MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT

Social Networking

To Social Network or not to Social Network?

April 19, 2012

The goal of the Social Networking report is to help Manatee County Government determine which social applications will best serve their communication needs.

County Administrator’s Office

Information Outreach

Randy Beckwith Nick Azzara

Information Outreach Manager Information Outreach Coordinator

1112 Manatee Avenue West

Bradenton, Florida 34205

941-749-3717

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction: What is Social Media? ............................................................................................... 2

Communication: Overview ................................................................................................................. 4

Blogs ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Blogger............................................................................................................................................................ 7

Live Journal .................................................................................................................................................. 8

WordPress .................................................................................................................................................... 9

Twitter ..........................................................................................................................................................10

How Can MCG Use It ................................................................................................................................11

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................11

Internet Forums ............................................................................................................................................. 12

phpBB ...........................................................................................................................................................13

vBulletin .......................................................................................................................................................14

Google Groups............................................................................................................................................15

How Can MCG Use It ................................................................................................................................16

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................16

Social Networking ......................................................................................................................................... 17

MySpace .......................................................................................................................................................18

Facebook ......................................................................................................................................................19

LinkedIn .......................................................................................................................................................20

GovLink ........................................................................................................................................................21

How Can MCG Use It ................................................................................................................................22

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................23

Events ................................................................................................................................................................ 24

Eventful ......................................................................................................................................................25

Upcoming ..................................................................................................................................................26

How Can MCG Use It ..............................................................................................................................27

Other Entities Who Utilize It ..............................................................................................................27

Collaboration: Overview ................................................................................................................... 28

Wiki .....................................................................................................................................................................29

WikiSpaces ..................................................................................................................................................30

PBworks ....................................................................................................................................................... 31

How MCG Can Use It ................................................................................................................................32

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................32

Multimedia: Overview ....................................................................................................................... 33

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Podcasting ....................................................................................................................................................34

PodOMatic ...................................................................................................................................................35

How MCG Can Use It ................................................................................................................................36

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................36

Photo Sharing ..................................................................................................................................................37

Flickr .............................................................................................................................................................38

How MCG Can Use It ................................................................................................................................39

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................39

Video Sharing ..................................................................................................................................................40

YouTube .......................................................................................................................................................41

How MCG Can Use It ................................................................................................................................42

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................42

Reviews & Opinions: Overview ...................................................................................................... 43

Q&A ...................................................................................................................................................................44

Yahoo! Answers ........................................................................................................................................45

WikiAnswer ................................................................................................................................... 46

Zoomerang ..................................................................................................................................................47

QuestionPro ................................................................................................................................................48

How MCG Can Use It ................................................................................................................................49

Other Entities Who Utilize It ................................................................................................................49

The Social Media Strategy ................................................................................................................ 50

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 53

Glossary .................................................................................................................................................. 54

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Executive Summary

Social media is the new form of communication that has taken not only the internet industry but

also many different industries by storm. Social media is simply content created by people using

highly accessible publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how

people discover, read and share news, information and content. It is also known as Web 2.0. Social

media can fall under these categories:

Communication

Collaboration

Multimedia

Q&A and Surveys

Entertainment

When undertaking either one of these pieces of media one must establish a plan of action to make

the first attempt a successful one. First impressions are everything. In order to accomplish this, one

should follow these crucial steps:

1. Set goals.

2. Pick media that best fit the goals.

3. Brand the company.

4. Establish operating procedures.

5. Organize ways to measure web site traffic.

6. Create accounts and implement branding strategy.

7. Publish desired content.

8. Promote company.

9. Build relationships.

10. Analyze and adapt.

Due to the social media surge over the past five years, it is important to assess and utilize the

benefits that lay within this medium. Little or no cost, no programming experience needed, a way to

connect to a segment of the population and receive feedback from that same group are just some of

the benefits that social media provides.

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SOCIAL MEDIA: content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing

technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read

and share news, information and content. Also known as Web 2.0.

What is Social Media?

Simply put, social media is another avenue for people to communicate to each other.

People, businesses, government and other entities ask the question: Is social media

beneficial to my company or is it just a waste of time? When confronted with this question

one should know that social media will not go away. It is not merely a fad with the

technology-savvy. It will blossom and transform itself as new technologies and innovations

come to fruition. Therefore, it is important for an entity to at least explore a social media

site to see how it can work in their favor.

However in order to understand the benefits and drawbacks of this new medium one must

compare and contrast the industrial—or traditional media such as print magazines,

newspapers etc.— to the latest social media. There are five things one should consider:

After understanding the five components, one could assume that social media can be more

cost effective than traditional means of communication.

Social media made its way onto the scene in 1977 with SixDegrees. SixDegrees played on

the ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ concept (if a person is one step away from each person they

know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know,

then everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth). SixDegrees was

the foundation for today’s popular social sites. Then in 1999, LiveJournal and ethnic-based

AsianAvenue and BlackPlanet sprung up. However, it was in 2003 when social media took

over cyberspace with sites like LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. The Web 2.0 reign

continued in 2005 with YouTube and the expansion of Facebook.

Industrial Media Social Media Reach Both forms of media (when used efficiently) can reach a mass audience.

Accessibility Means of production are usually privately owned.

Means of production are available to anyone at little or no cost.

Usability Requires skills and training. Most social media do not require skills or training or sometimes they reinvent a skill.

Timeliness Time lag between updates could be days , weeks or months.

Updates can be instantaneous (depends on person updating the information)

Permanence Cannot be altered. Can be altered instantly.

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Today, (thanks to Ning.com, which allows people to create a social network of their own)

numerous social media networks are seemingly springing up overnight. Since 76% of

people in the United States have computers, a majority of them use the internet to get their

information.

This boom in the Web 2.0 arena will not decline anytime soon. It is likely that the new

evolution of technology will reinvent upon itself. With media convergence becoming more

prominent amongst those in the media industry, it is important to embrace or at least

understand the benefits and disadvantages of social media.

The best way to present social media information is to break it down into five categories:

Communication, Collaboration, Multimedia, Reviews & Opinions and Entertainment.

However for Manatee County Government’s intents and purposes Communication,

Collaboration, Multimedia and Reviews & Opinions will be the social media categories that

this report will cover. In each of the categories, a couple of sites or networks will be

featured along with a list of similar websites. A list of entities that use the medium and

other information will be presented as well.

This report is better utilized via a computer with internet access. There are numerous web

links throughout the report which leads to websites relevant to the topic being discussed.

The network(s) or site(s) featured in this report are not necessarily the best choices for Manatee County

Government to use if choosing to take up the social media initiative. They are merely featured to give the

reader an idea of how a type of social media would work. Before registering with any social media site, it

is wise to research all related sites to make an informed decision.

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Communication

Blogs

Blogger

LiveJournal

WordPress

Twitter

Internet Forums

phpBB

Google Groups

Yahoo! Groups

Social Networking

MySpace

Facebook

GovLoop

LinkedIn

Events

Eventful

Upcoming

COMMUNICATION: The exchanging of thoughts and ideas. In a social media context,

programs, sites or networks that allow a person to communicate are called a

communication medium.

Social Media: Communication

Communication media can fall under four categories:

Blogs

Internet Forums

Events

Social Networking

They all essentially do the same thing—communicating information—though they use

different methods.

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BLOG: An online journal that may contain daily events, commentary on social issues,

videos and pictures. Contraction of the word weblog.

BLOGGER: 1) A person who blogs. 2) Blogger- as in Blogger.com.

SPLOG: Spam blog.

MICROBLOG: short posts to a personal blog. Usually about events occurring at the

moment. Microblogging is often done from a cell phone or instant messenger service.

The days of handwriting a journal are over! A blog, or an online page that holds a person’s

thoughts, are usually combined with other social communication sites like MySpace or

Facebook. However there are certain sites that dedicate themselves just to blogging such as

Blogger, LiveJournal and WordPress.

BLOG STATISTICS

According to Technorati, a blog search engine, there are over 70 million blogs on the

web. However there are 15.5 million that are active (updated in the past 90 days).

