Open evening zeros in on social media

Last night InternetNZ held its first open evening for members and non-members. The evening was held in the function room at Toto Restaurant in central Auckland and was well attended by twenty people.

The evening featured a presentation on ‘social media’ by InternetNZ member Sandra Newton. Sandra runs Essentee, a North Shore-based website optimisation, design and management firm, and her presentation covered off the use of social media in New Zealand.

Social media is defined as the use of web technologies for social interaction, and has become an inextricable part of the online space. It has spelt a fundamental shift in the way people communicate, enabling new content, conversations and relationships.

Sandra cited figures from the recent New Zealand World Internet Project which show that 48 percent of New Zealand internet users are users of social networking; 75 percent of these use Facebook. Interestingly, New Zealand lags the rest of the world in Facebook use but is extremely active on Twitter, YouTube and MySpace. New Zealand ranks 20th in global Twitter use and generates an estimated 0.47% of all tweets.

Sandra encourages New Zealand organisations, particularly small businesses, to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by social media. However, sound strategy is needed to make social media work, particularly in respect of content, message and resources.

While there are plenty of New Zealand businesses already using social media, simply using channels such as Twitter and Facebook doesn’t guarantee success. Message relevance and frequency is key. The Warehouse for instance has tweeted only 13 times since joining Twitter in December 2009, and NZ Post tweeted a scant nine times last year.

Conversely, boutique Auckland gelato shop Giapo regularly uses Twitter to advise people of competitions and specials, and to build relationships. It has also garnered over 8,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook.

New Zealand animal rights organisation Paw Rights uses social media for its advocacy work and with over 64,000 ‘likes’ has become the 10th biggest animal welfare organisation on Facebook.

Sandra’s presentation was followed by a screening of Us Now, a British documentary film about the power of mass collaboration, the government and the Internet. Networking drinks concluded the evening.

The open evening worked extremely well as a platform for InternetNZ members to share their knowledge and thoughts with the wider community and to expose non-members to the work of InternetNZ. We shall certainly consider holding another.

Note: Sandra's presentation and references are available at the following link:

www.essentee.co.nz/index.php/resources/articles-and-guides/173-social-media-statistics-and-references