The key is taking your good ideas and intentions with social media and developing them into more defined goals, objectives and tactics that can be measured for results.

Most organizations start with general goal statements that contain a little of all these elements, but are not quite any of them. As a longtime public relations professional and occasional adjunct professor on the topic, I can tell you the PR planning mindset may seem counterintuitive to your good social media intentions.  I’ll start by giving you a very general rundown of how I plan using a fictional “Clementine Hunter Art Museum.” Your mileage may vary.

1. Goals are extremely general and are rooted in the organization’s mission. They are based on changing your organization’s position in either reputation, relationships or the work of “getting things done.” They are your guiding light, Pollyanna statements about your organization’s perfect world, stated in present tense. This sounds stupid at first, and is surprisingly hard to do, but still necessary to the effectiveness of your ultimate plan. You can’t really measure these.

For example: CHAM is the top-of-mind source among publics who require easy online access to information about the life and art of Clementine Hunter.

2. Objectives are specific, measurable, time-based tasks that support your goals. Usually you have three or more.

For example: “To increase weekly traffic to the CHAM website 30% by the end of the current calendar year through an aggressive Facebook campaign targeted to students at art colleges.”

3. Tactics are the tools that you will use with intention to accomplish your objectives–Flickr, YouTube, direct mail, a poster contest, etc., etc. In this case, we’ll continue with the theme above.

For example:

1. CHAM conservator will post weekly updates (augmented with photos and video) to the Facebook page on the “journey” of conserving a work of art.
2. Initiate a Facebook ad campaign with appropriate demographics
3. Post monthly updates to art college Facebook pages
4. Facebook video contest — “How is CHAM’s legacy inspiring you?” Winner–museum membership, free print, small scholarship, etc.
5. Emphasize through semi-weekly updates, photos of the artist and woman as well as trivia about her technique, etc. (Folks want to feel connected to her, and the people  preserving her legacy, not to a “museum.”)
6. Secure and publicize a “shortlink” name for the Facebook page (e.g. facebook.com/clementinehunterart)
7. Produce a direct mail postcard advertising CHAM’s website and unique Facebook content.

The critical leap to success depends on your tactics being rooted in larger goals and objectives for the organization. Your organization may have already done this. If not, the more effective and productive method would be a staff retreat, even if it’s just after hours at the museum. It’s an exhausting, but fruitful process. The Hoshin Method (http://www.siliconfareast.com/hoshin.htm) is effective for this purpose.

Just remember, the principles of social media will often engage naturally when you are using the social tools while intentionally remembering who your audience is and what drives them. This will make participation from the staff and publics much easier as well.

Graphic by by Lograi on Flickr

Sometimes the needs of a heritage group extend beyond the simple need to convey information. Blogs and Facebook fan pages allow limited interactivity. But for groups whose members are intensely passionate about a topic, a free social networking site like Ning could be the way to go.

So what is Ning, and who is using it to talk about heritage?

Essentially, Ning allows you to create your very own Facebook, complete with groups, design customization, forums, RSS capability and individual profile pages that incorporate blogs. There are also multimedia sharing functions whereby members can upload photos and videos.

According to Quantcast.com, an estimated 6.8 million people access Ning a month. Far fewer than Facebook, but you have to consider the quality of communication going on in these sites. Unlike the “drive-by” communication common to Facebook, Ning flourishes when ongoing, intense discussion is needed on a topic.

Compared to other social networking sites, Ning provides the a solid platform for effective, good-looking sites with minimal effort, according to TechCrunch.

There are several general factors to consider before starting a Ning site.

Pros:

• You have an instant social network with a lot of the functionality of Facebook and your own brand
• It’s customizable with colors, graphics and typefaces
• There are a variety of privacy options for the site and for individual users
• Feature set is continually improved.
• Ability to track your web statistics through Google Analytics

Cons:

• Unless your potential membership is highly prolific and motivated, you will have to manage your community intensively to keep the participation level up.
• Once the information is in Ning, you can’t readily export it to another platform (like a blog).
• There are hundreds of social sites out there and many folks are fatigued with signing up for them.
• While Ning is improving, there will still be some instances (like getting a photo to show up in a post) where a rudimentary knowledge of HTML code is helpful.
• It’s also your responsibility to deal with spambots and members behaving badly.

