I’ve recently started appreciating Facebook again. For quite some time, while I was discovering the joys of Twitter, my FB activity admittedly was pretty much limited to accepting friend requests.
But I’m rediscovering the joys of the blue pages, especially because social networking platforms are becoming more integrated. I figured out how to make my Twitter feed show up as my FB status update and I can now reach different friends/followers on different platforms.
Useful. Sweet.

However, I found it ugly to see a ‘re-tweet’ sitting on my FB status for a few hours. A message like “RT @theineke looking for Php developers. Please RT” doesn’t fit the Facebook vibe. For me, FB is still more personal. Re-tweeting is more like forwarding an email or ‘Liking’ something on Facebook. It’s not from you, but ‘passive expressive’. And for me it doesn’t sit well on the status update.
Same with conversations I’m having with someone directly. None of my FB-friends is interested in Reading “@wybe No problem”. It actually feels like spam.
But I do want to re-tweet a message. To help a follower looking for people, to spread round a link to a presentation,… That’s the joy of Twitter.

I know there’s a Facebook app that allows you to decide whether a Tweet shows up on FB by including the #fb hashtag. Not bad, but still, it’s 3 characters you could use for something else. And it’s 3 characters that don’t have anything to do with the subject of the message.
And how about my Linked In status update?

So @wildebees decided to explore Yahoo Pipes for a few hours and managed to build a way round it. So now my RT’s and @’s no longer show up on my Facebook and Linked in statuses.

It made us smile so much we’re working on a ‘how-to’ blog-post and video tutorial, which are coming soon.

UPDATE: the ‘how to’ blogpost is ready.

“Looking for a shit hot Ning programmer”

That is how RAAK first came to hear about the MTV project for the European Union: through a Twitter message.

RAAK's CanEUHearme

>> The brief
MTV was tasked by the European Union (EU) to increase awareness about the upcoming EU elections amongst young people. And energise them to take part.
The core idea was built around ‘The Shout’, giving young people the chance to make their voice heard. This would be done through 3 events, a tv campaign and an online presence.
To achieve these objectives online, the EU wanted to build a bespoke social network where young people could interact around a common European-ness.

Importantly we were only six weeks away from the launch date.

>> The RAAK approach
At RAAK we think before doing.
We don’t just want to build or produce interesting media for the sake of it, we want it to work for its intended users and meet objectives.

There are now a number of very cool platforms and tools with which bespoke social networks can be built, like Ning, the open source Elgg and also BuddyPress.

However, building a bespoke social network – that gets user traction – is not desirable or even possible in all circumstances. It takes time.
In this case we felt it was much more effective to create a site that ties in strongly with the use of existing social networks where the users are already active and have strong connections.

>> RAAK’s pitch
Videos are a good way of driving traffic, especially if you have star attractions like Depeche Mode. Same with competitions. So those 2 elements were an obvious part of our proposal.

But once we have the eyeballs we want to draw the users in deeper.

We suggested to build a forum where users could debate issues round the EU. But making forums work is notoriously hard, so we suggested a Twitter Forum using hashtags. This was a much easier way to engage from a user point of view because people take part on their own terms.
We guided MTV on moderation & Twitter policies to maximise constructive participation.

We also allowed blog-style comments on the videos and created a Shout Box where people could leave short messages.
We gave people the option to do this using Facebook Connect, allowing users to send their comments to their Facebook newsfeeds for that extra viral impact.
FB Connect was also integrated in the Polls, where people could voice their opinion about European issues.

MTV also wanted something that reflected the buzz of an event, a virtual party. Because of considerable time and budget restrictions, we suggested covering the Shout-events live using Qik. Live video streaming through mobile phones. We ‘live edited’ what streams were most prominent on the site by switching between videos.

We delivered www.caneuhearme.eu on time, in 23 European languages (yes, in six weeks!) and launched several new sections to the site to encourage repeat visits.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

>> Pros
The CanEUhearme site ranked #3 for first week traffic volume (Unique Visitors) behind only two movies’ micro sites, Indiana Jones and Iron Man.

On the Caneuhearme site we had far over 50,000 unique visitors in two months, who viewed on average 2.5 pages and spent nearly 2 minutes on the site.

The site generated hundreds of “Shouts” from users across Europe.

But it was the Twitter discussion page and discussions and hashtags that proved to be the most popular. We believe the site became a hub for people interested in and disaffected with the European Union, with debates and conversations starting on the site and elsewhere.

>> Cons
Neither ourselves nor MTV could get Flickr to play along. So we had to abandon using their service (the Flickr API) and rebuild the Competition engine and gallery from scratch.

To brag a bit, we also feel that an integrated campaign, where RAAK produced the video, wrote the copy and steered the Twitter accounts, would have made for tighter messaging and even better conversations.

>> Coverage and links
The site was written about and linked to from numerous sites including the BBC, Brand Republic, and dozens of blogs including that of Le Monde, the NRC Handelsblad. And it had its naysayers.

Some other sites and blogs that linked to the project include:
Codice Internet
Democracia Electrónica
Jessica Best – European elections for dummies
politicaduepuntozero
institute
Persiguiendo Sueños
EUROBITÁCORA
The Veronicas
Bloc de Pia Bosch
Blogspace
EU observer

So far Google has counted over 250 backlinks to the site, with a Pagerank of 6.