SOCIAL WEB
WORKSHOP
P.R.& Crisis Communication
Series A Level 1 (2008 edition)
Laurel Papworth World Communities 2008 @SilkCharm
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About this PR and Crisis Communications courseware
PR and Crisis Communication: This course combines and introduction to social media tools with strategies and
exercises for Public Relations practitioners who are interested in both monitoring and participating in online en-
gagement. It is focussed on how social networks use word of mouth in crisis such as bombings, floods and bush-
fires. Also how social networks can create a crisis online by creating anti-PR around a brand or company. We also
cover social media press releases
About the Courseware series
It is not a whitepaper, strategy document or state of the industry presentation. It is a workshop, or course based
exercise book. Because I am Australian, most of the case studies are from Australia. These courses have been
presented in Europe, Asia and Middle East, and I have found that most case studies are relevant, or at least initi-
ates discussions, in most cultures.
Some material is duplicated from course to course. So foundation information that is relevant to PR - such as ʻwhat
is a blogʼ may also be relevant to Marketing. However each course invariably has different case studies, as the
way that Public Relations uses social media tools is different than Marketing, which in turn is different from Cus-
tomer Service and Technical Support.
Other Courseware
I have presented many courses over many industry sectors, so intend to gradually in the next few months migrate
my courseware into a format that can be printed by other trainers, online. Some of the current courses/workshops
that I present and have content for include;
•Social Web Workshop: Monetization & Revenue - revenue streams for online communities.
•Social Web Workshop: Enterprise 2.0 - social tools behind the firewall - collaboration & knowledge sharing
•Social Web Workshop: for H.R. and Recruitment Workshop - on how social networks changes the paradigm
•Social Web Workshop: Travel and Tourism Workshop - course on strategies for large group & niche travel
•Social Web Workshop: The Social Media Marketing Campaign - 5 stages of a social media marketing campaign
•Social Web Workshop: The Social Media Audit - search and discover conversations on the ʻnet
•Social Web Workshop: Measurements and Metrics - workshop on how to measure social media
•Social Web Workshop: Small, Medium Size Business - workshop on using free tools for SMBs
In addition, I have case studies and material specific for Social Web Workshops specific for Film and Television,
Finance and Accountants, Law, Medical, Telecommunications and so on. Please enquire.
About Copyright
This work is under a creative commons license so donʼt be evil (attribute me, and ask me before you hack it up).
Iʼm pretty flexible, email me if you need something, never hurts to ask. Contact; +61432684992 (0432684992) or
laurel@laurelpapworth.com for information, licensing or exemptions. If you purchase the printed courseware
through any of the official sites, then that license applies. Donations gratefully accepted http://laurelpapworth.com
Front Page Graphic is from http://wordle.com and
Photographs by Gary Hayes of http://personalizemedia.com
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About Laurel Papworth
I am a consultant and workshop facilitator and international keynote presenter in social networks and social media.
I have been involved in virtual communities and social networks since the late 1980ʼs and running forums and vir-
tual world customer support since the late 1990ʼs. I present courses on Facebook for Business, Twitter for Busi-
ness and also industry streams e.g. Social Media for Banking, for H.R & Recruitment, for Film & TV. I teach social
media marketing campaign workshops through the University of Sydney Centre for Continuing Education and con-
sult on social networks to major companies including Middle East Broadcasting (MBC) - womenʼs online commu-
nity in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Singapore Government, Macquarie Leisure, Sony Electronics, Channel Ten Aus-
tralian Idol community. For information on my speaking engagements and courses available, consultancy and ad-
vice, please go to http://laurelpapworth.com. If you wish to discuss the courseware, http://socialwebforum.com is a
good place to do that.
Thanks to
Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) for giving me opportunities to present my concepts and public rela-
tions stories in Australia and to UK and worldwide (via video) conferences. Thank you also to various Singapore
Government organisations such as Mindef (Defence) and MDA (Media Development Authority) for being such en-
thusiastic participants in my social media and PR/Marketing courses. I learnt a lot from teaching!
On Twitter, thanks to
• @trib (Stephen Collins of AcidLabs) acidlabs.org
• @ariherzog (Ari Herzog) ariwriter.com
• @leehopkins (Lee Hopkins of Better Communication) . leehopkins.net
• @kcarruthers Kate Carruthers kcarruthers.com
for their support as colleagues and high ethics as competitors
• Also @trevoryoung of PR Warrior, prwarrior.typepad.com
• @shel of Holtz Communication blog.holtz.com
• twitter@PRSarahevans of #journchat.info prsarahevans.com
for great social media tools for PR people,
Special mentions to Trevor Cook of Corporate Engagement, who escaped Twitter and is now a PR fugitive - twugi-
tive? Shel Israel@shelisrael and Robert Scoble @scobleizer for their world changing book, Naked Conversations
- I count myself lucky to include Shel Israel as a friend across oceans yet seems to be only a few pixels away.
Finally, thankyou to my partner and co-conspirator and editor, @garyphayes. All the errors are his!
Lastly
I donʼt know if anyone will find my courseware useful. If you do, please let me know or make a donation at my
website. Students can share questions and answers at http://socialwebforum.org. The courseware wonʼt stand on
itʼs own without a trainer - use a good one! Additional material (recommended sites, case studies) are available for
trainers to download at http://laurelpapworth.com or http://socialwebforum.org
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Content Networks
8
Content Portal Diagram
10
Blogs
11
Blog Case Studies
12
Wikis
13
Wiki Case Studies
14
Distribution Networks
16
Ripple Effect Diagram
18
Facebook
19
Facebook Case Studies
20
RSS Syndicating Information
21
RSS Case Studies
22
Widgets & Snippets
23
Widget Case Studies
24
Social Bookmarking
25
Bookmarking Case Studies
26
Social Tagging
27
Social Tagging Case Studies
28
Conversation Networks
30
Twitter
31
Twitter Case Studies
32
Forums
33
Forums Case Studies
34
Virtual Worlds & Serious Games
35
Virtual Worlds Case Studies
36
Lists & Links
37
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Social Media
Content Networks
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Content Portal Diagram
An explanation of the social media content portal diagram
What is the diagram about?
Any site that is focussed on content creation - video, podcasts, multimedia - usually has most if not all of these
features. Do not confuse social media content sites with social media distribution or social media conversation
sites. Their primary purpose is quite different from the SM Content Portal sites.
When we create a video for YouTube or DailyMotion or Metacafe, or we post up a photo on Flickr or Photobucket,
or a powerpoint presentation on Slideshare, we have created that information in isolation and presented it to the
social network for comments and questions.
So the PINK represents the content that the content creator has control over. We can create a channel on You-
Tube for all our Videos. Often the Channel is just our name - in my case SilkCharm Slideshare or similar. The
Header is the Title and the content the heart of our creation. We can also display a Profile or About page, and add
licensing (creative commons etc).
The BLUE is viewer created content. This is quite different than our social media - short Comments, Votes or 5
star Rating *****, they can favourite our content and add it to groups they visit. They can also flag it as inappropri-
ate to a moderator.
