(GBR/USA) Another day at MediaSnackers HQ with Mark and Matt to discuss and develop the forward plan for working with our new Pennsylvania-based theatre client, Bristol Riverside Theatre.
Related post : Bristol Riverside Theatre Part#1
(WORLD) There are several insightful lists regarding the challenges and hurdles relating to social media adoption for different types of organisations and companies (a couple of examples : 10 Common Objections, 50 Small Hurdles, 5 Biggest Challenges, and 5 Challenges).
Juicy and salient stuff.
From our experience of working cross sector with schools, youth services, charities, marketeers, advertisers, retailers, theatres, music venues, consortium groups etc. (you get the idea)—here’s our list on the BIGGEST challenge to social media being used:
1. THE PEOPLE.
People set corporate priorities.
People create the policies and strategies.
People allocate training budgets.
People shape the infrastructure.
People start companies / organisations.
People adopt social media, not companies / organisations.
This is our first principle of understanding how to create change using social media.
(WORLD) We’ve (well, I’ve) finally got round to rejigging our services pdf which lists all our offerings and details our approach etc.
So what’s new:
Internal Events—currently in talks with a couple of clients to deliver our new service offering (which we did recently for BT)
the Consulting section—beefed out because we’ve done and been doing a lot more of this recently (definitely becoming more of a focus for us)
the whole look—spruced up to reflect our recent website relaunch plus some juicy accompanying links to reflect our pedigree.
What’s not new:
prices—we haven’t raised them in over two years (even though we’ve recently applied to go VAT registered).
Click below to download and let us know if you like it, it works and / or you find any spelling mistakes.
(GBR) Matt, Mark & I are in London today working with our ongoing music/arts/cultural-venue client, Kings Place.
The focus today is very much on reviewing past and current social media practices plus getting more strategic going forward.
Related Kings Place posts
(GBR) MediaSnackers has applied to be VAT registered.
This means three things:
there’s more forms to fill in—boo to forms
we’re making more money—a monumental thanks to all those who bought our services
we have to pay more money—the Revenue & Customs people are now our quarterly beneficiary
The final point above usually means a price rise as some companies pass this extra cost onto their clients / customers.
We’ve decided to try and get more work to offset this cost rather than bump the prices up.
We’re nice like that.
(GBR) The MediaSnackers Alumni are a growing number of past clients that could just disappear into the ether if we didn’t catch up with them. We decided to hunt down and grill them to find out what difference their training had made in the way they work professionally and personally. This months thoughts and insights are from Debs Story:
What’s your role, who you work for, and what sort of things do you do?
My name is Debs Storey and I am the Marketing Assistant at Lakeside Arts Centre.
I Support the Marketing Manager in every aspect of Marketing for our year round programme of events. This includes; visual arts, drama, dance, comedy, music and our annual festivals—Chinese New Year celebrations, the International Children’s Theatre and Dance Festival, and LUSTRE—the Midlands premier contemporary craft makers’ market. I am solely responsible for our website and online presence.
Its been a week or so since you have been drenched in the MediaSnackers ‘way’, what did you learn from the experience?
Where do I start!? I am very excited about new media/social media and evolving technologies, particularly in relation to the opportunities they provide within a marketing context. My first experience with MediaSnackers was attending a breakout session at the Arts Marketing Association Annual Conference 2008 led by DK. It was so inspiring to see all these tools we could be utilising demonstrated live before our eyes by a very enthusiastic DK. I went straight back to the office and started using Animoto and Issuu and investigated the possibility of a blog.
Having had a taster of what is ‘out there’ I attended a day course run by MediaSnackers (Mark and DK) to gain a hands on and deeper understanding of these tools. I have since set up a blog on Blogger, joined Flickr, YouTube and Twitter, embedded Googlemaps/street, and developed our Facebook account. I am also contributing to a cultural Wiki and WordPress blog and have set up RSS Google Alerts to stream information regarding Lakeside Arts Centre to my email. This is a massive development in Lakeside’s online presence and in my personal development. I have been completely converted from technophobe to techno—geek and I believe the enthusiasm of the MediaSnackers team has inspired this.
How have other members of the team/organisation, that didn’t attend the course, received your new techniques?
When I return from the MediaSnackers courses I’m absolutely buzzing from the new things I have learnt—I can’t wait to tell the whole office! Colleagues can see that I am very excited about the new tools I am using and they in turn are thrilled at the results.
What has been the biggest and easiest change to make in the way that you work?
This is hard to answer with just one thing—there have been many big and easy developments. I think it has to be learning how to use and embed YouTube footage into our website. This has opened up endless opportunities.
Has there been any difficulty in implementing these new approaches?
Some of the tools I have been shown how to use have taken me a while to get to grips with, such as the different types of blogs. However—all it needs is a little time and experimentation, which is why I always set up blogs in my own name to test things out first.
What future projects do you have planned which utilise social media?
I have many plans for the future but they will take some development first. The most attainable in the short term is to create a group of ambassadors on Facebook.
Thank you for your time, Debs Storey.
