Robert Ouimet

Bigsnig Media | digital content

EDABC Presentation on Social Media

I had the pleasure of being invited to present at the Annual Economic Development Association of British Columbia Conference in Osoyoos on June 7th, 2010.

They asked me to speak to the 140 delegates about social media, so that they could get a better understanding of how social networking fits for an association like EDABC.

The conference was held at Spirit Ridge Vineyard Conference Centre in Osoyoos – the setting couldn’t be more inspiring.  The entire complex is nestled into the landscape – behind it the dramatic craggy cliffs, and in front, vineyards sloping down to the lake.  The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was the sound of crickets, and the cry of eagles soaring above.

For this online version of the presentation, I’ve condensed things quite a bit and removed the video vignettes I use in the live presentation.  It runs about 25 minutes.

[flashvideo filename=”http://bigsnit.com/edabc/EDABC_presentation.flv” /]

Here are some links I spoke about in the presentation:

If you’re interested in having me speak to your organization please email me.

I also do workshops to help jump-start your organization into the world of social networking.

Content Drives Successful Social Media

I first started working as a journalist in 1976 in Calgary.  I’d been working in radio for a few years, but when I moved to CHQR Calgary in 1976, I became a full-on news reporter, working ‘the street’.

The tools of the my trade were my 1965 Mustang with a giant Motorola 2-way radio strapped under the dash, a pager, a Sony cassette recorder and a bag full of spare batteries.

1976 - self portrait -|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- 2010 - photo by Kris Krug

Stories were my business – and on a good day I’d cover a couple of press conferences, stop by city hall or the police department (the cop shop), and I’d pick up one or two more stories by doing the rounds.

If the newsroom got hold of a good story they needed me to cover, they’d page me.  My beeper would go off and I’d have to find a pay phone to call back to the station.  I’d write my stories long hand on a steno pad, or if I was close to city hall, would pop in there where we had a desk and a typewriter I could use.

Filing stories meant cracking open a phone headset, and with 2 alligator clips, ‘patching in’ my cassette deck audio output to the phone wiring so I could feed clips back to the station.  Then I’d file my story over the phone while they recorded it at the other end.

It’s no surprise that in those days, we didn’t spend a lot of time talking about the technology of delivering the story.  We spent all of our time talking about ‘the story’ itself.

Flash forward to 2010.

I now have a huge collection of digital tools, both software and hardware, that make my 1976 toolset look ridiculously archaic.

These days, it seems to me we’re always talking about the technology.

And why not, it’s exciting.

Particularly in the social networking sphere where things are developing fast and furious.  But it’s easy to get lost in the conversation about the technology, and forget the point.  What are you there to talk about?  What stories are we actually going to tell with all these new tools?

One of the first things I tell clients is that for business, a social media strategy is actually a content strategy.  It’s about opening up and telling the stories about your product, your company, and your employees – really about anything that someone might be interested in learning about.  Interestingly, often this kind of content isn’t found on the company’s own web site.

The second thing I tell clients?

Stories talk back.  Social media is about engagement. Sure it’s ok to tell people about your products of what you’ve got on sale, but you also have to engage in the conversation.  The analogy I use is that it’s like the customer service desk, not the bulletin board.

I encourage my clients to get involved with social media – but – with a couple of key pieces in place. First, we spend some time thinking and planning the kind of stories they intend to share.  Second, that they understand that social media isn’t   ‘set and forget’; they need to be engaged in a meaningful conversation in order for it to provide meaningful results.

I wouldn’t for a minute go back to the dark ages of 1976. I love my digital studio and suite of distribution tools. I love knowing there’s something new coming at any moment.

I would, however, encourage you to remember that without ‘the story’ none of it means very much.

Oh.

And I would take the Mustang back.

—–

thanks to kk+ for the 2010 photo!

Reaching New Audiences

Digital content is really a collection of things. More and more, I find myself using them in conjunction with one another, building a series of communications channels that work in different ways, and often reaching different people.

twitterTwitter.

I’m doing quite a lot of work with Twitter now on behalf of clients and on my own websites. I’m using it primarily to:

  • augment posts and keep the site active
  • build (extend) audience

Twitter messages are short – 140 characters – but can link to longer stories as well.

So, it’s particularly good at sending out quick blasts of info like events, updates, and special offers. It’s also great for posting something that might not warrant a full article, but you still want to mention.

Twitter is really helpful in building your community because of the way it connects a variety of people who might not even know about you (through other people who ‘follow’ your twitter feed).

The short story is, I’m really pleased at how effective it is in spreading the word and building community.

If this is something you’re interested in, let me know and we can talk about how it can serve your goals. Fees are based on time spent creating and sending ‘Tweets’ and managing the Twitter account for you.

You can see my full personal twitter feed at twitter.com/bigsnit and you’ll see a selection of my most recent “tweets” in the right hand sidebar of this page.

Facebook “Pages”

You may have a personal Facebook page, and know how for some people, it’s a key piece in keeping in touch with friends and family.facebook_seadragon

While Facebook isn’t open to the world in the same way a web page is, the fact that it’s a ‘friend to friend’ community makes it extremely powerful, and its usage continues to grow despite detractors who thought it would become passé.

Now you can have a Facebook page for your business.

The functionality is similar to a personal page.  You show up in Facebook search, and Facebook members can become ‘Fans’ of your page.  It’s also a handy place to list things like events, and of course you can link back to your web page.

