Using Social Media to Educate Audiences about

Recycling

The NC Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance in

collaboration withCarolina Recycling Association

Web 2.0 - “It’s not an audience, it’s a community”

What does Social Media Do:- Becomes a collaborative platform- Harnesses collective intelligence- Enables everyone to be a content creator- Provides greater access to knowledge and

information resources- Encourages media multiplexity- Expands and manages social networks

- Craig Lefebvre

“The most frequently cited benefit of the Internet was in helping people tap into

[their] social networks”.- Susannah Fox

Infovark

Stats - Blogs• 900,000 – average number of blog posts

in a 24 hour period

• 77% - percentage of active Internet users who read blogs

• 59% – percentage of bloggers who have been blogging for at least 2 years

- Technorati

• What is Twitter?– Launched in 2006; increased in popularity late

2007– “microblogging”– 140 characters or less– Similar to Facebook status updates – Mobile phone applications

.com

Stats - Twitter• An estimated 5 million active Twitter users,

or “tweeters” (dailyblogtips.com)

• Men have 15% more followers than women

• An average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman

• Men represent 45% of Twitter users- Blogs.HarvardBusiness.org

• Twitter “twords” (lingo)– Tweet: A post on Twitter or the act of posting

• Also common: Tweeter and Tweeted• Tweeps or Tweeple• Tweetup (@triangletweetup)

– ReTweet/RT: To tweet something another user has already posted

– @username: calls attention to another user mentioned in a tweet

• “twords” continued– Direct Message/ DM: A private message to

another user that only the two of you can see– Follow/UnFollow: choosing to

subscribe/unsubscribe to a user’s tweets; • You can read public users tweets without subscribing

– Follower: a user who subscribes to your tweets– Following: a user whose tweets you subscribe to

• Twitter Complements – #hashtags

• #hashtags are a way to link tweets about the same topic

• Similar to Twitter’s track/search feature• Why you might use them: to track the buzz of

something specific in your community – Popular #hashtag examples

• #followfriday or #ff• #ecomonday

• Twitter Complements, continued– URL shorteners

• Making a long Web site URL shorter• Each character is a precious resource! Don’t waste

characters on URLS– Example: from

http://www.p2pays.org/BannedMaterials/PlasticBottles/BestManagementPractices.asp (80 characters!) to http://bit.ly/11hdBO (20 characters)

• Common URL shorteners: – www.tinyurl.com– http://bit.ly/

How do I get followers?• DON’T protect your Tweets!• Find a conversation using #hashtags• Follow your peers, other towns, even celebs!

– NC Enviro Tweeple: • @RaleighRecycles; @Carolinagreen; @goGreenTriad;

@NCGP; @NC_Office_of_EE– Some twittering NC Communities

• @VisitJohnston; @Morrisville_NC; @VisitMitchellNC; @DTSmithfield; @Hillsborough; @HowRDUDoin

– Of course, follow us!• @RE3org• @YourCRA; @CRAgab

Stats• 1 billion photos uploaded monthly• 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news

stories, blogs, etc.) shared weekly• Average user has 120 friends• Two-thirds of users are outside of college. The

fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

• More than 30 million active users currently access Facebook from their phone

- Facebook

Group: more static Cause: focuses on donations

Pages: full personal account for your organization

Thank youContact Kelley Dennings at kelley.dennings@ncdenr.gov

for more information

The slidedeck can be found here - http://www.slideshare.net/NCDENR

Blogspot: http://re3org.blogspot.com/Twitter: http://twitter.com/re3org

Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/RE3org