Why am I talking about him on my Web2.o blog? Because he recently released his social media strategy for the next 6 to 12 months. Would you believe that? That’s how important social media has become.

So anyway, I am doing a summary of the strategy released by the chairman. But before that a quick thought. In the past on various occasions I have struggled with Bell Bajao‘s social media performance, criticism has come that the social media leg of the campaign has not really taken off, numbers of twitter followers are far too low and so on. But here’s the thing, any strategy to be built and to yield results it takes time. No less than the US Admiral sets a goal for 6 to 12 months and in Bell Bajao we had put in all of 3 months strategic engagement. We shouldn’t be restless already.

Coming back to Chairman’s strategy:

• Social media foot prints – Website, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Itunes, Flickr and Blog
• Goal for 6 to 12 months – Engage, Align, Drive, Expand
• “Achieving these stated goals requires a mindset change in the Joint Staff to begin treating social media as main stream media and public inquiries.”

Engage

• Two sites that needs two way dialog – facebook and the blog
• Official facebook profile to be created for Director of Social Media and the Outreach staff
• FAQ page to be built on the official website, JCS.mil
• Use of Facebook chat feature to connect with Fans. Subjects of public importance will be posted and a subject matter expert will be designated to answer chats.
• Two way conversations to be mixed with personalized content – the Chairman’s target is to send two tweets a month on books he is reading, leisure activities on weekends and such.

Align

• The sites to be aligned with chairman’s top 3 priorities – Incorporate social media into Chairman’s Travel planning process and meetings with CAG (Chairman’s Action Group), PA (Public Affairs), Aides, Speech Writers, and the Front Office
• To incorporate proposed tweets, blogs, and other content into pre-event products and policy roll outs
• Write and publish legacy products specially for the blog, with embedded links to other content, pictures etc (Make them Ipad or Kindle friendly)
• Birthday letters for the Services is an example of a product that could be posted exclusively as a blog entry and shared with the services via social media and websites instead of an e-mailed PDF file.

Drive

• Align social media structure with existing Joint Staff event preparation to drive online conversation.
• Identify pre- and post- social media content requirements during planning meetings.
• Provide proposed tweets on Speech Writer Scene Setter cards.
• Provide social media content requirements on Scene Setter cards (video after, article, pictures, tweet with picture, blog prior, Op-ed prior, tweet question prior, etc.)
• Submit pre- and/or post- blog drafts with major speeches.

Expand

• To expand the online audience – continued promotion of the sites and posting of “viral” or “newsworthy” content
• Chairman to mention his online presence during All Hands Calls and incorporate them into appropriate speeches
• Embed “share” buttons on all stories, transcripts, and videos posted to JCS.mil
• Create mobile version of JCS.mil so that it will display properly on mobile devices like Blackberry and the iPhone.

• itDuzzit
• Engage
• Socialtext

Also to add Cotweet

[Source]

I mentioned about it in my previous post that this analysis raised some questions in my mind, which I think are important for any organization, when they start out on a social media campaign.

To set the context a few facts about Bell Bajao.

• Bell Bajao is a multimedia mass campaign against domestic violence launched in Aug 2008 by international human rights organization Breakthrough, containing TV, Radio, Print, Bill Boards and web.
• It is not solely a social media campaign, social media is one of its many legs.
• The campaign and the oraganization behind it works on a not for profit basis, so resources to be spent on publicity is limited.
• The Bell Bajao website www.bellbajao.org was launched in October 2008 the focus of the content is on the sensitive topic of domestic violence.
• The publicity of the website and other social media presence have only been done on social media by Breakthrough staff without engaging any external digital media agency.

See the presentation on slideshare

• How will you judge the success and failure of your campaign?
• What is your Bench Mark?
• Who are your competitors? From which geographical area? In which context?
• To sum up, question is who should your compare yourself with?
• What is your target: Is it numbers or conversation?
  
• How many hits per month?
• How many twitter followers per month?
• How many facebook fans?
• What kind of activities should your followers be engaged in?
• Lastly, do you need a social media marketing strategy or a digital media agency?