(WORLD) We probably weren't the first to apply the 'snacking' metaphor to media, although there seems to be a growing adoption in terms of describing the new youth-media landscape—we thought it would be good to keep an eye on the growing MediaSnacking meme:
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. The conference started in the mid-’80s and has become a networking event of sorts for the world’s best and brightest. Dozens of speakers give presentations of about 20 minutes each—the perfect duration for a juicy “media snack.”
From a little news agency called CNN
FriendFeed, Facebook and Twitter work better for “media snacking” because I can filter results by number of people talking about each topic. I can also hold a conversation with a large group of people on each topic, and help promote the blog I’m reading much more than I can in a Reader.
How RSS is coming second to real-time web.
Media snacking is a new trend about watching snips of videos or other content based on your whims at the moment. #womma
Tweeted by hyperdrivei
#womma Rise of the iPhone – Covergence at large. So many great apps. Many brands getting smart. Increased trend: media snacking. Popups suck
Tweeted by mvellandi
@kyleplacy Not to bad. Media snacking on Twitter :) What’s shaking with you Mr Indiana?
Tweeted by fruchter
it’s definitely a trend on the rise. I think people like to be “open” with the other ear…especially for media snacking.
Tweeted by danrace
currently running through wireframes …mediasnacking + workin’ away ..
Tweeted by loususi
(GBR) At the very swanky Hellidon Lakes Hotel Golf and Country Club in Daventry delivering a two masterclass sessions at the BT Expedite Retail Client Conference 09.
Here’s the full conference itinerary.
MediaSnackers make social media real and exciting, DK and the team display an infectious and profound knowledge of the on-line world.
After an hour or so with DK, even the most fearful technology laggard will be blogging, tweeting and interacting with the other half of the planet who now live blended virtual and real lives.
And you’ll also be doing your business a favour too—Mediasnackers shows that most of the tools you need are no-cost or low-cost.
Gerald Maidment, Head of Marketing, BT Expedite and BT Fresca
(WORLD) Just a quick message to say that we’ve got together a little video to present to those receiving The Web Makes Me Feel cards. The cards will be going out during May, so anyone waiting shall receive! We’re busy licking stamps and checking things are all going well in the background ready for the information to return and get processed.
View the informational video and learn more about The Web Makes Me Feel:
That’s all there is to it, much better than having a bunch of dull instructions to read! Any questions for us? Let us know in the comments, aaand… there’s still plenty of time for volunteers to get involved, just raise your hands in the comments or contact us direct and we’ll get the dialogue started.
View all The Web Makes Me Feel updates
Keep up to date with all things MediaSnackers and The Web Makes Me Feel by following us on Twitter
(WORLD) April played a nasty trick on my brain. The stats show a massive dip in traffic, enough to scare me and starting hacking through calendars, code and past conversations to figure what on earth could have happened to effect the site statistics so dramatically. What had I done or not done? Was the site broke? Did I place some code online that made the site inaccessible? Had the world discovered something crazy about MediaSnackers, that meant we were not flavour of the month?
Something happened. I just needed to figure it out.
Tracking through the stats, I’m looking for patterns. April looks OK, just like March, nothing changed, if anything it went better than normal—with the DeviantArt podcast racking up a bunch of hits, Sir Ken Robinsons Podcast was still driving traffic our way, and the click throughs from Twitter were still happening like viral clockwork. However everything had taken a dive. It’s as if, everyone, everywhere changed.
Then it clicked.
The Easter holidays happened.
I’m not a newbie at this web development lark, so I shouldn’t have been caught out like this but I guess, when you’re continually looking at something, you can easily miss the obvious. One of the biggest shifts in user activity on any website, in any industry, that no tracking software can pinpoint, is a change in offline activity, in other words: human behaviour. I’m talking holidays. When the sun comes out and when the kids break up from school—these are almost impossible to trace statistically. Unlike when a popular media figure dies, where you can follow the links back to news sites, when the sun shines, there’s no linkback to traffic. People suddenly stop using their computers and, well, go outside.
So if you like me are scratching your head and wondering what ‘went wrong’, forget it… think about what went right, we all stopped staring at our screens for a week or so. We went outside.
Its that simple. *phew :)
Related post : Real Life Has More Bandwidth
We consult, develop and deliver training, manage and host internal events plus speak at events and conferences
Check out our juicy stuff: vodcasts, podcasts, and our extras page, all by clicking the icons above. Also you can sign up to our monthly email digest below.
Our partner service for executives
Our little publication
Our pro-bono project from 2009
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Working with MediaSnackers has been an enlightening and energising experience! Our one-day session helped us to better understand how young people are using social networking and digital content creation sites. We also learned how to collaborate more effectively with our colleagues using online tools.
Since MediaSnackers took over one of our meeting 'pods' for the day, we've developed the confidence to begin blogging - and we've agreed to meet regularly in future as a peer group to swap tips and rejuvenate our enthusiasm.
The Childrens media conference was stormed by freshly trained MediaSnackers Journalists to document the event...
MediaSnackers is proudly fueled by WordPress. Copyright © MediaSnackers 2006-2011, all rights reserved.
