Wednesday 4 August 2010

Great Euroblog on social media: Waltzing Matilda (Twitter tag #bkaeb)

“The views and ideas in this blog are entirely those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the European Commission”, make the blog Waltzing Matilda sound more like a promise than a threat, given the less than cuddly image of the EU institutions.

Based at the social media team of the European Commission’s DG Communication, Waltzing Matilda sets out to look at evolutions and revolutions in the social media world.



The latest post, however, makes us wonder what the future will hold: Alenka Natek reflects on the end of her traineeship.



This leaves only two team members, Bert Van Maele and Anne Christensen.



The latest Waltzing Matilda post directly related to social media was, in EU jargon, inter-institutional in character: an interview with the Web Communication Unit of the European Parliament. Their work includes several social media platforms, not forgetting the Writing for (y)EU blog we mentioned yesterday. However, their main job is to run the web pages of the EP. The interview ends with good advice for communicators in other organisations.



The war room describes how organisations need to use social media: centralise the development of core messages and decentralise the distribution to and interaction with the outside world.



In an interview with Antonia Mochan, Waltzing Matilda tells us how the European Commission’s Representation in the United Kingdom uses social media including Antonia’s blog, in order to engage directly with people. – A quote worth remembering:

One should think of social media as a reception rather than a meeting.





#bkaeb Twitter tag



The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.



Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.



On Bloggingportal.eu Waltzing Matilda has been placed in the category Commissioners, and it has published one entry during the last seven days.



Waltzing Matilda was one of the more popular Euroblogs among Bloggingportal.eu readers.



On the Netvibes pages of the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels, Waltzing Matilda is listed among EU officials in the selection of Euroblogs.



Waltzing Matilda is well worth the #bkaeb seal of approval. The entries about online media are of durable interest to public and private organisations, and the blog posts are well written. If possible, the (now decimated) blog team could try to publish more frequently, possibly by recruiting new members.




Ralf Grahn



P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Ralf

    Thanks for the post!

    Alenka has been a great contributor and we are very sad to see her go. We will do our very best to keep on writing, and to get better at it too!

    Hopefully the next trainee will be another great asset on the team. She should arrive in October.

    Anne

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