Blogging grew 68% in 2008

346 million people worldwide

read blogs

77% of active web users read

blogs

184 million people say they’ve

started a blog

51% males blog

Aged 35+ (58%)

Aged 18-34 (42%)

College educated, 74%

95% of the top 100 newspapers have reporter blogs

1 million blog posts are written every day

50% of bloggers see blogs as the primary news source by 2013 Source: Social Media 2008 Statistics

The typical layout of a blog.

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BLOGGING: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

Advantages Disadvantages A writer gets their own soap-box . A blog really is a wonderful tool to use in which to bring other people’s attention to issues that are of importance to you.

The ability to bring awareness to important issues can quickly be diluted by a flurry of rants and raves against anything that happens to be bothering a blogger that day.

Blogging is writing practice. Practice makes perfect.

Anyone can (and eventually will) read your blog. If you do not have a reliable self-censor, you may quickly find yourself deleting posts and/or apologizing to people you know.

Provides contact with friends, family or community. A blog can be a great way to reach out to all others in your community and initiate some dialogue through user comments.

It requires work. If you hope to build a good blog with solid readership and steady traffic, you’re going to have to write often and write well.

Great networking tool. Since anyone can comment on the blog, an anonymous person may write rude things about an organization or business which affects its reputation. This reduces confidence and interest. However, some blogging sites have the option for the blogger to approve comments before they are posted.

Useful promotional tool. Good way to keep track of a project. With the help of comments, you can get a feedback from your audience who reads your posts. This helps in modifying your organization to suit the needs.

LIST OF POPULAR BLOGGING SITES

BlogDrive ● Twitter**

Blogger* ● Plurk**

Jaiku** ● Friendfeed**

LiveJournal* ● Tumblelog**

Weebly ● SocialText**

Xanga ● WordPress*

*Will be featured in this report.

**Microblogging site

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Quick Facts

Established: August 1999

Visits Per Month (U.S.):

81,677,915

People Per Month (U.S.):

17,465,966

Blogger has everything one

could need to create a blog. It

allows a user to post text,

photos, videos, slideshows

and more. It is all free. There

is no posting limit. The user

also has the ability to add

labels within the blog for easy

referencing and offers a custom URL for sharing purposes. Blogger also provides templates

to customize the blog. For those who know HTML coding, Blogger offers a HTML editor,

which would help customize the page even further than the provided templates would.

Recently, Blogger has come up with more additional features such as:

A subscription service, which allows people to bookmark or “follow” your blog.

New feedback service. Now it is easier to post a comment and a blogger to respond

back.

Alerts to when blogs a user is following have been updated. A user can now

customize what is shared.

Currently available in 41 languages.

Can blog from mobile phone.

Create a team blog, allowing multiple bloggers to contribute to a single blog. Select

which team members have administrative authority and those who are just authors.

A user can also choose to make your blog private and restrict who can view it.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 52% Female: 48%

Ages 12-17: 4% 18-34: 42% 35-49: 32% 50+: 22%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

83% Hispanic:

6% African-

American: 5% Asian:

4% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 18 $30-$60k: 27 $60-$100k: 27 $100k+: 27

Children No Kids (0-17): 61% Kids (0-17): 39%

Education No College: 37% College: 45% Grad School: 18%

“Create Your Free Blog”

Source: Blogger Features

Quantcast

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Quick Facts

Established: 1999

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

48,351,532

People Per Month(U.S):

3,996,703

LiveJournal divides their

site into categories such as

Entertainment, Music,

Culture, Politics & News

etc.

LiveJournal’s services are

broken into three different

groups: Basic, Plus, Paid.

Some of the features included are:

Personalization of User Profile Join and Create Communities

Access Full Comment and Reply Features

Subscribe to New Posts, Friends, Comments, etc.

Instant Message (IM) Friends on LiveJournal and other Jabber Networks

Numerous Pre-made Designs for User’s Journal

Tag and Categorize Entries

Manage Comments in Journal

Access to Export Tool for Archiving Journal

Edit the Privacy Level of Entries En Masse

Create a Custom Journal Design with Our Advanced Options

Post Photos & Text via Mobile Device

Add Voice Posts (Audio Posts) to Journal

Create and Post Polls and Surveys

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 42% Female: 58%

Ages 12-17: 13% 18-34: 52% 35-49: 22% 50+: 13%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

80% Hispanic:

7% African-

American: 5% Asian:

7% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 23%

$31- $60k: 27%

$60-$100k: 25%

$100k+: 26%

Children No Kids (0-17): 62% Has Kids (0-17): 38%

Education No College: 41% College: 45% Grad School: 17%

“Express Yourself, Share Your Life, Connect With Friends

Online ”

Source: LiveJournal Features

Quantcast

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Quick Facts

Established: 2003

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

68,271,425

People Per Month(U.S):

29,055,131

Visits Per Month(Global):

291,374,674

People Per Month(Global):

124,251,892

WordPress’s blogging services

are divided into 2 categories:

Basic, free version, and

Premium, which the user would

pay for.

Some of the basic features include:

Integrated stats system- designed to give up-to-the-minute stats on how many people visit a

blog, where they’re coming from, which posts are most popular, and which search engine

terms are sending people to your blog.

Tagging system.

Splog blocker.

Import blogs from other websites.

Privacy options, including members-only blogs.

Sidebar widgets for Flickr, del.icio.us, Meebo, and more

Track replies to user’s comments.

The premium features include:

Extra Storage

Custom CSS- If a user knows their way around a cascading style sheet (CSS), they can really

put a personal touch on their WordPress.com blog.

VideoPress is a great way to add a little liveliness to a blog. With VideoPress—just upload a

video and it will be converted to the right format for sharing on the web (including an HD

option for high definition video).

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 53% Female: 47%

Ages 3-11: 1% 12-17: 7% 18-34: 34% 35-49: 34% 50+: 23%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

80% Hispanic:

6% African-

American: 7% Asian:

6% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 24%

$31- $60k: 27%

$60-$100k: 23%

$100k+: 25%

Children No Kids (0-17): 68% Has Kids (0-17): 32%

Education No College: 37% College: 46% Grad School: 17%

“Express Yourself”

Source: WordPress Features WordPress Premium Features

Quantcast

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Quick Facts

Established: 2006

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

158,593,248

People Per

Month(U.S): 23,018,967

Twitter is not the typical

blogging site. It falls

under the category of

microblogging.

One of the reasons that

Twitter has flourished

since its inception is due to its simplistic nature.

Like the slogan, a user just answers the prompt “What are you doing right now?” It is a

status updater more so than a full blog. The versatility of the site also helped the site gain

popularity. People can “tweet” (update their status) via phone or computer.

A downfall to Twitter’s simple nature is a lack of features. Twitter just allows users to

currently subscribe or “follow” people, post a picture or two, and update the status.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 45% Female: 55%

Ages 12-17: 2% 18-34: 43% 35-49: 33% 50+: 21%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

81% Hispanic:

5% African-American:

9% Asian:

4% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 21% $31- $60k: 29% $60-$100k: 24% $100k+: 26% Children

No Kids (0-17): 61% Has Kids (0-17): 39% Education

No College: 40% College: 45% Grad School: 15%

“What Are You Doing Right Now?”

Source: Quantcast

Twitter’s Home Page

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HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE BLOGGING

Emergency Notifications

Before an emergency event, a blog can host information on the current status of the

emergency, precautions from emergency officials, evacuation shelters that are open

as well as tips to reduce damage or loss of life in the event.

During/after emergency, a blog can host information related to the recovery effort

and the status of such an effort. It can also list places where food and water will be

distributed.

State of the County

Talk about what effects laws or programs from the federal government would have

on the county and the overall condition of the county. Budget issues and the like

would be appropriate for this area as well.

In-depth talk about issues that garnered a lot of attention

Controversial agenda items and other topics that gained a lot of public opinion can

be discussed in detail.