The YELLOW colour is for the 3rd participant in social media sites - the host. The host (for instance, Google You-
Tube or Yahoo Flickr) offer dynamic information - number of Views, Recommendations, Embed Codes.
Case Study Two
You Tube
FInally
While you control the content, the additional tools tell a viewer whether to bother or not. Learn the analytics. Content
sites have poor built in audiences - unlike Facebook with friends lists - so use embed and RSS and other distribution
tools as much as possible to seed you content from the content portal to distribution sites.
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Case Study One
The Power of The Embed
The embed code allows fans to distribute your con-
tent - videos, podcasts - around the internet rather
than forcing people to come back to your site or
YouTube. However you can still measure view
count.
The trickiest part of embeds is understanding that
the video is not duplicated. Itʼs not downloaded and
saved to the viewers site, it just adds a widget. A bit
like watching the television through a window. You
are in another room (on say, a blog) but the video is
playing on the main server (YouTube).
In fact, the television is a good analogy - the You-
Tube page broadcasts out, but the TV set is on the
viewers Facebook, MySpace or some other page,
receiving the signal.
Embeds are powerful - remember getting the mes-
sage out is more important than traffic to a site.
Blogs
This section covers blogs and how they are used by PR practitio-
ners to communicate with the public.
If you blog as an afterthought,
your readers will read it as an
afterthought. Jorn Barger,
coined term “Weblog”.
Blog Options
PR
Write from the public relations
perspective, offering expert in-
formation, videos, photos to the
community to discuss.
CEO
A dynamic CEO with a unique
“voice” may use a blog to voice
his/her corporate vision and in-
dustry directions.
Customer Service
Staff that engage with consumers
on a daily basis may make excel-
lent bloggers as they know the
questions and answers and cur-
rent issues.
Leader
Sports bloggers for a health drink
company, TV star bloggers for
teen fashion companies, external
leaders with a voice in that
demographic can blog about sto-
ries of interest.

Wordpress, Blogspot, Typepad,
and others- these blogging plat-
forms show you or a customer
can set up a blog in 3 steps. Add
in YouTube video, Flickr for pho-
toblogging and Slideshare for
powerpoint presentation blogs,
and you can see that depth of
content sites are easy to use.
What is a blog?
by Laurel Papworth
A blog is a series of articles written in a
diary format with comments and social
tools embedded. The articles are usually
written in the 1st person (“I am”) and
seek to inform, entertain or otherwise
engage readers. While they may have
an advertising component, usually the
purpose is to address and communicate
issues either about the company specifi-
cally, or the industry as a whole
Unlike a wiki or a forum, a blog is a one-to-many channel. The blogger
sets the topic, tone and timeframe for discussion. The article (blog post)
is written in isolation and then presented as a finished product to the
audience, who may then comment and ask questions. The audience
usually must stay on topic (that the blogger or author has set) and will
be consided “spam” if they stray onto other topics. While a blogger may
invite other bloggers to contribute (group blog), they will stay retain con-
trol by pre or post moderating comments or removing commenters.
Why?
The fact that blog posts are written in isolation and are edited before
being presented to the social network makes them perfect for PR and
marketing. As long as the writer seeks to engage with the audience, the
topic, tone and content stay on target for community conversations.
How do blogs !t into your PR Strategy?
When and how to implement
Use a blog to address emergency situations - product recall, rumours, staff
changes - where you seek to limit the discussion. Blogs can be either up-
dated regularly (once a day or once a week) or hidden until required. How-
ever, be aware that “in case of emergency, break glass” blogs do not have
the trust and credibility as those that are always engaging with the target
demographic and regularly updated. Monitor comments carefully until situa-
tion is in hand.
Blogging press releases (see Social Media Press Release section) will con-
tinue to offer social media assets (content) that brand evangelists can use.
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Blog Case Studies
This section helps you understand who is using blogs as a busi-
ness tool and how they are implemented.
How is it used in practice?
Blogs have built in content tools but few audience tools. Consider the topic, tone of voice, and content matter.
Video blogs, photoblogs, text and multimedia have a different look and feel. Original indepth content often mixes
with distribution - links to newspapers and other sites.
Case Study One
NowWeAreTalking by Telstra
Australiaʼs largest telecommu-
nication company has a group
blog (12 bloggers) to discuss
regulatory issues and other
topics that were not getting fair
mainstream press.
During the last few years,
NWAT has laid off or sacked
bloggers. Consider the conse-
quences of raising the profile of
a few bloggers only to lose
them, acrimoniously or other-
wise.
Case Study Two
FASTLANE by GM Motors
The car manufacturer is in the top
ten of corporate blogs, and have
now built their own channel so they
do not need to rely on traditional
media (newspaper, magazines) to
publish their press releases.
A blog is not collaborative but it
IS discussion. Publish industry
content, not just corporate.
Tip: Laurel Papworth
Blogs To Watch
• 1 - The Consumerist - Shoppers
Bite Back
• 2 - BadPitch Blog.
• 3 - NotGoodEnough - Austra-
liaʼs Complaints Site
• 4 - PR Disasters - PR disasters,
spin doctors and reputation
management gone wrong
• 5 - Better Communication - Lee
Hopkins
• Crikey - Trevor Cook
Exercise - What shall we blog?
• Look around for videos - particularly howto or DIY? Who in the organisation can manage the role of blogger
best? Class - get into groups of four, write 3 sentences on your passion/interest, then find a segue to link to
each other.
FInally,
If you have content such as reports, powerpoint slides, videos of HowTos and the CEO presenting their vision, consider a mul-
timedia blog. Easy to update, you can engage directly with consumers through comments and avoid dependence on main-
stream media.
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Wikis
This section covers wikis and how they are used by PR practitio-
ners to communicate with the public.
If a blog is like a lecture with
questions at the end, a wiki is
like a collaborative workshop.
Laurel Papworth
Wiki Uses
Replace eMail
When staff leave they take ac-
cess to their email with them. All
conversations are lost, or must
be forwarded/printed up. Wikis
keep the conversation accessi-
ble.
FAQs and Manuals
Customer Service can update
wikis on the fly. Publish parts
publicly, keeps others internal
only.
Collaborative Press Releases
Staff that engage with consumers
on a daily basis may make excel-
lent bloggers as they know the
questions and answers and cur-
rent issues.
Leader
Sports bloggers for a health drink
company, TV star bloggers for
teen fashion companies, external
leaders with a voice in that
demographic can blog about sto-
ries of interest.

Imagine a world in which every
single person on the planet is
given free access to the sum of
all human knowledge. That's
what we're doing
Jimmy Wales,
Founder of Wikipedia
What is a wiki?
by Laurel Papworth
A wiki is an article on a web page
that is editable by a group of peo-
ple and makes a great example of
a broadcast, collaborative knowl-
edge management system. Every-
one can add pages, update pages,
comment and discuss pages on-
line. Unlikes blog posts that have a
locked down article with comments
underneath, wikis have both an
editable article and a discussion
tab for comments.