Participation often comes in waves. This may be affected by a major news item, event or recognition by other sites and blogs. Just prepare yourself for it.

Heritage organizations worldwide have joined Ning to share their values. Here are a few examples:

Natchitoches Preservation Network (collaborative small town heritage site)

Natchitoches, La., the first permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory, is home to more than 30 organizations dealing with heritage issues. These organizations have long worked together to preserve the town’s historic legacy. While each has had its own website (often several years out of date) and publicity methods, the duplicate efforts wasted the energy of these organizations.

Ning was used to create the Natchitoches Preservation Network site.

The 151-member site uses groups and blogs to keep the community apprised of various heritage events and informs them of ongoing research and volunteer opportunities. Blog posts include anything from Community Cemetery Cleaning Day to thesis project presentations by Heritage Resources Students at nearby Northwestern State University of Louisiana.

The site also makes use of RSS and embedding of other social media to enhance the experience. It includes a virtual library of links from the social bookmarking service Delicious. It also incorporates a Friendfeed group that allows members to add news stories related to Natchitoches heritage from other sites, embedding them on the front page.

Members post photos and videos about events and places around the parish including the a series of “This Place Matters” videos in which individuals explain the importance of their favorite landmarks around the parish.

The site was also used to communicate intern research hosted at the National Center for Preservation Technology an Training during the summer. The interns blogged to the Natchitoches community weekly about the progress with their projects and how the projects benefit them as a community. They then presented their research at the end of the summer during the event “Preservation in Your Community.”

Heritage is more than just ensuring that a place matters, some heritage individuals find their passion preserving more intangible aspects, such as the art of music.

Paper Music (profession-oriented news and discussion)

Paper Music is an organization that uses Ning to exchange experiences and information to globally connect musicologists, music archivists, librarians and museologists.

The site makes strong use of its blog function to communicate news, events, information and commentary on pieces and newsletters. It also uses forums to share reference information such as how to successfully write academic papers.

Two Rosetos (place-based heritage sharing)

Two Rosetos is a heritage network for Roseto Valforteore-Italy and it’s sister city Roseto-PA. The 267-member network uses blogs, videos and photographs to communicate with their communities.

Blogs vary from inquiring about the path between cities to similarities between individuals and his or her ancestors to forum for people to explain the importance of their Italian experiences.

But with social media, communication is not simply limited to the city or county level.

GenealogyWise (Genealogy Research)

Genealogy is one of humankind’s favorite hobbies. We all want to know what makes us “us.” Not surprisingly, there are numerous genealogy networks on Ning. GenealogyWise is one of the largest. With more than 14,000 members and 3,000 groups, it’s very active. Using its group function, it also includes an interesting method for people to connect: by surname. The groups also tackle specific topics such as dating photos and outdoor genealogy. Nearly 400 videos (many of which are how-tos) have been posted. And to help the large membership connect, the site also holds scheduled live chats.

Museum 3.0 (Discussions on museums in the digital age)

Museum 3.0 poses the question, “What will the museum of the future be like?” More than 1,600 people from all over the world have joined in seeking an answer to this question.

The forums serve as their discussion board for a variety of topics including the future of the audio tour, new virtual tours on different sites, Twitter as a business tool and museum-related surveys.

Museum 3.o also uses the events function of Ning to promote different conferences, seminars and networking opportunities.

Museum 3.0 also uses Ning’s video and image sharing opportunities to post more than 500 images from different museums and about 50 videos ranging from interviews to museum-related speeches to videos depicting the “Reel Texas Cowboys.”

Heritage Hands (Heritage Volunteerism)

Sometimes heritage isn’t about the simplicity of one “concentration” or focus. Sometimes it is a general goal of “preserving the past.”

