Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Vanessa: Good afternoon, my name is Vanessa
and I will be your conference operator today.
At this time I would like to welcome everyone
to this special meeting on Top Three,
The Places You Want to Be webinar.
All lines have been placed on mute
to prevent any background noise.
After the speaker remarks there will be a question
and answer session.
If you would like to ask a question during this time simply
press star through the number one on your telephone keypad.
If you would like to withdraw your question press the
pound key.
Thank you I will now like to turn the call
over to Ms. Suzanne Knizner.
Please go ahead ma'am.
>> Suzanne: Thank you Vanessa.
Hi everyone and welcome to Social Media Top Three,
Places You Want to Be.
My name is Suzanne Knizner I'm the Project Incorporate
Coordinator with Campaign Council Fusion.
And before we get started
with today's presentation I just wanted to go
over a few details with you.
If you loose your internet or phone connection please call
or log back in as you did originally and please note
that the conference call line is 1-877-297-9359.
Also please note that this event is being recorded
and will be available
on the VISTA campus social media Monday landing page
and that all names presented
at this presentation will be made available at the end.
I would like to introduce Michelle Bond project manager
for Campaign Consultation
who will introduce today's presenters.
>> Michelle: Thanks so much Suzanne.
Hi everyone and welcome today's Social Media Monday webshop.
We're really excited to be back with you
and joining us today we also have Elizabeth Matthews
who is the Alumni Outreach Support Specialist
at the corporation and Danielle Ricks
who is the Social Media Specialist here
at Campaign Consultation.
And I would like to turn it over to Liz Matthews
to get us started with the official welcome
and a little bit of background about VISTA and social media.
>> Elizabeth: Thanks Michelle.
Hello everybody thanks for taking time out of your day
or busy afternoon to join us for this always interesting topic.
I just wanted to say the reason why we are focusing
on social media is because we feel it is important to be
in a place where people are.
We want to meet you there whether that's on Facebook
or Twitter or YouTube and we don't expect you all to be
in the three different places, all three of those places,
but we want to have information available to you in a variety
of places in order to reach audiences
and the alumni as well.
You may already have realized that there are many benefits
to this including connecting with each other.
From the beginning when you're at PSO to when you get back
into your communities and start serving
and then throughout the life of your service career
as you become an alumni and need to network and connect
and job hunt and all of that.
And then finally we feel that it's important
because it is also a tool for us to be able
to cross-market our resources that are available to you.
Many of your probably have discovered there are a lot
of resources out there on the campus
and it can be overwhelming so we try
to highlight different things.
For example the invitation
to this webshop is also posted on our Facebook page.
So we hope this is helpful to you and look forward
to getting your questions and your feedback
and of course some examples of how social media is working
for [inaudible] alumnist and CO out in the workforce today.
So thank you.
>> Michelle: Thank you Liz.
Thanks again for joining us.
In again everyone we are really happy.
We're moving into our second year of Social Media Monday.
For those of you who are joining us
for the first time again welcome.
And those of you who are coming back again we certainly
appreciate it.
Just to give you a little brief background,
Social Media Monday webshops really have grown
out of both a desire Evelynn was saying
to meet folks where their at.
To provide tools that not only better connect the VISTA
community but better connect businesses out there serving
to the resources that are available to them.
We really wanted to do that in a way
that was definitely applicable to the work
that VISTA's are doing so social media Monday is really a way
to help to bridge VISTA's
with social media platforms through examples.
Technology of experts and often time VISTA's
and as we have today two VISTA alums
who are using these platforms to help better do their service
and go beyond their service so again thank you for joining us
and we hope that you find today's information useful
and something you can get started with right away.
I'll now turn it over to Daniel to walk us through our day.
>> Danielle: Thank you Michelle
and thank you all for joining us.
We're very excited to have you with us.
Today's agenda, we're going to talk
about the top three social media sites that you should be in.
There many out there and I know its confusing so we're trying
to narrow it down to the three biggies, the powerhouses
out there in social media so you're only going
to be in three places.
Few of those places you're going to be.
We're going to talk about how to use these sites affectively.
We'll have VISTA case studies with two of our VISTA alum
but I actually met the other social media so it does work.
And then we'll talk about the social media takeaways.
If you didn't learn anything else from,
here's some bullet points for you
to take away when this is done.
We'll talk about some other sites to keep an I on,
so although we're primarily focusing
on the top three we will have a couple of other ones
that you might want to keep an I on.
And then we'll have some social media tips for you
and we'll always leave some time for question and answers.
Also if you would like please, hopefully you'll see
that chat feature on the right hand side an you can chat
with us and ask us questions that way.
And otherwise we certainly will leave some time later own
to interest those and others
that you may have towards the end of the webshop.
But now Michelle is going to walk you through our poll.
>> Michelle: So on the right hand, bottom portion
of the screen there, you should see five questions an
if you would just take a couple of minutes
to fill those out quickly.
And we like to get a sense of everyone experience
with these tools who's on the call today and hopefully be able
to tailor some of what we're speaking to in those ways.
So just take a few minutes to go through those
and we will be sure to check back
in a few moments once the poll has closed to see
where everyone stands.
[ Silence ]
So your social media strategy, it's important to begin
with the end in mind so to speak and we've done these
in great detail but it's always good to take a step back
and remember why you are, what your goals are when you start
to jump into the social media world.
So devise a social media plan and that can be as simple
as building upon whatever you already have in place,
so existing content that you have that's been delivered
in other ways well that's great material to begin to connect
with your users in your community about online.
Conduct research, what works best?
What are people, what kinds
of information are people looking for?
What kinds of resources?
What's the preferred way to communicate with you?
All of these are not only going to help to stretch
out your strategy but as you learn as we go
through today they'll really help to determine
which platform is best for which purpose.