Because, like a blog, there is no software to download, everything is
accessible on the webpage. Within the Enterprise, wikis make a com-
pelling argument for replacing email and outside the firewall, can be
used to collaborate with the consumer. Upload pictures, videos, dia-
grams, tips, bullet points and FAQs to a collaborative system and watch
as consumers add value including translating to other languages.
Why?
Collaborative knowledge management tools reduce email traffice, ver-
sion issues and make sure everyone is “on the same page” - literally.
They are great for workshopping an idea or group editing contextual
documents.
How do wikis !t into your PR Strategy?
When and how to implement
Start with the internal directory page - place that on a wiki and allow every-
one to update their own page with their own contact details and photo-
graphs and calendars.
Encourage those with niche information to update and share on the internal
wiki - critical and time sensitive customer and business issues such as cus-
tomer service or technical support.
Start to publish well patronized and updated pages to the public, with an
option later for the public to changes some pages.
Even further into your strategy, the public may choose to collaborate in co-
creating public relations services.
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Wiki Case Studies
This section covers how wikis affect PR. Also how Enterprise uses
them as collaborative knowledge management systems.
How is it used in practice?
Blogs have built in content tools but few audience tools. Consider the topic, tone of voice, and content matter.
Video blogs, photoblogs, text and multimedia have a different look and feel. Original indepth content often mixes
with distribution - links to newspapers and other sites.
Case Study One
Wikipedia vs WikiScanner
Monitor Wikipedia for entries
about your brand or company.
The wikipedians have a strong
culture and will remove any-
thing that is untrue or defama-
tory.
However, do not edit the page
to remove true information.
Wikiscanner doublechecks all
changes to wikipedia pages,
and recently the Australian De-
partment of Defence was
named as having edited
Wikipedia 5000 times.
Case Study Two
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is developing an uncen-
sorable Wikipedia for untraceable
mass document leaking and analy-
sis. Removes the need for a “whis-
tleblower” to connect with a journal-
ist, and puts the power of publish-
ing and audience into their hands.
Wikis are becoming an essen-
tial communications tool for
enterprises,
Ross Mayfield, SocialText Wiki
National Emergency
During the Mumbai bombings,
bloggers created a Google Doc
that could be edited by anyone.
You added the name of someone
who was missing in Mumbai and if
anyone else heard news of that
person (safe, in hospital, or dead)
the document was updated.
Crowdsourcing during the Tsunami
led to a wiki being created, and the
Australian bushfires news was
kept updated on WikiNews.
Exercise - What shall we wiki?
• Think about using a wiki internally first as they can be the most challenging to manage with customers. How
could you share information better using a wiki in the office? Class: Make and edit a list of 20 words on either
ʻblueʼ, ʻrockʼ or ʻlightʼ. (leads to Tagging exercise later).
FInally,
Using crowdsourcing or “collective intelligence” may lead to faster raising of awareness and distribution of time critical informa-
tion during a crisis. It is the responsibility of communications professionals to collate and verify this information.
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YOUR NOTES
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Social Media
Distribution Networks
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Ripple Effect Diagram
An explanation of the connected chain reaction diagram for
distributing content through social networks.
What is the diagram about?
Most companies think of broadcast when determining distribution of information strategies. As many eyeballs, visi-
tors to site, viewers of videos as possible.
The blogosphere, Twitterverse and other social networks work more on a chain reaction or a ripple of content.
A blog is great for content creation but doesnʼt come with an inbuilt audience. The key is to connect with others
who are interested in this content. Content moves around one network - e.g. retweeted on Twitter and then
bounces out into other networks - to Facebook, for example. Corporate blogs that do not link to other blogs or
other pages do gain traffic from those sites. Reciprocity is a social contract between content creators
Two key concepts with this type of distribution are disintemediation and democratization. Disintermediation means
that you can go to an original source - if there is a quote in a newspaper or blog, you can follow back to the original
thinker and view the entire press release or article. Only bloggers and distributors that add value retain audience.
Democratization allows a blogger with very few readers to still have a major impact - as long as one of their read-
ers moves the content along.
Over time content may be driven into many networks, and fastmoving channels like Twitter present the opportunity
for velocity - 1 blog post may develop into 47 million media impressions over a weekend. So while Ripples are not
broadcast, they can have the same impact as traditional marketing channels.
Case Study One
Engadget vs Apple
In May 2007, Engadget received an email from an
Apple.com email account stating that the iPhone
would be 3 months late, as would the Leopard op-
erating system
“Appleʼs stock promptly tanked on massive selling,
going from $107.89 to $103.42 in six minutes
(11:56 - 12:02). This wiped just over $4 billion off of
Appleʼs market capitalization. A lot of people lost a
lot of money very quickly.” Techcrunch
Ignoring blogs and social media can affect your bot-
tom line earnings, stock price and trust/reputation in
the marketplace. if you have a problem with C-level
executives in your company understanding the
value of being involved in social media, as them to
read my blog post on the issue.
http://laurelpapworth.com/apple-0-blogosphere-1-bo
gus-iphone/
Case Study Two
Deaf Mom vs fast food giant
Not all ripple start with a big blog and large reader-
ship. In January 2008, Karen, of Deaf Mom blog,
drove through the drive-thru of Steak-and-Shake,
and ignoring the mike/speaker, asked to make the
order at the window because she is deaf. She was
denied service. Her small blog post caught the eye
of Diversity Inc which in turn was reblogged at The
Consumerist (large blog). Journalists read about her
story on there, contacted her, and she was on the
evening Fox News on TV, and the local newspaper.
During this time, when you did research on Steak-
and-Shake on business news sites like Yahoo!
News and Google Business News, two facts were
obvious. One, that a deaf mother had been denied
service contravening the Disabilities Act of America
and two, that Steak-and-Shake were at a sensitive
stage of negotiations regarding a merger.
http://laurelpapworth.com/australia-event-social-net
works-and-pr/
FInally,
Creating content is not enough - listening and responding, promoting relationships and being engaged is a fundamen-
tal change from broadcast channels. Understand that the absence of a relationship with social media circles creates a
void that will be filled by content that may harm you. Yet building Trust and Reputation through engagement would go
a long way to mitigate erroneous information. Not all bloggers are created equal, learn who has a voice, and how to
get corrections, updates and apologies out in a meaningful way.
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Facebook
This section covers how to use Facebook as both a social net-
work operating system and as a business communication tool.
If Facebook were a country, it
would be the 8th most popu-
lated in the world, just ahead
of Japan & Russia Mark Zucker-
berg
Viral Touchpoints
Email (out), Inbox (internal)
Send 1-1 or group private mes-
sages.
Notifications
Receive messages in email, in-
box or feed of groups, events and
applciations friends have added.
Public
The Wall, Shared/Posted Items,
Status Updates, Notes (miniblog)
- places for links.
Feeds
Minifeed (about me) NewsFeed
(about them) - passive notifica-
tion.
