#2013IfA Making waves with social media

Using social media at the IfA conference 2013

The aim of this brief guide is to help delegates to use social media to interact whilst at the conference and get more out of their attendance as a result. The Information Management Special Interest Group (IMSIG) wants to encourage greater use of social media before, during and after the conference to help promote both the IfA and the Conference as well as create a record that can be referred back to afterwards. We hope you will join with us to make 2013 the most social media savvy IfA conference yet. This is just a guide with a few ideas to help so don’t feel obliged to use all of the platforms mentioned below. If you are generally confused by social media, IMSIG will be running a drop in workshop where we aim to answer all your questions.

Advice for Delegates

Twitter

  • At registration ask for one of the twitter stickers, write your twitter name on it and attach it to your conference badge. It’s always good to put a face to the name of someone whose tweets you’ve been reading.
  • Use the hash tag #2013ifa for general tweets and use this together with the hash tag for the individual sessions you are tweeting from.
  • When discussing a presentation include the persons name or even better their twitter name to identify whose talking. To distinguish the speakers thoughts from your observations and comments use quote marks.
  • Follow the IfA @institutearch to keep up to date with all the latest news.
  • Why not come along to the IMSIG tweet-up and have a drink with those fellow tweeps whose tweets you’ve been reading.
  • Please play nicely, don’t flame or troll, we want this to be a welcoming online community.

LinkedIn

  • Talk about the conference in your status update. You can start doing this as soon as you register so your contacts know you’re going.
  • Start a discussion about a session or aspect of the conference on the IfA members group.

Flickr

  • Tag photos with 2013ifa and where appropriate a session tag, no need to include #
  • Include a description e.g. which session and whose speaking.
  • Add to the IfA group pool.

Instagram

  • Tag photos with #2013ifa and where appropriate a session tag
  • Add a brief description.
  • Get arty with the filters.

Storify

  • Why not create a personal record of the conference on Storify pulling in social media content that interests you and commenting on it.
  • Tweet out the link when you publish including the #2013ifa hash tag.
  • Remember tweets are only searchable for a short period so import into a draft story early and edit later.

Facebook

  • Join the IfA Group to keep up with the latest conference news and post about what’s going on.
  • Let your friends know your attending the conference by joining the conference event.

Advice for Session Organisers and Chairs

Twitter

  • Decide on a hash tag for your session.
  • Pick up ‘tweet this session as #……’ door signs and write the hash tag on them.
  • Include the session hash tag and #2013ifa on the session title slide.
  • Mention the hash tags and invite participants to tweet in your introduction.
  • Monitor what’s been said about your session. There might be some interesting points you’d like to pick up on in discussion or when summing up.
  • Publicise your session in advance.

Storify

  • Arrange for someone to produce a Storify of your session.
  • Remember tweets are only searchable for a short period so import into a draft story early and edit later.

Advice for Speakers

If you tweet put your twitter name on your presentation with your contact details and at the beginning so people know who to attribute quotes to. If you’re not on Twitter, why not sign up in time for the conference.

  • Upload your paper or presentation to your LinkedIn or Academia page afterwards.
  • For the more tech savvy why not record a video of your slides with your voice as commentary and upload it to Youtube, Viemo or Flickr.
  • Respond to tweets about your presentation.

Weblinks

Other social media sites are also available but we have picked these out as being the most relevant or popular. Fell free to use any platform you like to talk about the conference.

We hope these suggestions will mean you get more out of the conference… If you are not using social media already, get online, network and enjoy yourself!

This guide was put together on behalf of the IfA IMSIG by @martininfoman feel free to tweet me with your feedback using the #2013ifa hash tag.