/pr/otro/selling-social-media-boss.aspx

Tapscott, D. 2012. (Presenter). Four principles for the open world. TedGlobal. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/don_tapscott_four_principles_for_the_open_world_1.html

Williams, E. (Presenter). (2009, February). Evan Williams on listening to Twitter users. TedGlobal. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/evan_williams_on_listening_to_twitter_users.html