Certain departments may be able to use it to update the public on projects or programs

For a project that spans over several different entities and agencies, a blog could be

established just for the project so that all members or the project will be updated as

tasks are completed. This could also be available for the public viewing so the public

can keep track with the status as well.

OTHER ENTITIES THAT BLOG

The White House

California Department of Boating and Waterways

Center of Disease Control

North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources

City of Pompano Beach, Florida

Portland Water Bureau

Chicago Transport Authority

Los Angeles Police Department

Miami Beach News

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INTERNET FORUM: A modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board. Also known as a

message board or discussion board.

Internet forums or message boards is a great way of obtaining information from a source. The

basic premise of a message board is for people to discuss topics and ask questions. It all starts with

a topic. A user would initiate the topic by submitting a question or prompt and other users would

come in a give their two cents or give an answer.

Setting up a board takes up a moderate amount of time. A person has to establish rules for board

users, appoint administrators (admin, whose job is to correct technical issues and revisions made to

the board) and moderators (mod, monitors the users, to make sure that the site is free from spam,

etc.).

INTERNET FORUM STATISTICS

Top 3 Internet Forum sites are vBulletin, Invision, phpBB.

LIST OF POPULAR INTERNET FORUM SITES

vBulletin* ● Yahoo! Groups ● EZBoard

phpBB* ● Google Groups*

*Will be featured in report.

INTERNET FORUMS: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

Advantages Disadvantages Can build or recreate a reputation. It requires work. If you hope to build a good blog

with solid readership and steady traffic, you’re going to have to write often and write well.

Easy to control once established. Since anyone can post on a forum, an anonymous person may write rude things about your organization or business, which affects its reputation. However, that is when mods and admin step in to clean up the board.

Great way to ask questions anonymously and yet receive credible answers. Can decrease rumor mill.

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Quick Facts

Established: 2000

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

34,537

People Per Month(U.S):

32,156

PhpBB allows a user to create

their own forum by

downloading their free

software. PhpBB has just

released version 3 of their

software which offers a

professional quality modular

design, high security,

multiple-language interface,

support for a multitude of database servers and complete layout customization. Other

features that phpBB include:

Usage Statistics

Establish Permissions

CAPTCHA visual confirmation

Use BBCode for editing purposes

Create Polls

Attachments

Banning by username, IP address and e-mail

Customizable themes and templates

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 57% Female: 43%

Ages 3-11: 2% 12-17:

11% 18-34: 40% 35-49: 34% 50+: 13%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

78% Hispanic:

5% African-

American: 6% Asian:

8% Other:

3% Income

$0-$30k: 27%

$31- $60k: 25%

$60-$100k: 23%

$100k+: 24%

Children No Kids (0-17): 56% Has Kids (0-17): 44%

Education No College: 48% College: 42% Grad School: 10%

“Creating Communities Worldwide”

Source: Quantcast phpBB features

Examples of CAPTCHA’s

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Quick Facts

Established: 2006

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

13,444

People Per Month(U.S):

14,487

It creates an instant

community that allows

visitors to interact, take part

in discussions and express

opinions.

vBulletin is a community

solution that adds a forum

messaging system to a web site. vBulletin is developed using PHP and MySQL (a highly

efficient open-source database). Some features vBulletin offers include:

Admin control panel

Moderator Control Panel

User Control Panel

Admin tools for Posts - edit/delete/move/ etc

Private Messaging

Calendar

Language manager - allows you to easily translate your forums in any language

Import facility - import posts and members seamlessly upgrade from other bulletin board systems, including Infopop's Ultimate Bulletin Board, UBBThreads, OpenTopic, ezboard, and Ikonboard

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 63% Female: 37%

Ages 3-11: 4% 12-17: 4% 18-34: 33% 35-49: 37% 50+: 21%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

77% Hispanic:

7% African-

American: 8% Asian:

6% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 24%

$31- $60k: 27%

$60-$100k: 23%

$100k+: 25%

Children No Kids (0-17): 61% Has Kids (0-17): 39%

Education No College: 49% College: 43% Grad School: 8%

“vBulletin Gets People Talking”

Source: Quantcast vBulletin Features

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Quick Facts

Established: 2001

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

14, 142, 700

People Per Month(U.S):

3,315,787

Google Groups is a free

service where groups of

people have discussions

about common interests.

Internet users can find

discussion groups related to

their interests and

participate in threaded

conversations, either through the Google Groups web interface, or by e-mail. They can also

start new groups.

Google Groups offer the basic features such as:

Discussions can be conducted online, through the forum or e-mail

Create custom pages

Customize look and graphics

Create a group

Can create web pages within a group

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 61% Female: 39%

Ages 3-11: 0% 12-17: 2% 18-34: 33% 35-49: 38% 50+: 27%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

79% Hispanic:

7% African-

American: 9% Asian:

4% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 19%

$31- $60k: 26%

$60-$100k: 27%

$100k+: 28%

Children No Kids (0-17): 65% Has Kids (0-17): 35%

Education No College: 42% College: 42% Grad School: 16%

Source: Quantcast GoogleGroups Features

Google Groups Homepage

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HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE INTERNET FORUMS

Manatee Central

Just like Employee Central except Manatee Central would be open to the

public. The public would be able to submit questions, comments or

suggestions and the appropriate staff will answer then post the answer in the

discussion board for all to see.

OTHER ENTITIES THAT USE INTERNET FORUMS

NASA

Hillsborough County, Florida

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SOCIAL NETWORK: a website where one connects with those sharing personal or

professional interests, place of origin, education at a particular school, etc.

Social networking provides a new way to meet new people, discover new hobbies and socialize

with various people worldwide.

Any website designed to allow multiple users to publish content themselves would be considered a

social network. The information may be on any subject and may be for consumption by (potential)

friends, mates, employers, employees, etc. The sites typically allow users to create a "profile"

describing themselves and to exchange public or private messages and list other users or groups

they are connected to in some way. There may be editorial content or the site may be entirely user-

driven.

A well-crafted video titled “Social Networking in Plain English” helps explain the concept of social

networking in its most basic form.

SOCIAL NETWORK STATISTICS

Breakdown of why people use social networks

o 75% Keep in touch with family and friends

o 62% Snoop around

o 55% To express opinions and views

o 49% Meet people with similar interests

o 13% Specific reason, documenting trip to wedding, etc

o 7% Good way to date 70% social networking activity occurs in the evening

37% of participants visit daily

41% visit a few times per week

SOCIAL NETWORK: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

Advantages Disadvantages Easier communication between colleagues. Identity theft, fraud, harassment and stalking

are two bothersome concerns that have come out of social networking sites.

Online business people use these social services as tools to promote their websites, products and services basically because of the overwhelmingly significant number of people that they have brought together to form communities.

You definitely can gain the customers' confidence if you can connect to them on both a personal and professional level.

LIST OF SOCIAL NETWORK SITES

MySpace* ● Facebook* ● LinkedIn* ● GovLoop*

Bebo ● Friendster ● Hi5 ● Ning

*Will be featured in report.

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Quick Facts

Established: 2003

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

3,210,690,061

People Per Month(U.S):

62,999,560

MySpace allows users to

create a personal profile,

which can allow the user to

post pictures, music and

customize their profile’s

background. With increased

awareness of child

predators and scam artists,

MySpace has implemented a

privacy system in which people would have to know a key element about the user, such as

first and last name, zip code or e-mail address to add the user as a friend. MySpace also

allows a user to approve all comments other users may post to their profile, therefore

preventing a flood of ads or other harmful material. It also allows a user to customize who

can view certain information. You can block everyone from viewing a certain portion of the

site (private view), allow just friends to view areas of a profile (friends view) or let

everyone view the profile (public view).

