Welcome to the Very Tiger’s Blog, a round-up of news and information about social media for people working in the voluntary and community sector.
This blog is no longer being updated, but feel free to browse for information about social media and the charitable sector.
Facebook groups have taken a back seat over the last couple of years, with Pages becoming the first choice for people, charities or companies setting up a space to discuss shared interests. Recently, though, FB has begun to look again at its offering to groups, and now it has some serious competition in the form of G+ communities. Here’s a quick overview of G+ communities, to help you decide whether you want to encourage your supporters to develop one or the other.
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A while back I wrote a post about how Twitter is being used to provide emotional support. Now a couple of reports are suggesting that Facebook is trying to mine its vast stores of data to try to help those at risk of suicide. Will this help? And does it distract from the very real work of charities using this mightiest of social networks to connect with vulnerable people?
This week Facebook have launched the beta version of their new ‘Graph Search’. Aimed at recreating the social connectivity that brought us all to FB in the first place, the search will help us find like-minded souls amongst our Facebook friends. Here are three things about the new functions that you need to know.
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Rumours of Facebook’s imminent decline seem to come round quite frequently: just today one report puts UK Facebook usage at an all-time high, whilst another suggests numbers are on the wane. Globally FB continues to mop up new users at an alarming speed: claiming the top spot amongst all social networks used in a whacking 127 countries, so it’s not beaten yet. Whatever its long-term fate might be, one thing is clear: Facebook is evolving, and our usage of it needs to evolve too. Here are some tips that might help.
In my recent post Beyond Searching: 3 ways to find conversations on Twitter I talked about using the Twitter advanced search, and other tools, to locate people who were referencing your work, cause or organisation. Here are some more Twitter searching titbits that could help you discover what’s going on beyond your Mentions.
If your organisation offers emotional support to people in distress, then chances are you’ll be using phonelines, email and perhaps texts to receive and answer those calls for help. So what can Twitter add to this mix, and is the microblogging site really an appropriate medium for hearing and responding to those needing support? Here are three different approaches being used by charities, volunteers and people who want to help. Continue reading