Setting to include benchmarks and these can be simple things
like you know having some kind of opportunity
for feedback you know a once a week basis.
Having some kind of a larger event that happens
over social media for whatever makes sense
for your organization whether that's on a monthly basis
or every other month, you know just a way
to chart your progress and to know
that you're heading towards where you want to be.
What are your ultimate social media goals?
And then determine the who, what, and how affect
so once you have broadly what your looking
into you have some benchmarks that can help you measure those
and you want to find pass and you want
to make sure you have the right people in place
to support you with that.
As of VISTA you may be the only person doing social media
for your organization.
So whose input do you need to know?
What content you are putting out there or who's going
to help you monitor the site?
Things like that you want to think through who's going
to help you, but first on a part-time or a full-time basis
with your social media strategy.
And then finally create a timeline.
Put all of these pieces together from content to schedule
to goals and then go from there.
And then you will be able to follow at least
in a loose format you can always adjust but it is a good way
to make sure that you are shooting in the right direction.
Great, so why these social media top three?
Why these biggies?
Well, Twitter has grown by leaps and bounds I'm sure many
of you know this already an even if you have not I encourage you
to get out there and start tweeting.
Without a doubt it is the best way to share
and discover what is happening right now.
It's micro-blogging for the most part.
It's quick fast information.
It's more than just tweeting press releases although you can
certainly do that as well.
It's being able to communicate in a quick and effective way
to get to your public and the people who are most interested
in your mission of your organization.
And Facebook is where you grow community.
It helps strands of organizations build a presence
and you can grow community and support for causes,
for fundraising for your organization,
for like organizations who are on similar missions as yours.
And then finally there's YouTube.
Believe it or not YouTube is actually the largest search
engine out there.
It's no secret that it's owned by Google
and that could have a little bit of something to do with it.
But to believe it or not, believe it
or not people are actually doing searches in YouTube far more
than they are any place else, I mean who knew.
YouTube provides a forum for people to connect and form
and inspire each other in real-time,
in a real-time information network
and if there is a story telling and it is a great way not
to tell stories through video but also through photos.
We also think that we have to get out there with a camera
and certainly that's a great way to do it
but you can also create a presence with photos
and doing a side presentation.
So that's why we picked these three.
We're hoping that you guys will find this very valuable
as we walk through it with our case studies
and right now it looks like the poll results are ready.
Suzanne you want to tell us what we have today
and we figure out there.
>> Suzanne: [inaudible] it looks like 58%
of you are using social media for your organization and 56%
of you are using Twitter and 85% of you are using Facebook.
Another 50% are using YouTube and let's see,
18% are sharing your organization mission using
these sites.
32% are building a community of supporters using these sites.
26% are using these sites for marketing and communications
and then only 3% are recruiting volunteers using these sites.
>> Michelle: Okay great so I think we are going to be able
to help fill in some of those gaps
for some of the rest of you.
I think it's very interesting that 85%
of you are using Facebook, that's fantastic,
that will lead us into our segway with our VISTA David.
And David how are you, are you with us?
>> David: I'm here.
How are you doing?
>> Michelle: I'm wonderful,
so tell us your name, where you served?
>> David: My name is David Fang.
It's my first day in AmeriCorps alum.
I just finished five years premise
with Family Service Metro Orlando.
And then run the travel also for centra porta
and it's been a wonderful time growing and I
like to thank my boss Barbara Russi
and Christian Shanob who's also sitting in on this presentation.
>> Michelle: Great.
Thanks for being here.
So one of the things I want to point out, this is a screen shot
of the website and look how prominent their social media is
front and center on the right hand side.
We'll see our top threes there and then one
of David's other favorites is physicians and I want
to tell you about that a little later on.
So talk to me about the social media plan and strategy.
What was your strategy when you came?
>> David: When I first started Family Services
in metro Orlando they pretty much went
through a rebranding process so they had a communications brand
in place with some goals in mind already.
they wanted to increase the social media club
and I think I had thousands of users in a course of the year
as well as you know that I also wanted to reach
out to new communities to increase our profit plans
and foster homes who wanted to receive more in client donations
and unrestricted donations and these are goals
that we also wanted to achieve through social media.
>> Michelle: And I like that you said
that there was some very clear goals
and I think that's very important to use sources
that are out there working in social media.
You want to make sure that you're very involved
with this goal setting and that you understand what your
expectations are.
You don't just want to be flapping
out in social media window here, you want to set goals.
And I think David you've done a fantastic job with your presence
in this and if we could,
could we get David the rights we are going to go to Twitter first
and you're going to walk us through you're Twitter page.
And now if you can go
up to share a desktop you now have the power David.
>> David: Thanks, I have the desktop open.
Here we go with our Twitter page.
So what you see here is our Twitter page,
we have regular conversations with probably fifty
to sixty different people in the community
as well as across the nation.
We are associating with the meet me halfway, you can see these
from a banner here, that's a nationwide foster care movement
to focus on fosties started by, I'm not [inaudible] but we
like to reach out to those people because we want
to find peoples similar interest
and that's what we use Twitter for.
>> Michelle: So the people who are new to Twitter
and their still trying to figure it out
or for the other forty nine or so percent of who are,
who are on the call but not necessarily using it,
where do you begin?
How do you figure out who to follow and, and who should,
and who should be following you?
Where do you start?
You have your Twitter feed, maybe it's already in place
when the [inaudible] got there and now it's their job
to grow their community online.
What's the first thing that you do?
>> David: Well Twitter is actually a lot easier to use
than it was about a year ago.
When we started we had a hundred and thirty followers
and you kind of had to guess who to follow.
Now they have a lot of recommendations.
