Our first serious attempt at social reporting (see earlier post) at Small Changes, Big Differences on 26 February was a great success with a large number of people joining in the spirit of Tweeting and taking photographs. We used Storify (see previous post) to create this record of the event, and many participants appreciated seeing such a lively and engaging record, created before, during and after the event.
An important reason for its success was because we planned it as an integral part of the event. And, on the day, the opening speaker reiterated what we were trying to do, encouraging everyone to get into the spirit of sharing.
This helped create a buzz and gave participants the confidence to talk about the event on Twitter. During the day there were close to 1000 tweets, which we thought was pretty good.
Of course, what we’d really like to see is people creating their own personal record of the parts of the day that mattered to them, using Storify, Medium or whatever they feel comfortable with. That really is the essence of social reporting: individuals or groups capturing what was important to them using the tools they choose.