A beginners workshop exploring the use of social media in voluntary, community and faith based organisations. Presented by Community and Voluntary Action Tameside, in conjunction with Voluntray Action Oldham, this workshop aims to dispel some myths of the use of social media and remove some of the barriers to engaging with the major platforms.

1. A Practical Workshop
Exploring
Do Want to be
Social?

2. Introduction
Duncan Craig
Communications and Marketing Co-Ordinator
Community and Voluntary Action Tameside
@cvatameside | @vctameside
Jane Glaysher-White
Development/Information Officer
Voluntary Action Oldham
@VAOldham1 | @vcoldham
Now its your turn...

3. Learning Outcomes
Identify what social media is
Explore the importance of Social Media in the present environment
Examine various different types of social media
Identify your engagement with Social Media
Undertake an analysis of the usefulness of Social Media in your work
environment
Identify and choose what Social Media platform is right for you
How to use Social Media

4. What is Social Media?
Social media is the term used to describe social interaction through the
internet including audio, video, images and text. This includes social networking
and content-sharing. The services are mostly free to use and you don’t really
need to have any technical skills to use them.
See if you can match the description to some of the most popular social
media platforms. Lets play dominoes!

5. Social Media....
Isn’t… Is…
Replacement for traditional marketing Addition to traditional communications
An aggressive / forceful sales vehicle
A tool to converse directly with your
customers
‘Free’ Cost effective
A stand alone tool A cross-functional platform
Always easy to use Sometimes difficult to use

6. Why is Social Media Important
A great resource to reach a
new/bigger audience
It’s often FREE to use or low
cost
Can quickly be updated.
Easiest and quickest way of
getting good news out
It’s viral. People will pass
stuff on to a new audience
Sharing information
Publicising information and
events

7. Common Social Media Platforms
Yammer: Social network used for private communications with groups
and networks. Often used within organisations to share documents and
ideas.
Twitter: Social networking and ‘microblogging’ service that allows you
to answer the question ‘What are you doing?’ by sending a short
message of 140 characters.
Foursquare: Location based social network. It lets people ‘check-in’ to
places they visit using their mobile phone. Can earn points, badges and
rewards.
Facebook: Social networking site that allows you to create a
page/group which ‘friends’ can join or ‘like’. You can post messages,
add photos and create events.
YouTube: Video sharing site for uploading short videos of an event or
activity. People can comment on videos and they can be embedded in
a website.

8. Common Social Media Platforms
Tweetdeck/Hootsuite: ‘Social media dashboards’ that allow you to
manage multiple social media accounts in one place. Schedule
updates and post them to multiple places
Flickr: Photo hosting website that you can upload images to so that
people can view them. Can display your photos in different ways, such
as a slide show
Linkedin: Business related social networking site for professional
networking. Create a professional profile similar to a CV to build
connections
Podcasts: A series of audio files which could be news or events. Users
subscribe to the series and are updated automatically when a new one
is posted
RSS: Really Simple Syndication is frequently delivered updated
information you subscribe to. They are fed from websites to a place
you can read them

9. Break Time...

10. What platforms/apps do you use
personally?
What platforms/apps does your
organisation/group use?
What do you use it for personally?
What is it used for in your
organisation/group?
Who is responsible for your
personal accounts?
Who is responsible for your
organisation/groups accounts?
How Do You Use Social Media?

11. Choosing What’s Right for You!
Think about...
What is the purpose of
using this Social Media?
What is its strength?
What is its
weakness?
What opportunities
does it present?
What are the threats or
risks?

12. Practicum: Using Social Media
The best known and one of the
easiest to use
Approx 3.5 billion are registered
Millions of businesses, charities and
community groups use it to raise
profile and increase sales
Can create groups (open, closed,
secret)
Create a Page (mainly used to
promote a brand/product/service).
Not limited to characters and can
upload images etc…
Arguably has over took Facebook in
terms of active use (rather than
Zombie accounts)
Followers not ‘friends’
140 characters
All major corporations, celebrities
and groups have an account
Retweet interesting news
Link to website updates
Post images

13. Social Network Planning

14. Using Social Media
Online Distributed
Story Worksheet
(Hayes. 2008)
Developed for ‘story
telling’ and creating
new ways to tell
story’s across social
media.
News, training,
events, appeals,
fundraising.... Its all
telling stories!

15. Learning Outcomes
Identify what social media is
Explore the importance of Social Media in the present environment
Examine various different types of social media
Identify your engagement with Social Media
Undertake an analysis of the usefulness of Social Media in your work
environment
Identify and choose what Social Media platform is right for you
How to use Social Media

16. Questions...