Some features on MySpace include:

Bulletin boards ● Blogs

Upload video ● Upload pictures

Polls ● Forums

Instant Messaging ● Groups

Classifieds ● Karaoke

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 43% Female: 57%

Ages 3-11: 3% 12-17:

27% 18-34: 46% 35-49: 15% 50+: 18%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

69% Hispanic:

14% African-

American: 12% Asian:

4% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 22%

$31- $60k: 22%

$60-$100k: 26%

$100k+: 25%

Children No Kids (0-17): 44% Has Kids (0-17): 56%

Education No College: 56% College: 35% Grad School: 9%

“A Place For Friends”

Source: Quantcast MySpace Wiki Page

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Quick Facts

Established: 2004

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

4,071,093,485

People Per Month(U.S):

91,187,177

Users can join networks

organized by city,

workplace, school, or region

to connect and interact with

other people. People can

also add friends, send them

messages, update their

personal profiles and to

keep up with friends. A

February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranked Facebook as the most used social network,

followed by MySpace.

Some of Facebook’s features:

Wall- a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see

Photos- where users can upload albums and photos

Videos- where users can upload videos

Notes- a blogging feature that allow tags and embeddable images. Users are able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services

Events- a method of informing their friends about upcoming events

Polls

Marketplace- where users post classified ads

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 46% Female: 54%

Ages 3-11: 1% 12-17:

27% 18-34: 46% 35-49: 15% 50+: 10%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

7% Hispanic:

5% African-

American: 12% Asian:

6% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 16%

$31- $60k: 25%

$60-$100k: 29%

$100k+: 30%

Children No Kids (0-17): 52% Has Kids (0-17): 48%

Education No College: 44% College: 42% Grad School: 14%

“Helps you connect and share

with the people in your life.”

Source: Quantcast Facebook Features

20

Quick Facts

Established: 2003

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

49,996,411

People Per Month(U.S):

10,708,508

Visits Per Month(Global):

89,283,778

People Per Month(Global):

19,681,747

LinkedIn is a business-oriented

social networking site founded

in December 2002 and

launched in May 2003 mainly

used for professional

networking. As of May 2009 it

had more than 40 million registered users, spanning 170 industries.

The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people

they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite

anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each

of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of

second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an

introduction to someone you wish to know through a mutual, trusted contact.

It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by

someone in one's contact network.

Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.

Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing

contacts can introduce them.

LinkedIn features include:

LinkedIn Answers ● LinkedIn Groups ●Blogging

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 56% Female: 44%

Ages 3-11: 1% 12-17: 0% 18-34: 25% 35-49: 46% 50+: 28%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

81% Hispanic:

2% African-

American: 6% Asian:

9% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 13%

$31- $60k: 20%

$60-$100k: 29%

$100k+: 38%

Children No Kids (0-17): 78% Has Kids (0-17): 22%

Education No College: 19% College: 52% Grad School: 29%

“Relationships matter”

Source: Quantcast LinkedIn Wiki

21

Quick Facts

Established: 2008

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

4,214

People Per Month(U.S):

2,551

GovLoop is the social

network for the

government community. It’s

a place to connect and share best practices or ideas. The 7,000 member social network

ranges from CIOs to public policy students, city officials from Alaska to DC big-wigs to

international folks from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Some features

include:

Blogs

o Users can discuss issues that are affecting their government and offer

solutions.

Groups

o GovLoop permits users to join groups of their interest. Within the group,

there is discussion in how to make the job more efficient and other helpful

topics.

Forums

o Issues that a government may be facing may be discussed here. Other users

may comment to what their government has done in response to the issue. A

great way to gather a possible list of solutions to a problem.

Events

o Allows users to see upcoming events (webinars, meetings etc.) of other

government entities.

Multimedia

o Users can upload videos, photos and podcasts. It also has a twitter tracker

which permits a user to follow the tweets of other government entities.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 50% Female: 50%

Ages 3-11: 6% 12-17: 3% 18-34: 17% 35-49: 57% 50+: 17%

Children No Kids (0-17): 58% Has Kids (0-17): 42%

Education No College: 35% College: 40% Grad School: 24%

“Social Network for Government 2.0”

Source: Quantcast GovLoop

22

HOW CAN MANATEE GOVERNMENT USE SOCIAL NETWORKING

Connect with other governments

Foster collaborative spirit between other governments. Create a government network which

could serve as a resource when conducting research.

Expound on topics that the public would be interested in Using the blog or wall feature talk or elicit discussion about a topic of interest to the public

such as funding availability for programs etc.

Meeting updates

Use calendar feature to update the public on Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) or

Planning Meetings. Can also log in all community meetings so the public can know the details

of the meeting like time and place. If attachments are allowed, the agenda can be attached to

the notice so a user can print it out for their records. If attachments are not allowed, they can

be found elsewhere.

Emergency situations

Emergency status updates would be best in the blogging or wall section of a social network

site. Evacuations, state of the County during and after the emergency and recovery effort

could all be chronicled in those features.

Promote Manatee County

Post pictures of Manatee County (photo contest).

Polls and surveys

To get a quick and overall opinion from county citizens about a given topic use the poll or

survey feature.

Videos

Post videos produced by Information Outreach as well as meetings.

Bulletins

Bulletins can be short with updates regarding projects or an action in a BOCC meeting.

Employee site

Can be used as an independent employee site.

Forum

Q&A from citizens answered by the appropriate County employees.

23

OTHER ENTITIES THAT USE SOCIAL NETWORKS

Hillsborough County, Florida Emergency Management (Facebook)

Hillsborough County, Florida Supervisor of Elections (Facebook)

Pinellas County, Florida Department of Justice and Consumer Services (Facebook)

Polk County, Iowa Health Department (Facebook)

Polk County, Missouri Health Center (Facebook)

Polk County, Florida Sheriff's Office (Facebook)

Polk County, Florida Supervisor of Elections (Facebook)

City of Bradenton, Florida Fire Department (Facebook)

City of Pompano Beach (Facebook)

City of Aventura (Facebook)

Miami-Dade County (Facebook)

Miami-Dade County Corrections (Facebook)

City of Miami Beach (Facebook)

City of Miami Beach (MySpace)

Manatee Sheriff’s Office (MySpace)

Sarasota Sheriff’s Office (MySpace)

State of Florida Employees (GovLoop)

24

EVENT: something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time.

Sites that allow people or organizations to post their event online and gives users the

option to let event organizers know if they are going to an event.

Just as it implies, event websites allows a user to post upcoming events such as concerts, festivals,

fairs, reunions etc. Some sites also allow users to demand an event which is like petitioning for an

event to come to the user’s local area. Users can post events or look up events in various categories

the most populat being nightlife, concerts, live music and food.

EVENTS: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

Advantages Disadvantages Easy to post an event. None to be observed at the moment. Easy to control once established.

LIST OF SOCIAL EVENT SITES

Socializr • EventOrb • ZVents • Upcoming

Eventful* • Now-In • Meet Up • Going

Home pages for Upcoming.com (above)

and Eventful (right).

*Will be featured in a report.

25

Quick Facts

Established: 2004

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

3,130,650

People Per Month(U.S):

2,449,403

Visits Per Month(Global):

4,291,192

People Per Month(Global):

3,354,060

Eventful is a web service

which aims to help users

search for, track, and share

information about events.

Eventful users can search for events worldwide by time, location, performer, and

descriptive keyword. Users can create private or public calendars, including "smart"

calendars which automatically update when events matching search criteria are added or

existing events are modified.

A newer part of the service, Eventful Demand, allows users to declare an event or

performance they would like to see locally, and then campaign for others to join their

"demand". With enough declared interest, a targeted performer might then decide to plan

an actual event. (A performers database was added to Eventful when Eventful Demand was

launched, and "performer" is broadly defined to include any person or group of interest to

others.)

Event categories include:

Concerts/Live Music • Literary

Conferences • Nightlife

Festivals • Outdoors/Recreation Sports

Food and Wine • Theatre and Comedy

Galleries and Art • Neighborhood

Health and Wellness • Organizations

Kids and Family

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 44% Female: 56%

Ages 3-11: 3% 12-17:

18% 18-34: 26% 35-49: 36% 50+: 18%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

77% Hispanic:

9% African-

American: 10% Asian:

3% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 22%

$31- $60k: 28%

$60-$100k: 26%

$100k+: 23%

Children No Kids (0-17): 65% Has Kids (0-17): 35%

Education No College: 43% College: 44% Grad School: 13%

“Find, Share and Promote Events”

Source: Quantcast Eventful Wiki

26

Quick Facts

Established: 2005

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

1,414,116

People Per Month(U.S):

1,178,675

Upcoming combines

features of an event calendar

and a social networking site.

