pet connection

Christie and I are both here, so it will be interesting to see whether we blog the same things.

If you were to take just Facebook users and make them a country, they would be one of the largest countries in the world. In just a few years, 80 percent of all Internet users will be connected by some form of social networking.

In a social networking environment, you are actively seeking friends or followers, so your information hits them in a radically different way. It’s not viewed the same way as spam, especially if you’re doing it right. It works because users want to create social value through the use of media. They want to make a positive contribution to the world and they go to social networking sites to do that. There’s this underlying expectation that people are working for the common good.

By the way, the speaker is Mike Fry, executive director of Animal Ark, Minnesota’s largest no kill animal welfare organization and co-host of Animal Wise Radio.

Now we’re getting out into the ether: Mike’s going to talk about social versus neural networking. The Internet looks just like the neurons in a person’s brain and they work in very much the same way. We’ve built a model of the human mind that we can use to change our social consciousness.

The way information is disseminated is changing rapidly. There’s a parallel in the animal welfare field. The top-down approach is going away because we’re getting away from the model of large organizations controlling the flow of information. In 2009, HSUS policy to kill all dogs “rescued” during dog fight busts went viral on social networks and the multimillion dollar agency was forced to change its policy. Prior to Facebook and Twitter, there’s no way that would have ever happened.

Why isn’t the media blackout of the Gulf oil spill a story itself? Even though it’s not, images and stories are leaking out from private citizens via social networking. The use of Twitter in Africa has helped improve transparency of elections in Africa.

Because of social networking, Best Friends Animal Society was forced to make multiple public statements concerning their lack of support for Oreo’s law.

The lesson? If you fail to operate in a transparent way, social media will kick your butt.

If you become connected through social media, you can change the world in a matter of days.

The three Cs of e-commerce: content, community, commerce. Social networking can fulfill the need for content and community. Content is the key.

Simple tips to improve your social networking: link your Facebook and Twitter accounts; split your messages into different channels; create lists to aggregate channels; add widgets to your web sites; add a Share button to all of your web pages; keep your messages on topic; don’t try to get followers just by “liking” others; and automate your Tweets.

Splitting channels: Animal Ark has distinct channels, including animal shelter; Animal Ark fund-raisers and issues; and AnimalWise radio channel.

For everyone that you friend or follow, you want to have 10 followers. Only follow the people who are doing things you want to hear about.

Automate the tweets of adoptions and lost and found pets.

Don’t be a downer, but do be provocative. Don’t be afraid to share your opinion. You’re not going to get change without shaking things up.