The traditional perception with Birmingham is that we do plenty of creative and cultural things but we don’t like to shout about it. Cllr Martin Mullaney has pointed out several times during this City Of Culture bid that as a city we have very low levels of cultural engagement per head of population. I was determined in my role as Social Media Manager to increase engagement and prove that, given the right platform, we would shout about it.

My first day on the job involved working on the 24hour Blog run by Jon Bounds. We received a phenomenal amount of contribution to the Posterous site in a 24 hour period. Since then our engagement was spread across Facebook, Twitter and the main website.

When monitoring other shortlisted cities social media activities it was interesting to discover their bids were mainly limited to Facebook. We on the other hand had a much larger amount of Twitter followers. Today it passed the 1000 mark.

Only eight people were allowed to present the Birmingham’s case to the judging panel in Liverpool, we wanted to increase our presence. Birmingham had plans to take a Battle Bus which would stage cultural flashmobs around Liverpool on the day.

Public Relations Manager Geoff Coleman mentioned doing something similar to 24hour blog and I pitched the idea of using Cover It Live as a scrolling commentary which could be displayed ‘in the room’. It was important to gather all the different threads across multiple platforms. I also thought it was an ideal opportunity to make a virtual event out of our final submission. I passionately stated at the time,

“Can I just say that Birmingham’s strength as a digital city is one of our greatest assets and it would be doing ourselves a great disservice not to do something really innovative.”

I’m pleased to say that it was a success, there were around 900 messages of support over the period, and the Council Site where Cover It Live was embedded reported a spike of over 1000 unique users.

@Katchoo has blogged about what it was like to be involved in the event. A point well made was that it wasn’t just the usual people mentioning the same things. The real success of the event came from the variety of comments, the amount of people involved and the many cultural things Birmingham offers. We’re a culturally rich city that deserves recognition. And for once we really shouted about it.

For my MA Online Journalism I’m conducting a Production Lab placement with Village Underground, London. Following the last group Skype meeting, I thought it would be useful to do a case study on a venue that already has its online presence sorted. I managed to arrange a face to face meeting with Maryam Ashgari from the Barbican, a 28 minute edit of the meeting can be listened to below.

But if you don’t have half an hour to spare here are my conclusions.

Website
The Barbican website in its current state has been running for 9 months so it is a relatively new introduction. Maryam is still monitoring the success of her online experiments – the social media and content production process is still evolving. The main website now highlights and flags up a range of things that come up under the broad Barbican umbrella and it is also Maryam’s job (in conjunction with an intern) to maintain other social media and keep a unified presence – their approach isn’t too rigid or dictatorial in tone or structure.

Conclusions: Village Underground is not such a large arts centre but a unified presence still needs to be maintained across all third party sites. I also discussed tone on these different sites, Maryam said (around 16 minutes) there is not really a discernable difference in register anymore. However, the main website draws from press releases so there’s slight difference in style. The Barbican’s tone across other social media is fairly “rough and ready”. In Village Underground’s case I don’t think there needs to be a register change.

Facebook
Myspace is no longer really used by The Barbican and now their Facebook site is their social media hub. Maryam talked about the importance of reacting to the community and answering any questions they had claiming “If you don’t react you lose your audience.” She also mentioned posing questions or running small competition helped people interact with the site and gave them a reason for visiting. She also talked about the importance of not bombarding the audience via the Facebook mailing list.

Conclusions: Although Village underground has a Facebook group site it’s not very well maintained, comparing it to Barbican’s Facebook in conjunction with these tips will really help keep an audience on the Facebook site interested and engaged.

Twitter
Barbican have only had a presence here for the last 6 months or so but already it has proved successful. According to their analytics they rank in the top 30 arts organisations in the world (6:30 minutes in). The tone on Twitter is even more informal and the conversational currency is fun. They have also played around with the form, recently conducting a successful Q&A with a renowned violinist Sara Chang. They capitalised on this event by taking photos and putting it on the Flickr site..

Conclusions: Twitter needs to be set up and taken seriously, we chatted about it being a potential drain on resources. Maryam keeps this in check and only really responds to Tweets for an hour in the morning and afternoon. This is encouraging as there were concerns raised at the Skype meeting that Twitter would take up too much time.

Last FM
Interestingly someone outside of the Barbican staff started a Last FM presence and still maintains the site, updating the playlists, radio and events. According to their Google Analytics Last FM is one of their most successful sites for converting into ticket sales.

Conclusions: I hadn’t even thought of using Last FM. It makes even more sense to compile a playlist and presence for Village Underground as it stages quite a lot of music events. It might also be good to get favourite tracks they think represent Village Underground, or even ones that they play whilst working in the office and studio.

