The 5 senses of social media

Wandering around the country helping people grasp social media for their businesses and organisations, I often find myself rattling off the same information. This had led me to formulate my own five senses of social media. I am aware that others have created the same in a similar fashion, (read what Michael Durwin has to say on the topic) but I wanted something for myself. I want to be able to look at a marketing plan or press release and easily be able to assess what is relevant for content creation. For that, we need the big 5: video, audio, photos, text, downloads. How you use them and why you don’t, may not be as obvious as it sounds.

Video
So much can be summed up if only we capture it on film. The trick to utilising this medium when you aren’t used to it, is to make a light-hearted game about it during the day, adding ‘can I get that on film?’ to random statements from other peoples words. Carrying a camera on you at all times. Practice setting it up quickly, capturing a small quote and converting the files to the format you need to drop it online. The biggest barriers we face is individuals being concerned how they look, sound and what they say on camera. Basically everything. But once people are comfortable with their look and sound in a trial situation which is often deleted, getting over the camera is just a matter of time and practice. For MediaSnackers, we are keen to stress that we don’t do feedback forms in our workshops, we use video and capture only 20 secs of footage per person. Creating an easily manageable file and film as a record of our day. Take the same model and try it yourself.
Photo
Remember the saying ‘Kodak moment’? Yet again, like the video, just repeating the words ‘that’s a photo’ or ‘that’s a front cover’ or even ‘someone capture that’ gets the mind in the right space to start building it in to your day. Our phones are our biggest assets with regard to creating dynamic content, yet we let great shots slip by us time and time again. Another classic is missing an opportunity, because the moment has passed. Get into the habit of saying ‘do that again’ as a statement, not a question. Speaking converts into action. That change might not happen immediately, but it will if you keep pressing it. We use photography to document all our travels and have fun throughout the training day.
Audio
Our phones are the saviour again. We often use text quotes in documents, meetings and proposals. Could you recapture that great piece of knowledge directly from the source on your phone? Embed the audio straight in to your website? Have you tried? Many people are not comfortable with their photograph being used, however an audio response is much more favourable. Just like the video example, explore the equipment you have and create test files first. What file formats do you end up with? Can you upload them to Audioboo? Try it out in the office and inject it more and more in to your project work. You’ll be surprised at the results and how it influences other people to do the same. For MediaSnackers we create audio interviews as podcasts and make them available on iTunes.
Copy
With all this visual and audio dynamic content, lets not forget about the written word. The podcast example above is always transcribed into text to allow for search engines to pick up on keywords. It also allows for quotes to be copied and shared. Copy should also reflect the social web by being more friendly and informal but with the content quality always staying high. Putting emotion, opinion and humour are normally the things left out of corporate copy, so please try and shoehorn some in to give it personality. Take a stance on your subject too, make it clear which side of the fence you fall. You may pull in advocates which support you and challenge those who don’t, but a (comment) reaction of any sort becomes a chance to engage with your community.
Downloads
Think about what can people do and share with your information. Showing is great, but doing is engaging. Can people download something, share it with friends, send it to their phone and read, listen or view it on the move? Many media creation software allows exporting in a variety of formats, don’t just offer the format you would like, offer formats that many would like. Check out the download options on Scribd.com, offering a whole host of document formats ready for mobile phones. Ok, we’re not licking screens and smelling websites just yet, but the web has a lot to offer our senses already. Try to show people not tell people how good you are and challenge ‘dry’ content when presented with it. Sometimes it’s not always possible or practical, but when we’re reminded and get a second chance, it often produces better posts, comments and updates.