Content
Attach item, Photos, Videos -
promote in other ways
Group Activity
Groups, Events, Fan Pages,
Applications
3rd party games and tools,

Brand Fanpages are different
from Brand Groups . With Fan-
Pages, mutual friendship is not
required, and you have metrics
such as how many people visit a
page, unique views, become a
fan and graphs. Groups may ap-
pear more authentic.
Laurel Papworth
What is Facebook?
by Laurel Papworth
Australia has a population of 21
million people. Over 4.5 million
adult Australians (over 18) have
joined Facebook since May 2007.
Whether PR and Marketing profes-
sionals personally like Facebook, it
cannot be ignored as a powerful
customer community.
Facebook is a personal profile
based site (not blog) that acts as a
“gated community” - the member stands at the gate and allows other
members to connect, or not. Information is restricted to those who share
mutual friendship - you wonʼt find many videos on Facebook that have
been seen 12 million times, like you do on YouTube. Yet Facebook has
a huge amount of viral “touchpoints” - tools to pass information around.
Facebooks role is very much distribution rather than content based.
In addition Facebook Applications platform - F8 - empowers any com-
pany to create an application for distribution in the social network. A
widget or App may have RSS feeds, be a game, or simply show loyalty.
On Facebook you canʼt blog and therefore it is quite a different network
than say open broadcast blogs like MySpace.
Why?
Social networks of this size and this well organised are like opening a
stall on a busy shopping mall. Itʼs free, but you still have to staff it, and
find ways of grabbing attention. Still, the speed of distribution (see:
Chain Reaction and Ripple Effect) is high, and word of mouth powerful.
How does Facebook !t into strategy?
When and how to implement
Create your “depth of content” on external broadcast sites such as YouTube
(videoblog), Flickr (photoblog) and Wordpress (text or multimedia blog).
Then use Facebook to distribute that content. Because Facebook is a per-
sonal profile “first” service (unlike Ning that is groups “first”), use FanPage,
groups and events to bring customers together into channels for discussion.
Use applications to provide interactive promotion and awareness.
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Facebook Case Studies
This section covers how Facebook is being used by Governments
and Crisis Groups.
How is it used in practice?
Some brands use Facebook Fanpages as the branded microcommunity. Others add it as just one tool to a social
media campaign strategy. Applications such as TripAdivor ʻWhere Iʼve Beenʼ mean that a group/page is not neces-
sary.
Case Study One
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
The Australian Prime Minister,
Kevin Rudd, uses a Facebook
page to push out information to
the members.
Mr Rudd distributes his content
from other social media sites
for example My Flickr for pho-
tographs. He also offers a Kev-
in07 widget “Rudd and Labor
Supporter” that voters can add
to their own Facebook page.
Notes are used for mini blog
posts on current affairs.
Case Study Two
Australian Bushfire on
Facebook
There are 81 groups covering the
fires of ʼ09 including memorial
pages, fundraisers and housing
assistance. While Twitter was used
to broadcast news quickly, Face-
bookʼs applications offered fund-
raising widgets and event man-
agement tools.
TIP: Add Facebook applications
that simplify your life: there are
ones that auto-add your latest blog
post, Twitter tweet or Flickr pho-
tos.
Facebook Groups
• Itʼs a good idea to find groups
that are target for PR activity -
political, not for profit and me-
dia. Here are journalist groups:
• 1 - Journalists and Facebook.
• 2 - International Journalists
Network (IJNET).
• 3 - Foreign Correspondents
Club of Facebook
• 4 - Reporters sans Frontieres
• 5 - Find a Journalist - Around
the World
Exercise - Structuring forums
• Class: Split into equal groups. Discuss building an Facebook widget/app for 1. An Orchestra. 2. Launch of a
new car 3. Not for profit to save cats 4. A photography group. Present back to group. Everyone votes but not
for their own presentation.
FInally,
Facebook is used by members to connect to each other in a time of crisis, to find out news of family at risk at a distance, to
gain verified information from society leaders and to share community rituals and events around a situation. Applications such
as ClipIn give donation and fundraising tools to everyone and may impact Not For Profit sector.
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RSS Syndicating Information
This section covers RSS feeds and their importance to PR and
Crisis Communication.
RSS newsfeeds are usually
made up of headlines, sum-
maries, links and content, and
offer live updates ʻoff siteʼ.
RSS for PR
Builtin
Itʼs usually built in to the Web 2.0
tools like blogs, wikis and forums.
Press Centre
Consider adding RSS of Press to
your site.
Emergency RSS
If you work in an Emergency in-
dustry, add RSS as a tool for
breaking news.
Content
Add RSS for videos, photos,
powerpoint
Internal Comms
Offer calendar and meeting min-
utes RSS feeds. People can see
when they have been updated
Other departments
Consider RSS for advertising
(latest special offers), jobs, clas-
sified ads, and event manage-
ment.

... folks are just beginning to real-
ize is that RSS helps people (in-
cluding journalists) cut through
the messaging overload. Speak-
ing for myself, less than 5 per-
cent of the 400+ emails I get
every day actually contain rele-
vant, targeting pitches from PR
professionals.
Mark Jones, Infoworld
What is RSS?
by Laurel Papworth
Opening up content to RSS (Really
Simple Syndication) is a way of
publishing your content online in a
broadcast fashion. Syndication
means making your information
available to other services, via
ʻsubscriptionʼ. Before the days of
the internet, news subscription re-
quired AAP or Reuters to fax or
telephone content around the world
to editors. In a sense, distributing
their news articles internationally, to other services. With RSS we allow
subscribers (consumers, bloggers, social media sites) to consumer our
content where and when they want to . Perhaps they want to receive the
headlines of our blog on .. Facebook? MySpace? their blog? Perhaps
they want our videos on their iGoogle page or MyYahoo? RSS allows
that to happen.
Part of Web 2.0 is the separation of form from content. This is a way of
receiving the information as text headlines or images, without having to
go to the host page.
Why?
Expecting people to come to YOUR website or YOUR Facebook page
limits your ability to build a channel. When a consumer subscribes to
your RSS feed, they will be updated on the latest breaking news, with-
out having to open email or visit you. It will be on their favourite, most
visited pages, as they choose.
How does RSS !t into your Strategy?
When and how to implement
RSS is really part of your distribution strategy. You create content on You-
Tube, Flickr, and other content social media sites, and allow fans to sub-
scribe (be notified) of new content. Because of RSS flexibility, the updates
are where and when the target audience wants them. Think of ʻbreaking
newsʼ from the Sydney Morning Herald appearing on your NineMSN or
MyYahoo page, and you have an idea of how bloggers creating breaking
news feeds of their latest blog posts and let people be notified who they
want to subscribe to them.
see my Monitoring Social Media workbooks for using RSS for conversa-
tions.
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RSS Case Studies
This section is on how RSS will work for service wanting to provide realtime updates
across the internet & not just on their own site.
How is it used in practice?
Because every time you update information on your own site, it is updated remotely on other sites, RSS offers an
excellent tool to broadcast real time business critical information such as bushfires, stock prices and new head-
lines.
Case Study One
Homeland Security, US Gov.
“Can I use Homeland Security
News Feeds on my Web site?
