The European Parliament is a sociable place - can it also be media social?

“Less stories more creatively told” was one of the phrases ringing in my ears as I departed the recent “Social Media World Forum” in London. These words were uttered by Adam Parker of RealWire who was speaking about the relative merits of press releases and whether they work or not in the social media age.

He lamented the fact that according to his research only 2% of all press releases in the UK had any kind of social media aspect (twitter, Facebook etc) to them.

Our articles for the Parliament’s website are not press releases but they could definitely be improved using hyperlinks more inter linking with videos and audio-visual material. Interestingly, Adam felt that humble audio was the most under-rated and under used of all the communication mediums which was strange considering it has been the method of communication since our ancestors were sitting in caves.

Much of the social media forum was about the uses that Facebook can be put to. I won’t divulge much on that subject as one of our FB-boffins was there as well and is eager to share some findings with you later in this blog.

A generational shift in online politics?

In terms of politics and the public sphere Alex Aitken of Westminster City Council voiced fears that many people were treating social media as merely an end in itself. For him the only point in any public communication must be about encouraging people to be engaged in public debates and policy making.

Craig Elder, the Conservative party’s social media guru said he thought there was an aspect of generational change in the way the parties and politicians generally used social media and the internet. He contrasted Tony Blair and Gordon Brown with the younger pretenders David Cameron and George Osborne in that regard.

The entire panel, including moderator Matthew Fraser, agreed that things were moving incredibly fast (social media was scarcely heard of at the last UK election in 2005), and that future elections would make our current efforts look amateurish.

Newspapers – remember them?

For me personally perhaps the most depressing presentation was on the future of newspapers – if indeed they have one. Caught in a perfect storm of depression, scant advertising and demographic changes circulation is in freefall.

Dirk Singer (“Head Rabbit, Rabbit”) estimated that circulation in the UK had fallen by 3.1 million by 2008. To put that into perspective that equates to almost the population of Wales who have stopped reading newspapers.

This trend started in the US, has spread to the UK and will no doubt soon be found in Europe more generally. Putting this into perspective he said that in the US newspaper have lost 7 million readers in the last 25 years whereas online readership was up 34 million in the last 5 years.  He sees the print future as being made up of specialist newspapers and magazines catering for people who want long well researched articles.

Finally, we turned up for what came to be an ironically named workshop on “Reputation online – are we ready for the future of social media?” Unfortunately, the panel were not ready neither for the future or the present for that matter as they failed to show up! In their place the moderator and a man from Linked in did a great job in filling in and somehow salvaging something.

Nevertheless, a productive and dare I say it enjoyable experience!