You can see who's following who and you can even go
on things like, I think its Mr. Tweet
where there's all these different tweets
with the Twitter list of people who use
or are in similar causes.
>> Michelle: One of things I liked
about what you said was the Twitter list
and you guys are listed in fifty five spaces.
And so we don't have any control over who list us on Twitter
but the fantastic thing about it is if you look at the people
on this list and the people
who are following those people you know
that fifty five people are already interested
in your Twitter feed.
That means of those people that are following
that person who's interested in you, well it just goes on
and on and on and on and on.
So the list helps you expand and broaden out to a larger audience
so we sometimes don't pay attention to those
but it's a nice pat on the back when you're listed and then go
in and see who listed you and who their following
and who's following them and that's a nice way
to create a community as well.
One of the other things David that I really liked was,
scroll down a little bit and one of those post,
and by the way I'm so stealing this from you.
Help us fill in the blank, tell us about that?
>> David: We've been trying to get our community more involved
and we've done a couple of things
over the past couple of months.
We've done factor care fax, we've done famous facts
and [inaudible], I'm not trying to get people to guessing
and once they answer the question then they usually just
Google the same thing we put in and ask them.
That conversation is over so what we actually do is now give
them a chance to fill in the blank and give us their opinion.
So on a regular basis we get maybe ten
or fifteen responses each week.
They usually mention, I forget where they put it, but we,
we share the mentions we get so over the course
of the last two months we gotten a long list of testimonials
from people about what they think, things happen
in foster care, how people should get involved,
a great way to talk to people and learn new things.
>> Michelle: And so what's so important about this
to everybody on the call and folks that are listening is
that you really want to have the people in your organization,
the people who are following you
in your community to participate.
And often times people use Twitter and just send
out information and their not there
to bring any information back in or to listen
to what folks are saying to them.
This is a great way to engage in conversation with people and I'm
so stealing that from you David.
I'll rebrand it something else.
[ Laughter ]
>> David: That's fine.
>> Michelle: I'm stealing that from you.
Lets scroll on over to your Facebook page.
>> David: Ok.
>> Michelle: And Facebook is where you grow a community.
Twitter is quick instant news.
Facebook is community building.
Tell me how you use those two differently in your service.
>> David: With Twitter we mostly have like a national focus.
We deal with a lot of [inaudible] agencies
or advocates from different states.
But right here on our Facebook we have more
than six hundred people from our own community who participate
and who need information.
They come to us sometimes asking
when the next training classes will be.
We had someone as you can see just ask about running away
and that came as a surprise.
People have been reaching out and we've been able
to give them afterhour's responses as fast as we can.
>> Michelle: On the other thing you talked about was,
well I want to, I don't want to shy away from this so one
of the things I think to keep in mind is
that when you have a Facebook page all the responses
and everything is out there.
Twitter is pretty fast.
It's a feed and you're not exactly sure who's talking
to you.
One of the agreements that we made with our page is
that we weren't going to move on
and do another post unless we addressed someone
who said something to us, if they needed something
or if they needed some support from us
or if they were disgruntle that we were going
to address it before we did another post.
It's very similar to our conversation
if someone ask you something or needs help you wouldn't turn
to the next person sitting next to you and start saying to them,
you will finish that conversation
and you will give them some help before you move on.
So I like the fact that you are responding back to people.
I just want to drive home to the folks on the call
and people listening to this webshop is
that you do want to be responsive.
You absolutely want to listen to the folks that are out there,
respond back to them so that wonderful nuance
and there are some surprises that you didn't know
that this was going to happen.
So it's great that they're communicating amongst each other
from this page.
>> David: Yeah, we also run the film of the month Friday's here
and we get a couple of responses
and we go back and we talk to them.
We had a number of successes
where we turn these people to speakers.
We've, they've helped us organize events where we go
to their work and we start talking
about [inaudible] and adoption.
So we're really using our online presence to drive our
in real life presence and then bring it back online.
>> Michelle: That's amazing.
That's great, and you also talked about fundraising.
>> David: Yes, back in April we received some tickets
to the Orlando Magic game and what we did we decided to use
that as an incentive to get people to donate.
So we ran a causes campaign and we raised more
than four hundred dollars in a course of a week, asking people
to get their friends to donate and the way we see
about the tickets was the person
who not necessarily gave the most but raised the most
and it's a little complicated through causes and we had
to kind of revise that as we went.
But we decided not to value the person who could give
but really the people who could convince as many friends
as possible to join this cause
and we had some successes with that.
>> Michelle: Great.
Ok, so stick around David
because I'm sure some folks are going
to have some more questions for you.
Please feel free to jump in as we move in the webshop.
Now we want to go on over to Paul.
So Suzanne is going to take right back from view,
hold them for a minute,
>> Paul: Ok.
>> Michelle: while we go on over to Paul.
Hi Paul, you're there?
>> Paul: Yes, how are you doing?
>> Michelle: I'm great.
Welcome back joining us again.
We appreciate having you back.
So let us know where you are?
Your full name and where you're serving your title?
>> Paul: I'm Paul Best.
I'm in Indianapolis, Indiana and I'm a VISTA alum and I served
at Starfish Initiative.
I'm the Matron of Organization.
>> Michelle: And what I like about your page,
we're going to talk about YouTube,
is that this is the homepage
and if you guys could see the screenshot
on the left hand side there's that video
on embedded right there.
I think that's a great idea in terms of your branding.
We're going to, Suzanne is going to give me rights and I'm going
to drive while you walk us through your YouTube page.
>> Paul: Ok.
>> Michelle: Right there, here we go.
So tell us a little bit about this page.
When you set it up what were you, I know its downloading
for some of you, when you were setting it
up what was your intention
when you starting doing your YouTube page.