YouTube
TheirBarbican Channel has gained an incredible amount of recognition due to video footage of their most recent installation by Celeste Boursier featuring bullfinches roosting on a guitar and amp. Although the footage was shot somewhere else and had previously had 2,000 hits, it was re-editted by Barbican staff and succeeded on their channel, receiving over 600,000 views.

Also interestingly the PR team put YouTube links in their press releases and this also created the buzz around this video. They have also just started a Vimeo account, the content is the same as YouTube but Vimeo is preferred by designers. This preference was also expressed by the Village Underground designer at the last Skype meeting. Maryam is currently looking at Tube Mogul, a service that automatically puts the same content across different third party video sites. At the moment this is a paid for service.

Conclusions: Village Underground needs a Channel, there is plenty of material floating around YouTube but if it is brought into a channel it makes it easier to use and monitor. Video needs also needs to be be promoted creatively, once you point the public or press to the site the video speaks for itself. Maryam also mentioned she wanted to encourage more of a “rough and ready” approach to video. It’s all very well having polished bits of video but the public want to also see exclusives, voxpops and behind the scenes action. These can all be readily done with Village Underground.

Flickr
Barbican have a broad array of press shots, amateur snaps and even flip footage on their Flickr site. Much of Maryam’s work is concerned with encouraging people to tag them up properly. Correctly tagged, the images will also show up on the Barbican site’s Flickr gallery, the Facebook Flickr widget and Twitpics. Maryam talked about how Flickr is helping to bring all three main sites together.

Conclusions: Pretty much the same as YouTube conclusions, there are pics out there they just need pulling together.

Blogging
There was some talk about encouraging blogs for certain projects but it very much depends on personality. I raised the point about what I’d noticed with the Liverpool Philharmonic blog, successful because the Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko is charismatic with devoted fans. Maryam mentioned that person who blogs must be used to doing it, you can’t force people to blog.

Conclusions: no progression from the notes I made under ‘Text’ in my first stage research.

Podcasts
Only a few podcasts have been produced so far but they have already gained recognition. The Barbican team have been told by iTunes that they might be mentioned in next month’s Store Picks section. Obviously, the focus is mainly on music but Maryam would like to start producing podcasts for other departments, particularly theatre and maybe even visual arts (discussion!)

Conclusions: Podcasts might be too time consuming for the limited time that I am able to help Village Underground. However, given the right training they are fairly easy to produce, maybe this is an element that can be introduced if an internship were to happen. I could quite easily train someone to produce decent audio.

All In The Analysis
Maryam has many success stories to tell about her approach to online. Most importantly though, Google Analytics are key to measuring and proving that success to others. I need to chat to Jowan the web designer about what analytics are in place and to strengthen and consolidate them. What is clear is that there are quite a few social media bits already started by both the Village Underground and members of the public. Plenty of archive material already exists. For my project I need to organise these parts and create a strategy for going forward.

These are ‘as live’ notes from the second part of the Association Of Online Publishers (AOP) Microlocal Media Forum which took place on 9th December. At the very bottom of this post there is also a recording which caught all of Roger Green’s presentation and most of the panel discussion.

Click here for AOP’s own round up of the event or here for Paid Content’s article.

AOP Microlocal Media Forum Part 2
Presentation: Roger Green Newsquest

Speaking for himself not necessarily Newsquest (NQ)
Current media model more robust than given credit for – lots of things tried over the last few years
Nevertheless NQ now compete with zero cost players

NQ cover 150 sites who have alligence with local
Use media brands they have run through central system at local level: enablers for local people
Engaging with audience they have grown consistently
Amount of time people spend interacting
Websites but also telephone calls and texting
Westmorland Gazette: huge growth in audience significant spike when news event kicks off – ie. recent flood coverage

Big challenge= less dictating and more collaborative process
Very hard to motivate community correspondence – fill newsgathering and information gaps – channel needs to be worked hard. In Bingley, Betty Newell is the local contact works information

Involving people in more of the stories that matter, Basildon Echo (Basildon Uni Hospital story) 15 significant comments added to the story by the time it wound down 60 comments which moved narrative on
Compared to BBC local story couple of interviews were getting recycled so didn’t really engage with evolving story
NHS project attempting to bring together information – but only a few comments since 2007

Can do local without news – very brave according to RG
Almost all of it catefully integrated – geocoded – doing more than is appreciated
Newpapers to local regional media brands

Adoption of Twitter – Cover It Live
Watford Observer: @Observer_Owl
Turfed out of office and worked remotely routinely work out of cafes: cafes approve good cache from it
Get more local stories out of it
Won’t claim every editorial group as equally adept at taking on these tools
Lancashire used Twitter anti-terrorist movement via Twitter
Brighton: Jo Wadsworth leading field in terms of followers to following therefore she listens as well as talks