Primarily, the site is a

searchable repository of

upcoming events, such as

music concerts, art exhibits,

business conferences, and so

on. The user community can contribute event information, although an increasing

percentage of event data now comes from commercial sources. Users can indicate their

plans by marking that they are "going" to or "interested" in an event. Users may also

establish "friend" relationships with each other and receive notifications about what their

friends are planning. Upcoming also offers users reminders via email or text message when

a particular event is about to occur. In addition, users can also post badges on their own

websites, powered by Javascript, which list all their Upcoming events.

Categories include:

Comedy

Commercial

Education

Family

Festivals

Media

Music

Performing/Visual Arts

Politics

Social

Sports

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 45% Female: 55%

Ages 3-11: 3% 12-17: 6% 18-34: 33% 35-49: 33% 50+: 25%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

74% Hispanic:

11% African-

American: 9% Asian:

4% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 20%

$31- $60k: 28%

$60-$100k: 29%

$100k+: 22%

Children No Kids (0-17): 59% Has Kids (0-17): 41%

Education No College: 45% College: 42% Grad School: 13%

“Events & Things To Do”

Source: Quantcast

Upcoming

27

HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE EVENTS

Alert the public to:

BOCC Meetings

Planning Meetings

Community Redevelopment Agency Meetings

Community/Neighborhood Meetings

● If allowed, agendas, minutes and other material could be attached to the online meeting notice

so attendees can know ahead of time what would be discusses, or for those who may miss the

meeting.

Community events or celebration hosted by the County or not would be featured. For example:

Hurricane Expo

Children’s Summit

OTHER ENTITIES THAT USE EVENTS

The Florida Aquarium

Lowry Park Zoo

City of Bradenton

John and Mable Ringling Museum

GWIZ

Florida Botanical Gardens

Art Center Manatee

MOSI

28

COLLABORATION: Website or applications that make working together in groups easier

and more efficient.

A wiki is a website that uses wiki software which allows the easy creation and editing of

any number of interlinked Web pages. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites

and to power community websites. Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and

knowledge management systems. Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki

software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could

possibly work.

Collaboration

Wiki

WikiSpaces PBworks

Home page of the world’s largest

wiki, Wikipedia.

29

WIKI: is a website that allows multiple users to create, modify and organize web page

content in a collaborative manner. Wiki’s In Plain English Video

A wiki enables documents to be written collaboratively, in a simple markup language using

a Web browser. A single page in a wiki website is referred to as a "wiki page", while the

entire collection of pages, which are usually well interconnected by hyperlinks, is "the

wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through

information.

A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be created and

updated. Generally, there is no review before modifications are accepted. Many wikis are

open to alteration by the general public without requiring them to register user accounts.

Sometimes logging in for a session is recommended, to create a "wiki-signature" cookie for

signing edits automatically. Many edits, however, can be made in real-time and appear

almost instantly online. This can facilitate abuse of the system. Private wiki servers require

user authentication to edit pages, and sometimes even to read them.

The Wiki concept as follows:

A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Web

site, using only a plain-vanilla Web browser without any extra add-ons.

Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making

page link creation almost intuitively easy and showing whether an intended target

page exists or not.

A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the

visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes

the Web site landscape.

LIST OF POPULAR WIKI CREATOR SITES

WikiSpaces* ● PBWorks* ● Wikia ●WetPaint

Advantages Disadvantages No need to install HTML authoring tools; minimal training may be needed.

Can be ineffective when there is a lack of consensus.

Can help develop a culture of sharing and working together

There may be copyright and other legal issues regarding collaborative content.

Useful for joint projects when there are agreed shared goals.

It may be difficult for Wikis to gain momentum.

*Will be featured in report.

30

Quick Facts

Established: 2005

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

4,230,692

People Per Month(U.S):

1,756,255

WikiSpaces offers five

different levels of service:

Basic (free), Plus, Super,

Private label and Private

label premium. The first

three levels are best used by

groups where as the latter

two is best utilized by

businesses or organizations.

WikiSpaces features include:

Unlimited users, pages and messages.

What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editing

Detailed usage statistics

Discussion area

Full content search

Wiki backup

Media embedding

Advertising free

Custom themes and templates

Domain name

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 49% Female: 51%

Ages 3-11: 11%

12-17: 37%

18-34: 23% 35-49: 19% 50+: 10%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

72% Hispanic:

13% African-

American: 8% Asian:

6% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 15%

$31- $60k: 28%

$60-$100k: 31%

$100k+: 25%

Children No Kids (0-17): 40% Has Kids (0-17): 60%

Education No College: 43% College: 41% Grad School: 17%

“Wikis For Everyone”

Source: Quantcast

WikiSpaces

31

Quick Facts

Established: 2005

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

2,705,293

People Per Month(U.S):

4,901,388

Visits Per Month(Global):

1,011,533

People Per Month(Global):

2,013,732

PBworks offer several

different levels of service:

Project, Legal, Standard,

Academic, Public and Basic

(free).

Features include:

Collaborative Page Editing- Let multiple people collaborate on the same page. No

need to send documents around and wait for comments – a user’s pages and

documents can be centralized on the workspace for as many editors as the user

grants access to.

Document management & file sharing- Use PBworks's Document Management

feature to share documents, spreadsheets, Powerpoints, or any kind of document

imaginable -- right on a user’s workspace.

Complete history and audit trail- PBworks keeps a complete audit trail of every

change made to a user’s workspace. See who changed what. Reverse any change

with a couple clicks. PBworks allows a user to maintain full accountability of their

users.

Point-and-Click Editor- PBworks's Point-and-Click editor follows the WYSIWYG

concept. Insert images, files, colors, and fonts into workspace pages. For more

control, edit the page source and use the Custom HTML feature.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 55% Female: 45%

Ages 3-11: 3% 12-17: 8% 18-34: 27% 35-49: 39% 50+: 24%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

77% Hispanic:

6% African-

American: 8% Asian:

7% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 25%

$31- $60k: 27%

$60-$100k: 25%

$100k+: 24%

Children No Kids (0-17): 62% Has Kids (0-17): 38%

Education No College: 35% College: 46% Grad School: 19%

“Make Your Team More Vastly Productive”

Source: Quantcast

PBworks

32

HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE WIKIS?

Training On New Software

By offering manuals online it will make it easier for users to search through

documents.

It also could allow employees to add tips and suggestions to make a particular

process easier.

Records Accessible to Everyone

Minutes, agendas or any other type of attachment that was distributed through a

meeting could be found in a centralized location on the wiki.

Important and Most Requested Documents

Frequently asked for documents can be posted in a area so people can find them

easier. A search can also be performed on the documents to locate them faster.

OTHER ENTITIES THAT USE WIKIS

The Smithsonian Institute

Department of Health and Human Services

Newport News, Virginia

Government Accountability Office

Environmental Protection Agency

Smithsonian Wiki Home Page

33

MULTIMEDIA: The combined use of media, such as television, radio, print, and the Internet.

Multimedia in a social media context means the sharing of video, audio and pictures

between users. Most social media sites however combine multimedia sharing into their

website like MySpace and Facebook. However, some websites exclusively provide one

multimedia service.

Multimedia

Podcasting

Podomatic

Photo

Flickr

Video

YouTube

34

PODCAST: Audio or Video (usually audio) from a radio broadcast or video broadcast made available to persons

through a portable device or a computer.

PODCASTER: A person who produces podcasts.

WEB FEED: is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors

syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it.

RSS: is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news

headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.

Podcasting refers to broadcasting programs made available online through a subscription

feed such as RSS (Rich Site Summary), to be played on iPods or MP3 players. Subscribers

can also listen to podcasts through their computers, rather than transferring them to a

portable audio player. Later versions of podcasting will incorporate video signal. Cell

phones with video capability will be able to receive and play video podcasts.