>> Paul: My intention was basically to engage
with our students because for us mentoring we find mentors
for students who want it
and then we manage those relationships.
So it's not like a community kind of between
where there's a singer who come in everyday so we need something
to engage these kids when they're not here.
So I came up with the idea of the web is so kind
of keep yourself interested.
Keeping them a-brushed about what's going
on in the program outside of their relationship
with their mentor and just giving them interesting topics
that pertain to them things that they need to know
that they can apply to school community
or even their relationship with their mentor.
>> Michelle: Tell me a little bit about story telling.
How important is that for the particular audience
that you are reaching out to?
>> Paul: It's because, I mean we're sending
around relationships so even thought the dynamics
of each relationship is different a lot of times
when there's experiences telling experiences between mentors
and even peer to peer for the students they learn from it.
You know a mentor might say well my student haven't called me
in two weeks does she still like me or things like that.
So when you put those stories out there it kind of,
it kind of like helps us with our job, helps take care
of those possible issues or questions or concerns
because you have a lot of adults that are mentors
and this is their first time engaging with their student
that isn't their child.
>> Michelle: Now we've done a whole webshop
and Paul you were apart of that one on How
to Build a YouTube Page.
We're not going to do that today we want to show you one
of your videos but for anybody on the call we hope
that you will check with VISTA Campus and look for our archives
on the ones we did on YouTube if you're trying to figure out how
to get your YouTube channel started.
But I do want to give folks an example of one of the videos
that you did, so we're going to do Better Bodies Teen Fitness.
Now everyone the audio,
we are about to start the audio it's rather loud,
I just want to warn you right now that its going to come sort
of out of nowhere so here we go.
[ Audio of YouTube video ]
Did I, by going full screen did it stop.
>> Paul: Yeah.
>> Michelle: There we go.
[ Audio of YouTube video ]
>> YouTube video audio:
[ Music ]
Listen up Starfish stars I'm Willie Flanks your new
personal trainer.
You may have heard me from video
such as Bowtie and Buns of Hotdogs.
Well, I'm your new personal trainer for Starfish
and this summer you, yeah you need to be
in fit before school starts.
IT associate Paul has teamed up with the YMCA, this is not just
to dance, so you guys can know how to be healthy
and fit for the next year.
So pay attention and give me some high knees.
Not you silly, them.
Starfish is it in you.
Hey stars we're here at the YMCA Athenaeum downtown I'm hear
with Cheyenne and Cheyenne can you introduce yourself?
I'm Cheyenne and I'm one of the wellness coaches here
and I actually do personal training at the Athenaeum.
Ok, this part of our web show we are actually going
to show you guys how to stay in shape, how to stay fit.
>> Michelle: Sorry you guys I'm trying to turn this up a little.
I'm having a little technical issue, hold on, turn it up some.
There we go.
[ Audio of YouTube video ]
>> YouTube video audio: And the YMCA is a great place for you
to do that, you can give us some information,
what is the YC, YMCA actually do?
Cheyenne: So if you are a Y member we actually offer free
wellness coaching for all YMCA members.
And you get five free appointments
with the wellness coach and with that would go through a couple
of routines that will help you workout
when working out on your own.
Alright so you guys might be out there thinking,
well I don't really need to be doing this,
I'm only what fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.
But actually when is the best time
to actually establish healthy habits in exercising?
By your early twenties you should have some type
of habits already established but the earlier the better.
Alright folks you heard her, the earlier the better.
So if you guys establish healthy eating, fitness and nutrition,
they'll be benefits to last all throughout your lifetime.
Better health, better outlook on life,
the whole better perspective on your life
so the younger the better.
So right now we are actually going to go down stairs
to the actual equipment, the gym you guys call it
and Cheyenne is going to show us how
to actually use different equipment
and different exercises that you guys can do here at the Y,
any of the Y's in Indianapolis or even at home.
We'll see you down there.
[ Music ]
You're probably wondering what I'm doing.
Right now I'm doing Cardio.
We are actually in the cardio room at the YMCA
at the Athenaeum and cardio is actually a very important part
of your exercise routine and Cheyenne is going to come
and tell us why cardio is so important?
So with you're exercises you need cardio
and strength training.
Both of them are optimal for good health and it's nice
to kind of start out with your cardio because it is a built
in warm-up and then we head down stairs
and do your resistance training.
Alright let's go down stairs.
[ Music ]
>> Michelle: So Paul why did you choose this
particular character?
>> Paul: Well I started off with a theme, Better Bodies.
We did a whole series of buildings
because our building was being renovated so we kind of came
up with topics to help kind of I guess quote
on quote renovate our students and one was in study habits
and this one was in fitness.
And so I know that Billy Blanks was the big Tae Bo guy
so we just made a fictional character called Willie Flanks
and you know corny as it was it did get the attention
of a lot of our students.
So it's kind of an entertainment piece for them
and it kept them engaged wondering what he was going
to do next type thing.
>> Michelle: Right, so you were thinking of your audience?
>> Paul: Yeah.
>> Michelle: And how difficult was it to make this short video?
>> Paul: Not difficult at all.
Basically I'm a member of that Y,
so I just sent them an email telling them what I was trying
to do and so they just picked the day and we just came
down there and I just had my digital camera
and my [inaudible]and I just created it
on windows movie maker.
>> Michelle: So one of the takeaways is
that you don't have to have a big studio.
>> Paul: No.
>> Michelle: You should be thinking about your audience,
go some place where it's rather easy, right,
somewhere where you know their not going to say no to you
if you want to go shoot.
And I would imagine you kind of knew what you were going
to do before you got there.
Maybe you didn't have a full storyboard but you sort of knew
where you wanted to move around.
