During the month of September and into October, the WeAreMedia project is discussing the content in the tactical modules on the wiki. The Tactical modules get to the nitty gritty, but with a lens of how many hours does it take. Each module discussing ideas and content that will progressively take more time to implement. Last week, talked about the first module, which was about Listening and focused on what you can do a few hours a week.
This week we've moved onto Module 2: Participate in the Conversation. If you've put on your listening ears, it should give way to joining the conversations that relate to your organization or issue area. This is not about blasting out your message, creating content, or building an online community but more about engaging in a dialog with your current and potential supporters on blogs and other spaces. Participating means turning the spotlight on your audience and handing them the microphone, as often as you can to engage them.
You can get started with some easy experiments that take about 5 hours per week. There are Web 2.0 tools that let you initiate without requiring frequent content updates or community building. These are great ways to get started and learn what works and what doesn't and begin to integrate social media into your organization's marketing strategy.
The module answers these questions:
- What is participating?
- Why is it important?
- What are some easy ways to participate?
- What are the tools for participating?
- What are the best resources about participating in social media?
But here's where we really YOUR help. We need stories -- or nuggets or anecdotes about how your organization has participated in the social media conversation and the value it was provided. Yes, listening is the really important first step, but what happens if they are talking about you? Or how do you encourage your stakeholders to engage a conversation with you? And once you have started the dialog, where you go from there? How has it helped your organization.
Have a story? Add it here on the wiki or the comments. Feel free to edit whatever is in the wiki
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