Social Media: is it for your Business?

Social Media is possibly the biggest game changer when it comes to growing businesses within the era of the Millennial. According to socialmedianews.com.au over 15,000,000 Monthly Active Australian Users on Facebook and 9,000,000 Monthly Active users on Instagram, there are more people than ever accessing the ‘social’ side of the internet. Keep in mind this is only in Australia! Social Media is one of if not the most influential platforms to young people and now also older generations too. With over 6 in 10 Australians using Facebook and 1 in 2 of them using it daily. Critically companies must adapt to this as they grow their business within the digital age. Some businesses do this extremely well with collaborations with international social media influencers other brands remain lacklustre, and it ultimately causes their demise. Digital is evolving, using the power of social media to create business awareness is the way forward for 2019.

Still not sold on the idea of Social Media for your company? In 2016 the Western Australian Tourism released a series of Magical Stories that featured in all of the beautiful locations in Western Australia these clips were released over a series of years and are still being used today with the justanotherday.westernaustralia.com website. Now, don’t get me wrong in the beginning this campaign had a few hiccups with some people using the campaign hashtag to spread words of negativity. But, over two years later since the campaign first began Instagram has seen more than 600,000 posts of quality images and videos of people enjoying

Western Australia.

Social Media will never completely be something that is 100% a positive thing, and we have to allow people to share their opinions but often after a little bit of drama dies down the outcome can be significant. This #Justanotherdayinwa campaign is an excellent example because although there was slight controversy in the beginning two years on there is still a variety of people that continue to post content on using this hashtag. The content is also high-quality using Drones, DSLR cameras and are all epic shots featuring Western Australian landscapes. All in all, this is a successful government campaign that has drawn A LOT of attention to Western Australia.

Social Media can be a great tool when used correctly, but often people who use it don’t understand who they are marketing towards. Target Market is one of, if not the most important parts of your social media strategy. Understanding who your target market is to be able to grow your following to in turn increase your business is a huge part of being successful on Social Media. You could have 10,000 followers on social media, but if none of them is your ideal client, then you’ve got a problem because you probably aren’t making any sales for your business When people with only 1,000 followers might be twice as successful as you. One Australian Business that has grown a considerable amount in the last 12 months is Tribe Skin Care which now makes over $90,000 of sales a month with their business

strategy.

Photo: Instagram.com/tribeskincare

That majorly has focused on social media marketing using paid influencer promotion. All from her home office in her house mind you! Tribe Skin Care is a perfect example of understanding who their target market is and being able to develop relationships with influencers who also have followings of these same target market to build authentic business practices.

Photo: Instagram.com/tribeskincare

Social Media has been proven to grow businesses exceptionally quickly as well as developing plans to build businesses. With Social Media such a prevalent part of society it is only right that companies start to adapt to use social media to grow and ultimately see tremendous results with growth and engagement. 

Written by: Lavinia Wehr 

That majorly has focused on social media marketing using paid influencer promotion. All from her home office in her house mind you! Tribe Skin Care is a perfect example of understanding who their target market is and being able to develop relationships with influencers who also have followings of these same target market to build authentic business practices.

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My Health Record- greater than the sum of its errors?

The technology behind My Health Record has been described by international experts as nothing more than “digitised paper”. Harvard Medical School International Healthcare Innovation professor Dr John Halamka claims it uses such out of date technology that crucial patient information may be unable to be ready or shared by computers.

“The My Health record is a noble idea but the standard they chose is from 1995; it uses PDFs, it’s not computable, it is just digitised paper,” he told News Corp Australia.

An ADHA spokesperson defended the software, replying that “Over 100 clinical information systems are accredited to connect to My Health Record and they consume structured data such as SNOMED [Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine] codes on diseases and AMT [Australian Medicines Terminology] codes on medicines. This functionality is driving decision support and other logic in those systems through those computable codes.” 

This criticism comes after My Health Record’s privacy chief quit early last month amid claims the organisation and Health Minister Greg Hunt’s office have not been taking the concerns of internal privacy experts seriously enough.