LIke the Twitter feeds, I’m now managing Facebook pages and content on behalf of a number of clients. If this is of interest to you, please let me know and we can talk about how it can work for you.

Video

Even though traditional TV viewing numbers are down, I seem to be doing more and more video these days. This isn’t too surprising considering that people still consume a huge amount of video – it’s just that now they are watching it online at places like YouTube and SurfTheChannel.

basicgov_home

Authenticity is something consumers value more highly then ever.  Videos give you an opportunity to  tell your company’s story and to bring people ‘behind the scenes’.

They’re also a terrific way to show people ‘how to’ do almost anything.

Email me if you’re interested.

You’ll find an example of a simple “how to” I did recently for BasicGov.com on their home page.

Recent Community Activity

NVOCA: This week I was invited to be part of a group of people sharing ideas with the North Vancouver Office of Cultural Affairs. It’s a fairly serious sounding organization, but in fact, is staffed by a great bunch of people who are working hard to bring the North Shore’s incredible arts community into the limelight. I’m looking forward to seeing how things unfold over the next few months as they start reaching out into the community.

LoCoBC: In October I was one of the presenters at the launch event for LoCo BC. They’re a new network for small and medium businesses in BC. I put together some screencasts of the organizer and one of the main presenters – you’ll find that on the VanGoGreen website.

brainpicker_ituntes_300Just for Fun

I always have a few side projects going on, where I try stuff out and play around.

I firmly believe that ‘doing’ is better than endlessly ‘talking about doing’.

Here’s the latest, called BrainPicker.

Screencasts for BasicGov now on YouTube

I’ve just finished some video work for BasicGov, a really interesting Vancouver based company that’s addressing the needs of small and medium sized local government all over North America.
20090504_basicgov1-sm
These folks are clever.

Using an SaaS (Software as a Service) model, they’re providing a package of admin and organizational tools to local governments.

Typically, these tools are only available through expensive enterprise software – and the little guys find themselves making do with patched together solutions for tracking things like building permits , code enforcement, or planning. BasicGov’s approach seems even more relevant given the current economy.

What these guys have done is distill the key services required and created a web-based solution. Their clients have no technology overhead to deal with, they pay on monthly subscription basis, so they can start without spending heaps of cash, and all they need in place is an internet connection and a browser.

The goal of this project was to provide a high-level overview of the suite of products – essentially an introduction to the concept of SaaS without ever using the acronym, and how these products help solve specific challenges faced by small governments.

BasicGov, wisely, is using YouTube as a key platform to distribute these videos.

It’s fitting, considering their own model.

Just like their own service, using YouTube allows them to get all the benefits of a large scale distribution platform, with zero overhead. The idea is to use the videos as an introduction to the services, not as a ‘how to’ per se – though we may do some of those later.

Creating the videos gave me an interesting insight into their product as well. The team sat down with me and walked though each of the 3 key modules. I took notes, but mostly I was just trying to get oriented. I’ve never worked in local government, so a lot of the details were new to me.

Often with this type of software, a casual observer (me) will find it difficult to retrace their way through the various functions. I was surprised when I logged on back at my office, and discovered I was able to work my way through all the pieces with ease. Which of course was one of the goals BasicGov laid out when they started.

PRODUCTION

We worked through an iterative process, using storyboards to identify key screens and copy.

I often use Final Draft A/V for this kind of thing, but in this case, I opted for Story Board Quick. I like being able to generate HTML and FLASH versions of the boards – I work virtually most of the time and it makes sharing the info with the client quick. I also strip out the copy and provide the client with a clean copy deck – often this is the easiest place for them to identify changes.

For screen capture, I knew I wanted something other than Camtasia. It’s not really a Mac or PC thing, I work with both (I do all my audio on PC). Given that I planned on editing on Final Cut at high resolution, I wanted something clean and lean that made it easy for me to get the screens I wanted, with the zoom factor I wanted, etc.

I opted for I Show U HD. It plays nice with Mac and was rock solid. It was a real bonus being able to select from a variety of resolutions and frame rates – I imported all my clips directly to FCP.

Through the process I created rough cuts for the client to review. These I provided to them in Flash Video – using Adobe’s CS4 media encoder. I was then able to load them up on a server for them to grab and review at their convenience. What this meant was that we were able to move through more iterations faster than would have been the case with ‘in person’ reviews.

Once we finalized the copy of flow, I created a ‘finished’ voice track to replace my working tracks. I record all my audio on a Sound Devices 702T through a 422 field mixer. Then I haul the audio into Adobe Audition for editing, and master with T-Racks 24, then haul the mastered files back into Final Cut.

Because BasicGov wanted to take advantage of YouTube’s HD options, everything was captured at 1280 x 720, and the YouTube versions, both regular and HD, looks great. You can see them here:

The team at BasicGov was a real delight to work with, and I hope we’ll do some more projects together soon.

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Podcast Example: New Media BC

Podcasts can serve a variety of purposes, so the important thing is to be clear about goals before starting production.

New Media BC is an industry association for new media professionals. Their goal with this podcast was to extend the organization’s  brand, and at the same time, get people excited about the kind of  keynote speakers they attract at their annual conference.

So, in this case, I produced a mini ‘show’ for them, covering a variety of topics meant to highlight NMBC’s personality, its position in the industry, and the kind of guest speakers who’d be at the annual VidFest conference (now called Vancouver Digital Week)

 

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