>> Paul: Yeah we kind of, of the employee there we kind
of did a dress rehearsal or dry run or you know
so she know what type
of questions I was going to ask her.
>> Michelle: Ok, great.
We're going to come back to you a little later
because we know you wanted to show us one other thing.
And we're going to move on to our channel.
This is our VISTA channel and our VISTA YouTube channel.
And you can see here we have our first video
which Volunteers Service of America,
all our social media Monday web-shots are over here as part
of our playlist and then Liz you want to tell us a little bit
about the eye reporters.
We are going to show a couple of those videos, but you want
to tell us a little bit about that project.
>> Elizabeth: Sure so let's team about access
through this years the forty fifth anniversary for those
of you who are not aware of that.
And alum had a relationship with the video and he is able
to get a donation of size the video camera
and so what we decided to do with those cameras was
to get volunteers and the COs current this number and the COs
and we mailed them the cameras with instructions.
And we really let them decide to use them,
you know what footage they wanted to take, but the idea is
that they are helping.
Two things, both in order to help us get the AmeriCorps VISTA
and me and out there in some more people are aware
of what it is that we are doing and what our mission is.
And then secondly they can help to promote their program
and what it is that they are doing in terms
of capacity building
and fighting poverty in their communities.
So, right now we have three volunteer reporters out there
and one of them as, I think we are going to show two videos,
I'll let you cue those up.
And I actually Dan, Daniel helped me,
it is a learning process, understand the importance
of titling your videos in order so that you have information
that you really want to include so that
when people do searches they're going to find your videos,
and then the descriptions and so forth so, yeah.
>> Michelle: A certain mic,
again the audio may be a little loud guys.
I just want to warn you.
Here we go.
[ Audio of YouTube video ]
>> YouTube video audio: Everyone my name is Mike Ewing
and I'm one of your VISTA volunteer reporters coming
from you live, well we're recording here
at Chicago Access Network Television or CAN TV.
I just started this position about a month ago
and I'll be here for a year.
As for VISTA I'm working with them
in there nonprofit services part of their business.
What they do here in nonprofit services is they work with a lot
of area nonprofits to help them use cable television
to actually reach out to people in the community, so,
and also promote their own organization
so you know multipurpose.
Got my office right here, check it out name
on the door, it's really cool.
So I spend a lot of time in here obviously it got a TV here,
got it set to the latest CAN TV programming,
let's see what's on there.
Ok, looks like something from our community partners.
I got a file cabinet of my very own, very nice.
Here's my computer I a lot of my time, let's see,
very important files down here obviously, and you know snacks.
You got to have snacks in the desk.
As the VISTA volunteer reporter what I'm going
to be doing is trying to find our more
about why do people serve with VISTA?
What's the impact of VISTA on the community
and maybe even some of the perceptions that people have
about VISTA and AmeriCorps in general
and whether people are even aware of it?
So hey, if you have any comments,
if you're currently serving in VISTA,
somewhat considering joining AmeriCorps or an alumni,
please feel leave a comment towards this video.
I guess some of the questions I have from people
who currently served and who served
in the past is, I mean why?
You know, why did you sign up for VISTA
and then what's your experience been like or what was it like?
So I look forward to talking to you all
and I'll keep in touch, alright.
>> Michelle: Great and we have one more to show you.
[ Audio of YouTube video ]
>> YouTube video audio: This is the home where I grew
up in Lansing, Michigan.
You've probably seen my home state in the news lately
for a troubled economy, low graduation rates,
high unemployment rates.
When I was growing up the place
that I am standing right now used
to actually be a GM auto plant.
A lot of my friends and family worked here and now it's gone
and this really here was the catalyst
for me moving back to Michigan.
After seeing what was happening in my home town I decided
to give up my job overseas and return home to spend a year
as an AmeriCorps VISTA.
I wanted to show the world the side
of Michigan you don't hear on the news.
It is a story of the people and the amazing work they are doing
to rebuild this state.
Michigan has the innovation of the assembly line,
the creativity of Motown, and the social consciousness
of a six hour work day.
These talents shine brightest in our two hundred
and twenty four AmeriCorps VISTAs.
The impact VISTAs have had on this state in tremendous.
From people in Detroit who are working with children
and working with service learning down there you know
to people here in my office
who are doing a statewide cross training collaboration,
getting disabilities into service and there's me serving
with Learn and Serve Michigan.
Everyday I get to build resources and work with grantees
around the state in high poverty communities.
I provide them with support
that can help service learning flourish
where our state needs it most.
This is my favorite corner of the office,
all of these papers here are things that youth have done
to talk about why their voices are important in the community.
So they bring new ideas for a better future,
they care even if nobody else does.
My voice needs to heard so that I can make a difference
because I will be a leader of a new tomorrow.
I love these because when I'm really having a difficult day
at my service project I can look at these
and I can really see the impact I'm making
because these youths are the future
and these youths are going to be super servers that are going
to bring everything together.
I think I have one
of the coolest service sites in America.
And I can't wait to share that with you
over the next couple of months.
This isn't just about sharing my story,
it's about sharing stories of VISTAs all over the country.
So if you have thoughts, passionate story that you want
to share with the VISTA community contact me.
I'm going to include my Twitter, my Facebook and my blog
at the end of this and I really encourage you all to come
and get to know me and I really like to get
to know you guys and your service.
I am so excited to be able to be a VISTA reporter.
And I'm so excited to be able to meet you all either face to face
or even on the internet.
So come contact me but for now this is Robyn Stegman signing
off, man I've always wanted to say that.
>> Michelle: That's so great.
Hey Liz so those are two very different videos
and they took two different approaches.
Any final word to folks out there who might want
to do some story telling on YouTube?
