Social media for social action in Cambridgeshire

Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire22 November 2013

Due to the nature of your responsibilities, you need to think about social media policies and social media strategies.

• A social media policy is a guide for how you and those you work with choose to use social media on a day-to-day basis. This will cover things like tone of language and type of content that is and is not appropriate. If you are employing staff, it is essential that you have one of these in place and that staff know about and abide by it.

• A social media strategy is a document that sets out how you are going to use social media to achieve specific objectives.

A social media policy should include prohibitions on things that could easily bring your organisation into disrepute.A social media strategy should be consistent with a corporate objective – eg something around engaging with young people?

Planning is essential

In small groups, please could you come up with:

- Three things you would want to see in a social media policy, and

- Three things that you would like to see in a corporate social media strategy.

With both the policy and strategy, neither need to be long dense documents. Short, sharp and practical will have a greater impact.

Group exercise

What did you come up with for:

Social media policy?

Social media strategy?

Group exercise - Feedback

Cambridge City Council -> Managing the expectations of its residents

Huntingdonshire District Council ->Potential for greater guidance?

Monmouthshire Council -> Unleashing the potential of their staff

Department for Business -> A digital strategy to achieve specific policy objectives

Policies and strategies - examples

Local authorities?- Shape your place -> St Ives

Charities?- RSPB Cambridgeshire - >

Their Facebook page

Schools and colleges?- Huntingdon Regional College -> Note

complaints and how the staff handle.

Research – how are your communities already using social media?

How can you use social media to work with local people to solve a problem / make something positive happen in your community?

- What do you need to do before going onto, say Facebook?

- Where do your target audiences go day-to-day?- What are your feedback loops? What will you do with

what you have found out?- What is the potential with social media in your

community?

Using social media to complement what you do in your communities

Engaging with young people and bridging the gaps between our generations:

Work with your local schools and colleges for a ‘social media for social action’ events?• Hosted in schools, invite and challenge young people in

your area to show you how to use social media for social action

• Invite your local community groups to get ideas from young people about making vibrant and active social media pages

• Implement the best ideas they have – show them that their local councils are listening

• Invite some young people to report on your council meetings and post reports on Shape Your Place

Future ideas to think about in your communities

My questions to you:

• As a result of this session, what one specific action are you willing to commit to for & in your communities as a result of what you have learnt today?

• This workshop is a pilot – The Council has not run anything like it before:

- What did you like about the workshop that you think will also be useful for your colleagues & friends?

- What do you think could be improved about the workshop?

Wrapping up this session for now

The Prince of Wales has launched a new campaign to support young people:

Step up to serve

How are you going to support young people to help in your communities?

For more information, see http://www.stepuptoserve.org.uk/http://www.ncseast.co.uk/

A challenge from the Prince of Wales

Come and visit Puffles again!

Puffles and friends run ***free*** social media surgeries every month in Cambridge.

Social media trainers in and around Cambridge provide free 1-2-1 advice to local people and community groups on how to use social media for social action.

If you would like a 30 minute or 1 hour session, please call Cambridge Online on 01223 300 407 or email help@cambridgeonline.org.uk to book your place.