Heritage Hands is an organization that works to protect, preserve and promote cultural heritage. The site works to collaborate with all heritage professionals from museum professionals to archeologists to educators to everything and anything else out there.

The site shares news, job opportunities and promotes global networking centered on the general idea of promoting heritage values.

But heritage is not something that needs to be simply left to professionals. With social networking sites like Ning, heritage values are now in the hands of the individual.

For some, Ning enables them to research their family heritage and unit individuals globally giving them one centralized place to share aspects of their lives.  The families use their Ning sites to post family photos and videos, discuss family reunions and also research their family trees.

Regardless of the heritage you find important, let it be community heritage or your own family’s history, Ning enables you to share it all globally with folks who share those same values at the click of a button.

The sites we’ve covered are only a sampling of what’s out there. We’d love to hear your thoughts on your favorite heritage-focused Ning sites.

By Bethany Frank

by Dylan Staley

Let’s face it: videos are in. With the advent of social video sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Blip.tv, video has become a first class citizen on the web. But one of the major drawbacks to video is the time it takes form when the camera stops rolling to when the video is available online for millions to see.

When live television first came on the scene, it introduced a radical idea: the idea that you can watch news as it is happening, live right from your television. You can watch the Presidential Inauguration, the Macey’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, or the Time’s Square New Year’s Celebration live, right from the comfort of your home.

With internet media, you can now view these events hours after they have happened, and enjoy the moments over and over again. But, sometimes, you wish you could have seen it live.

Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the $1,000+ equipment that make a live television broadcast possible. This is where sites such as Qik and USTREAM come in.

Qik and USTREAM, both live video blogging sites, allow users to connect their internet-enabled devices (be it computers or camera-enabled cellphones) to their servers and upload a live video feed, directly to the website. No longer do you need to wait until the event is over, on until your upload finishes, or until the website host finishes encoding your video. Viewers can watch what is happening right now, right now.

The ability to broadcast live without expensive equipment is incredibly useful to those working in the preservation field. In my last post, I described how preservationists can use the microblogging site Twitter to send out text updates in almost real time to their followers, but nothing beats the feel of actually watching the action unfold. Here are some ideas:

• Museum fans can watch live as conservators work on priceless artifacts, perhaps drawing in new visitors to an exhibit.
• Broadcasting from an archaeological dig as a major discovery is unearthed.
• Livestreaming from your community preservation event (such as a cemetery cleaning day) to ignite interest and get more volunteers involved.
• Raise awareness about the state of cultural resources affected by disaster (see video below)

The only thing you need is an internet-enabled device such as a cellphone, and an internet connection. You will of course need to be aware of the sensitivity and security of these sites when you are broadcasting. You wouldn’t want to attract looters to an archaeological site, for example.

With the websites Qik and USTREAM, users sign up for an account and then follow different instructions on how to set up their various devices to communicate with the internet servers. Users can then subscribe to the live video feed and watch whenever, and wherever, you are broadcasting as if they were right there beside you.

Related Links:

Qik | Frequently Asked Questions

USTREAM.tv Help Center

Mashable | What’s is Mobile Video’s Future?

Mashable | Create Your Own Branded Mobile Video Broadcast with Ustream

“What are you up to?”

It’s how we greet friends and strangers alike everyday. It’s also the question behind one of the web’s most popular social networking sites: Twitter. Voices of the Past posts links to its news, along with other community announcements, at www.twitter.com/ptnews. So what is microblogging, and what can you gain from it?

Microblogging, a term that refers to the plethora of micro-blog posts on the sites of services such as Twitter, Jaiku and Plurk, lets users update their friends (or followers as Twitter calls them) about what’s going on right now. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll be looking at the basic ideas behind microblogging with Twitter. Yes, the first time I heard about it I too wondered who in the world would spend their time on something like this.