One of the most creative aspects of podcasting is that it allows individuals to produce their

own shows at home. Anyone with the right software and a microphone can begin

podcasting, reaching a worldwide audience. This opens the door to those who cannot

afford to pay public broadcasting systems large fees to air their programs. Podcasts also

sidestep broadcasting regulations that constrain mainstream radio and television

LIST OF POPULAR PODCASTING SITES

Podcast Alley ● PodOMatic* ● PodBean ● MyPodcast

Advantages Disadvantages Podcasting is convenient especially for those who are very busy. Podcasting, allows people to download all their favorite shows and enjoy them at a later, more convenient time.

Podcasts aren't easily searchable. Although there are many search engines that provide information regarding podcasts, it is not yet possible to search n the audio file itself.

Podcasts are easily distributable and are easily playable on pretty much any mobile audio or video technology. This means of distribution contributes greatly to the popularity of podcasts.

While many people do indeed have mobile devices, not everyone does. Podcasting may alienate this segment of the market, forcing them to look elsewhere for their entertainment and information needs.

The advantage of the human voice. People enjoy getting their information from a human voice. There are many things that can be conveyed to audio or video formats that wouldn't be easily transmissible via text format.

*Will be featured in report.

35

Quick Facts

Established: 2004

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

432,521

People Per Month(U.S):

204,527

Visits Per Month(Global):

1,210,484

People Per Month(Global):

626,979

PodOMatic has two levels of

services: Basic (free) and

Pro.

With the free service a user

has the following features:

A free, customizable podcast page

Detailed audience statistics

An online community

Video and photo sharing

With the Pro level of service a user receives:

Featured placements

Promotional tools

Priority customer support

Pro design

Expanded bandwidth

Massive storage

Ad-free podcasting

Audience statistics

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 54% Female: 46%

Ages 3-11: 2% 12-17:

16% 18-34: 37% 35-49: 28% 50+: 17%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

66% Hispanic:

10% African-

American: 16% Asian:

5% Other:

3% Income

$0-$30k: 30%

$31- $60k: 30%

$60-$100k: 22%

$100k+: 18%

Children No Kids (0-17): 60% Has Kids (0-17): 40%

Education No College: 44% College: 41% Grad School: 15%

“Create, Find, Share Podcasts!”

Source: Quantcast

PodOMatic

36

HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE: PODCASTING

Depending on the length and the size of the file, meetings can be podcasted.

Videos produced by Information Outreach and MGA-TV.

Videos produced in Studio 8.

WHAT OTHER ENTITIES USE PODCASTING

President's Weekly Radio Address

Small Business Tips from the Small Business Administration

Economic Research Involving Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural Development

FBI This Week – News and Stories

Al Día: programa radial producido por la Oficina del Censo

37

PHOTO SHARING: a website where a user can upload, share, group, edit or tag (label) photos.

Basic photo sharing websites allow users to upload, share, group, edit and tag pictures.

Web sites have easily uploading tools for users to upload one picture at a time or simultaneously

upload dozens of pictures. Once uploaded a user can send the pictures to other users of a particular

website or to someone who has an e-mail address. The user usually has the option of editing the

picture. Some basic tools included are: Red Eye Remover, Crop, Rotate, Contrast and Brightness.

More sophisticated websites allow users to apply filters to their photos to enhance the photo image.

Tagging is another feature common in photo sharing sites. Tagging is the ability to label people or

things in a photo. Say for instance a group of three friends took a picture together. Once the photo is

uploaded onto a website they can tag or label each of the friends, letting everyone know the name

of the person and even where the photo was taken. Commentary is also available via tagging. For

example, if a person takes a picture in front of the White House they could tag the White House so if

a viewer’s mouse hovers of that part of the picture a little box labeling the White House will appear.

PHOTO SHARING: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

LIST OF POPULAR PHOTO SHARING SITES

Flickr* Zooomr Photobucket SmugMug

Advantages Disadvantages Can promote locations and events. Copyright, ownership issues Can use photos creatively. Easy to share.

Easy to build albums or slideshows. Editing software such as red eye remover and cropping are already available for use.

*Will be featured in report.

Photobucket Home Page

38

Quick Facts

Established: 2004

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

73,561,846

People Per Month(U.S):

21,782,497

Flickr is a free service users

can utilize to upload photos.

Features include:

Edit- Editing photos is easy with Picnik. Get rid of red eye, crop a photo or get creative with loads of different effects.

Organize- Sets are a grouping of photos and videos that can be organized around a

certain theme, such as Our Hawaii Trip. Sets can highlight use them to highlight your favorite photos and videos a user has, or make an album that is only pictures of dogs, or of photos and videos you've taken with a particular camera. Collections are a grouping of Sets (or other Collections) so the user can organize around grander themes, such as People, Travels, or by year (2007, 2006, etc).

Groups- can either be public, public (invite only), or completely private. Every group

has a pool for sharing photos and videos and a discussion board for talking.

Maps- Flickr's great for exploring photos and videos by photographer, tag, time, text,

and group, and now it's also great for exploring photos and videos by place.

Make literature material- Prints, calling cards, photo-books, slideshow-DVDs,

postage stamps, and much more. Once the photos are on Flickr, the user, or anyone

else the user gives permission to, can create a host of fun, physical things with them.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 54% Female: 56%

Ages 3-11: 1% 12-17:

11% 18-34: 39% 35-49: 31% 50+: 19%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

76% Hispanic:

9% African-

American: 7% Asian:

6% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 19%

$31- $60k: 27%

$60-$100k: 27%

$100k+: 27%

Children No Kids (0-17): 59% Has Kids (0-17): 41%

Education No College: 43% College: 42% Grad School: 14%

“Share your photos. Watch the world.”

Source: Quantcast

Flickr

39

HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE PHOTO SHARING?

Promote Manatee County

Post pictures of Manatee County (photo contest).

Beaches

Preserves

Parks

WHAT OTHER ENTITIES USE PHOTO SHARING

City of Miami Beach

Scottish Government

Flickr Home Page

40

VIDEO SHARING: a website that allows a user to embed, comment and share a video.

Video sharing websites give users the option to have their videos embedded into a website. Say for

instance that a news broadcast was done about Emerson Point and the video was placed on a video

sharing site such as YouTube. Someone could take the video’s html code and paste the code

(embedding) in the Parks and Recreation’s Emerson Point page. Thus making the video appear on

the Emerson Point page.

Another feature video sharing websites have is called annotation. It allows a video owner to select

portions of the video and insert a comment. When the viewer reaches the authors selection a text

bubble will pop up on the screen with comments left by the author. Only the author has the ability

to annotate their videos.

VIDEO SHARING: ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

LIST OF POPULAR VIDEO HOSTING SITES

YouTube* Vimeo Veoh Blip Metacafe

Advantages Disadvantages Easy to upload Copyright No bandwidth cost May be video length restrictions Easy to embed HTML code May have to pay in order to make videos

private.

Customize video player

Veoh Home Page

*Will be featured in the report.

41

Quick Facts

Established: 2005

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

484,383,017

People Per Month(U.S):

71,309,357

YouTube is a free video

hosting service.

YouTube's video playback

technology for web users is

based on the Adobe Flash

Player. This allows the site

to display videos with

quality comparable to more

established video playback technologies (such as Windows Media Player, QuickTime, and

RealPlayer) that generally require the user to download and install a web browser plug-in

in order to view video.

Videos uploaded to YouTube are limited to ten minutes in length and a file size of 1 GB.

YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most formats, including .WMV, .AVI, .MKV, .MOV,

MPEG, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .OGG. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded

directly from a mobile phone.[57]

YouTube allows users to embed videos into websites, download videos and more recently

commentary insertion, where the owner of a video can embed links or other nuggets of

information into the video.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 50% Female: 50%

Ages 3-11: 3% 12-17:

19% 18-34: 36% 35-49: 23% 50+: 19%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

70% Hispanic:

11% African-

American: 11% Asian:

7% Other:

2% Income

$0-$30k: 20%

$31- $60k: 27%

$60-$100k: 27%

$100k+: 27%

Children No Kids (0-17): 57% Has Kids (0-17): 43%

Education No College: 48% College: 39% Grad School: 13%

“Broadcast Yourself.”

