Wednesday 1 January 2014

Happy New Year!

Image from Globe Photo
One of the things that I love about social media is that sheer fact that it shrinks the world to the size of a matchbox.

I love the options it gives us, to embrace our hobbies, obsessions from where ever we are in the world using whatever social media tools that appeal to us as individuals.

By embracing the different forms of social media we can integrate with others, sharing ideas, knowledge and friendship with people that we have never met.

Social media, in whatever form it takes has revolutionised the way we interact with others, the way we conduct our genealogical and historical research and more importantly it has revolutionised Society in general, in pretty much all areas - banking, learning and shopping to name a few.  Is this how our ancestors felt when the concept of rail travel was first introduced I wonder?

I like various social media tools for different reasons. I can typically be found either by my own name or Anglers Rest

Twitter is always a challenge. I struggle to share details in 140 characters or less, but I can be found at @juliegoucher

Facebook - I like the fact that I share share the incidentals of peoples lives, especially my family who live down under. I have a personal page and I have a page that is linked to my blog and Twitter and I plan to share more general genealogical material to that page. I rarely share genealogy to my personal page.

Google+ - This was a big learning curve for 2013 and I love it! Once I got my head around the point of circles and the interaction is by topic rather than individual I was hooked and I love the way that Google+ enables hangouts and links to YouTube

  • Do you have a favourite social media tool or tip you can share? 
  • Does your Society use social media really well, spreading the word to the genealogy community and members far and wide?
  • Do you want to learn to use a social media tool that you perhaps do not use, or want to expand your use of particular one?

If you want to respond and share please get interactive and leave a comment!

18 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the project launch. I can't wait to see how the blog develops.

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    1. Thanks Jill. It is rather exciting and I am wondering too!

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  2. Already getting ideas for my post later this month. Hope nobody has the same idea before then.

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  3. I am not a Luddite, but I must admit Twitter has never appealed to me, and , although I have a Facebook page (mainly for accessing pictures of my granddaughter), I do not make much use of it. If I want to send a message to someone or comment on my day, I will do it by personal e-mail - or even telephone!! Geneabloggers has been my main network site and the way I make contact with fellow FH bloggers. Can someone convince me I am missing out here and should be making far better use of the social media sites? Why? All your comments very welcome. Thank you in anticipation, .

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    1. Sue,

      Recently Tessa wrote two posts for the blog of the Society for One Place Studies about Twitter

      Post 1 - http://one-place-studies.org/twitter-think-get/
      Post 2 - http://one-place-studies.org/getting-twitter-part-two-twitter-discussion/

      I like Twitter is is what I call snappy social media and there are several genchats operated by Jen Baldwin on Twitter. If you have a twitter account search for #genchat and it shows all the tweets and questions and answers. Some quite useful and informative info. I have blogged in the past about it -

      http://www.anglersrest.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/genchat-13th-november-2013.html
      http://www.anglersrest.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/genchat-31st-october-2013.html

      Most of the GenChats are in the middle of night for us in the UK, but these two were in the afternoon and I took part and so did Hilary who will be writing a little later this month.

      Facebook is not my favourite method of genealogical social media, but there are some great groups with some great people sharing some great and interesting things!

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    2. Many thanks, Julie, for such a quick and helpful response. You have given me various pointers which I must investigate..

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  5. Oops, got this on the wrong post, sorry Julie.
    ue. I used to loathe FB until I had more of my blogging buddies - now I enjoy sharing their stories in private as well. Hilary, even if we have the same topic, we'd approach it differently as people do with themes like Sepia Saturday.

    Congratulations Julie on the launch of this worldwide collaborative blog -the virtual champers has been cracked on the prow.

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  6. Sue, Please come over to Google+ which is my favourite social network for genealogy, if you have a Google account you can just go to Google+ and sign in. There you will find people like Julie, Pauleen and me.

    Like Pauleen I am not in love with Facebook but retain a membership there because so many genies use it.

    I use Twitter when I am at conferences and want to share something I have just learnt.

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    1. Many thanks, Jill, for your comment. I have a Google account to must look at Google + as you suggested. It is interesting what you, Julie and Pauleen have said about Facebook, as it does not particularly appeal to me, . .

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  7. I too find twitter a challenge. But I will use it in a pinch. I do like fb and sometimes get sucked in and use it all too much. I use it mainly as a way to share with far flung family and friends from the past and some friends from the genea community. I find that my old friends and relatives tend to talk about my blog posts on fb instead of making comments, which I would rather they did!

    Can't say much more since I have to post something on Friday!

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  8. Hi Julie,
    I use Google+, Twitter and Facebook to get my genealogy posts out. I use fb more, but some people use these and a lot more...so I just put it out there and know people will grab at the information wherever it is.

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  9. I tend to FB more because of family friends. I started because we had to keep a eye on our kids in High School. We were made to check their page once a week. That's how I got started. Twitter is social but I'm finding it's good to keep up with Genealogy as well. I just started on Google+ from friends at GenealogyWise who wanted to get off of FB. So I followed suit. Happy New Year! We are off with a BANG!

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  10. Julie, I love the idea and am so glad you included me, though after reading all the posts to date am feeling seriously outclassed!

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    1. Schalene, Welcome aboard. I look forward to reading your posts!

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World Wide Genealogy Team