Tee Morris presented an entertaining and informative seminar last week for LIANZA, held at the Kate Edgar Information Commons at Auckland University. Toiling up the side of Albert Park (fondly remembering the student rep who promised to put escalators in if elected to president), I wondered if I’d actually learn anything new. I did learn that I’d written the room number down wrong so had to fluff about finding a real person to get directions from. Once I got there though, I did enjoy the presentation.
The topic was Anti-social media or what not to do in a social networking environment.
The importance of being honest & authentic
Blog readers have little time for fake blogs. Twitterers have no patience for tweets that do not give opportunity for conversation. The importance of being real is a trend that I have noticed for some time now. I was first alerted to it by Michael Stephens from Tame the Web. Being honest includes limiting posts/tweets promoting your product/website. I think National Library does this quite well with their #breaktweets promoting images from their collection but interacting with their followers who comment on their tweets.
The importance of planning
Podcasts in particular require planning in order for their content to remain relevant. I suspect blog posts on professional type blogs do too. Our library does produce podcasts providing guidance on topics such as catalogue searching, but they are not produced on a regular basis. Our purpose for their provision is different to podcasts that Tee M produces though.
Communication not broadcasting
Tee points out that Twitter is changing the way we communicate. Folks who are driven by how many followers they get are not “getting it”. Twitter is about building a community, not how many followers you have and this connects with the theme of being yourself. The Twitter fuore over using @vodafonenz’s identity for a marketing promotion is a great example of a community built and their reaction to the change in flavour of a Twitter identity.
Thanks Tee – I enjoyed the seminar.