Lessons from Reporters - by Patrick Thornton on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 11:21 - 0 Comments

Social Media isn’t a Website Plug-in it’s Something You Do

From Robin Hamman: "Social media isn’t something you add to a website, it’s something you do. When I look back over the social media projects I’ve been involved in over the years, it’s obvious that the key variable upon which success, or failure, is dependent is to what extent to which social media has actually been integrated into the overall editorial proposition."

As I’ve been saying: Once you have started a network – it has to become part of your daily work routine. If it’s something you just pop in and out of every now and then – expect it to fail.

Here are some great examples from Robin.

clipped from www.cybersoc.com

Works: A chat room where the presenter dips in and out of the conversation, reads comments from the chat on air, uses the chat room to actually drive part of the programme works because the effort expended in hosting the chat is well spent.

Doesn’t Work:  A stand alone chat room fails because someone with better stuff to do has to sit there and moderate it.

Works: A focused, topical, editorially relevant discussion off the back of a piece of content can add value to that content for participants and non-participants alike.

Doesn’t Work: An open ended discussion space where participants set the agenda, chit-chat about what they want and chit-chat drifts far away from the editorial of the site or page does little, if anything, to add value for non-participants.

Doesn’t Work: A facebook group that simply tells audience members what they already know or can find out easily – the time and content of the programme.

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Patrick Thornton is the editor and lead writer of BeatBlogging.Org. He is @jiconoclast on Twitter.
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