>> Elizabeth: Sure, well I think one thing we've been trying
to do is to make sure that they do stay focus
on explaining what AmeriCorps VISTA is and what they're doing
on their sites and also let their personalities
shine through.
So having a good balance there and trying to keep the audience
of potential members, you know people who might be
on YouTube exploring things thinking if they rather want
to serve other organizations they might be considering
getting with VISTA and trying to keep the bigger picture in mind
because sometimes they get really focused on their project
in general, so just trying to keep a balance
of all those messages at once.
>> Danielle: Great.
So thank you and I'm hoping we can get simple [inaudible]
in ideas and ways that they could use YouTube.
Suzanne is going to grab the right back away from me
and Michelle is going to walk us through our worksheet
that you all can use as a takeaway sort of.
>> Michelle: Thank you Danielle and thanks for sharing some
of those videos and to our VISTA Alums great stuff there
and so we've thrown at you a few different platforms today
and also shown you, demonstrated a few different ways there being
used as well.
So what we're looking at right now is just a worksheet
that we developed for a presentation we did on the work
that we've done with VISTA.
Basically the idea is just to think through, to help you think
through the audiences that you're trying to reach and which
of these digital spaces might be best to achieve that.
So, for example with some
of the VISTA videos you can tell you know obviously they knew
their audience, either fellow VISTAs
or potential VISTAs ad Alumni,
people who have some understanding
of national service and walking them through sort of their sites
in the day to day work that they are doing.
You know another thing might be if you are just starting
up your social media strategy, you might just want
to take a look at what each of these sites,
[ Silence ]
>> Danielle: Hello.
Ok, so this is a worksheet that you can use.
I've just asked a question of you guys about Twitter
and Facebook in your organization or YouTube
and which one of these you think might help you in your service?
And this worksheet will help you think through some
of the stories and what it is that you are trying to do.
Are you trying to build a network?
Do you want to connect with reporters
and share your stories?
Are you trying to break news quickly or trying
to get mobilized community members?
And on YouTube you tell your story using video which is
like some of the ones that we just saw.
So, this is a worksheet to sort of have you think though some
of the things you might want to talk about an express
out of a social media site and then narrow in on which one
of these three, and sometimes it maybe all three that are going
to help you in your service and organization.
So, we're going to move on and these are the other two places
that we would just leave a message we did not talk about
and this is what to keep an eye on.
So, David are you still with us?
>> David: Yes ma'am.
>> Danielle: Alright, so David we are going
to give it right back over to you and we're going
to quickly go through your Flickr page
and then Paul is going to take us through his new page
and then we are going to get to some Q&A.
[ Silence ]
>> David: Ok so I take control now?
>> Danielle: We are going to give you,
yeah we are going to give you rights.
You have rights now all you have to do is share it with us.
Now it takes a little minute for it to, for the magic to happen.
[ Laughter ]
>> David: Ok, so what I have open right now is our Flickr
account and we host our heart dial on there and what that is,
is a traveling photo exhibit that we launch every year
that has a portrait of children available for adoption.
It's one of our most liked programs and we love
to see our community but we wanted to reach more audiences
and so we started including it online.
And since launching it this is set to go
down in Flickr on September.
We've got more than ten thousand views I believe
and we've received a lot of adoption queries online.
Shakaree [assumed spelling] hear is a wonderful little guy
and we have people asking all the time is he still available
and how they can get involved with adoption.
So we've turned this into a call of action and opportunity
to get more people involved in the adoption process and a lot
of these people come from out of state
which makes it a lot more valuable.
>> Danielle: I absolutely love the use of Flickr.
We talk about story telling all the time
but you're absolutely right.
You used your Flickr page as a cause to action
and I just think that's an amazing way
to use this particular social media site and I'm hoping
that others will follow suit.
This is a, it's a great use.
And now we're going to Paul, are you still there with us?
>> Paul: Yes.
>> Danielle: Ok, we're going to turn rights over to you
and you're going to take us to your main page and talk
to us a little bit about a closed social network and why
that may work for some people?
So we're going to give you rights, it takes a little while
and then if you would share your desktop with us.
>> Paul: Is it up?
>> Danielle: Yeah, you have the rights you can go
to your desktop.
>> Paul: This is the main page and basically we,
>> Danielle: Hey Paul we don't see it yet.
Did you share your desktop?
Go up to the left hand side where it says share
and then share desktop and then it takes a little minute.
It's booting up now.
We do see you're desktop.
There we go we're on now.
>> Paul: Ok, basically it's an opportunity for you to set
up a private social network.
You can base it off of different interest or ideas,
different communities.
We started two actually.
This is the most recent one we started for our mentors
because once a student is matched
with a mentor it's usually just them so they see an opportunity
for the mentors to meet other than towards and kind
of bounce ideas off each other.
We can post events; you know things that are coming up,
make last minute announcements.
Give shout-outs to people who are doing great things
in their relationships.
Put discussion questions up, we're starting to have a feed
where every two weeks we'll put up a new question
and let them answer things.
Just kind of give them something for them to kind
of promote activity on there.
You have mentors who will post pictures
from different events they've been with there scholars.
Different questions that they might have
and it helps me as a place manager.
It helps me with my job because a lot of times it's easier
for a mentor to understand when they hear it from someone else.
Another mentor whose been
through a similar experience or situation.
>> Danielle: And the important part about this is I know
with some of the organizations
that the VISTAs serve they have private information
that they may not want to share, particularly
when you're dealing with teens.
>> Paul: Exactly.
>> Danielle: You may not want to share on Facebook
or you may not want to share all
that private information out there.
But what with Ning a social networking site
such as Ning you can close the environment; close ranks
and people feel a little bit more comfortable
with sharing that information.