Yes, Department of Homeland
Security headlines and stories
may be displayed on your Web
site using RSS. Your own tech-
nical staff is your resource for
implementation.”
EXAMPLES: News, Press Re-
leases, Speeches, Testimony,
Leadership Journal
Case Study Two
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, CDC, US Gov.
CDC has RSS feeds. EXAMPLE:
“CDC Flu - Get notified whenever
any new or updated documents are
posted anywhere on the CDC Flu
Website Includes Avian flu, Travel
advice, PandemicFlu.gov.”
RSS feed readers are now built
directly into browsers such as Mi-
crosoft Internet Explorer, Firefox,
Safari and Flock.
Things to Do:
• Check PRNewswire.com for
examples of using RSS for PR
• Check Feedburner.com and
other Feed sites.
• Consider feeds for: PDF, Pow-
erpoint, Video, Audio/Podcasts,
Images/Diagrams, Downloads.
• Note the use of RSS in the later
section on iGoogle - manage
your information overload.
• Use create-rss.com to combine
multiple feeds such as Top 10
PR Blogs
• RSS your common search
terms.
Exercise - Using RSS
• Class discussion.
FInally,
RSS breaks the internet up so that people can receive your latest headlines on their Facebook page, My Yahoo! an RSS
reader, email, in their browser and so on. Itʼs all about feed subscriber numbers, not site visits or unique visitors now.
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Widgets & Snippets
This section covers widgetizing content for distribution across the
Internet as games or interactive panels.
Widget content is not static, is
interactive, and is a small
frame on another website.
Widgets for PR
Clocks
Branded clocks that people can
add to their webpages
Countdown to Event
Consider a countdown widget for
a conference or school holidays.
Auction Tickers
Using RSS to bring a widget with
latest auction items
Stock market tickers
Add RSS widgets with stock price
and news
Fundraising
Allow people to add ClipIn dona-
tions to their blog and Facebook.
Traffic and Map
Map mashup widgets include
traffic jams
Weather and Planetary
Daily weather, planet positions
and the tide

Widgetized maps of areas af-
fected by natural disasters allow
everyone concerned to add that
information to their sites. It is an
effective ripple or word of mouth
campaign to ensure that the
message - whether avian flu or
bushfires - is passed along. The
map updates with Official infor-
mation.
What is a widget?
by Laurel Papworth
Offer a widget, also called a snip-
pet, or (in the case of Google) a
gadget, as a way of extending RSS
content. While RSS tends to be
purely information such as head-
lines being offered on external
websites, widgets are more graphi-
cal and can be extended into
games and information boxes.
While a list of weather in capital
cities is an RSS feed, pinning live updates of the weather to area maps,
with the map widget being clickable or zoomable, makes for a more
interactive experience. Extending this even further, so that images of
people wearing different clothes based on the weather is fun yet infor-
mative.
Customers who choose to add your widget to their sites and pages are
doing advertising for you. If in turn those widgets empowers sales e.g.
eBay or Amazon widget, customers are also selling to customers. Word
of mouth takes place by their choice to add your brand to their social
space.
Why?
Widgets breakup the internet into “little bits everywhere” making for
highly customizable and personal sites. By offering a widget, that is use-
ful, informative, education and/or fun, the consumer is comfortable with
branding their personal social space with widgets that their friends can
see and use offering viral seeding into relevant social networks.
How do widgets !t into your Strategy?
When and how to implement
There are a substantial amount of non-nutritional social networking products
available for free to millions of consumers. By non-nutritional I mean ʻfunnyʼ
applications that are added once then never used again. Try to develop a
fun, yet useful widget to ensure long term engagement.
see my Facebook for Business workbooks for using application widgets
for promotions.
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Widget Case Studies
This section is on how widgets work for organisations as peer to peer
distribution of information.
How is it used in practice?
Many companies use widgets as advertising - hoping that a poll, silly questionaire or funny game will entice cus-
tomers to add the company branding to their page. However some widgets are very indepth including map mash-
ups.
Example

Case Study Two
Homeland Security, US Gov.
Real Time Terror Alert Warning
Badge
“Displays the Homeland Security
departments' current terror alert in
a handy color-coded badge. “
The RSS is now a changing badge.
Advertise your site with an interac-
tive widget. Offer sales through a
sales widget. Keep people upto-
date with graphical information.
Things to Do:
• Move beyond text - what up-
dates (weather, stock price)
could be graphical?
• What internal databases could
be opened up - stock availabil-
ity, office opening times, health
or travel information?
• Consider asking your public
what they want - a competition
maybe?
• Professional and educational
works for critical information.
• Fun and personal widgets work
for everyone else.
Exercise -Creating a widget
• Class activity - in groups, discuss your group activities from earlier in light of making a widget or application. If
no subject has been chose, pick Orchestra, Formula 1, or Icecream.
FInally,
Widgets allow customers to show brand loyalty and add value to the visitors to their blog or Facebook page by adding your
information. During times of crisis, having a widget ready will see a large uptake in that widget.
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Social Bookmarking
This chapter covers filtering and favouriting sites and sharing
them across the social networks.
Find others who are book-
marking the same sites you
like and use their list to find
more!
Laurel Papworth,
Social Bookmark
Sites
Technorati
Has been around for a long time
and tracks hundreds of millions of
blogs
del.icio.us
A popular shared bookmarking
site
StumbleUpon
The fun of random sites book-
marked by a large community.
Digg
Vote bookmarked items up and
down to see if they make it to the
front page of citizen newspaper.
Facebook
Yes, Facebook can also be used
to store bookmarks or see others
- check out POSTED ITEMS, for
a start.
Friendfeed
Lots of people like to chat about
bookmarked items on Friend-
Feed.

These three activities – the
“Three Fs” of finding, filtering
and forwarding – scaled up to
the swarm of a billion Internet
users, describe the world we
see today.
Mark Pesce, Future Street Consult-
ing
What is Social Bookmarking?
by Laurel Papworth
Normally when you bookmark or
favorite a site in your browser, that
site is only available to you and
only available on that computer or
device.
Social Bookmarking services allow
you to bookmark into ʻthe cloudʼ -
save the bookmark on the internet
and then to choose to share or not
that bookmark with others.
Some bookmarking sites are purely to aid your memory - found a great
website? Bookmark it, share it with others doing research, write a note
about it. Others, such as DIGG function more as a social newspaper
with Citizen Editors pulling in articles from the internet to share with oth-
ers.
Using the bookmarking service at work cuts down on emails passing
links around, and means that monitoring of bookmarked sites can be a
shared collaborative office activity.
Keep each bookmark private, share it a group, or share with everyone.
Why?
Creating content is time consuming and requires a reasonable amount
of commitment and knowledge. Finding relevant information and sharing
it, on the other hand is relatively easy which is why social bookmarking
is one of the most common and popular toolset on the internet today.
How this !ts into the Social Media strategy
6th August 2005
Ask the team to create social bookmarking profiles on the same service and
then ask them to share with the team the sites they are moderating, com-
ments they are watching, and use the notes section to share concerns.