Whole Ms Hunt and ADHA have refused to comment, Ms Hunt has since joined ANZ Bank.

The agency has since announced citizens will be able to opt out of My Health Record at any time and permanently delete their records.

Previously, if an individual had not opted out by the given deadline, it couldn’t later be deleted- only made ‘unavailable’.

This decision comes in response to widespread criticism and concerns from citizens regarding the privacy of their data.

Mr Hunt has defended the scheme, arguing it offers greater benefits to citizens than the sum of these challenges.

“If you are a mum, you will be able to have access to the vaccination records of your children,” Mr Hunt told the Nine Network.

“If you have got older parents and you don’t know what medicines they have been on, and they are in an extreme moment in a hospital, the emergency department will be able to protect them and ensure they are not taking something for which they have an allergy.

“It is common sense and something that six million Australians have adopted. It will give all Australians access to their medical records, which should be a basic right.”

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Claire Dowler

Claire is the manager of Akolade’s government and digital portfolio. She’s passionate about emerging digital trends, particularly in the public sector. In her spare time she enjoys picking up heavy things and putting them back down again and animals are her favourite kind of people. 

Follow me on LinkedIn for information regarding future Akolade events as well as future blog posts @ Claire Dowler

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It takes a village to support people living with dementia

A dementia-friendly community is a place where people living with dementia are supported to live a high quality of life with meaning, purpose and value.  - Dementia Australia

In Australia there are currently 430,000 people living with dementia. 70% of people with dementia are living in the community. This number is going to continue to rise, so what can be done beyond simply providing services?

In the Northern Beaches of Sydney we have established the Northern Beaches Dementia Alliance and wider working group who will govern and facilitate the local dementia friendly community project. Although our goals are inclusiveness and social change in the community for people living with dementia, we have designed the project as a collaborative education opportunity for providers as well as the community.

Our Alliance and working party includes a variety of local organisations, businesses, community services and groups. We have also recruited local aged care service providers, people living dementia and their carers. As a result of the project, there is a number of benefits to various stakeholders including people living with dementia and their carers, local community members, services providers.

By educating the community and creating social and physical environments that are inclusive, safe and supportive for people living with dementia; we aim to improve quality of life. Physical environments that are dementia friendly have the potential to reduce preventable falls and unnecessary hospitalisations. Supportive and dementia friendly social environments will potentially reduce the impact of caring for someone living with dementia and decrease early admissions into residential aged care facilities. By improving the social and physical environments, we will also see a reduction in the costs associated with dementia care and unnecessary services.

A large focus of the project is education with the goal to improve awareness and reduce the stigma associated with dementia. Dementia-friendly education will be aimed at students, local community members, local businesses and aged care services providers and will cover principles to guide individuals and organisations. Through participation in this project education or consultations, the Northern Beaches Community has the opportunity to experience community cohesion in support of people living with dementia. In addition organisations will work collaboratively alongside people living with dementia and their carers to improve their business practice and be publicly recognised as dementia-friendly.

Throughout the process of design, implementation and evaluation of the project activities, service providers will be immersed in and engaged with the local community, people living with dementia and their carers. As a result , provider knowledge of dementia will be enhanced. Additionally provider understanding of holistic needs and wants of someone living with dementia (outside of the clinical context) will be enhanced and inspire new and creative models of care. As providers engage with the community in a meaningful and collaborative context, their ability to anticipate the needs and wants of future generations will be enhanced. Resultantly we hope to see improvements in strategic planning and innovation to meet these needs and wants.

This represents a drop in the ocean, ripple to start the wave of social action. As more communities stand with their members who are living with dementia we will see greater benefits for the wider society.

For more information, contact Ilsa Bird, Northern Beaches Dementia Friendly Community Project Manager, Your Side

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Ilsa Bird

Ilsa is an advocate for person-centred care, wellness and reablement in community care. Ilsa initiated the Dementia Friendly Communities project in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. The goal of this project is to improve community awareness of dementia through education and increase opportunities for social inclusion for people living with dementia in the community.