Ypi”

Source: Quantcast

YouTube

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HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE VIDEO SHARING

Streaming productions produced by Information Outreach and MGA-TV.

Meetings

WHAT OTHER ENTITIES USE VIDEO SHARING

City of Miami Beach

City of Reno, Nevada

City of Bryan, Texas

The White House

YouTube Home Page

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REVIEWS & OPINIONS: A website where one can voice their opinions.

Review and Opinion social sites are used to ask questions or to get answers. There are the

standard Q&A formatted sites and then there are more formal sites, such as those that

conduct surveys.

If a user needs an answer to one question, Q&A is the way to go. If the user needs a number

of questions answered by numerous people in order to make a decision or to come to a

conclusion, survey sites are the best answer.

Reviews & Opinions

Q&A

Yahoo! Answers Wiki Answers

Survey

Zoomerang QuestionPro

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Q&A: a website that utilizes a basic question and answering system.

SURVEY: a sampling, or partial collection, of facts, figures, or opinions taken and used to

approximate or indicate what a complete collection and analysis might reveal

Q&A along with survey sites merely provides a user answers to questions or provides an

avenue to ask a question and to receive a credible answer. Surveys are generally more

reliable because it asks for a user’s opinion. If one is looking for an answer to a question on

a Q&A site one may find themselves with biased answers.

However, if used appropriately, these resources could be used in obtaining valuable

information about an audience or customer base. It could also be a way for a customer to

interact with a business.

LIST OF POPULAR Q&A AND SURVEY SITES

Zoomerang* Yahoo! Answers*

QuestionPro* AnswerBag

Survey Methods WikiAnswers*

TigerSurvey • AhaSurvey

Advantages Disadvantages The administrator has greater flexibility in displaying questions. Questions can be displayed with check boxes, pull down menus, popup menus, help screens and graphics

Not everyone has access to the Internet, so the response rate is limited

An online forum allows responses to be received more quickly from subjects

Many people are not receptive to completing questionnaires online

Q&A/Survey is also cheaper to administer, as there are no costs associated with purchasing paper or other materials for printing. Postage costs are also mitigated

Studies indicate that the demographic that responds to online questionnaire invitations are generally biased to younger people

Since data is collected into a central database, the time for analysis is subsequently reduced

It is easier to correct errors on an online questionnaire, since the administrator does not have to reprint all the questionnaires for distribution

*Will be featured in the report.

45

Quick Facts

Established: 2005

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

0

People Per Month(U.S):

184,514

Yahoo! Answers allows

people to ask and answer

questions.

When asking a question, the

user categorizes it in a topic,

making it easier for others to

find and answer it.

Then another user shares what they know. A question is open for others to answer for 4

days. A user can extend or shorten this time period.

Once the question is answered, the person who asked the question will select the best

answer, or have the community vote for the best answer.

Another feature of Yahoo! Answers is the points and levels system. Points and levels help

you monitor how active you (and others) are on Yahoo! Answers. You get points for

different types of actions, like answering a question. The more points you get, the higher

your level.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 52% Female: 48%

Ages 3-11: 6% 12-17:

37% 18-34: 35% 35-49: 13% 50+: 9%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

69% Hispanic:

8% African-

American: 10% Asian:

6% Other:

6% Income

$0-$30k: 19%

$31- $60k: 28%

$60-$100k: 34%

$100k+: 19%

Children No Kids (0-17): 49% Has Kids (0-17): 51%

Education No College: 54% College: 34% Grad School: 12%

Source: Quantcast

Yahoo! Answers

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Quick Facts

Established: 2002

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

8,446

People Per Month(U.S):

29,098

WikiAnswers is a wiki-based

Q&A project powered by

contributors from all walks

of life. Anyone can ask,

answer or edit questions,

building a global Q&A

database, covering all topics.

Some categories include:

Business and Finance

Cars and Vehicles

Entertainment and Arts

Health

History Politics and Society

Hobbies and Collectibles

Home and Garden

Humor and Amusement Corner

Jobs and Education

Law and Legal Issues

Literature and Language

Religion and Spirituality

Science

Shopping

Sports

Technology

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 50% Female: 50%

Ages 3-11: 6% 12-17:

11% 18-34: 42% 35-49: 22% 50+: 19%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

74% Hispanic:

11% African-

American: 5% Asian: 10%

Other: 1%

Income $0-$30k:

29% $31- $60k:

33% $60-$100k:

20% $100k+:

18% Children

No Kids (0-17): 51% Has Kids (0-17): 49% Education

No College: 68% College: 35% Grad School: 5%

Source: Quantcast

WikiAnswers

47

Quick Facts

Established: 1999

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

2,200,561

People Per Month(U.S):

1,411,012

Zoomerang.com is an online

survey tool that allows users

to create and send surveys

and analyze results on-

demand. Additionally, the

Zoomerang brand name

encompasses survey

samples, online focus

groups, Online panel and other market research solutions offered by the MarketTools

corporation.

Zoomerang offers three different levels of service. It is up to the user to decide which would

best suit their needs. For statistical data or popular topics that one would anticipate 100+

responses, the “Pro” level of service would accommodate their needs the best. Those who

just want to get a feel for what their audience may be thinking and not planning to use the

data for any report or analysis should choose the basic.

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 38% Female: 62%

Ages 3-11: 4% 12-17: 3% 18-34: 26% 35-49: 32% 50+: 36%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

88% Hispanic:

3% African-

American: 6% Asian:

2% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 17%

$31- $60k: 26%

$60-$100k: 30%

$100k+: 27%

Children No Kids (0-17): 65% Has Kids (0-17): 35%

Education No College: 43% College: 42% Grad School: 16%

“Easiest Way to Ask, Fastest Way to Know”

Ypi”

Zoomerang Home Page

Source: Quantcast

Zoomerang

48

Quick Facts

Established: 2004

Visits Per Month(U.S.):

262,891

People Per Month(U.S):

220,456

QuestionPro’s online survey

software is a solution for

managing feedback via the

web. From simple web

surveys to large customer

satisfaction studies to

complex international

market research, they have a solution.

QuestionPro has three different levels of service: Basic (Free), Pro ($15/mo) and Corporate

($99/mo).

Basic features include: Pro features include: Corporate features include

2 Surveys Unlimited Surveys Unlimited Surveys

Unlimited Responses Unlimited Responses Unlimited Responses

10 Questions / Survey Integrated Mail System Advanced Surveys

Real Time Reports Upload Logos Advanced Analytics

Survey Templates

Demographic of Users As of April 2009

Gender Male: 42% Female: 58%

Ages 3-11: 2% 12-17: 8% 18-34: 25% 35-49: 30% 50+: 35%

Race/Ethnicity Caucasian:

82% Hispanic:

4% African-

American: 10% Asian:

3% Other:

1% Income

$0-$30k: 20%

$31- $60k: 26%

$60-$100k: 26%

$100k+: 28%

Children No Kids (0-17): 64% Has Kids (0-17): 36%

Education No College: 42% College: 41% Grad School: 17%

“Online Research Made Easy”

Ypi”

Source: Quantcast

QuestionPro

49

HOW CAN MANATEE COUNTY GOVERNMENT USE: Q&A AND SURVEY

Avenue for citizens to ask questions

An open line of communication between government and the public. Citizens

can ask questions while appropriate County personnel respond.

Surveys

To gain the opinion of a particular group of people in regards to a

development issue or a hot topic that would impact the community.

Survey employees on particular job issues.

