Yesterday I attended Podcamp Western Massachusetts held at Westfield State University.
Podcamps began to pop up about 6 years ago when social media gurus Chris Brogan and Chris Penn decided to hold an “un-conference” to learn about podcasts, the word “pod” stuck and evolved into “podcamp” which has now come to represent an un-conference, where session topics can be proposed beforehand. But typically about 50% of the sessions are proposed the day of the conference by posting note cards or post-its to a bulletin board or wall. This format encourages participation from a maximum number of conference goers.
The first podcamp was held in Boston in 2006 and since then this un-conference has come to symbolize an event to share ideas, learn and laugh.
This was my first podcamp, and I decided to go because as an archivist in training I’ve become very interested in how archives and libraries currently are or could be using social media tools to benefit their institution.
I began the morning with Social Media 101 led by Terran Birrell and Julianne Krutka. This session addressed the basics for implementing social media. We discussed the benefits of hashtags in Twitter. Hashtags help you to narrow the ever-growing Twitter universe into a manageable stream of people and topics you’re interested in. The session leaders cautioned new users of Twitter to be selective of who they chose to follow back- those you follow should offer you a shared interest or some commonality.
When using any social media tool: Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin, using your profile to build your on-line identity is key. Posting a picture and filing in your profile builds trust between you and your growing network.
When a few session participants expressed confusion with the difference between networking face-to-face and on-line, Terran Birrell astutely responded: “Social networking is the same as regular networking just with different tools.”
The session concluded with the sage advice that before you wade too far into the social media mine-field, you should determine what your goals are.
For libraries and archives, as well as other non-profits those goals might be bringing in more or new users/members, finding/connecting with possible donors, alerting the public to programming and events, sharing interesting facts and information with your on-line networks.