>> Paul: Yeah, actually on the Ning site that we have
for our students, we have a lot of parents
who don't allow their children to be on Facebook
but they will allow them to have a Ning network
because of its privacy.
>> Danielle: Right, so that's a great option
for some of you out there.
I think this is a great use of it.
Like you said you can add photos, you can add video
and you can also have private conversations
and there also forums as well.
So thank you for sharing that.
Thank you to you and David.
Don't go anywhere because there may be some questions
for you guys.
We're going to take the rights back now and just go
over some social media tips for you.
So, Michelle talked a little bit earlier
about having a social media plan and you want
to make sure you have a strategy and know your audience,
you've heard both of the VISTA Alums talk about that.
I would like to say be consistent with your post.
It's not that important, and it's a different formula
for everybody and how often you post.
What's most important is that once you set that pace
of when you're going to post and the people are expecting to here
from you that you keep that expectation up.
I said it time and time again, listen to your audience.
They will guide you along the way of the social media track
so you want to make sure you are listening to them.
Be creative when telling a story.
We saw three different types of story telling and I want
to say once again that you can tell stories
through photos as well.
So while you may have photos up on Flickr you could actually set
that to music and make a YouTube video out of it,
so you want to keep that in mind.
And engage your audience in the story telling process, whether
or not it is something that I'm about to steal from David
with that fill in the blank line or something
that you come up with yourself.
You want to make sure that you have an opportunity to engage
with the audience and have them be able to talk back to you.
And so now we want to leave some time for questions.
Michelle anybody chatting out there
or does anyone have a question that you
like to post to any of us?
>> Michelle: Yeah, there several questions in the chat.
So, just start off with, Darcy is asking in regard
to you talking about using the different platforms,
would it make sense then to use YouTube for working with kids
and Twitter from our outreach
and Forenso [assumed spelling] update.
>> Danielle: Well I'm going to actually refer that to Paul
because Paul you deal with kids more often.
What would you say?
>> Paul: Can you repeat that again?
>> Danielle: Sure.
>> Michelle: Would it make sense to use YouTube for outreach
to kids and then Twitter for more outreach to parents?
>> Paul: It varies with our students the YouTube was a good
thing because their on YouTube searching
for other videos and things like that.
It depends on the dynamics of your program.
For my students we work with a lot of income base,
people who are on a low income.
So the internet might not be anything that's very accessible.
Twitter might vary with working adults.
Will they tweet at work?
Will they read your tweets and different things like that,
so its really important to look at the dynamics of your,
who do you serve and figure out what works best for them.
>> Danielle: Suzanne I don't know if you want
to take this moment to look ahead and see if we want
to open it up for questions.
>> Suzanne: Sure thing, Samantha can you set us
up for questions in a cue?
>> Samantha: Yes ma'am.
>> Suzanne: Thank you.
>> Samantha: At this time I would like to remind everyone
if you would like to ask a question press star one
on your telephone keypad.
We would pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A rouster.
>> Michelle: While that's happening I'll form another
question from the chat.
Mark is asking whether you think it's a good option to use Apps
that are available for posting across all three sites
so that you have consistency
in your messaging and with your name.
>> Danielle: I'm going to answer that two different ways
which is going to sound like I'm talking out the side of my neck.
So first let me say yes and no.
Yes is for instance a structured event like this, it makes sense
to go across platforms.
It's a basic, we're doing a webshop at this time
at this stage and I can post it to three different places
by using an application such as coosme [assumed spelling]
but our audience the VISTA audience
or Twitter is very different from the VISTA audience
on Facebook and we don't learn
that until we are actually in the space.
And so questions that are posed
on Twitter may have a different sound and feel
than they do on Facebook.
On Facebook it's much more formal
and on Twitter it's much more casual.
So you may hear two different voices in those spaces
and I can't use a multiple platform to do
that because we can't detect when that happens then.
But for some things that are very straight forward
to the point, yes, absolutely, do your self a favor and set
up some automatic tweets and automatic post if you like.
You do have to pay for some organi, for some applications
to do an automatic tweet to Facebook
or automatic post to Facebook.
But pretty much all the ones for Twitter are free.
And then I would look at your audience.
If you think they're the same group in both spaces go ahead
and use multiple service, if not then you might have to take
that extra time to talk to them differently.
>> Michelle: And I also see someone else had a question.
Frecca[assumed spelling] wanted to know, she wanted some ideas
for getting more Facebook followers
and I have some suggestions but I wanted to hear from you David.
What do you think are some suggestions you might want
to share with her to get more Facebook followers?
>> David: Really you want to include
that in everything you do
when we once thought aggressive movement
to increase our Facebook followers we changed all our
email signatures including the link that you saw.
We use social media very commonly on our website
and we make sure we talk about it live
and when we're at events.
So we were going to events monthly and talking about it
and people were going home and taking that with.
We made handouts with tips on how to get involved.
It's really about studying the words so you use Facebook
to spread the word, but without it you kind of have
to really go the old fashion way by talking to people.
>> Michelle: Thanks and is there anybody on the line
that wants to ask a question?
Anybody in cue we don't want to ignore you so we want
to know you're out there.
>> Samantha: At this time there are no audio questions.
>> Michelle: Ok, so then I see Kathy has a question.
And she says, the growing uses among older adults ages sixty
plus with social media networks, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
and such do you think are the most affective
to connect with them?
I'm creating a plan for my project site
that will target older adults,
family care givers as the audience.
>> Danielle: I think that the broader chance I could give you
Kathy is to jump out there and try it.
I could give you a blanket answer and it may only pertain
to a certain group of sixty year old plus.
If you are, you have a target audience,
and this is for care givers, you going to have
to do a little bit of investigating.