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Charities welcome donation bill but warn advocacy is still compromised

Charities welcome the foreign political donation bill but said that they are still at risk of funding cuts for being critical of government

Charities have welcomed the passing of a bill to ban foreign political donations through the Senate, citing the prior bill would have stifled vital public advocacy.

The legislation for the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform Bill cleared the upper house with parties making the issue a priority, paving the way for the ban to become law before the end of the year and freeing up public, political discussion.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) CEO, Kelly O’Shanassy, said: “The bill would have prevented many groups from receiving international philanthropy for important public interest work and would have had a chilling effect on charities and non-profits that hold governments to account and advocate for better polices.

“Silencing civil society would have disastrously weakened democracy in our country. [Thursday’s] bill is a significant improvement on the original proposal, addressing many of the concerns raised by charities and non-profits.”

O’Shanassy added that they particularly welcomed the change to the definition of ‘electoral matter’ as a substantial improvement on current legislation and will work to free charities from a significant red tape burden.

Government Senate Leader Mathais Cormann said changes to the electoral laws were needed in “good time” before the next federal election, as early as the first half of 2019.

“It’s a reform that seeks to ensure the electoral system in Australia is not subject to undue foreign interference,” Cormann told parliament, adding the “historic” bill would ensure all political actors were subject to disclosure and transparency requirements.

Donations of more than $100 to all “political actors”, which includes parties, individuals, candidates and significant political campaigners, from foreign governments and state-owned enterprises will be banned.

Charities will not be prevented from receiving foreign gifts but won’t be able to use foreign money for political spending. They will also not be prevented from using foreign donations to advocate for non-partisan issues.

The Human Rights Law Centre welcomed the electoral funding bill but warned that the bill “is not the end of the road on the democratic reform”.

The Centre’s Executive Director, Hugh de Krester, said: “The government must do more to address the influence large corporations have through election spending and lobbying. Further, charities across the country still face significant pressure from the threat of funding cuts in retaliation for advocacy critical of government policy.

“Charities and community groups do vital work building a better, healthier society. Our democracy is stronger when they are free to speak up.”

The Greens opposed the legislation, calling for a ban on all corporate donations. They cited that the foreign donations bill is not a real attempt at cleaning up democracy and warned that the bill may create a loophole for political parties to restructure their finances to avoid state developer donation bans, despite assurances from other MPs.

“The big money that is pouring into our parliament from vested interest is a fungating cancer on our democracy,” party leader, Richard Di Natale said.

O’Shanassy said that while the bill is an improvement, there is more work to do.

“A robust electoral finance and donations framework must do more to enhance transparency of donations to political parties and set caps on political donations and election spending.”

Written by: Naomi Neilson

Recently graduated with a Bachelor in Communications with a major in Journalism and Public Relations, Naomi Neilson has jumped straight into the world of media and press with Third Sector. She is motivated and passionate to explore the industry and thrives on creating an interactive and social platform for Third Sectors unique readers.

In her free time she can be found either watching the footy or designing her next big art piece around sourcing stories and engaging with new people.

Follow me on LinkedIn for information regarding future Akolade events as well as future blogs posts @ Naomi Neilson

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Dementia Care Matters unique approach centres around idea that “Feelings Matter Most”

Dementia Care Matters is a leading international dementia care culture change organisation based in the UK, Canada and Australia. We provide consultancy, learning development, training resources and practice based research. We believe a new culture of care comes from focussing on a model of emotional intelligence.

The heart of care is all about emotional care. This requires a shift in care services from only providing task based care. The shift from ‘doing’ it to achieving real emotional connection is at the heart of ‘being’ person centred.

Dementia Care Matters has a “Feelings Matter Most” approach. Life is an emotional journey; we all crave real human connection. This applies even more to people living with dementia. People learn to trust emotions and rely more on themselves as feeling beings rather than thinking beings.

This philosophy comes from the knowledge that people experiencing dementia live with a condition that affects their ability to process facts, logic and thinking.  However, feelings and a persons’ spirit remain.  In the absence of being able to rely on facts, logic and thinking along with this experience of dementia, feelings become more important.  As dementia progresses, the expression of feelings becomes more vital in how people living with dementia communicate and experience the world around them.

