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Regional Workshop on the Development of Thematic Knowledge Networks

12-15 April 2011 Budapest, Hungary

Facilitating communities, skills and tools. Promotion and fostering of dialogue and use of

social media and Web2.0

Michael Riggs, Knowledge and Information Management Officer, e-Agriculture Lead

Facilitator, FAO (by video bridge, from Rome)

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The e-Agriculture CommunityFAO provides the functions of secretariat and animateur (facilitator).Over 7,000 individual members from more than 160 countries and territories around the world have joined since September 2007.

Community members including staff at NGO/CSOs, government institutions, international organizations and the private sector. They are information and communication specialists, researchers, farmers, students, policy makers, entrepreneurs and others.

What brings all these different people together is a common interest. They all want to share knowledge, learn from others, and improve decisions about the use of ICTs to improve livelihoods, and build sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors.

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"e-Agriculture is connecting us with [global networks] through the e-platform... knitting nicely, which benefit all of us. I would like to see e-Agriculture growing further and further..." Dr. Harsha Liyanage, Sarvodaya-Fusion, and e-Agriculture Community Member

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We need to:• Increasing traffic• Opening communication • Moving from one-way information streams to geometric engagements

We use:TwitterFacebookLinkedInYouTubeDeliciousJumo

How? With social media (web 2.0)

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Social Media drives traffic to the website

From 2009 to 2010: 26.12% of traffic sources were from Referring Sources:• Twitter: 15%• Facebook: 11 %

•From 2010 to 2011: 30.97% of traffic sources were from Referring Sources: • Twitter: 17.50%• Facebook: 13.47 %

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Cartoons via mobile phone bring educational materials to smallholder farmers: http://bit.ly/h4yN2UCartoons via mobile phone bring educational materials to smallholder farmers: http://bit.ly/h4yN2U

Social media(Twitter and Facebook) drives eyes to the website.

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What are the emerging tools, standards & infrastructures? e-Consultation on CIARD Framework for data & info sharing: http://bit.ly/f8jkbx

What are the emerging tools, standards & infrastructures? e-Consultation on CIARD Framework for data & info sharing: http://bit.ly/f8jkbx Amplification using Twitter.

Followers

2,947

2,233

75

517

Followers

151

1,324

350

13,721

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Be strategic. You wouldn’t try to meet everyone all at once, so don’t try to communication with them all at once or all in the same manner.

Differentiate!• Twitter: broad, tech/comm. savvy audience. Drives a lot of traffic to platform. Builds two-way communication.• Facebook: younger audience. Drives traffic, not a lot of conversation.• LinkedIn: “profession” oriented audience. Unique conversation amongst people who don’t go to platform.

One way to start is with a personal account, to allow time to get a feel for the tools and how they work. Then one can fine tune a program for their work account.

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COMMENTS AND

QUESTIONS

Michael Riggs Knowledge and Information Management Officer e-Agriculture Lead Facilitator Knowledge and Capacity for Development BranchOffice of Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension Michael.Riggs@fao.org

www.e-agriculture.orgwww.twitter.com/e_agriculturewww.youtube.com/user/eagriculturewww.linkedin.com/groups/eAgriculture-3294740www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/e-Agricultureorg/133387906674204