Comments on: The NSFW presentation

By: Seriously dude, WTF is social media? The NSFW presentation one year on

Seriously dude, WTF is social media? The NSFW presentation one year on — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:04:21 +0000

[...] one of the first ever posts on this blog I shared Marta Kagan’s ever-so-sweary slide deck, WTF is Social Media. It helped my blog get [...]

By: Mission Creep | Neil Williams » Blog Archive » Avoid social media mistakes: forget the technology and focus on the task

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:22:11 +0000

[...] of my job involves trying to get people enthusiastic about using social media. Another part involves trying to stop enthusiastic [...]

By: Mission Creep | Neil Williams » Blog Archive » Embedding digital media: lessons from my father-in-law

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:44:15 +0000

[...] rather familiar. Colleagues and I have to do the same thing all the time when selling-in social media to policy officials, training people on CMSs or explaining how to use any other web [...]

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:54:36 +0000

Thanks for dropping by Marta, much appreciated.

By: Marta Kagan

Marta Kagan — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:37:13 +0000

Neil, thanks for posting the presentation. Glad to see it sparked an interesting dialogue! Thought I’d take a moment to clarify the source of the stats regarding RSS feeds and define “Active Internet Users” since there seems to be a healthy (and understandable) dose of skepticism about that number. First, the source of the info is the Wave 3 Universal McCann study on social media use. You can get a copy of the entire study at http://tinyurl.com/3nrmg5.

Second, here’s their verbatim explanation of the methodology used in collecting this data: “All surveys have been scripted and hosted on Universal McCann’s in-house online research system, Intuition. All surveys
are self completion and the data collected is entirely quantitative. Every market is representative of the 16-54 Active
Internet Universe. In this Wave 17,000 internet users in 29 countries were interviewed. To be included you need to be using the internet everyday or every other day.”

Any way you slice it, the numbers are pretty compelling. — And that’s precisely why I felt compelled to create this presentation. The challenges in communicating the value and momentum behind social media is very real—and so is the business case.

But not everyone is ready to hop on board. Yet.

By: amy

amy — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:58:55 +0000

Thanks Neil. I’ve been holding out for ages but I guess this tears it. I’m gonna have to get off my ‘Donnesque’ island, paddle ashore and get on Facebook, aren’t I? Big steps for the cynical and chronically antisocial! But if you’re putting your money where your mouth is then it would just be plain hypocritical to stay out of all this – especially for anyone who may have been party to any badgering for you do so!

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:10:32 +0000

Alison – thanks for making your first ever comment on my blog! You’ll find a healthy cynicism prevails among the social media evangelists at teacamp. But broadly the points are: people are out there, talking about issues that relate to our work, so let’s listen and join in. And it’s about government speaking in a different voice, being more transparent/visible/accessible. But only where there’s a real opportunity for participants to have an impact, otherwise it’s just lip service.

By: Alison Davis

Alison Davis — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:16:53 +0000

Hi there – I’m a digital technophobe dragging myself into the 21stc. and this is the first time I’ve ever posted a comment ANYWHERE (the excitement – I can hardly contain myself). So as a very much non-facebook user I think the presentation above would really aggravate “serious people in the office” and not just because of the language. So what I want to know is – is there really a place for using this kind of media for disseminating messages about – let’s face it – dry and technical government initiatives?? Or is this just a nice opportunity for IT and comms people to waste their time in the office (oohoohoo!). Before you all get cross I’m going to be very brave and come to the teacamp today to hear more about it!

By: FutureGov » Useful links » links for 2008-08-06 [delicious.com]

FutureGov » Useful links » links for 2008-08-06 [delicious.com] — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:32:00 +0000

[...] Mission Creep | Neil Williams » Blog Archive » The NSFW presentation A cracking presentation explaining social media and online participation – great post to get going with Neil (tags: blog social media training participation) [...]

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:07:18 +0000

Source: http://martazkagan.com/
I’ve emailed her to ask where these figures came from, but given lack of response on the slideshare site to similar questions I think you’re all right to doubt them!

By: Shane McCracken

Shane McCracken — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:00:46 +0000

It’s a lovely presentation. Powerful messages and looks great. The numbers do fall down with the inflated claims though. 39% using RSS feeds stuck out for me too! If you click back a couple of slides you see it is refering to “Active Internet Users” without defining what an active internet user is. Certainly not average.

I understand what you mean about showing examples Steph. Numbers are good for building business cases and confirming what you believe, but as I’ve just pointed out numbers can be misleading.

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:35:50 +0000

Interesting to hear your experience Steph. I guess it depends who you’re talking to though – some people respond to numbers, some to stories, some need both?

I’m not sure how I feel about brands building social media into their own sites. Every issue of NMA seems chock full of breaking news about this stuff: but who are the users generating all this UGC on corporate spaces? Far more sensible to go out and join the organic conversations.

By: Steph

Steph — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:23:08 +0000

Now, I’ve seen various of these ‘social media by the numbers’ presentations, and they just don’t do it for me.

The people I’m trying to convince often half-understand the terms involved, believe it’s ‘the future’ and are a mixture of embarrassed, scared, excited and confused. Some won’t believe it’s of any relevance until you put an example directly relevant to their world right in front of them.

On top of that, I just don’t believe that 39% of the audiences we work with subscribe to RSS feeds (wherever that figure comes from). And the whole trust-in-advertising vs trust-in-recommendations thing isn’t really an apples with apples comparison.

The bits of the presentation I use which work best are the screenshots with a story behind them. The examples we’ve developed, or which exist elsewhere in government. Or at a stretch examples like MyStarbucksIdea or Ford’s Social News Releases.

Maybe the numbers work for some people, but I’ve found it’s better to show, not tell.