FRAME in Focus: Introducing Social Media

Greetings!

We'd like to take a moment to introduce you to ways that you can use social media in development. The purpose of this short newsletter is to familiarize you with social media and give you some tools that may be helpful in your projects going forward.

Incorporating social media tools into development could be an inexpensive, bottom-up approach to sharing best practices, lessons learned, or finding similar projects in other communities. Used appropriately, tools like Facebook fan pages, Youtube, Twitter, and Flickr could create unique opportunities for sharing information globally. These types of social media are best implemented when non-traditional communications approaches are considered; when used not as another pathway for traditional messaging, but more as spontaneous, organic , user-generated contributions that feel real. Research now shows that we trust recommendations in social media channels more than paid for communications (source: Universal McCann, "When did we start trusting" Presentation).

In addition to these popular forms of social media, more and more NGOs and companies are turning to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) strategies, such as mobile phones or "cloud computing" where your information is stored virtually on the web rather than on your computer. Interactive maps, virtual tours, and social forums of all kind are springing up to help people connect to each other and share information in new ways.

This short video will introduce you to "Social Media in Plain English"

Social Media In Plain English Screenshot

Examples of Social Media in Development Projects

Digital Media Sparks Lebanon Reforms. USAID has been working with the Social Media Exchange (SMEx) to develop digital and social media tools-such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter- to help reduce conflict and empower youth. These tools allow users to create content and interact in environments that are harder for political forces to control and thus allow for more open expression.

PDAs and Beyond Innovative Technologies and Applications Accelerate Development. From tracking tropical fish in the Philippines to conducting household surveys of mosquito nets in Uganda, PDAs demonstrate their worth through their ability to store text, send emails, perform simple data analysis, run PowerPoint, show short videos, and download and display newspapers.

The U.N. Launches Social Media Site to Pressure World Leaders on Climate Change. This blogfrom the Wall Street Journal details how the UN used social media to develop a global momentum of hope ("Tweeting Their Way to~~Cop~~Hopenhagen).

Here are some helpful resources:

ICT for Climate Change and Development. This scoping studycharts strands and trends in the literature on ICTs, climate change and development, and develops an overview model of the key ICT application areas - mitigation, strategy, monitoring and adaptation. The scoping study identifies priorities for future research in this field, provides a glossary of field terms, and includes an annotated bibliography of key documents from 1997-2010.

Participatory Learning and Action 59 - Change at hand: Web 2.0 for development. This online publication from IIED shares learning and reflections from practice and considers the ways forward for using Web 2.0 for development.

Benefits of Gov2.0. Gov 2.0 is bringing agility and transparency to bureaucracy, which is the subject of this NewsGator Tomoye recorded webinar. Learn how USAID is encouraging innovation through mass collaboration and professional forums.

The ICT4D 2.0 Manifesto: Where Next for ICTs and International Development? This paper explains the phase change - from "ICT4D 1.0" to "ICT4D 2.0" - and its implications. The background to these phases is reviewed, charting the logic and chronology of applying ICTs in developing countries.

For those of you in the Washington, DC area:

ICT for Development Learning Network Meet-up group. This group is a network that provides a forum for the exploration of informaton & communication technologies (ICT) as a tool for and an enabler of international development. They meet a few times in a year to share ideas and best practices.

ICT for Development on FRAMEweb

There is now a community on FRAMEweb focused on ICT in Development (commonly called ICT4Dev). Please feel free to share practices, resources or tools, and ask each other questions!

Current discussion topic includes: How could ICTs be used to help communities better adapt to climate change?

Now Available! FRAMEweb Quick Reference Guide

Learn More About...

Blogs
Networking
Participating through email
How to post or answer a question
How to change your password
Content tagging

...in the Quick Reference Guide

The information provided in this newsletter is not official U.S. government information and does not represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.