Monitor your own sites and forums on popular services to gauge public re-
action. Push out time critical, emergency communications into sharing sites
to ensure coverage.
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Bookmarking Case Studies
This section lists the major social bookmarking sites and gives an
opportunity for the class to discuss strategies.
How is it used in practice?
As a promotional tool, bookmark sites and their widgets empower readers to forward your content into their own
networks. Monitoring social bookmarking sites helps with analytics and measurements, making for easier organi-
sation.
Notes
Laurel Papworth
Many major newspapers are adding social book-
mark buttons to their sites to add readers who wish
to share the article with friends using other re-
sources than simply printing or emailing a link.
Most of the sites on the right offer analytics - so you
can see how many times your information has been
saved as a bookmark, sent to others, rated with 1 to
5 stars, listed on popular leaderboard lists, and gain
rankings in niche communities.
Remember you donʼt need to visit every site - you
can pull in an RSS feed (see earlier section) and
monitor the communication that way!
Exercise - using bookmarking on your own site
• Class - discuss how you use your bookmarks now - alphabetical, in folders, one long list?
FInally,
Remember, some of these sites are not just for bookmarking but develop their own communities. Leaders may
promote your bookmarked item to hundreds of thousands of others, if you fit in to their community.
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Social Tagging
This chapter covers how we name content on social media sites
and categorize our conversations.
The spontaneous cooperation
of a group of people to organ-
ize information into categories
Wiktionary, 2008
What is a TagCloud?
from Wikipedia
The first use of tag clouds on a
high-profile website was on the
photo sharing site Flickr, created
by Flickr co-founder and interac-
tion designer Stewart Butterfield.
That implementation was based
on Jim Flanagan's Search Refer-
ral Zeitgeist,[3] a visualization of
Web site referrers. Tag clouds
have also been popularized by
Del.icio.us and Technorati,
among others.
A text cloud or word cloud is a
visualization of word frequency in
a given text as a weighted list.
The technique has recently been
popularly used to visualize the
topical content of political
speeches.

On Twitter, members use the
letter # (hash) in front of key-
words. This tells the readers
that a tweet belongs to a par-
ticular thread or conversation.
#followfriday, #election..
Hashtagging on Twitter
What is Social Tagging?
by Laurel Papworth
Until now, most of humanities clas-
sification systems have mostly
been hierarchal (called Taxonomy).
Think of a book in a library - it be-
longs in one section, one place and
nowhere else.
Social tagging, also called collabo-
rative tagging, social classification,
social indexing and folksonomy,
uses keyword tagging to classify
content. Each person viewing the content can use their own keywords -
or view popular keywords provided by others.
Finding information becomes easier because of this ʻmetadataʼ - you
can find websites not only based on taxonomy but on emotions such as
ʻgoodʼ, ʻawfulʼ ʻfunnyʼ ʻtragicʼ.
Now the book - an online version anyway - can be kept wherever you
want. Multiple keywords means you can find the link to it in multiple lo-
cations.
Why?
Allowing consumers to tag information with their own keywords helps
with brand recall and retention of information. Many also add bookmark
widgets to their websites and blogs that say “What Iʼm Reading” dy-
namically updating as they read your articles. Search becomes easier.
How this !ts into the Social Media Campaign
6th August 2005
Tagging can reveal consumer sentiment about content on your site. Tags
such as ʻusefulʼ ʻinformativeʼ may be measured against ʻawfulʼ ʻuselessʼ.
Navigating content via Tag Clouds is an alternative to search that visually
oriented people may prefer.
Because the content is being tagged, Google and other search engines
rank the metadata tags higher than the normal data/words, because 5 or 6
words describing a page helps the search engines deliver appropriate
search results to users. Tags may therefore help with Search Engine Opti-
mization.
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Social Tagging Case Studies
This section gives examples of tagging, tag clouds and an exer-
cise.
How is it used in practice?
Easy navigation of websites, widgets that use tags to define the person “this is who I am” and assists with releas-
ing website information from the long tail (content that rarely gets found or read).
Case Study One
Laurel Papworth
A local council service in Australia found their or-
ganisationʼs Intranet search hard to use and unreli-
able. So one of the women in the office went
through every document and bookmarked it in
Del.icio.us, tagging each document with keywords
relevant to the different groups in the organisation.
However, as tagging is really a social activity, it
wasnʼt long before everyone was bookmarking the
documents, sharing them amongst themselves and
clustering the documents into many different
groups.
Remember: staff will use tools that work for them, or
that they use anyway in their every day life.
Exercise
• Class - Split into groups. Take one keyword each. Rock, Blue, Water. Now create more keywords based on
your one keyword.
FInally,
Keep an eye on tagging sites to see how your brand material is being tagged. Implement tag clouds so that people
can navigate the site based on metadata. Check tag clouds to see what keywords are strong, and which ones
weak.
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LaurelPapworth.com
YOUR NOTES
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Social Media
Conversation Networks
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Twitter
This section covers Twitter as an instant (synchronous) communi-
cation tool, some software to use with it and itʼs role in news.
Follow people who share your
values, sense of humour and
interests. You decide who and
what is important. Laurel Pap-
worth
Twitter Terms
Tweet
140 character - 1. testimonial, 2.
linking URL or 3. @conversation.
Followers vs Friends or
“Followed”
The people who are listening to
the your tweets vs The people
you are listening to.
hashtags #
searchable topics
Tweetup
Organising a real life meetup with
Twitter folk.
@Replies
Put @ and their twitter name,
and the public message will show
up on recipients Reply timeline.
TinyURL, Twurl, Bit.ly etc
Use a URL shortening service to
include long links in your 140
char.
TwitPic
Upload a foto to Twitpic and it will
be auto tweeted

Why Twitter Is Useful
For business, Twitter can be
used to broadcast your com-
pany's latest news and blog
posts, interact with your custom-
ers, or to enable easy internal
collaboration and
Tweeternet.com
What is Twitter?
by Laurel Papworth
Twitter is a mobile social network -
though mostly used through the
web in Australia - where you have
140 characters to answer the ques-
tion “What Are You Doing”. Most
answers fall into 1 of 3 categories -
Testimonials (I am going to work, I
am taking the kids to school), Dis-
tribution links (Read this blog
http://tinyurl.com/link) and Conver-
sation (@SilkCharm how are you
today)
Twitter functions as a realtime (synchronous) network and while it is
possible to continue a discussion days later, picking back up the thread
weeks later is rare. Twitter is not a depth of content based network like a
blog, but a conversation and distribution network. A simplified version of
Facebook it works on a half-gated policy. You can openly broadcast
your own content yet selectively ʻfollowʼ other people.
Twitters real power is in itʼs open APIs and hundreds of applications/
services (see later for API information) including ʻadd followersʼ tools.
Why?
A fast growing social network (Entered Top 100 sites early 2009), and
because of itʼs realtime communication tools, Twitter facilitates ex-
tremely speedy distribution of news and critical information. Even with-
out a large audience, substantial number of ʻretweetsʼ ripples your mes-
sage out.
