Twitter – Don’t just broadcast interact

Posted on by
Reply

imageTwitter can be a great tool for sharing and promoting information and events, but it can be used a whole lot more. Lions are like many other twitter users tend just to use twitter as a broadcast medium not a tool to seek information.

We should be using twitter professionally not like celebrities telling us what they had for lunch or what they are doing now. But to publish news but also gain an incite into what our audience is wanting to learn from us. We have this tool that has changed the way we gather and send information all around the word in an instant. We should look at twitter as the ticker you see going across the bottom tv screen as you watching the news or the poster outside the newsstand with the headline of the day leading story trying to get us to buy the main paper. But it can also be us asking a question or a to call action.

Next time you use twitter ask a question or direct your followers to a poll you have set up on Facebook. Use it as a two way street as the start of a conversation to gain knowledge. Don’t just send a message, engage with your audience but remember it is a two way street if you ask them to reply then you should reply even if it is to say thanks for the comment.

So how dose your club use twitter? Let me know at #aspleylionsclub

Social Media Directory – FollowUp

Posted on by
2

Thanks to all providing feedback about our initiative to establish a Lions Clubs Social Media Directory! Based on your input i want to give you some additional information today:

District Websites and Social Media sites

Of course you can enter information for your district as well, in case the district has it’s own website or facebook page, etc.. Just enter the district name instead of the club name.

Editing information once the form has been submitted

You can edit the information you entered in the questionnaire at a later date.

Click to enlarge image

In order to do that, you need to bookmark the link information displayed by the form, once you have pressed the “Submit” button (see picture). The link is titled “Edit your response“. When clicking on that link, a new web page opens with the form data you just filled in. Bookmark that page and use it at any time to update or correct your information.

 

SMiLE Presents…Lions Worldwide

Posted on by
Reply

LionsWorldwideSMiLE Presents…

The main goal of SMiLE is to centralize and share all information about technology and social media. In ‘SMiLE Presents’ we try to centralize information and share it using new ideas and technologies…

A first project is sharing location based information. We use a location based blog to visualize information about Lions worldwide. A first ‘map list’ is one containing information about ‘Lion’ Magazines worldwide.

If you cannot find your online ‘Lion’ magazine archive on the map, leave a remark stating the link to the ‘Lion’ magazine web archive. At regular intervals we will update the map adding your information and thus chairing it…

Lion Tom Van Kerschaver
Lions Club Brugge Maritime
Belgium, MD112 A

Looking up Lions social media sites

Posted on by
Reply

Let all Lions know about your Club’s web and social media sites!
Register today!

You think social media is great?Problems?!
You want to set up a social media site or web site for your club and need some ideas how it might look like?
You just set up a club social media page and need some “Likes”, “+1″ or fans?

The problem …
Too bad that the only way to find Lions Clubs websites, facebook and Google+ pages, etc. is “driven by accident” – using web search or similar.

So it will be unlikely that other Lions find your website or social media site easily. And posting your new site on our facebook page or facebook group is only a solution for a few days … then it’s moved out of sight by other posts.

Connect

 

The solution – register!
You can stop this – just participate in our
“Lions Clubs Social Media Directory” Questionnaire.

 

The idea is simple:

Each Club enters the information about the web sites and social media sites it has setup in our little questionnaire (http://www.lionssmile.org/smile-extras/smile-questionnaire-1/).Social Media Directory

The SMiLE team collects that information and compiles a nice and pretty list out of it.
By publishing that list on our Blog at http://www.lionssmile.org/smile-extras/lions-social-media-directory/, every Lion around the globe just has this “one stop shop” to find the right web address(es) for your club.

The first compilation is scheduled for May, 5th. After that date we update the directory regularly, as needed.

We are looking forward to see your club listed soon!

Stefan Kaufmann
SMiLE Core Team
Lions Club Rüsselsheim, Germany
MD111-MS

20 Years Ago Today: The First Website Is Published

Posted on by
Reply

On April 30, 1993, CERN published a statement — on the Web, no less! — that made the technology behind the World Wide Web available on a royalty-free basis. (Specifically, this was the software required to run a web server, a basic browser and a library of code.)

And thus the modern public Web was born, at info.cern.ch. http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Read the full article:
http://www.zdnet.com/first-ever-website-is-back-online-7000014707/

Cyber Lions Clubs – What are they and are they real?