A related blog post – Competitive Intelligence in SEO and social media

Fully 96% of marketers with years of social media experience were using Twitter, while 91% used Facebook and 89% LinkedIn. Marketers with some social media experience were also big on Twitter (92%), followed by Facebook (88%) and LinkedIn (76%). The biggest difference between the two groups was in usage of social video marketing, such as through YouTube. Nearly two-thirds of the most experienced respondents said they used the technique, compared with only 42% of marketers who had several months of experience with social media.

[Source]

Last time I was here, social media wasn’t even a popular world, today it has surpassed everything else on Web 2.0

I realized no one has to read it for this space to be active, this could just be my journal where I keep notes of things that interests me in web2.0.

It is now more relevant because in my current role with International Human Rights organization ‘Breakthrough’ as Program Coordinator for Internet and Community Outreach, I am handling the social media outreach for the ‘Bell Bajao Campaign’ against domestic violence.

In my work I come across various social media trends, excitement and challenges that I want to note in this journal.

So there, I am back with more blogging now on social media.

It wouldn’t be updated and any web2 related posts would be published on This is My Mind.

This blog was kept seperate from my other blogs because I wanted it to be a collaborative blog so if any body still happens to read it and wants to contribute please write to me samyukta[dot]basu[at]gmail[dot]com

His take on New media: He thinks as news provider the fight between television and newspapers is sort of over its betweend Newspaper and Internet now. He says,

“the new media draws on the content of the old media and if the old media fade away, the new media will not have the robustness to maintain that kind of reporting…And the new media does very little reporting. They don’t break stories. Of all the things that journalism does, I place the highest value on getting the information out, breaking stories, opening new subjects, and so I am concerned about where the reporting is going to come from as newspaper reporting diminishes.”

On the quality of reporting. I totally loved what he says on the most often used line, this is what we deliver because this is what the reader wants.

“I’ve always mistrusted that phrase “the reader wants”, because how do we know exactly what the reader wants? I think you should give the reader a fresh and original paper that’s very well-written and covers all sorts of things —.social trends, fashion, the works but I think you are at your best when you give the reader something the reader wants that the reader didn’t know he or she wanted it till you gave it to her. Nobody is going to abandon you because you went three days in a row without mentioning Sarkozy’s wife.”

The BING application provides the best aspects of both SMS and Instant Messenger blended into an innovative, open Java software service that allows for real mobile2mobile chat for friends which is entirely free of charge. A key benefit to the service is that it can operate irrespective of mobile operator and handset model anywhere in the world. Also, unlike traditional SMS, BING allows users to communicate with as many friends as they like at the same time. The application has a core target group of 16-18 year olds, however it is resonating with a broader demographic of young urban people, for whom social networking while on the move is very important.
Source: Marketwire

 I think that is just amazing for a country like India although I am a little concerned about the particular age group indulging in porn. But any step ahead in social networking via more easily affordable and usable medium gets a plus one. 

Now this news is extremely significant for new media / web2.0 stake holders. Why?

Because, of the many conflicting issues, one pertinent issue is the compensation for ‘new media’ content written for (and/or distributed through) emerging digital technology. AMPTP is not ready to give the writers any percentage on new media content namely, through delivery channels such as Internet downloads, IPTV, streaming, smart phone programming, straight-to-Internet content, and other “on-demand” online distribution methods, along with video on demand on cable and satellite television.

A lot of speculations over the bright future of new media have already been taking rounds over the past couple of years. The buzz is huge, money is enormous, possibilities are endless, User is the King, open source is justice. But I think the writer’s strike, by far, is an issue with the greatest implications ever on future of new media. Questions both AMPTP and WGA pondering upon being “what is the future of new media, how far is it going to go, what revenue it might yield in next 3 years.”

AMPTP contends ‘there is no money in new media’. Is it? I am reminded of Saurabh’s ‘There is no buble in web2′ post, I thought there is just no end to money in new media.

