On September 28th, 2011 Henriette Weber wrote:
As some of you might know, Denmark has gotten a new prime minister, who, these days is assembling the new government. In a lot of ways it speaks of change. One of the things we're pretty excited about is that it's the first female prime minister that Denmark has ever had - it's ace and we love it.
However, even though before the election social media was buzzing with promises of stuff that the politicians would do after the election, for some parties (some of the ones that are currently in negotiations about the new government) social media has been all quiet on the western front. Kind of as if they've been running a campaign and they've gotten a lot of likers and followers and now we are not important anymore. The thing that bothers us, is that in the two latest elections they did the same thing - bla bla bla bla bla - and then silence. Nothing. Kind of like running away from a promise of closeness that you gave to your best friends. Or not calling your mom everyday as you promised.
Anyway we have translated the advice into english so the politicians of the world gets a social web recipe of how not to fuck around with the people who love you - it's just stupid. So if you like, here's the press release in english and in danish. and here's the story in Urban - the danish newspaper.
here it is peeps:
10 tips for politicians in regards to social media
1. Live updates bring excitement, personality and reactions. The morning after the election Margrethe Vestager posted a mobile picture on Facebook from the bus she sat in on the way to a secret meeting. More of that!
2. Lars Løkke used Facebook to say thanks in regards to his election defeat - a wise move. If you are only active when it is a good thing they're missing out on the respect it also creates with interaction the negative situations.
3. The best way to outdo your constituents' expectations is to be personal. Provide answers to inquiries, person to person and take everyone seriously as individuals. This is Democracy 3.0.
4. Listen to what is happening out there and be proactive in discussions. Both in regards to the big media, but also on blogs, twitter and the like. Could one imagine, for example. Villy Søvndal put a comment on a personal blog, which discussed his future as a minister?
5. Be proactive in digital relationships and take your inspirations seriously. A polititian can also send a friend request, it need not only be the other way.
6. Use social media to talk about your visions and dreams for the future. It builds identity, and identity is, more than anything else, that which makes people choose one or the other.
7. Implement a social web strategy for how to deepen relations with your surroundings. How many hours can you or your staff spend on direct dialogue with voters? How many should you use?
8. Answers to personal messages and emails. It has been, in this campaign, not uncommon to 'unchoose' a candidate because you could not get through to them. Show respect, and answer when someone asks.
9. Show up for various events - and use digital as a catalyst to get people to meet up with you. Do you record videos when you're out? Are you taking pictures? Voters like to follow along if they can actually see you out and about in the local environment.
10. Blog. Reflect on your life. Tell voters about the processes of everyday life as a politician. It builds value on top of all that election hype.
[politics, online identity, social media, elections, sociale medier, valgkamp]
[11 comments]
One of the questions we get a lot at Toothless Tiger is "what is it really you guys do?" Often we answer that question with "something on the internet" - but it's also a lot more than that.
What we do in Toothless Tiger, is social media.
in all shapes and forms really: we have the explanation of social media marketing, we are down with viral effects, we create and teach interaction and involvement.
So - what is social media ?
Social media is, when it comes right down to it, an extension of the internet where all people, companies and organisations have the possibility of being small media outlets. You can publish whatever you like out there for your audience, whether it consist of 5 people or 100.000.
Which social media is commercially the most used right now ?
It could be that it is your friends, your current/potential clients, or other people that you want to see your stories and news. And there's a lot of different levels to create stories on - everything from writing a little message on facebook with an attitude or making a huge campaign, where viral videos and app development are the main driver.
Right now - there are many types of social media you can choose from, and the right ones for you depend a lot of what impression you want to leave, and what you want people to do. Here's a list of social media that we use mostly in our work, and yes, they are some of the most common in our world at the moment. (in our part of the world)
Facebook
Linkedin
Twitter
YouTube
Even though social media is exciting, fun and game-changing in comparison to how we normally communicate, then our approach to social media is focused on companies.
On one hand, we're showing them how they can get more money out of their companies because of social media, but on the other side, we are also showing them how to look at the future of business with serious eyes by meeting and communicating with people where they already are: which is on social media!
There are so many possibilities, so many projects and ambitions you can use social media for, so it's extremely important that you, from the getgo, make it very clear what it is that you expect to acheive from using them. And this is how we at Toothless Tiger live - By having a different approach to social media compared to other companies out there.
Find the central story of your company
To make this as practical as possible you need to find something in your company that you can share with others. A good rule of thumb is to think about what people have especially noticed in and about your company. What are they asking you about ?
Most likely there are a lot of good stories in your company, in it's employees, or in you as a person (or a personal brand if you will) but to begin with, we only need one story. It's our main piece of content and it's the piece of content we are going to generate more content from.
An example could be that you're an icecream manifacturer and people always ask you about your recipe on homemade icecream. Then it's icecream that is the main piece of content. Not "just" icecream but icecream in our eyes. Our world of icecream. But just how much content can you realistically publish about icecream ?
Creativity is key
When we think about icecream we think about recipes, competitions about the best icecream in the world, ice from different countries, test of icecream machines and so on and so on. Creativity is your only boundry. It's what defines what you think you can publish about icecream from the given story as opposed to the earlier necessity of publishing advertisements every, to every other day.
To use social media as a strategic and effective part of your company, it's very important for your success that you are proactive about your stories. It's vital to put up a system where you have the opportunity to listen to relevant pages on the internet.
One of the more basic things you can do in regards to listening on the internet is to sign up on google.com/alerts where you can get mail send to you everytime somebody writes something about a given word (which could be your name, company name or product on the internet, a subject you're working in or even a competitor). In that way you can react, debate and speak your voice every time somebody is talking about subjects you are into - and even watch the surroundings of your brand.
Good luck with it ! We hope that our explanation and our advice will help you go a step further.
[social media, social media marketing, involvement, interaction, viral effects]
[8 comments]
One of the things we really like doing at Toothless Tiger is to simplify some of the complexities of the the social web and social media. Take for instance: Viral effects. Such a buzzword. Such a sought after effect to your brand.
Anyway we cooked a little infogram where viral effects on the social web is playfully demystified:
I've put it up on Toothless Tiger Press (in large format if you want to download it and use it for whatever) and henrietteweber.com as well..
rock on peeps - I hope this helps out a bit =)
[viral effects, infogram, social web, word of mouth, social media]
[2 comments]