[ Here is the full text of the doc, by Samson with editing assistance by myself ]
Concerning SL vision 2016, I think that SL should add social media as one of our main ways to get new members. With the big name we have, we should use that as an advantage to get people into our community - but we aren’t. Let me use myself as an example, I am a very active user in the social world (facebook, twitter, instagram, and YouTube) even though I don’t have a smartphone or a laptop of my own to use regularly. I have over 560 followers on twitter. According to twitter official report, my tweets receive more than 1.9k impressions per day. For the past 28 days I have gotten over 42.4k impressions. My lowest impression is about 50 on a tweet. My highest tweet is about 4,800 on a tweet. Now imagine if SL can get this number of impressions by activeness alone on twitter. Same goes to facebook, also posting images on instagram. We can get more than 400 impressions a day via twitter, Also facebook and instagram. If we do the math correctly, SL can get over 600 people a day from social media to sugarlabs.org. That’s valuable traffic for our sites. How do we get started with this new development? It’s very simple; I propose the following motion: Motion: create a “Social Media Manager,” role, similar to the translation manager position, paid $1,000/month plus discretionary use of an advertising budget of $100/month. I believe that the role will not be taken seriously if it is volunteer driven. I am in charge of the social accounts of my church,another non-profit organization. Their social media marketing was also not taken seriously until the church made a modestly paid role. The church community and I both saw it as a responsibility when the role was paid; and my work was effective, as now we have over 4,000 followers on facebook. Money should be spent in order to gain more. More social media followers will lead to more active members which will lead to member donations. I know it’s a non-profit organization but that does not mean we shouldn’t grow. To get my contract approved by SLOBs. I spent almost 100 USD (21,000 naira) in cyber cafes answering questions that were not related to my project, so if anyone does not understand this proposal, I strongly suggest they make research on the internet first before asking questions, because I will not answer if the questions are not relevant. I believe in the growth of SL, but I think we can’t grow big if we are not doing well on social media. Even if I am not experienced in business, based on the fact that I am still young and not yet a college graduate, this seems essential to any non-profit business. I always thank God for Nigeria because even if the government is not doing well, we Nigerians always find a way to thrive with any little chance we find because of the way we think and live. Social media is now essential for all organizations in all countries, including Nigeria. According to our last report on activities.sugarlabs.org our weekly download is getting lower and lower, though over 11 million activities have been downloaded in total. What we need to do to get SL growing bigger: 1. SL needs to get a official YouTube account and channel: a. We need a Gmail account to create the account. b. We need to monetize our videos using Google adsense to create more funds for SL. c. We will verify our YouTube channel. d. We will show live workshops in the channel. E.g. turtle art day 2. Make our twitter page live again: a. We will regain access to @sugarlabs and shut down @sugar_labs b. We will verify @sugarlabs account c. We will boost (paying fees)our important tweets, like recruitment for GSOC and GCI, our stable releases, etc. d. We will run hashtag campaigns 3 Make our Facebook account live again: We already own a facebook account, with almost 700 followers but low engagement from followers. a. We need to verify our facebook page(in progress) with a verified page. We will stream live video of workshops or related projects. b. We will post 5 times a day c. We will boost our important posts d. We will request SL members on facebook to share our posts with their friends. Facebook owns an app market that enable javascript projects to run on facebook. For example, people play games on facebook while chatting: Sometimes I play “Pool Live Pro” while I update my profile or chat with friends. So we will port sugarizer to the platform. 4. Make use of instagram: a. We will post minimum 5 pictures of SL projects a day b. We will request SL members on instagram to refer SL page to their followers 5. Make use of linkedIn: a. We will update the community page on LinkedIn b. We will ask every member on LinkedIn to update their profile to show their involvement in Sugar Labs. 6. Make use of Google+ a. We will make use of Google+ by posting our upcoming meetings b. We will also post videos of Sugar labs 7. Make use of Online Media We will work with Digital Trends, BBC tech, CNN tech and other tech-related sites to publish SL articles. I have some strong connections with digital trend, almost every top guys on digital trends plus the company follows me on twitter except their ceo who is yet to follow me. So i can take care of digital trends. Let use our resource to help SL grow socially. Paying of ads is not expensive, about $1 - $20 goes a long way on platforms like facebook/twitter, so I propose a monthly budget of $1,000 for the role and $100 initial budget for ads, for a total cost to SL of $1,100. This is a suggestion I am making to SL members and SLOBs on how SL project can grow. This is not my project (like Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa). It's something that can benefit SL to the fullest. I won’t get annoyed if this motion does not pass but i will be sad. SLOBs should think about this project twice on how it can benefit SL before making any decision. Any suggestions are welcome! it’s an open discussion! Samson Goddy, with editing assistance by Dave Crossland _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep