Go social for Guide Dogs

Social media has been around for about five or ten years now (depending on who you ask!). And so this week when I visited the Social Media World Forum in London, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the last few years and take a look at how things have evolved.

With such a large event taking place and with so many visitors from all over the world, it was clear just how important social media has become. The last year has seen many new and exciting platforms coming out, which mean people are not short of interesting options for expressing their thoughts with others on shared interests and issues.

That said, there are still only two overwhelming giants in the industry. Facebook was founded in 2004 as a social network site for Harvard University but it wasn’t available in the UK until 2006, which is also when Twitter began its life. Both have certainly had a dramatic impact on the world we live in.

It’s weird to think that 7 years ago, to ‘poke’ someone was a mild form of physical assault, and if you went about your day ‘tweeting’ you would be considered more than a little odd. Now some of the world’s finest academics, musicians and athletes are ‘tweeting’ to their hearts content as well as Joe Bloggs and his dog – everybody wants a piece of the action.

Social media has formed out of nowhere, grown faster than predicted and is increasing its influence on the world at an astounding rate. It is arguably now the fastest way of spreading information to large numbers of people. For this reason people, businesses and organisations have been scrambling to keep up and figure out ways to harness the medium to benefit them and their causes.

At Guide Dogs, our mission is clear - will not rest until blind and partially sighted people can enjoy the same freedom of movement as everyone else. Social media gives us an incredible opportunity to push this forward, providing new and useful ways for us to listen and talk to the people we want to help, and who can help us.

Our social media network has spread quickly over the last 12 months and we hope it will continue to do so. But we’re not doing it because Mark Zuckerberg says we should or because we want to hear about Charlie Sheen’s life on Twitter - our aim is to use social media for the benefit of all guide dog owners, volunteers and fundraisers as best we can.

We have an extranet with discussion forums so that volunteers can voice new ideas, raise concerns and discuss general volunteering topics. We have Guide Dogs Facebook and Twitter accounts so that we can converse with guide dog owners/supporters and so that they can converse with each other. We have YouTube and Flickr accounts so that we can share videos and images quickly with other social communities across the world. With any organisation communication is key – this ability to communicate with so many different people in such a short space of time is an incredibly exciting prospect for Guide Dogs.

This is social media - it is made by and meant for all of us. If you have anything that you would like to share with us and the rest of the world – visit and contribute to our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr accounts. The good old fashioned email still works too – socialmedia@guidedogs.org.uk. We look forward to hearing from you!