This is my half of the presentation on social networking and its value to archives and archivists. Also presented with a case study a small (1) archivist shop located at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
Charles H. Wright Museum Lisa M. Rabey, Wayne State University Presented at AMIA: November 5, 2009 Presentation available: http://slideshare.net/biblyotheke
online and visit 200 web pages in one day—which is a simple task when you count email, blogs, Youtube, etc.—you'll see on average 490,000 words; War & Peace was only 460,000 words.”* *http://www.utne.com/How-Many-Words-on-the-Internet-5717.aspx
forged between historical institution and patrons. Raises awareness of the collections outside of the local community. Improves communications with existing audience while simultaneously, reaching out to new, untapped audience.
personal websites where the proprietor maintained an ongoing journal consisting typically of commentary, news, opinion and reviews in a conversational tone. Now wider definition refers to mainly websites, regardless if personal or corporate, that provide information in a conversational tone rather than staid journalistic or academic style. Lifestream: A chronologically ordered list of social networking activity on a single webpage or application. Mashup: When plural technologies are utilized in a single application. Microblogging: Referring to sites like Twitter or Identi.ca where the user is limited to 140 characters or less per published piece of content. Podcasting: Audio or video version of the blog content. RSS: Real Simple Syndication. In short, RSS readers pull the headlines from the entries on your blog in a single location, whether web or an application. Ergo, if you read a gazillion blogs or websites, RSS makes it easy to read it all in one location without having to visit each site. Your reader is notified when new content is published. SEO: Search Engine Optimization. Refers to keywords and other relevant data in the <meta> tags on websites for search engine indexing. User generated: Generally refers to information provided by the end user, such as the commentary on links on MetaFilter.com.
and 35% of adults use social networking. Ease of use - can be accessed by web, application or by phone. Create more meaningful relationships with other institutions and with user base. Keep abreast of applicable interests with custom searches – i.e. #amia09.
People sell to people. Creation of mashups between technologies (i.e. FlickrSudoku). The ability to publish to multiple networking sites with one button (Flickr- >Twitter -> Facebook. Blog->Twitter.).
users become the ubiquitous “Generation C.” What does this mean? • People create content, the content gets tagged, shared, commented on. • The content can then become viral, as popularity spreads. • This spurs the originator to continue to create additional content for the cycle to begin again. Therefore, if Sally likes Bob’s work, she’ll look for him on other sites to follow or friend him. Bottom line: Make sure whatever “brand” you are, you are the same across all networks for transparency and continuity, regardless if personal or business.
Learning how to use the technology is like learning a new language: Immersion and starting slow. Not mutually exclusive! Try it out: Personal before business. Also – only use one or two technologies. Blog and Twitter, Twitter or Facebook, then expand as needed. Keep the content relevant but personable. All it takes is one person passionate about the technology to make it work. Don’t feel guilty about logging into social networking sites when at work – it can be used professionally! Don’t always believe the hype.
and activate plugins in the blog to allow for RSS, auto-posting to Twitter and Facebook. Write a blog post (or post a podcast or an image). Blog post gets published. • Blog automatically updates to Twitter and Facebook accounts. • Followers who track your RSS feeds are automatically updated with the new content in their RSS readers. • Followers on Twitter and Facebook also get the updates. • Users comment and/or share your content with others. • You gain new followers based on the sharing. • You interact with your those users. Begin the cycle again. *P.S. Word to the wise: Don’t post content that may come back to haunt you…
Media Trends for 2010” : http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/11/six_social_media_trends.html danah boyd, "Incantations for Muggles: The Role of Ubiquitous Web 2.0 Technologies in Everyday Life" : http://www.danah.org/papers/Etech2007.html “How To Explain RSS The Oprah Way”: http://www.backinskinnyjeans.com/2006/09/how_to_explain_.html Internet Archivist : http://lib.byu.edu/sites/interactivearchivist/ Pew Internet & American Life: http://www.pewinternet.org/ Tim O’Reilly, “What is Web 2.0?” : http://oreilly.com/lpt/a/6228 Tim O’Reilly, “Web 2.0 Five Years On” : http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194 What The F**K Is Social Media? *One Year Later : http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later