I think Michelle talked about that earlier,
and do a little bit of research and try it
out on all three platforms.
And as we used to say through it
up on the wall and see what stick.
And when your responses start coming in,
I say in about ninety days you're going to find
out where these folks are the most.
Right now these are the three top social media sites
and you don't want to ignore any one right now so go on out there
and start doing your post.
Start following people that are in the same target group
that you're in, having them follow you back, start engaging
with them both on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
And they'll come back to you with questions,
and they'll come back to you with comments
and before you know it you would have grown an community.
One of the things I want to say to all the VISTAs on the line
and the alum and even leaders and supervisors,
please be patient with social media.
This does not happen overnight.
Growing a community does not happen overnight
and executing your plan does not happen overnight.
So we want you to be really patient with this.
It is going to be ninety days before you are going
to get any real information.
It could be up to six months to a year before you can turn
around and have a complete plan and be able
to say yes, we know our audience.
So give yourself some time.
Michelle would you like to add anything to that
or [inaudible] would you like to add anything.
>> Michelle: I would just say to that, specifically
to that last question and I think
that that's a great example of you know thinking
through who your audience is.
Obviously you know older sixty audiences have thousand
of audience within it.
And in the early stages you know it might not hurt
to think you know as narrowly as possible when you're trying
for instance you start seeing things through.
Which places and what kinds of messages and what types
of content that you have
and what's the best way to deliver it, so.
>> Daniel: That's great and Darcy wants
to know should we still be updating our original website
or just get rid of it all together
with all these three media outlets.
I think Darcy I hope you're with us on the beginning.
I really like the way David
and his organization had their original website
so what they did, they put real estate on their front page
for their social media site.
And I would hate to say take all that effort
and throw away your website, but what I would say is to even
if you don't have enough room to have it as prominent
as they did for his organization.
Three buttons with your three hot social media sites
that lead them to those social media sites.
Get them there and save you a lot of time.
>> Michelle: So we are, thank you all first of all
for your questions we really appreciate it.
We are going to move on because I want to talk to you
about some things to keep in mind.
>> Suzanne: Thank you and thanks everyone.
We might just take a couple of extra minutes
because we did want to get to all those questions.
So, also the evaluation will be open and there it is
on the right hand side.
So as we're rapping up please give us your feedback.
We really do use it to improve from each time to the next
so we appreciate that.
A couple of things to keep
in mind obviously other VISTA you are restricted from doing,
purchasing some political activity
and that does also include in a digital space
so just be mindful of that.
And also obviously as your representing VISTA online
and across these platforms please be appropriate
and remember that you are representing the program
as well.
>> Danielle: And we also want you to stay safe online.
Protect yourself and your organization while online.
Keep your passwords in a secure place.
Don't share your passwords with anyone.
If your citing their social media
from scratch please be selective
in choosing a username and email address.
Don't allow others to draw you into conflict that goes back
to Michelle talking about behavioral inappropriate.
Watch what you quote, say online
and never use your work account for personal use.
We just have to say that to you, and Michelle is going to take us
through some other things and we would like you
to keep in mind as well.
>> Michelle: So in front of us is a screenshot
of the Social Media Monday course page that's available
through VISTA campus and this link has been posted a few
different times in the chat.
So once you're done with the evaluation, please go back
through and make sure you have tried out that link.
That will take you to the page
that has all the Social Media Monday archives in addition
to the upcoming session and also links to other resources
that are social media related,
so we hope that you check that out.
In addition we do have tours of the VISTA campus for those
of you who are new to VISTA.
I'm not sure exactly how to navigate but there's a ton
of information there and so every Thursday
at 2pm we post what's in there an announcements about how
to sign up for those on Facebook and Twitter
and through the campus but just a extra little plug for those.
>> Danielle: As of the links that we talked
about in this webshop are available here an one
of the ones that I want you guys to take a look
at is the Metro Orlando one so that you can take a look
at how they used their Facebook page.
These are all the links that Paul and David talked
about in our webshop today.
Thank you for this, and now these are our links.
So VISTA campus social media course page,
if you need more information
about the hatch act that's there.
Staying safe online it's a lot of information about that.
We hope that you will follow us on Twitter and you will like us
on Facebook and you will come on over and subscribe
to our YouTube channel and hey I don't know upload a video
and tell your story.
>> Elizabeth: And this is Elizabeth
and I just wanted to make a final plug.
If anybody would be interested in becoming a volunteer reporter
or trying to start up on more reporters for 2011,
so just send me an email at VISTA outreach,
that's CNS.gov subject line volunteer reporter
and send along any links of videos you already put together
so let's have you get involved.
>> Danielle: Thanks Elizabeth.
>> Michelle: I just want to say thank you Liz.
Thank you Paul; thank you David for the great information today,
>> Paul: No problem.
>> Michelle: and I hope you return with us in January.
January 24th the fourth Monday of the month.
And bare with us we are in the process
of finalizing our 2011 schedule but as soon as that's available,
hopefully in the next couple of weeks, that would be posted
on that Social Media Monday campus page as well.
So be sure to check back there and visit us in the VISTA forum
after the call to continue the conversation.
Thank you so much for joining us and have a wonderful week
and a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday.
>> Suzanne: Thanks everyone.
>> Paul: Have a great holiday.
>> Danielle: We'll keep the conversation going in the forums
if we didn't get to your questions we'll get
to them there.
Thank you.
>> Vanessa: This concludes today's conference call.
Thank you for your participation.
You may now disconnect.
>> Suzanne: Thanks Vanessa.
>> Vanessa: You're welcome.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
>> Suzanne: Thank you, you too.
>> Danielle: Thank you Vanessa.
>> Suzanne: Bye, bye.
>> Vanessa: Bye, bye.