How does Twitter !t into your Strategy?
When and how to implement
Connect to people based on geo-location, interest, or reach. Use velocity of
marketing to get message out, and receive market intelligence. Use the
channel to engage particularly Customer Service answering real time ques-
tions, publicly, and to empower Twitter members to co-create with you. En-
sure you EITHER participate in community events and rituals such as
#2ForTuesday OR simply run an autobot for news, clearly stating that fact.
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Twitter Case Studies
This section is on how Twitter will work for business as a real time
Q&A tool, for distribution of information and customer service.
How is it used in practice?
Some brands use Twitter for customer service ʻpersonalʼ service albeit publicly accessible discussions. Time criti-
cal information picks up velocity with re-tweets. The mobile nature makes it ʻalways-onʼ. Or distribute via an RSS
bot. An account that simply links out all the time is ignored - must have conversation or testimonials as well.
Case Study One
UK Security and Defence
updates
UK newsfeed on security and
defence issues @In_Terra
automatically posts up informa-
tion using RSS and autobots.
EXAMPLE: SECURITY NEWS
FEED: Medhat received death
threats - Fatah leader: Slain
senior Palestinian of..
http://tinyurl.com/djobf4
Notes using an ʻauto-botʼ to
autopost Tweets is useful (if
limited) for high alert time criti-
Case Study Two
@BigPondTeam from Telstra
Australia
Bigpond initially made an error in
filling their tweets with “thankyou,
weʼll get back to you”. Eventually
Customer Service engaged and
answered questions on Twitter.
Reduces helpline calls and aids
TIP: @RichardFromDell is better
than simply @Dell. Or leave
enough room to sign off your
tweets with your first name.
Things to Do:
• Search for lists - Famous peo-
ple on Twitter, journalists on
Twitter.
• Join friends on Twitter - keeps
you honest and friendly.
• Investigate tools like Monittor,
Tweetdeck, Twitterfall.
• Search bios with Peoplebrowsr
or Tweepsearch
• Tweet jobs available, items for
sale, housemates wanted with a
link to deeper content sites.
• reTweet fundraising events or
coffee meetups for followers.
Exercise - Using Twitter
• Class discussion - discuss using Twitter for real time updates for business information. Focus on Sales and
Customer Service.
FInally,
Try to use Twitter to show a human face (tell your story), make sure you link to other interesting, humorous or educational
articles/blogs as well as your own. Respond openly to questions with @name. Following many, with few following back, looks
like spam.
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Forums
This section covers forums and how they are used by consumers
to raise awareness of issues around brands and organisations.
A bulletin board is a place where
you can leave public messages -
to advertise, buy/sell, promote
events, or provide information.
Forum Features
Many to Many
Anyone can start the discussion.
Topics are placed in relevant sub-
forums. Others join in.
Peer to Peer
A blog limits the conversation to
the topic of the blogger. By open-
ing up a forum, customers can
feel that their needs are ad-
dressed by allowing them to post
discussion threads and answer
each other.
Complex and mutilayers
Many people responding on
many topics - following
subthreads and repeat threads
becomes challenging.
Long Tail
A forum thread can have thou-
sands of responses, sometimes a
small group may post many times
over a number of years. This sort
of discussion rarely happens on a
blog.

Everything about your forum -
colours, leaderboards, path to
community moderator, Badges
for roles, tribal areas (subfo-
rums), rituals and events should
work together to build a good
behaviour. Donʼt rely on Code of
Conduct or Etiquette Statement.
Laurel Papworth
What is a forum?
by Laurel Papworth
Forums allow anyone to start a
conversation - unlike blogs. And
while the conversations (called
threads) are not editable by each
member (unlike a wiki), each mem-
ber can comment back in a linear
fashion.
Forums are asynchronous (not real
time). The real time version of fo-
rums would be chat channels. Fo-
rums are also called bulletin boards or bbs and are sometimes a second
step after setting up a blog for companies.
Forums often have builtin social networking tools that the other social
media tools donʼt offer. For example, titles for commenters (called “post-
ers” in forums). This enables the natural hierarchy and leadership roles
of a community to be implemented, enabling the community to scale up
larger much quicker. Moderator/Admin tools are quick sophisticated and
subforums for special groups work well as reward systems. The ability
to offer Karma Points (forum loyalty points) is also a feature.
Why?
The power of forums is the fact that one customer can ask a question
and another customer can answer it. This provides authentic testimoni-
als and peer to peer support, reducing cost of acquisition of the cus-
tomer and technical support costs.
How do forums !t into your Social Network?
When and how to implement
If your blog is popular and you would now like to have the customer com-
munity respond back proactively rather than through comments, a forum
might be for you. Blogs are light on community - itʼs hard to badge leaders,
reward roles of welcomer, teacher and give tools for subgroups on a blog. A
forum usually has these things built in. By offering forums, you may find
your community grows exponentially - rather than a blogger setting the
agenda for the conversation, the community choose themselves what they
wish to discuss.
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Forums Case Studies
This section covers how forums work for business as a peer-to-
peer support tool and many-to-many conversation. .
How is it used in practice?
Forums offer many-to-many discussions. They drop technical support and customer service costs to 1/5th by em-
powering one customer to answer another customers question. Sophisticated complex social tools empower fast
growth.
Case Study One
Parents Jury (Australia)
In Australia, the Parents Jury
forum addresses issues around
children and healthy food and
advertising. They have become
a successful lobby group, and
won a battle to have over-
sugared cereals removed from
supermarkets.
Watch carefully industry
boards/forums - this particular
one has a Fame and Shame
award - the one for Pester
Power is to shame companies
that use children to advertise to
children.
Case Study Two
Whirlpool.net.au (Australia)
This is a community of nearly
300,000 telecomms technicians
discussing broadband in Australia.
They undertake some of the roles
of Regulatory Affairs, highlighting
inaccuracies in contracts and ad-
vertising and are more visited than
telco sites.
Online forums do not belong to
Gen Y. The first forums or BBSʼs in
the 1970s - weʼve socialized PCs
together since the beginning.
Forums
• 1 - Big Brother and Australian
Idol for TV microcomunities.
• 2 - Hepatitis and Diabetes for
health and children.
• 3 - EssentialBaby for mothers
and babies
• 4 - Microsoft, Cisco and Open-
source forum communities
• 5 - Sports forums
• 6 - vBulletin, PHPBB, Simple-
Board are three examples of
cheap or free bulletin board fo-
rum software. Some come pre-
installed on a hosting plan.
Exercise - Structuring forums
• How many subforums can you think of - Announcements, on topic, offtopic? What roles would you allocate in
the community? Teachers, ʻcopsʼ, editors, event organisers? Class: play a game of telling a story. Each person
tells the next line, following on from before and only ONE line.
FInally,
Once you have established clear behaviour sociability features in your forum, they need a lighter hand than other tools. In fact
the host should not insert as much content as they would in say, a blog.
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Virtual Worlds & Serious Games
This chapter covers how we use 3D worlds to engage and distrib-
ute information.