The training we offer is about exploring the ideas personally that underpin these approaches; examine how they fit with their own experience of working in dementia care, in supporting people living with dementia and to think how you can improve the daily lived experience of people with dementia by being a part of this whole philosophy.

The phrase ‘person centred care’ is used in this model of care as it is in many other dementia care learning programmes.  However, we offer this perspective:

From our experience care settings do not change and become ‘person centred’ as a result of just having training, standards and competencies. Care settings change because the people leading it have faced the truth about the experience of people with dementia living in aged care homes.  The truth is that many care settings are consumed with getting ‘tasks’ done whilst people with dementia sit bored and lonely in lounges.

Dementia Care Matters has conducted over 750 audits in aged care homes and we find that on average people living with dementia are not living but instead experiencing ‘neutral care’ (boredom, tasks being ‘done’ to them in silence, being asleep) for 70% of the time we audit. 

Therefore this model of care aims to challenge beliefs and attitudes that underpin much of current dementia care practices. It also aims to support, inspire and reinforce beliefs that many committed staff already have about person centred dementia care.

At Dementia Care Matters we encounter managers, nurses and care staff supporting people living with dementia for whom the ‘Feelings Matter Most’ approach fits exactly with who they are and why they came to work with people living with dementia in the first place. We believe that person centred care begins with ourselves. How can people be expected to implement a person-centred approach if they themselves are not treated in a person-centred way at work or in their personal lives? It’s about getting back to basics.

Step inside a Butterfly Dementia Care Home in the UK, Australia & Canada where like a butterfly, the people working there are transforming their family members’ lives with gentle flitting, colour, movement, touch and stillness.

Gone are the uniforms, drug trolleys, staff toilets, large dining rooms, and features of an institution. People are no longer seen as ' residents ' but as family - the old culture of ‘them and us ' swept away. Task orientation, standing around watching people eat, ‘doing to’ people and having staff notices ' put up ‘in peoples’ own home have no place in this model of care. Detached management styles and an over focus on processes belong to the malignant social psychology of the past.

Instead people living and working together come alive sharing their histories, eating, laughing, and supporting each other to recall who they were. Living in the moment is key - helping people to be reached and connected to whoever they now need to ' be '.

The driving force behind this movement in dementia care Dr David Sheard, Founder of Dementia Care Matters left his employment in 1995, after 15 years in the UK National Health Service, with the words “I won't run factories in dementia care anymore.”

Dementia Care Matters offers Care Home Development, Learning Products and Resources, Tailored Consultancy and Training, Mattering in Hospital and University Recognised Learning in person centred care, leadership and training skills.

The Dementia Care Matters Australian Team is available to help transform your organisations culture! Please contact us info@dementiacarematters.com or visit our website www.dementiacarematters.com.

Written by: Helen Blayden, National Director of Dementia Care Matters

Helen Blayden is an experienced Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the hospital & health care industry. Skilled in Dementia Care, Nursing Education, Coaching, Medical-Surgical, and Medication Administration. Strong professional with a Diploma in Frontline Management focused in Aged Care from Positive outcomes.

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Indigenous youth mental health on the decline

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a report that finds one in three Indigenous youth are experiencing very high levels of psychological distress

A new report has found more than one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are experiencing very high levels of psychological distress.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released its 2018 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Adolescent and Youth Health and Wellbeing report, which found that youth mental health is still a leading cause of death among young people.

Manager of headspace Cultural Practice and Diversity, Nathan Bramston, said: “There is a huge demand for social and emotional wellbeing and mental health support to meet the unique needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.

“Twenty per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live in rural areas with 49 per cent of that figure living in the Northern Territory and it is in these areas where there is a lack of mental health services for these young people.”

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that suicide is the leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people, accounting for more than 40 per cent of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth deaths.

In 2017-18, headspace reported that 7,084 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people visited a headspace centre – which is close to 1,000 more than 2016-17.

