Another relevant quote, this one from a recent FIR podcast: “If you’re going to be naked, you’d better be buff!”

More seriously, totally agree with the approach you outline re: community management and outreach to diverse online groups of interest. I wrote a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post about EU community managers some time ago – how widespread within the Commission is the understanding of how beneficial such an approach might be these days? Are other DGs paying any attention?

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@Mathew

Indeed Mathew, this pilot experience should not be compared with the European Parliament Fan Page about the European elections, a campaign of much wider scope and audience, and coordinated with other media. One of the positive aspects of this experience is that we learned a lot about on online marketing and community management.

And as you said, it’s only the beginning of long journey into social media for us. In any case, it certainly paves the way for new types of profiles working in the EU institutions such as full time community managers. For the moment we don’t see social media as a channel to communicate with the famous “European citizen” – Mr/Mrs everybody, but more like a channel that may allow us to engage and interact with particular segments of the public, building communities of interest, collecting feedback, offering opportunities to participate, etc.

Some breaking news: We will be soon trying out internally Twitter, the famous microblogging tool, to cover an important event of the DG INFSO.

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@interested user

Hi and welcome to the discussion board!

It’s true that we first relayed our initiative among our own circles of colleagues and friends – who are “real” people. Actually, that’s the very nature of social-networking to begin with people you are mostly in contact with. But we did not limited our promotion strategy to the Brussels’ bubble, and we tried to reach out broader interested groups through modest promotions means with mitigated results. You can find the current demographic and geographic composition of our Fan base on Sea, Sun and SMS (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sea-Sun-and-SMS/112480538851). Have a look if you want to know more!

Our initial objective was much more modest than you might expect. Actually, we were trying to reach out to young (15 -34 years old) Europeans who are Facebook members interested in travelling and texting, and able to communicate in English. We were also trying to learn more about online communication via Web 2.0 platforms.

The target was set at 10,000 Fans. Indeed, it is not a very high standard. But it has to be pointed out that this was a pilot experience for the EU institutions, one of the first attempts to run internally an online communication campaign based on a social-networking tool. More important, we used very limited human resources and “large” 100€ budget ! This is not an excuse, but rather an expression of our learning context. We have learned a lot about social media, and we still have a lot more to learn.

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But for a DG of the European Commission it’s probably a high point. The European Parliament, of course, does better, but it’s got a wider scope and (had) a massive election campaign, so it’s not directly comparable.

I really think you should see this as a pilot – the beginning of a journey by the EU institutions into social media, rather than the destination.

I quickly scanned the first 24 fans – only 2 were in Belgium, but most didn’t say, so I’ll see whether the people behind it at the Commission can shed any light on how many fans are their rellies in Brussels.

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But setting up a facebook fan page and asking every Brussels colleague and their relatives to join the group is not about getting in touch with 450 millions.

Have a more in-depth look into the 1000 fans of the group. You will quickly realise: they are indeed real people, but many, many of them live in Brussels or Belgium. What does it make you think of? Exactly!

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Great article.

Indeed, this initiative is managed internally by a dynamic team of roaming enthusiasts (so, not only an intern…).

One of the objective of this online project is to go beyond Europa.eu and thus reach a broader audience that we don’t usually reach.

We also strongly encourage everyone to spread the news for it’s not that often that the European Commission goes… Web 2.0!

Become a Fan!
Join us on http://tinyurl.com/seasunsms

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Sun, Sea and SMS launched 2 days ago and already has 422.

One was launched as part of a EC-funded communications campaign, implemented by a PR company, with a vague remit. The other is more focused, and was set up by an intern at DG INFSO.

Can you guess which is which?

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But does anyone know why the page description is promoting Jean Quatremer’s take on the French results? Perhaps Mr Barroso should be told – ed.

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