Archive for January, 2010

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The inaugural episode of the PIO Social Media Training Podcast is in the can and available for your listening pleasure!

For our inaugural podcast you can hear us discuss:

• How PIOSocialMediaTraining.com began and a year in review
• The Social Media E-mail Bootcamp
• The Social Media Policy Guide For First Responder Agencies
• An overview of the Social Media Responder 2009 contest
• Twitter Advanced Search
• FourSquare
• Mayor Dave‘s coffee spot
• Twitter 2.0: API Rate Change Could Lead to a World of New Apps & Features
• Layar Mobile Augmented Reality Browser
• Schmap.it

Want to listen while you’re on the go?

Thanks for listening!

Paul Bollinger of Medical Teams International alerted me to this video from Sri Lanka EMS that is available on YouTube. The video will be going live as a Public Service Announcement to educate citizens about calling 110 in case of an emergency.

You could make a video like this for your service with not much more than a handheld camcorder, free video editing software, and a YouTube account. Have you done a video like this for your agency or service? Share the link in the comments. What questions do you have about making your own public service announcement (PSA)?

Learn more about the Sri Lanka EMS system and medical teams international in episode 41 of the EMSEduCast – the podcast by and for EMS Educators.

One of the major challenges in Social Media is the ability to measure it’s effectiveness. Here are some statistics from the Social Media Responder 2009 (#SMR2009) contest we held last year that you may find interesting:

Nomination Totals

Via Twitter – 54
Via E-mail – 69

Total Nominations – 123

Voting Totals

• Charlotte Fire Department – 17,570
• Eric Neitzel – 16,651
• Bellevue Police Department – 12,402
• Chronicles of EMS – 623
• Montgomery County Fire and Rescue – 334
• Los Angeles Fire Department – 154

Average Votes Per Day – 3,409
Total Votes- 47,734

Top 5 Referrers Of Unique Visitors

• Facebook – 1,722
• Twitter – 1,710
• AOL E-mail – 187
• Feedburner – 147
• Ow.ly – 105

Random Stats

Total #SMR2009 Pageviews – 600
Total Voting Booth Pagevews – 71,369
Hashtag #SMR2009 Mentions During Voting and Nominating Periods – 765

What Does This Tell Us?

So what exactly do the numbers above tell us? For one thing, they help dispel a number of assumptions and myths made about effective Social Media:

• Twitter is for vital Social Media, Facebook is for Farmville – Facebook actually edged Twitter out by referring 12 more unique visitors which shows us that Facebook is in fact being used for more than Farmville, which makes it more important than ever not to overlook the platform
• E-mail is so “90s” – AOL referring the third largest number of unique visitors is evidence that e-mail is still viable. While some people may point out that AOL referred far less, there were over 300 sources that sent visitors to the page and a little more than 100 of them were e-mail servers. You should definitely keep e-mail in mind when considering Social Media
• We only need one Social Media account – What did every single #SMR2009 Finalist have in common? They have a Social Media presence across multiple platforms and mediums. Diversity in Social Media is a necessary ingredient for success
• PIOSocialMediaTraining.com will never have more than 25,000 pageviews in a month – Now this last one is a myth I generated myself. The fact is that while you may make an educated guess as to the popularity and what you’ll need when it comes to bandwidth, don’t be unprepared for a sudden surge when your Social Media takes on a life of its own

As we leave 2009 behind and forge ahead in 2010 we think it is important for every agency to recognize what they did successfully in Social Media, repeat it, and continue to look at ways to improve upon it.

What has your agency done well in 2009 that they can repeat in 2010?

What can they improve upon in 2010?

There’s less than 11 months now until December 1, so get to it. See you in December.