The report found almost two in three young Indigenous people aged 15-24 experienced one or more personal stressors. The most common stress was not being able to find employment, followed by a death of a close friend or family member and serious or mental illness.

Over one in three Indigenous young people also reported they were being treated unfairly both in and outside educational settings because they were Indigenous.

“Some of the challenges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people face when help-seeking can be attributed to the effects of intergenerational trauma from past policies and events,” Bramston said.

According to Bramston, there can also be a language barrier when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people try to seek help, as some remote communities speak English as a second or even third language.

Bramston said headspace was working to reduce the stigma around seeking mental health services and were trialing outreach programs where headspace workers visit troubled youth in their communities. The organisation is also implementing educational and employment programs for youth in Indigenous communities.

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Naomi Neilson

Recently graduated with a Bachelor in Communications with a major in Journalism and Public Relations, Naomi Neilson has jumped straight into the world of media and press with Third Sector. She is motivated and passionate to explore the industry and thrives on creating an interactive and social platform for Third Sectors unique readers.

In her free time she can be found either watching the footy or designing her next big art piece around sourcing stories and engaging with new people.

Follow me on LinkedIn for information regarding future Akolade events as well as future blog posts @ Naomi Neilson

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Four social media metrics that matter more than ‘likes’

I have banned the words ‘reach’, ‘likes’ and ‘social actions’ at the University of Sydney.

When I’m asked to report on how many ‘likes’ a post or campaign got, I break out into a sweat and worry I’m turning into a lipstick wearing, floral dress loving version of The Hulk.

It’s not because I don’t want people to like our content, like some sort of social media Grinch. It’s because the way that people interact with content social media has changed ( link:  https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308393 ).  Metrics like reach and likes are impulses split second reactions as content moves through the feed. They don’t tell us anything about the wants and needs of our audience.

Here are four metrics to use in your next content report that mean much, much more than likes.

Landing page views and CTRs

Anyone can click ‘like’ on a pretty picture or a funny meme, but it takes an invested audience to actually click through to your webpage( link: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/361750134220832 ) (an environment not owned or controlled by Facebook. )

Furthermore, what percentage of the audience who saw your post clicked through? This is called the Click Through Rate (CTR) ( link: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/928745330472862 ) . A low CTR means people are seeing your post and not acting on it because it doesn’t resonate (or you’re perhaps targeting the wrong audience).  A high CTR means it’s hitting the mark.

Both of these metrics can be charted in the Facebook insights tab. Rather than comparing your page’s metrics to industry benchmarks or competitors, start by competing with yourself. Work out what your existing average is and start experimenting with content and audiences to improve it.

CPC and CPV

“How many likes will I get for $100 on Facebook?” This is another question that feeds the social media Hulk in me.

 Look beyond the likes and prove return on investment for your social media activities by analysis how much you’re paying in terms of cost per click (CPC) and cost per view (CPV) ( link: https://adespresso.com/blog/facebook-ads-cost/ ).

When it comes to Facebook ads, the platform works like an auction rather than a store.  You identify who your audience is and can manually adjust how much you’re willing to pay compared to competitors for a specific action (click, view etc) from that audience.  This, and the relevance of your content (as well as many other factors) determine how much you’ll pay per action.

To see return on investment; take a look at these stats in your page’s Ad or Business Manager tool. Take note of the CPC for content and the CPV for video and aim to work out what wording, creative and audience attributes get the lowest cost per engagement for your brand.

Tagging in comments

The way consumers ( particularly millennials ) are using social media has changed ( link: https://medium.com/@dooleymr/a-new-era-in-social-media-why-millennials-arent-sharing-anymore-15ffe99b9165 ). Have you noticed people don’t post status updates or even share posts anymore?

In the wake of Cambridge Analytica ( link: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/what-is-cambridge-analytica-firm-at-centre-of-facebook-data-breach ) and with the rising importance of personal branding and maintaining a squeaky clean digital footprint, sharing content with all of your network is waning.  Facebook users are now far more likely to tag relevant friends in the comments section of content that resonates than share it on their ‘walls’.