Posted on by
2

Buckeye Cyber LionsWith the continuing growth and access to the Internet people are feeling more social than ever. People are using this medium as a new way in which to serve the community.

Cyber Lions clubs are Lions Clubs that conduct the majority of their business and meetings online. The online meetings have the advantage of eliminating the need to travel to attend meetings, members can even be in different cities and still participate in meetings. There is still the opportunity to meet face to face and to carry out community projects or it can be used just for personal interaction between members. Cyber clubs can offer members more flexibility to attend regular meetings and provide more productivity, just online with the use of the Internet. Many of us now find work and family commitments are take up more and more of our time and we are having to choose between these and serving the community. Clubs can also set up a cyber branch within their club with the intent to retain those members who could be lost due to time commitments or extended travel.

Cyber Lions Clubs are real clubs, they are the same as traditional clubs, they follow all the same rules and all the same responsibilities as any other club. To charter a club you require the same minimum 20 members and the sponsorship of a club or district cabinet and the approval of the District Governor and pay the relevant fees. One difference is that 75% of charter members must live or work within the district of which the club is chartered.

To find out more about Cyber Lions Clubs and tools used to manage them look for more posts to follow.

Lion Rodney Law
Aspley Lions Club
MD201Q3

Facebook Best Practices

Posted on by
2

facebook iconYour club has a Facebook Page. Wonderful! Now what?!?

Here are some best practices that will help your Page and status updates receive more “Likes” and shares:

Pictures/albums that receive the most likes/shares are of club activities in which your club members are doing something: volunteering and helping the community. “Doing” is the operative word; not staged “grip and grins”. Be sure to wear your vests and/or have your club banner/signage in the background in some of the pictures. Group shots, staged “grip and grins”, and pictures taken at weekly meetings are great to share, and important for building cohesion and morale within your club, but generally they are of little interest to anyone other than your club, which is why LCI and other clubs do not share them.

Extremely important: add descriptions to your albums/pictures. You club knows exactly what you are doing in the pictures, but without detailed descriptions the rest of the world has no idea.

The Page administrator should complete the “About” section by clicking “Edit Page” and selecting “Update Info” from the drop down, and then you can edit “Basic Information”. At minimum include your City/Town and Postal Code.

Hide cover photos from your wall. They’re already on the top of your page and don’t need to be on your wall. When you hide them the most current will still display on top, and all of them will remain in your photos. Click the Pencil icon next to the cover photo on your wall and select “Hide from Page”.

Be sure to “Like” facebook.com/lionssmile and facebook.com/lionsclubs and we will “Like” your club’s page in return. In doing so we will see your recent status updates which is important so we can share those that may be of interest to other Lions.

Comment below if you have other suggestions!

Social Media Lounge @ Hamburg

Posted on by
Reply
Help @ Social Media Lounge

Help @ Social Media Lounge

Are you going to the Hamburg International convention?

Do you have questions about social media?
Need help to setup an facebook account?
Want to learn how to Tweet?

Join the SMiLE Team at the Social Media Forum.
Look for the volunteers in the yellow t-shirts.

More details follow….

SMiLE Goes Global

Posted on by
13

SMiLE now means “Social Media including Lions Everywhere”

During its inception September 2012, SMiLE meant “Social Media in Lions Europe” and our intention was to provide resources only for clubs in the Europe.

When we were invited to give seminars, officiate a panel, and run the social media lounge at the Hamburg convention we had to focus on a global audience for that event, and it became apparent that everything we do should benefit Lions clubs worldwide.

We moved our blog here, to LionsSmile.org. Our FB Page is now facebook.com/LionsSmile and our Twitter is @Lions_Smile.

Currently we are a team of five from Belgium and Germany. Like all Lions we are volunteers who have families, careers, and responsibilities to our clubs. We would like to grow our core team by a few members who represent other areas of the world. We meet weekly on Mondays at 2pm CDT (UTC/GMT -5 hours), and our meetings are conducted in English via Google+ Hang Out.

We also need Lions who will write blog posts about social media, and share articles and other resources that already exist. Success stories involving fundraising via social media are extremely beneficial!

Add a comment if you are interested in becoming involved and/or have anything to share.