Submitted by AxelS on Thu, 2012-05-10 18:00

In order to develop a strategic social media initiative we decided to start with an assessment of 5 countries to get a status quo:
UK, France, Germans, Netherlands and Romania
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The countries where simply chosen based on available resources from those countries to volunteer.

WE NEED YOUR HELP:
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1) Are there any resources of demographic data that we can tap into either at the EU or within the country any of you know about

2) We are trying to find out how many companies in these countries are using social media in any way or shape. If you have any data or pointer that would be great

3) We want to know which are the three most important industries by GDP contribution and job creation for each country.

Thanks for your help

Group audience:

Social Media

Comments

1) What is a "strategic

Submitted by Engberg on Thu, 2012-05-10 20:13

1) What is a "strategic social media initiative"? And why?

2) It sounds like you dont care about the effects, but just wants to attribute something positive to social media if companies have ANY linkage with social media !?

3) Why do you assume social media create jobs or add to GDP? You could argue e.g. that the number of hours vasted in Facebook reduce productivity and thus result in net job loss and GDP reduction?

Understand me correctly here. I am not saying social media is bad, but I am most seriously questioning if the PRESENT way social media is controlled by single commercial interest are seriously bad for markets. UNless we try to understand the causal effects and are carefull not to simply take first order effects (and not e.g. considere from where these activitites was done before), you cannot say anything sensible about social media.

What we can say for certain is that the behavioural profiling occuring is market damaging and value destructive as it dis-empowers citizens. It is fine to those that profit, but not to everybody else.

I think Engberg has a point

Submitted by penval on Sun, 2012-05-13 15:04

I think Engberg has a point here. Strategic in what sense? Have you agreed a shared vision for the future; do we understand what a blue print will look like for social media at some future point in time time? Who will deliver the benefits of this strategy and to whom?

Engberg is right we should understand how Social Media can empower and where it fails to do this. Who is excluded and why? If people are included in what are they included? Does it mean the same thing to everybody?

Before we get carried along by a Social Media Strategy let's agree a few things first.

I will investigate the data

Submitted by lizzytait on Fri, 2012-05-11 10:11

I will investigate the data that is available for the UK. We must consider that the UK has devolved assemblies, however, and therefore there may be policy divergence and different ways of recording some data.

I will discuss this with some colleagues today

Lizzy

Actually I have a colleague

Submitted by lizzytait on Fri, 2012-05-11 10:13

Actually I have a colleague from Romania who used to work in Economic Development for European projects who may be able to contribute to the Romanian one. She is currently away on holiday and so it'll be a couple of weeks before I am in touch with her. Is this too late?

I'm intrigued to know how you

Submitted by ian_cli on Fri, 2012-05-11 11:40

I'm intrigued to know how you have chosen the five countries? is there a methodology here? You have picked 4 high-use-ICT countries and Romania. Are you trying to show a comparison? There is little data about Social Media use on Eurostat but lots about digital inclusion and use of other services.

We simply decided based on

Submitted by AxelS on Fri, 2012-05-11 13:41

We simply decided based on currently available resources and qualification. We were looking for highly skilled people in social media and being able to collaborate in a large team. We are posting invitations to join across all media from Twitter, Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn... The ultimate goal is to get all 27 EU countries together. My initial hope was to have UK, France, Spain, Greece and Hungaria so we get kind of a more leveled playing fields in terms of stable and less stable economies as well as emerging economies - but I'm sure we get there after this first round.

@Lizzy terrific - we can use

Submitted by AxelS on Fri, 2012-05-11 13:38

@Lizzy terrific - we can use all the help we can get. Keep in mind that this is a voluntary engagement - but probably one of the best ways to express democracy in action not against a regime but in close collaboration with it :)
This is the best starting point:
http://fb.com/groups/daeurope/

Thanks a lot

I feel that this is an

Submitted by penval on Mon, 2012-05-14 09:52

I feel that this is an important part of the discussions because within the comments there is clearly a dichotomy between those who express a view that Social Media has a natural place in the order of things and those who feel that the case for Social Media has yet to be proven. Specifically it would appear that there is no clear description of how the benefits are realised by those who are most excluded and disengaged; yet it is this section of society who are the most costly to serve, who are the biggest users of government services, who are most likely to be the biggest beneficiaries in terms of life chances.

By way of encouraging discussion in this area I would like to offer two "think pieces" that focus on the potential for social media as a mechanism for those organisations, including NGOs, who serve the needs of the most excluded in our society. The first considers social media in an organisational context, the second considers the intra organisation potential. The context is a UK perspective but I believe that the implications are universal.

Comment is free and I welcome it:

http://www.penval.co.uk/news/modernising-the-third-sector-echoes-and-res...

http://www.penval.co.uk/news/once-upon-a-time%e2%80%a6

Paul, I very much appreciate

Submitted by AxelS on Mon, 2012-05-14 13:16

Paul, I very much appreciate your comment. As you already pointed out, Social Media is a rather new topic to Europe, yet more than 1 Billion people more or less bought into the idea of broader exposition of their opinion and interests as well as expanding their democratic engagement.

It would be great if you join the conversation and engage in a way that you help to keep the social divide (digital divide) es small as possible. However the current focus is clearly on enabling businesses and start-ups to leverage social media to grow and create new jobs. The wealthier a society is the better it can support those in need and live in the shadow of that society.

We are currently working with a small team of about 40 people on the social media strategy and with over 120 in a supporting function.

To answer your questions about strategy, please make yourself familiar with the following content:
http://www.digitalagendastrategy.eu/

We also created a qualification survey to join the team
http://surveymonkey.com/s/da12social-t1

You find all the other presences of the #da12social engagement here:
httP://XeeMe.com/da12social

Look forward to hear from you

Good on ya Alex,

Submitted by simonfj on Wed, 2012-05-16 06:39

Good on ya Alex,

So far as stats (1 & 3) are concerned you could ask our friends from this domain. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Main_Page
(Sorry, a bit short on time at the moment. You'll also have to be aware of the difference in language(s) between the US and EU, as Ian suggested. E.g. What you call "social media" might be likely to be translated as "online services", depending on the language)
Here's one stat that ought to make it to the meeting. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Unemploy...
Don't know if you're across the other .eu projects in this space. But there's an important group(s) here. http://www.initiative.eu/page/partners
And another potential alumni for your academy/strategy team. http://mathew.blogactiv.eu/2012/02/17/10-things-the-eu-should-probably-k...
So far as Paul and Engberg are concerned, I'll just say I'm skeptical too. Maybe we should call "social media", "distance learning" so we could ask the same questions of a few academics. Keep up the good work.