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Forget being beyond the black stump, regional Australia is beyond the black spot

Elliott Bledsoe highlights service issues for regional communities and shares some top tips for using social media…

In late October I went to Blackall for the first time. The little plane had just touched down on the tarmac, the ‘fasten seatbelts’ sign had been switched off and my Nexus 5 has been switched on. Moments later, the service indicator was still blank and I was met with the horrifying message, ‘No service.’

Sadly, this is indicative of how bad telecommunications infrastructure is in regional Australia. Coming from inner-city Sydney I am spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting a mobile phone service provider. Like many of them, my provider relies on the Optus network to provide my service. But for 48-hours I was forcibly off the grid because there was no Optus service in Blackall. There was no Swarm or Facebook check-in to Blackall Airport.

There is a huge need for advocacy for better telecommunications services in regional Australia—including lobbying of ISPs not just the Communications Department—but this post is not about that. Rather, it’s about sharing some of the things I have discovered over the past nine months traveling around regional Australia as part of Regional Arts Australia’s (RAA) .

In short, a Digital Drop-in is a casual, community-led, face-to-face, peer-learning opportunities where attendees can ask digital experts questions and get answers. They are a response to the reality that many people living in regional or remote areas don’t have the same confidence in the use of digital technologies as city dwellers. The program addresses this gap in a way that was needs-orientated and that caters to people with low digital literacy. If you want to know more about the the project, please see the Drop-ins on the Regional Arts Australia website and this blog entry I wrote for the Australian Library and Information Association’s ALIA Sydney blog back in June.

This map shows where Drop-ins have been held.

With the support of Arts Queensland’s Partnerships team, I was able to add four more sessions in regional Queensland. These sessions allowed us to answer artists’ and arts organisations’ questions in Blackall and Barcaldine in Central West Queensland, Miles in the Western Downs and Roma in the Maranoa district in late October.

 

I want to share some of the common questions and answers:
 

What’s the difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook Page?

While lots of artists and organisations are on Facebook, many of the questions were about how to use it more effectively.  One of the first things you need to work out is if you want to use a Facebook profile or a Facebook Page. A Facebook profile or account is for individuals to connect with family and friends and to share things they care about. A Page is designed for organisations, companies and brands. While this can get blurry when talking about artists, musicians, authors and other creators, I like to describe it this way: If you want to post photos of your niece or nephew and you don’t want people who buy your art seeing it, you should consider creating a Page for your creative practice.  Plus, if your page has more than 30 Likes, you get access to Facebook Insights, an analytic service that provides data about Page’s performance. That reach and demographic information can be very useful for planning your Facebook content.

How do I get more Likes on my Facebook Page?

First, it is important to realise that, like other things, it’s not how big it is that’s important, but what you do with it. While you need some people Liking you, it is more important that the people who do like you are interested in what you are saying and engaging with your content.  But if you are looking to increase your Page Likes, start by inviting your Facebook friends or your email contacts to Like it. You should also be sharing posts from your Page and tagging your Page in posts on your own profile.

So how do I get people to engage with my Page?

Using social media is a big job. It takes time and effort to create, publish and manage content. Set aside some regular time in your week to focus on creating your content.  There are a lot of strategies for increasing engagement with your Page. A few simple tricks: Keep your posts short, sharp and interesting (avoid posts that automatically truncate and add ‘Read more), use friendly, inviting language, ask questions to let people know you value their thoughts and feelings, and make sure you have a relevant photo with most of your posts.  Also, it’s important to not just talk about yourself, so consider sharing from other people or Pages, tagging other people and Pages in your posts so they get notified that you have mentioned them and joining wider conversations using relevant hashtags in your posts.

Should I be on Twitter?

Not all the questions were about Facebook. If you are thinking about getting onto Twitter, make sure you understand how Twitter works and who is on it. Remember, your tweets must be 140 characters or less, follow relevant Twitter users and @reply them to increase awareness that you are on there and join the conversation using relevant hashtags in your tweets.

Should I also be on other services like Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest?

Remember that you don’t have to be on everything. If you don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to social media, It is better to be on one or two things and doing them really well than it is to be on lots of platforms that you are using really ineffectively.

Learn about each of the main social media platforms communities and decide where makes sense for you to focus your attention.

 

Elliot BledsoeElliott Bledsoe does all things that publish, play, post, tweet and trend. He helps artists and arts organisations to plan and manage their communications.  Currently he is the National Digital Arts Platform Producer at Regional Arts Australia and Geek-in-Residence at Regional Arts Victoria. He has also been Acting Marketing Manager of ABC RN at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Digital Content Officer at the Australia Council for the Arts and a Project Officer at Creative Commons Australia.