Nora Cletter writes,

As it stands on television, WGA members get 2.5 percent of a film or television series gross revenue. That means for every buck networks make in ad revenues on television, writers get 2.5 cents. Networks also collect ad revenues for episodes they air online. Of that revenue writers see exactly zero, zilch, nada. The AMPTP insists that they shouldn’t have to pay writers because the online episodes serve as “promotional material.” They also insist that there isn’t enough money in new media to pay writers what they make on television, and they’re right, there isn’t … yet.

However, in the not too distant future, television and the Internet will merge and new media will become the dominant media. Where media conglomerates stand will make billions off this merger, writers will lose their shirts. Without a percentage deal in place that guarantees writers will continue to receive their 2.5 percent of revenue, the AMPTP will have no obligation to pay writers any residuals.

The only formula for new media that makes sense is one based on revenues where if they make money, we make money — that’s what we’re proposing. If, as they claim, there really is no money in new media, we can do the math; 2.5 percent of zero is zero. So why can’t we just take $250 per episode now and renegotiate when this fateful merger occurs, so you can get back to watching “The Office”? Because the AMPTP doesn’t play nice.

While Googling more about this issue I came across an article by Froma Harrop where he / she has highly criticized the business intentions of the founders of Huffington Post, a popular liberal blog written by Hollywood fellas. The article exposes how few people are making money out of the blog which is being written by 100 others who are not being paid for the content.

This is an issue about which I too have pondered some time or the other. The question is when a blogger creates a content who should have the right to make money out of that content, the blogger or the platform where he blogged. Where a blog is a collaborative blog who all would get copyright over the content, how will you decide the share?

Throwing more light upon the strike and new media connection is this series of interesting debate published last week, under the opinion section on L.A. Times weekly “dust up” feature, between writer-producer Craig Mazin (representing WAG) and web entrepreneur Matt Edelman (representing AMPTP). On Thursday they debated upon questions like, “What will new media look like in five years? Will writers and producers have to negotiate every time technology changes?”

Matt says,

We’re barely five minutes into the digital media marketplace movie. So much will change in the next three years. Every supposition being made by the studios and the writers about where their revenue will be generated will be challenged, and most will yield as many surprises as classic films such as “The Sting” (or, for TV fans, like the good seasons of “24″).

Technology is advancing at a staggering rate. High-definition video soon will be more efficiently delivered via broadband than any other distribution platform…

…

The question really should be, how far into the future will this vision become a reality? Three years? Five years? Ten years?

…

So why all the fuss right now?

…they (writers) are fighting over relative peanuts compared with what will come out of even a slightly better DVD deal. Home video, as increasingly represented by video-on-demand and other subscription services in addition to rentals, will remain a much more lucrative business for the studios (and therefore the writers) than the Internet in the near term.

To which Craig replies,

Getting a fair rate on Internet distribution isn’t about avenging the bad home video deal. It’s about not repeating it. You suggest that attempting to figure out the future of the Internet is akin to palmistry.

It’s not. Here’s how this works.

From now until the end of time, any work distributed over the platform known as “the Internet” (defined as the worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet protocol) should be subject to a fair and decent residual rate for the artists who make those works possible.

I don’t need to concern myself with your idea of ratios of Internet revenue to total revenue, because I have this nifty bit of advanced mathematical technology called “the percentage.” If you make very little money, so will I. If you make a lot of money, so will I.

Simple as that.

In another day’s debate, Matt said,

“The future of new media is that it will be mainstream media….Between now and the time of the tipping point that represents the arrival of that future, the economics of the entertainment business will remain in dramatic flux.”

That, I think is the whole crux. We don’t know what the future of new media holds for us. Friend, Saurabh the other day said, new media wouldn’t be there in the future at all. I don’t understand economics. But I would be interested hear from some one who does.

What do you think the future of new media would be like? Would the producers (AMPTP) be making a lot of money from new media content in the next 3 years?. Anybody throwing some light?