Lots of folks, evidently. According to the measurement website Tweetrush, about 2 million “tweets” (a.k.a. posts) are released into cyberspace each day. And in a time when most companies are going to the government for the funds to stay afloat, venture capitalists gave Twitter $35 million it didn’t even necessarily need.

It turns out that most people like the freedom of expression that blogging promises, but aren’t crazy about the commitment. While some of us may enjoy the process of researching and crafting a blog post to stand the test of time, others just want to share their admiration of a helpful Wal-Mart employee or vent their frustration about the long checkout lines. The sentiment is short, sweet and instantly out there for millions to see.

Ease of use is where much of Twitter’s popularity lies. There is no logging into an administrative panel to create headlines, tags and the other components of a blog post. And the interface is immaculate, unlike the chaos of Facebook or MySpace. Type in the homepage box and press send. That’s it. Dozens of Twitter update applications have been built for quick updating via desktop applications and smartphones as well.

Obama on Twitter

More than 250,000 Obama followers on Twitter aided in his presidential victory through spontaneous meet-ups and fundraisers announced through the service. In February 2009, “Twestival” was celebrated for the first time in more than 180 cities all over the world. Twestival essentially began with groups of Twitter users rallying together to support the cause of clean water in developing countries. Hundreds of gatherings were held to raise money for public works projects.

Twitter can be used on a personal level for project management, to-do lists, notetaking, job networking, flash focus groups, and getting all the family together at the same time for dinner. It can also be used to aggregate news in an easily accessible way.

But Twitter is merely the delivery platform. It’s up to the users of the service to determine what the conversation is about. Groups who are on archeological surveys can use these services to update their friends and colleagues about their findings almost immediately after the fact through the use of cellphone integration that many microblogging services offer. These services can allow almost real-time communication: something that is virtually unheard of within the preservation field.

The major microblogging services are:
Twitter
Jaiku
Plurk
Identi.ca
Tumblr
Brightkite

Follow Voices of the Past on Twitter and Tumblr!

RELATED LINKS:

5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good

Newbie’s Guide to Twitter

Squidoo Lenses on Using Twitter

Latest news on Twitter

By Dylan Staley

“Isn’t Genealogy Fun? The answer to one problem leads to two more.” – Anonymous

Genealogy, the study of one’s lines of descent or development, is often a tedious task: one must search through hundreds of documents; find certificates of birth, death, marriage, and divorce; and then compile all this information in something easy to read and understand.

That thing is usually a family tree.

Everyone knows what a family tree is. Think back to kindergarten, when your teacher had you draw a tree with your grandparents as the roots, your parents as the trunk, and you and your siblings as the branches of the tree.. It was fun, because you knew these people, and you knew how they were related (and because in kindergarten, family trees actually resembled their real-life counterparts). That’s because it didn’t seem like these people were in the witness protection program.

Tracing back you lineage farther than your great grandparents can prove difficult. By this point, those who actually know who you’re looking for will, ahem, have been put to pasture. It is then up to you to trace your lineage through the paper trail of certificates of birth and death, marriage and divorce, and even immigration records. It’s often too time consuming for the average hobbyist to research find and record all this information.

This is where using Web 2.0, the idea that the internet should be open and collaborative, comes into play. By using this ideology, building your family tree is as easy as asking someone who their mother was. Using a Web 2.0 service simulates having your family around you, and working together to fill out your family tree. As others are added, they become a part of the conversation, adding their input and helping to fill out their branch of the tree. The more people you add to the tree, the more information you have access to. At some point, you realize that you are not alone, and that your family is there to help you.

Geni is a web based family tree maker that is using the idea of Web 2.0 and collaboration to make finding your long lost relatives easier. Geni, built by some of the people that brought you PayPal, eGroups, eBay, and Tribe, allows you to work with your family members on building your family tree. So, you may not know your second great grandmother’s husband’s name, but your grandmother’s sister may know, and Geni provides the platform to allow this knowledge to travel the great distances that often separate families.