Tactics for Publishers
Adopt tools and use effectively
Make up own mind but don’t be disco dad: nothing that is zero cost can be sustainable – make up mind on what matters ignore everything else
Geocoding not always necessary, must be relevant to story
Observe decent analytics
Be commercial – not just about journalism even not a lot, publishing, distribution and sales
Be prepared to partner- Bloggers can be ‘upset by partner arrangements’ especially if on terms of the partner – partnerships need to behave in humble fashion
Not sustainable don’t bother: no point in a shiny local website launched by a publisher around one news event. Hardly any coverage of major news events, even worse covered better in Wall St Journal
If already have some great local media brands then maybe not worth launching at all

Two way conversation – but no-one found a decent way of monetizing e-mail
Based around popular social networks: Scope to get more out of community correspondence – open to talk to anyone ’we can help monetize that type of publishing’

Roger Green ‘Look forward to partnering or taking you on’

Q&A Discussion

Panel
David Higgerson: Trinity Mirror
James Thornett : BBC Local
Lori Cunningham Johnston Press
Roger Green: Newsquest
Paul Bradshaw: BCU Lecturer Help Me investigate

What new skills need in micro local:
LC: Curration and oversight and a two way dialogue to bring forward
JT: Curration much more aware of market out there, awareness of local personalities – less about the brand and the company more about the people themselves
DH: Much more aware of impact of what they say and way say it. Journalists more open minded about the way to tell the story
PB: Social capital – contributing to their community being a participant. Understand distribution networks. Distribution part of journo’s role
RG: Can’t really add. Listening very important skill and distribution – related links to things

Struck idea of platform how people produce outside whether it’s a priority. Predicated on whether there is a destination but the assumption people won’t go to specific site…

RG: look for places to pick up content as feeds. Most people who use sites are regular users

Paywall
LC: not one approach – it’s an evolving landscape, people are arriving through different manner. More consistent loyal users. As an experiment we’ve put 3 titles behind pay wall. Understand what dynamics are, quickest way to measure dynamic is to try it out.

Whether panel do pay to get information
LC: Wall St Journal
JT: No
PB: Bearded Magazine
RG: worth looking into Telegraph used to subscribe to Wall St Journal then Murdoch said would be free so never renewed.

Partnerships: are you going to pay for information from other sources
RG: Almost other way round with bigger companies in NQ experience. We do pay for information.
DH: Case by case basis.
LC: Fragmented network partnership which works with person.

What assurances do you have that BBC not threatening competition for local publishers?
JT: BBC local broadcasting as the state funded broadcaster are funded to deliver what the UK want. UK popular website, whole ecosystem would work together. BBC do have a sizeable audience in terms of traffic. We are in the same space, find a way to make ecosystem work.

Whether BBC are against pay wall?
LC: We have a viable parntership with BBC. But we see them as a threat. Well funded organisation coming into an area or two guys in a garage. There’s no easy path forwards.
RG: Wouldn’t add to that. Except to observe if not for BBC we’d all be working for Google.
PB: BBC if pulled out of local would be accused as ’London centric’ Needs to justify licence fee. Would like to BBC adding in certain areas. Similar to what PA doing.
DH: Would like to see BBC come good and link back to content.
JT: BBC local are county level publishing – not local on the internet. Works well for us.

Chris PA: Can you monetize atomised news?
PB: No don’t think you can. Have to look what people use news for. Distribution channels are quite high, difficult to make money no point buying in atomised news. Can’t charge for stickers in playground.
JT: BBC will look at buying picture or video.
DH: Could do better at following up people who lift content word for word. Sunday Mercury does need to chase. Maybe go after the sites that take that copy.

What about people who have blogs who don’t want to be citizen journalists still worth partnerships?
DH: Could work more closely with local sites. Exploring partnerships and what can give back. Perception that newspaper websites are nicking content from hyper local or papers considering sites are run by ‘sid nutters’ – Will Perrin.

Local versus location – is there a difference in definition?
PB: Yes. Legacy issues of local publishing. Online 3rd of audience is from outside area or people who used to live in the area. Opportunity to capitalise on that. Newspapers haven’t done a lot around monetizing ’location’.
LC: Of great interest. Looking to evolve something along these lines. Make sure syndicated commercial opportunities. Our publishing experience used to defined by geography not the case online. Bring those people together across boundaries.
JT: Trap not to fall into, unique set of location interests and personal interests spread across the country. The next step is personalisation of a set of content through mobile devices and small laptops disseminating news specific to location.

Advertising revenue stream, how demonstrate to advertisers money is well spent?
LC: Process of rolling out idea. How getting people to engage with sites how people coming to us. Thinking traditionally – build up local database not had before.
DH: Area need to explore more. Lot of advertising know going to business community. Northumberland- long ago trailing Addiply coming back time and time again. Now seeing more good than bad examples.
RG: The advertising we do carry is pretty accountable enough. Methods of selling if we were to sell for micro local.

16.50

You can right click ‘save target’ for the MP3 here or you can listen to it below.

Part one can be found here.