WHAT OTHER ENTITIES USE Q&A AND SURVEY

Alcon

Honeywell

Microsoft

Napster

Office Depot

Qwest

Rosetta Stone

The World Bank

US Bank

Xerox

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The Social Media Strategy: After gaining the information on various social media sites, it is now time to think about the strategy. How does a business, non-profit or corporation go about connecting with social media users? In order to be successful in the attempt one must keep follow these steps[1][2]:

1. FIGURE OUT GOALS Who is your audience? What are you trying to convey to the audience? Figuring out the goals of a social media initiative is what will control how and which forms of social media you will use. Some goals to consider: to make audiences more aware of services Manatee County Government provide, opening a channel of communication thus allowing people to be active and in tune with their government and to promote Manatee County.

2. WHICH FORMS OF SOCIAL MEDIA WORKS BEST FOR THOSE GOALS

Which social network should we use? Who would be updating the Facebook page? Step 2 is critical. It’s where the social media foundation will be laid. In debating whether to use Facebook or MySpace or Blogger or WordPress, refer back to your goals and research. Which one accomplishes more of these goals in one shot? Be aware of all the options. This is also the time to bring in the legal team, ISD and other groups that will be associated with the social media sites to get their suggestions and input. Also, when considering which social media form to adopt, think about the employee or employees that will be updating and monitoring those websites. It is best to choose the website that will both help you reach your goals but utilize that updater’s skill and expertise.

3. BRAND THE COMPANY

How will you let the world know that this is the Manatee County Government? It is only by branding. View the websites that were chosen and analyze all the ways it can be customized to fit your branding strategy. Be sure to make some elements constant so that users would be able to link all the sites to one entity even the company’s home website (http://www.mymanatee.org).

4. ESTABLISH OPERATING PROCEDURES

Now that a list of social media sites and the people who will be updating those sites have been listed, it is time to write up protocol for those people to follow when updating those sites. This is also the time to include the branding strategy. Write out the guidelines for blogs, comments etc. Be specific. Sun MicroSystems has written an explicit “Public Discourse” notice for their employees to follow when representing the company via social media sites. This may also be the time to address employees who have social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter etc. when it comes to Manatee County Government to prevent a situation similar to this.

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5. SET UP WAYS TO MEASURE SITE TRAFFIC

Make sure that you have tools in place to help you track your various key metrics. You can use something like Google Analytics to measure traffic (among many other things). It would be great to have these things set up at least one month before any type of efforts are rolled out so that these tools have time to collect and aggregate data about your site. This will help with creating an accurate benchmark to paint a “before and after” picture.

6. CREATE ACCOUNTS AND IMPLEMENT BRANDING STRATEGY It is time to set up the account/profile/tool/platform. When registering with a site, use a general e-mail like MCG@mymanatee.org or something similar along those lines. That way everyone who has been authorized to make changes to a social media site can have access. Make sure to brand everything, people need to be able to identify with your social media channels.

7. SHOW TIME This is the moment that everyone has been planning for. The time to make your first impression to the social network. Post, post and post some more. But be sure that it’s something of relevance and importance. If nothing has gone on in the past week don’t update it with nonsense. Type up a cool fact or statistic about Manatee County Government or promote other avenues of communication. The first blog post or note should give a brief general overview of what your goals and objectives are.

8. PROMOTION Once everyone involved has gotten comfortable in his or her role, let the public know about your social media presence. Maybe put a teaser in the paper or a lure so that the reader can follow you to the page and take in all that you have to offer.

9. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS Reach out and network with other local municipalities and governments. Connect with groups and organizations that could help with your overall goals. Comment on blogs and websites that have some benefit to the organization.

10. ANALYZE AND ADAPT

This is when step 5 comes back into play. Analyze your audience. What received the most hits on your site? What wasn’t popular? This is a perfect time to distribute a survey to your visitors to see how you well you are doing and to see what could use some improvement.

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Conclusion

Social Media has made its mark in society and it is now up to us to determine what mark we on going to leave on

our communities with this new form of communication.

Under the social media umbrella are sites that fall into one of these categories: Communication, Collaboration,

Multimedia, Reviews & Opinions and Entertainment. For Manatee County Government however the first four

categories listed would benefit the organization.

The recommended sites for Manatee County’s social media initiative include:

Facebook

The site has blogging, photos and video uploads, an events calendar and could possibly pose as an employee

site, MCG can get more usage out of this one site than going to the individual photo sites, video sites etc. You

get more possibilities in one place.

Twitter

Simple and quick to use. Minimal set up.

GovLoop

Connect with other government entities to share and obtain ideas. Since it’s a network tied to just

governments, if one government is having an issue, they have the option of asking other government who

may have been in the same situation be able to give them credible answers, resources or suggestions.

Wiki

Training On New Software

o By offering manuals online it will make it easier for users to search through documents.

o It also could allow employees to add tips and suggestions to make a particular process easier.

Records Accessible to Everyone

o Minutes, agendas or any other type of attachment that was distributed through a meeting could be found

in a centralized location on the wiki.

LinkedIn

Human Resources- Hiring avenue

To connect with businesses

Podcasting

Make MCG videos accessible to people in a variety of different formats

SurveyMethods

Get a lot of features at a minimum cost

Helps when analyzing pros and cons of a particular situation and a great way of gathering opinions and

other important data.

In order to establish a viable presence in the social media arena, a social media strategy must be present. By setting

goals, establishing procedures, making the appropriate preparations, publishing content regularly, promoting,

building relationships and adapting to the audience can Manatee County make its social media footprint significant

and beneficial to everyone.

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Glossary

Annotation allows a video owner to select portions of the video and insert a comment. When the viewer reaches the authors selection a text bubble will pop up on the screen with comments left by the author.

BBCode BB stands for "Bulletin Board." It allows people who don't know about HTML to still manipulate the way their text will look on the web.

Blogger 1) A person who blogs. 2) Blogger- as in Blogger.com. Blogs An online journal that may contain daily events, commentary on social issues,

videos and pictures. Contraction of the word weblog. CAPTCHA Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans

Apart. type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer.

Collaboration Website or applications that make working together in groups easier and more efficient.

Communication The exchanging of thoughts and ideas. In a social media context, programs, sites or networks that allow a person to communicate are called a communication medium.

Discussion Board See Internet Forum. Event Something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time.

Sites that allow people or organizations to post their event online and gives users the option to let event organizers know if they are going to an event.

Industrial Media See traditional media. Internet Forum A modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board. Also known as a message

board or discussion board. Media Convergence phenomenon involving the interlocking of computing and information

technology companies, telecommunications networks, and content providers from the publishing worlds of newspapers, magazines, music, radio, television, films, and entertainment software. Media convergence brings together the “three Cs”—computing, communications, and content.

Message Board See Internet Forum. Microblogging Short posts to a personal blog, esp. about happenings of the moment.

Microblogging is often done from one's cell phone or instant messenger service.

Multimedia The combined use of media, such as television, radio, print, and the Internet, as for advertising or publicity.

MySQL MySQL is commonly used by free software projects which require a full-featured database management system, such as WordPress, phpBB and other software built on the LAMP software stack. It is also used in very high-scale World Wide Web products including Google and Facebook.

Photo Sharing a website where a user can upload, share, group, edit or tag (label) photos. Php PHP is a widely used general-purpose scripting language that is especially

suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. Podcast Audio or Video (usually audio) from a radio broadcast or video broadcast

made available to persons through a portable device or a computer. Podcaster A person who produces podcasts. Reviews & Opinions A website where one can voice their opinions. RSS A family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such

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as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. Social Media Content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing

technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. Also known as Web 2.0.

Social Network a website where one connects with those sharing personal or professional interests, place of origin, education at a particular school, etc.

Splog Spam blog. Survey a sampling, or partial collection, of facts, figures, or opinions taken and used

to approximate or indicate what a complete collection and analysis might reveal

Traditional Media Newspapers, television, magazines and film. Video Sharing A website that allows a user to embed, comment and share a video. Vlogger Video blogging is a form of blogging for which the medium is video.

Video logs (vlogs) often take advantage of web syndication to allow for the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats.

Web Feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it.

Wiki is a website that allows multiple users to create, modify and organize web page content in a collaborative manner.