“As society migrates into vir-
tual worlds we become pio-
neers exploring the new fron-
tiers of the mind”
Laurel Papworth, video 2008
Virtual P.R.
Second Life
Duran Duran made a huge
splash in summer 2006 with their
announcement of a Second Life
presence, that got them more
press coverage than theyʼd had
in the prior year.
Recently, though, Fox broke new
ground as the studio brought
Bruce Willis into the popular on-
line community Second Life to
take questions from the fans and
media. In order to host such a
unique opportunity, Fox con-
structed one of the most impres-
sive Second Life structures ever
built.
United Nations Food Force
One of the most well-known and
highly regarded serious games,
Food Force was commissioned
by the United Nations' World
Food Programme, and aims to
educate the user about the
causes, effects and solutions to
famine in third world nations.

...make sure the people who you
employ to represent you inworld
are extremely familiar not just
with the local space they will be
hanging around in but the whole
social world.
Gary Hayes, Virtual World Expert
What is a virtual world?
by Laurel Papworth
Computer games have been avail-
able to the public for many years,
but the multiplayer social virtual
worlds are growing at a faster rate
than stand alone games. Worlds
such as Twinity, and Second Life
bring members together to create,
collaborate and discuss in a 3D
environment.
Serious games use virtual worlds
and gaming technology for ʻseriousʼ purposes - business training or mili-
tary or teaching about crisis scenarios.
The public is spending an ever increasing number of hours in these vir-
tual worlds, and ever decreasing hours consuming traditional media.
The newest virtual world tools are overlays on web browsers - Exit Real-
ity and RocketOn are two - so that the public can walk around your
websites with 3D avatars.
Why?
The realtime experiential nature of virtual worlds makes them ideal for
corporate training and organisational virtual facilities. Simulation and
preparedness exercises using webcasts, video, and online courses ex-
tend the education of the public into 3D social spaces.
How this !ts into Social Media Strategies
Advertising, Sales, PR, Customer Service, H.R., Recruitment,
Training...
Virtual worlds make an excellent Research and Development (R&D) envi-
ronment as well as triggers for rippling out into the blogosphere as virtual
worlds are intense experiences.
Viral micro goods also called branded pixel products are used to both pro-
mote and to connect to the audience. Events such as inviting pop stars into
Habbo and Second Life to give interviews and concerts can promote a
cause or awareness, and are generally well attended.
Reuters had a dedicated virtual world journalist in Second Life, the Ameri-
can Army use virtual worlds for combat training and over 300 Universities
use Second Life as a virtual lab and classroom. There are a vast range of
tasks and activities that can be done in a virtual world or through serious
gaming that donʼt have the same real time impact in a 2D environment or
are not feasible in the real world.
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Virtual Worlds Case Studies
This section gives background and case studies on companies
and governments using virtual worlds for public engagement.
How is it used in practice?
.
Case Study One
Darfur Is Dying
Darfur is Dying is a serious
game that seeks to teaches
about the conditions in which
people live in the warring re-
gion of Darfur in Western Su-
dan. The player is tasked with
controlling the members of a
family caught in the middle of
the conflict. As a chosen family
member you have to gather
water to help grow crops, but to
get to the water you have to
avoid roving bands of militia.
Case Study Two
BioTerrorism Preparedness
The Idaho Bioterrorism Awareness
and Preparedness program
(IBAPP) has been launched to pro-
vide bioterrorism and emergency
preparedness training to Idaho's
healthcare workforce.
In augmented and online virtual
worlds, humanity will exponentially
evolve, free from the limiting
ghosts of that other virtual world
we call reality.
Gary Hayes
Things to Do:
• View machinima (videos made
in virtual worlds) on YouTube
• Start a Habbo account as itʼs
browser based
• Read blogs MUVEDesign, Sec-
ondLifeBlogs, Business Com-
municators of Second Life, New
World Notes
• Download Second Life,
There.com, Kaneva, or Active-
Worlds and start an avatar there
• Ask a young relative to talk to
you about World of Warcraft or
Runescape.
Exercise - Virtual Worlds
• Class -A RolePlay in Physical Spaces
FInally,
Virtual worlds provide a better educational system, more engaging entertainment media, creative and innovative collaborative
spaces than traditional web solutions. By investing time and research into virtual worlds and serious games, companies have a
better idea about true engagement and interaction beyond viral videos and email newsletters. This is a growth area and using
virtual tools broadens a companies ability to respond to
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Lists & Links
Here we list top PR blogs, some tools to monitor reputation, sites
that explain negative groundswell and how it happened.
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PR Tools Online
Press Release Grader - pressrelease.grader.com/
Trackur - http://www.trackur.com/
BuzzGain - http://buzzgain.com
Radian6 - http://www.radian6.com
BuzzLogic - http://www.buzzlogic.com/
BrandsEye http://www.brandseye.com/
Dialogix www.dpdialogue.com.au/dialogix.html
PR Blogs
Brian Solis - PR 2.0 http://briansolis.com
PR Squared - http://www.pr-squared.com
A shel of my former self - http://blog.holtz.com/
Pop! PR Jots
- http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/
Strategic PR - http://prblog.typepad.com/
Young PR - http://youngie.prblogs.org/ Australia
Pro PR - http://www.propr.ca/ Canada
PR Communications - http://pr.typepad.com/
PR Newser - http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/
Crisis Forum http://crisismanagementforum.com
Lee Hopkins http://leehopkins.net
Drawn from AdAge Power150 and From PR to Eter-
nity blog.
Negative Groundswell Monitoring
The Ad Contrarian http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com
The Consumerist http://consumerist.com/
Not Good Enough - http://notgoodenough.org
Gerry McCusker http://prdisasters.com
Bad Pitch Blog http://badpitch.blogspot.com
Dell Hell - http://www.dellhell.net/
Parents Jury http://parentsjury.org.au
Shaping Youth http://shapingyouth.com
UserVoice http://uservoice.com/
Get Satisfaction http://getsatisfaction.com/
Bernaise Source http://bernaisesource.blog.com/
Anti Marketer http://www.anti-marketer.com/
I Hate This http://ihatethis.org
Glass Door http://www.glassdoor.com/
Rate Your Job http://rateyourjob-rateyourboss.com/
eBossWatch http://www.ebosswatch.com/
Crikey http://crikey.com.au
Travel-Rants http://www.travel-rants.com/
Whirlpool.net http://whirlpool.net.au
These sites are known for publishing information
that identifies triggers that may inflame online com-
munities.
Other courses
Its pretty important to follow this session
with Social Media Workshop: Social Me-
dia Press Releases if speed is important.
Also, Social Media Workshop: Media
Training and Staff Guidelines helps en-
sure that your staff donʼt accidentally cause
a negative groundswell by blogging, twitter-
ing or posting on a forum in a way that has
repercussions for your organisation.
Finally, Social Media Workshop: Monitor-
ing and Brand Reputation goes into more
detail on filtering and finding discussions.
This is a good start if you are interested in
undertaking a Social Media Audit of what
is happening online around your brand or
organisation.
More information at http://laurelpapworth.com