What is social media? Social media is best understood as a group of new kinds of online media which share most or all of the following characteristics: Participation: social media encourages contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested. It blurs the line between the concept of media and audience. Openness: most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They encourage voting, feedback, comments and sharing of information. There are rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content – password protected content is frowned on. Conversation: whereas traditional media is about “broadcast”, content transmitted or distributed to an audience, social media is better seen as conversational, two way. Community: social media allows communities to form quickly and communicate effectively around common interests – be that a love of photography, a political issue or a favourite TV show. Connectedness: Most kinds of social media thrive on their connectedness, via links and combining different kinds of media in one place.

Blogs Wikis RSS feeds Podcasts Videocasts / Vlogs Social networks Virtual communities Tools that facilitate: Communication Engagement Transparency Trust (people like me) Tool that are: Complementary to traditional communication activities Used by organizations who recognize the social characteristics of effective communication. Social media

Online diaries - Share thoughts/information Informal - Emphasis on “voice” Generates dialogue through user comments Can include photos, videos, links Push and pull entries via ‘RSS feeds’ Blogs

Podcasting Continuing audio content Deliverable via subscription Listen anywhere –not just with an ipod –Or burn to a CD Anyone can podcast 11% of adults have downloaded a podcast Most penetration in age range –45% of listenership is Gender split is even (52% male – 48% female)

You Tube 100 million videos a day watched on You Tube Easy to use Viral / Links from other sites CEMEX corporate video –Viewed 160 times Rugby Town Vs Cemex and the Cement works – 710 views

Wiki’s Collaborative web page Anyone can edit pages Most popular - Wikipedia… –1.5 million articles Opportunities for: –Annual Reports –Company handbooks –Company Encyclopedia –Project information

Social networks eg Facebook “Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them” 52 million active users worldwide 7 million active users in UK Personal pages, discussion boards, photos, videos Groups & Network areas for: –Friends / places Mexico – 214,000 members, London 1.7million –Hobbies –Schools Harvard University – 50,000 members –Companies IBM -24,900 members Shell – 5400 members BBC – 11,000 members Siemens – 5000 members Microsoft – 22,000 members

CEMEX on facebook CEMEX – 288 members CEMEX Women's Network – 203 members “Our company has 60,000 employees worldwide, and only about 8 thousand are women. This group intends to gather as many women as we can in order to support the company in its growth, share experiences and create value” How many CEMEX Team Leaders does it take to change a light bulb? - 22 members CEMEX PiD CEMEX Angling Group – 5 members (not employees) CEMEX Columbia – 90 members Support and mental health for survivors of cemex way – 13 members

Gather better intelligence – what are people saying about us? Bypass the media Position executives as thought leaders Create trust through ongoing conversation Increase search engine visibility Build coalition of supporters ahead of problems End reliance on complex publishing systems Better than for distribution of information Social media and external comms

What is being said about CEMEX? “The clip here is for showing to councillors and the people at CEMEX so they take my complaint seriously – using you tube I can distribute video as part of an environmental campaign far more easily than any other way. the campaign is built on my local website see and more precisely /07/video _noisy_cem.html

Central and Regional comms also looking at Social Media We are also looking at how we can use social media to get information out to drivers etc. Short term… –UK News blog –CEMEX UK group on facebook –Our Voice online Long term… –Social media on plaza –Wiki’s –Podcasts –SM on communities SOCIAL MEDIA CEMEX UK FACEBOOK REPLAY PODCAST VIDEO SHARING STORE PLAZA COMMUNITY BLOGS /FACEBOOKS /WIKI OUR VOICE ONLINE CEMEX WIKI You Tube Video comp UK NEWS BLOG Social media and internal comms….

Employer: Stimulate employee collaboration and communication Inexpensive implementation and maintenance Break down cultural barriers Stimulate knowledge sharing See where connections are Employee: Collaboration and information-sharing made easy Bottom-up self-motivation not top-down formal instruction Ownership of ideas Informal compared to ‘official’ channels Easy to do It is about Business not technology