Communication on the social web

I work in "social media" which is just communication. I live on the social web. I don't like email.

I thought it might be interesting to highlight a journey I had recently to illustrate trying to solve a puzzle: to get something done.

The Start ...
I was alerted by a tweet from Jason Craig, mentioning @FordEU, which contained a "Ford Ad" I hadn't previously seen.

It was a nice image, but I couldn't use it without knowing where the image was from.

The Middle ...
So ... I pinged +Andrew Swain and +Fabrizio Rinaldi in a private Facebook group with a link to the tweet. I communicate with Fabrizio and Andrew regularly, they work at +GTB London, an agency which works for Ford.

I could have just emailed the question, but apart from not liking email, posting in the (private) +Ford Europe Social Media Managers group meant that the question was visible to a wider (but related) audience: all the other social media managers across Europe.

GTB hadn't made the "Ad" 😕....

But ... +Jose Antonio Martínez came up with a lead. 👍

I did some searching and although I wanted to ultimately share the image for +Ford Europe on Google+ I chose to ask the guy on twitter. If a user doesn't have the Google+ App installed then they won't see the question. Currently Twitter is a safer bet for reaching someone's mobile.

I also commented on the instagram post, to give some added context to the questions I had asked on twitter.

 +Qaasiem Hendricks got back to me. 😀

✌️Yay getting somewhere. The conversation continues.

The end result ...
I posted the artwork to the +Ford Europe Shares Collection.

I also: popped back and let Jason know I'd found where it was from, thanked Qaasiem and pinged him a link to the share, pinged the Friends of Design Academy who also shared on twitter and shared the link with Focus RS fans on Facebook.

Takeaways ...

• Use social web to communicate to get things done. 
• Be social, be respectful. Credit where credit's due. 
• Quasi-public* or limited communication works best.
• One doesn't need personal information (like an email address) to communicate and get things done.

*Quasi-public: if you don't know what that is feel free to ask.