This is the presentation I gave at the Extension.org annual conference in St. Louis on October 22, 2009. The audience takeaway was that, although scary and unknown, there are many great examples of organizations like their own using the social web to go further...and I also threw in some more radical stuff to open up the possibilities.
11. the results
• 10.4 Million views
• 79% of 4,615 photos marked as ‘favorite’
• 15,000 new contacts for Library of Congress
• 7,166 comments left on 2,873 photos by 2,562 unique
Flickr accounts
• 67,176 tags added by 2,518 unique Flickr users
• <25 instances removed because inappropriate
• their press/blogger coverage was through the roof
Report: For the Common Good, October 30, 2008
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final_summary.pdf
12. why it succeeded
• the Library of Congress erred on the side of open
(even the licensing)
• they thought of it as an ‘experiment’ rather than a
well-formed strategy
• they trusted and let go of control - they embraced
the chaos
• they looked at it as a long-term partnership
18. 600,000 visits PER DAY
(that made fivethirtyeight.com the 2nd most popular political site of 2008)
(in <5 months, rising out of obscurity)
(run initially by ONE guy)
19. why?
• Silver offered up something valuable
• the site was born out of a passion - first for
numbers, then baseball, then politics
• these numbers were not only accurate, but they
also simplified very complex information
• Silver listened to his audience. He interacted,
responded and tweaked as necessary
21. the law of mashups
• no matter how much you lock stuff down, it
will be taken and repurposed.
• you should be so lucky as to have your content
remixed. If it isn’t remixed, worry about the
relevance/interestingness of your work.
33. what are the benefits of mashups
1. Onramps & Offramps: more ways for people to
interact with and consume your content (traffic
from Twitter’s API is 10x twitter.com)
2. Creativity: those projects you would never get
to in a million years (or think of) are created!
3. Exposure: the more fun the mashup, the more
likely you will get some press from it
34. most popular mashup apis
• Google Maps >1800 mashups recorded
• Flickr >500 mashups recorded
• YouTube >415 mashups recorded
• Amazon >315 mashups recorded
• Twitter >275 mashups recorded
37. stats on fold.it
• Study found folding teams do much better than
individuals
• >100,000 players in under 1 year
• A 13 year old non-scientist (no training) won
the folding competition
42. turn the bullhorn around
• stop being ‘experts’ and start interacting
• watch, listen and learn from what your
audience needs
• collect data on what your readers share and
interact with and tweak
43. become part of the community
• become more collaborative and open
• discuss articles in progress with twitter
followers, facebook fans, etc.
• read and link to blogs that are on topic
• really figure out what people are interested in/
talking about by being social on the SNs
44. create amazing experiences
• create information out of passion
• simplify complex stories (infographics, stats,
etc.)
• inject more fun into your content
• create social interactions between readers
• let people personalize their experience
45. embrace the chaos
• let go of control; offer APIs, widgets, etc.
• get experimental! (i.e. try things without
knowing the results beforehand)
• learn from other industries and the successes of
the hyper-viral
• put a human face on your product
46. find your higher purpose
• think customer centrically: put your audience’s
success at the core of every decision you make
• get behind the passions of the community; or
• promote something bigger than your own work
(equal access to education?)
• get involved in your local community events
47. there are many more reasons
to celebrate
than fear the social web
49. tara ‘missrogue’ hunt
author, The Whuffie Factor
http://www.horsepigcow.com
http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com
p. 514-679-2951
e. horsepigcow@gmail.com
t. twitter.com/missrogue