Geni's Family Tree Maker

When you add someone to your tree on Geni, you can also choose to add their email address. Then, they will be able to collaborate on their side of the family tree. Just think, if all of your relatives were to map out their family trees up to their grandparents, your tree would grow exponentially.

When you add someone to your tree, you have the option of adding their email address so they can collaborate on your family tree with you

Geni also allows you to create complete profiles on any of your family members, including dates of birth, death, marriage and divorce, and other important events; locations of birth and current residence; schools attended and more. Geni provides a simple to use interface that makes genealogy fun and simple (not to mention addictive).

Geni's Basic Profile Information

Geni isn’t only about building your family tree with your family. It also provides ample methods to share other things with your relatives, such as important dates in your children’s lives, photos of the family reunion (that only half of them even bothered to R.S.V.P. for), and that video of your daughter taking her first steps. Geni provides the tools to share what’s important to you with your family, and discover just who exactly that is.

Here are a few other services that use Web 2.0 ideas to build family trees:
Genoom
Famiva
Family Mingle
MyHeritage

As you can see, there are numerous services designed to help you bring your family together to build a family tree. Sound off in the comments if you use one of these services and why, and any interesting discoveries you’ve made along the way.

See what others have said about Geni:
Lifehacker: Build your family tree with Geni
TechCrunch: Geni’s Quest Toward One World Family Tree
VentureBeat: Geni aims to build family tree for whole world
AppAppeal: Geni Review
CNET: Geni: Finally, Genealogy made easy

Geni Blog
twitter / geni
delicious / geni

Ever feel like e-mail is your enemy? Oh sure, that first few months after you first logged in was great. The world was at your fingertips. Then, at some indefinable moment in time, sweet freedom became enslavement. Now, all day, everyday–for the foreseeable future–new messages are appearing along with the possibility of one more thing to handle.

There are lots of things you can do with Friendfeed. I’ve seen it used for blogs, wikis, discussion forums, web bookmarks and even instant messaging. Its rising popularity lies in its simplicity. Using a bookmark in your browser toolbar, you can share and comment on web content without ever having to leave the web page you are looking at. Other folks can subscribe to the feed, then jump in, add their responses and share related links too. Since it’s so easy to post and comment, communities tend to build around them quickly. All the posts go to one scannable, searchable page.

You can have content from almost any social service automatically imported into your feed–from blogs to Amazon wish lists–whether it’s your’s or not. So it functions kind of like a public RSS reader as well. Web experts believe this style of open, dynamic communication is the next iteration of the internet. And some prominent bloggers have already abandoned their blogs in favor of lifestreaming sites.

Of course, you control  the privacy settings on your personal Friendfeed. But you can also create “rooms” on specific topics to which anyone can join and contribute content. Preservation Today has a Friendfeed room. Anyone is welcome to join the room, and the conversation on our shared heritage. You can also see updates from the Friendfeed room anytime by visiting the Voices of the Past Heritage News page.

Elsewhere on the web:

http://www.blahblahtech.com/2009/01/what-is-friendfeed.html

Confused about social media? Don’t know where to start? For the last two years, I’ve been hunting down great projects in and outside of museums that exemplify the themes of visitor participation, user-generated content, and flexible relationships between institutions and visitors. Here are some of my favorite museum projects that represent interesting, thoughtful experiments with Web 2.0:

The Bay Area Discovery Museum: A Lesson in Good Listening

You don’t need a big initiative to get involved with social media—you just need ears and a voice to add to conversations that are already happening. Jennifer Caleshu, head of marketing for a small children’s museum, is an active participant in local Web 2.0 parenting and recreational sites like Yelp!, and developed relationships in those online communities to build strong relationships with current and potential visitors. She recently started a blog for the museum, but her best work is in listening to what others are saying about her institution. She describes her social media strategy here on the excellent Museum Audience Insight blog maintained by Reach Advisors.

MN150: A Visitor-Generated History Exhibition

The Minnesota Historical Society developed an innovative permanent exhibition featuring the 150 most important contributions of Minnesota as nominated by regular people. Read an interview with the lead developer of MN150 here.

The Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum is a leader in innovative social media initiatives, from the creation of Facebook applications to crowd-curated exhibits and a “posse” collection-tagging project. You can read three articles about their initiatives here or visit their community site here.

Library of Congress on Flickr

When the Library of Congress put some of their photo collection on the photo-sharing site Flickr, it opened up whole new conversations and interpretations of their content. Read more about it here.

ExhibitFiles

ExhibitFiles is a social networking website for people who make and visit exhibitions. It is a living database of exhibit case studies and reviews and is useful for anyone looking for best practices in the field.

Museum blog types compared (with examples)

In this post on Museum 2.0, I compare the different types of museum blogs and offer a self-assessment tool to determine what type might be right for you.

Beth’s Blog and the WeAreMedia wiki

Beth Kanter is an extraordinary social media maven with a focus on non-profits. She covers everything from Web 2.0 tools to fundraising strategies on her blog and on the NTEN WeAreMedia project site.

Useum

The North Carolina Museum of Life and Sciences is doing a series of no- to low-cost experiments with Web 2.0 and documenting them here.

Science Buzz and Red Shift Now

The Science Museum of Museum and the Ontario Science Center each maintain impressive community sites that integrate real-time visitor feedback from the Web and the museum floor here and here respectively.

We’re all hearing stories about how newspapers are obsolete and print is dead. But what’s taking their place? After, all the big attraction of newspapers is their scannability. We humans have become accustomed to absorbing a world of timely knowledge, at a glance.

The answer lies in RSS, or really simple syndication. And to put it in a nutshell, it brings the web to you, your way. No clicking. No searching. No fancy formatting. Very few ads. Just the text from your favorite sites along with relevant media. And the great thing is, it is indeed really simple. Here’s all you need to do:

Step 1: Get A Reader

Google Reader is a good choice because you can access it from any browser, but there are numerous options out there. Your reader is just a holding pen for all the information that will come from each site you subscribe to.

Step 2: Learn to recognize a site that offers a RSS feed

Most modern websites have RSS built in, but heritage organizations seem to be lagging behind in this regard. You will most likely recognize a RSS-enabled website by the square icon with a cone-shaped design in it. Usually it’s orange. This could be in the web page itself, but you know for sure by looking at the address bar of your browser. If the icon, or the letters RSS show up along with your website’s address, all you have to do is click the icon to save it to your preferred reader.

If your favorite site doesn’t have RSS, you still have options. Try Feedwhip. It can notify you of changes to any website via e-mail.

Step 3: Take stock of your web bookmarks.

Remember all those really cool sites you bookmarked in your browser thinking you would get back to them? I didn’t think so. It’s often the newest, shiniest websites that seem to get the most attention, often at the expense of more established sites that have a backstock of useful information and experienced authors. Go back and take a look at these sites. If they still seem relevant, try adding them to your RSS reader. You can also check the websites of your favorite print publications.

Step 4: Learn how to scan

The beauty of RSS is being able to immediately identify whether an article is something you 1.) are not interested in, 2.) just want to scan, or 3.) want to read thoroughly. Google reader loads a few articles at a time. And items appear one after the other on your page. The length of the post within reader is set by the owner of the website providing the feed. While Web 2.0 netiquette expects that articles be fed in their entireity, some sites provide just a summary or headline. As you scroll down the page, you will notice the articles will “gray out” as you pass them. Google Reader is marking these as already read, meaning they won’t be coming back.

Step 5: Share what’s useful

When a webmaster establishes an RSS feed, it is often with the help of a program like Feedburner. This embeds a variety of sharing options into each post that goes into the feed. Usually this appears as blue text in the bottom of each post. You might see line of words like:

What you certainly will see is Google Reader’s built-in options for sharing that look like this:

Additional Resources:

Featured RSS icon by orangejack on Flickr

“What does RSS mean” graphic by Brajeshwar on Flickr