Instead of reporting on how many likes you latest post or video got, keep a record of how many people tagged others in the comments to gauge its impact and relevance.

Average watch time

A view on Facebook is three seconds. How much information can you really get from something in that time? Your video may have got 50,000 views, but how many of the people who watched it got past the title slide?  ( link: https://marketingland.com/6-metrics-measure-success-facebook-videos-224452)

Instead of reporting on video likes, or even views, look into your Facebook analytics to determine how many of the total views watched for 10 seconds or more, and what the average watch time is (prepare to be disappointed, Facebook studies have revealed it’s about 10 seconds across the board).

Again, chart what your existing average watch time is, and work at creating video content that gets the call to action across in the first few seconds, and then aims at engaging the audience for more than ten. Make your videos as short and snappy as possible and watch the average view times soar.

What metrics do you report on for social media? How do you track audience engagement and content resonance? I’d love to hear from you on LinkedIn @ HERE

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Jenna Bradwell, Social Media Specialist, Marketing and Communications Division at The University of Sydney                                                                                               

Jenna is a social media specialist with a passion for crowd sourced content, social media activations and effective paid social strategy. Outside of work she is a wine lover, culture-enthusiast and passionate hater of Instagram's 'Valencia' filter.

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Tips to get the most value out of your social media

Social media is something that will continuously change and develop. With so many new social platforms out there it really becomes difficult to understand where the hype and trend is happening. But for organisations, the question still remains: what is the best way to gain maximum value out of your social media?

Let’s dive into some easy and simply tips that can help you get the most value out of your social media:

            1. Embrace influencer marketing –

sThe power of influencer marketing is increasing than ever before. In 2017 influencer marketing was the fastest-growing online acquisition method of the year! This trend is spreading like wildfire and as a result organisations are spending big bucks on making this part of their social media strategy. By giving people the opportunity to share their passion on certain topics can immensely shape and influence audience opinions. For organisations it’s really about making the right choice with their influencer’ and knowing how much value they can add to your long term goals and strategies. 

2. Establish a solid social media strategy –

It’s easier said than done! Your social media strategy really needs to align with your organisational strategy. What is your organisation about? What services do they provide? How can the benefit everyone? These things should be heavily considered when developing your own social media strategy. Knowing your social platforms and understanding where the hype is occurring can really help the community engage with your business. The content needs to be timely and being able to implement and capitalise on your data can really assist in understanding where the buzz is happening and why. Benchmarking yourselves can push you to stretch your limits and delve into content that you probably wouldn’t touch before.

3. Leverage data  -

Numbers, metrics, data, statistics – these all contribute to provide actionable insights concerning your social media strategy. Some of the raw data that everyone uses are: likes, shares, mentions, comments, hashtag usage, etc. Although this is only bare minimum of what social media strategists look at, but from this we can begin to understand that things like this can help us monitor online social media behaviour.  At the end of the day, organisations use data and analytics to measure their return on investment. If you aren’t getting dollar value out of your social media, then something is amiss. It may be time to reconsider your strategy.

  

4. Engage your audience  -

Social media isn’t truly active without your audience. Trying to engage the right target audience can be tough. But if you keep your content, short, simple and sweet the target market do respond. The success of your engagement really lies in the way you shape your content. Timely content is key – being ahead of the game and aware of trending news is what keeps your audience engage and your social media alive. Strategically using your hashtags is also another key tip – these hashtags makes it’s easier for people to find you and helps you hop onto trends in your market. Encouraging your audience to share posts can help build audience numbers and ultimately creates an active social network.

Still interested? Stay tuned for information on upcoming conferences and summits by following us on Facebook @ Akolade Aust 

Written by: Vishi Peters 

Vishi is a Conference Producer of Akolade’s Government and Digital portfolio. She has a strong interest in current affairs and enjoys giving an educated opinion about emerging trends. She is passionate about photography, enjoys playing cricket, cooking different cuisines and expanding her food knowledge.   

Follow me on LinkedIn for information regarding future Akolade events as well as future blog posts @ Vishi Peters

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