Media companies are increasingly encouraged to engage with their audience via social media. But this basic engagement can just be a first step. In an ideal world, the members of that audience will also interact with each other, continuing the debate started by the news organisation, deepening the impact of news stories, and building loyalty around the media brand to make sure it survives in the future.

This is all very well, but how do you do it? Well, it’s not always easy, argued the panel on community building at the Social Media World Forum in London yesterday. 

Nick Reynolds, the public accountability executive for BBC Online, advised caution when building a community from scratch. “Just because you have a marketing budget to spend, don’t think that’s going to result in a community,” he said. Instead, he urged professionals to think about whether they’re appealing to a genuine interest group. Mark Coatney, director at Tumblr also emphasised that, whatever you do in terms of community building, it is important to have clear goals and to understand the motivations of the group that you’re trying to reach. When adding a new feature, ask yourself, “Would I do this? Why would I do this?” he advised.

Google+ has come in for a lot of flack. It’s been called a “ghost town” by various news organisations and one viral image explaining social networks through the medium of donuts (of all things!) implied that while every other social platform serves a obvious purpose, the only people using Google+ were Google+ employees.

Speaking at the Social Media World Forum in London yesterday, Chris Brogan, president of Human Business Works and author of Google Plus for Business, makes the case that businesses – and by extension publishers – should be thinking about Google+.

For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

A few days ago, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson switched the name of his official Twitter account @MayorofLondon to @Boris Johnson, just at the start of the formal election period and his re-election campaign. This provoked heated accusations that he had hijacked the official account by transferring the 253,144 followers tracking the activities of the London mayor's office to his re-election campaign, reported the Guardian.

In fact, when someone changes his or her Twitter handle (the @name associated with the account), all the other profile information – followers and following – remains the same.

The electoral debate aside, the Guardian took the opportunity to reflect on the nature of social media identities and the “ownership” of journalists’ Twitter accounts.

The case have some journalistic precedents for example the episode when Laura Kuenssberg, formerly the BBC’s chief political correspondent, moved to become ITV business editor, and transferred her 60,000 followers to her new account.

A 30-minute video advocacy campaign exposing Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony got viral last week on the web reaching 17 million views on Vimeo and about 80 million views on YouTube.

The Kony 2012 video, realised by Invisible Children, generated a huge debate, amongst others, about how to conduct an advocacy campaign, how to cover complex issues trying to reach a wide audience or how to report on Uganda problems.

From a journalistic point of view, what was most interesting is how the video went viral so quickly thanks to the role of social media and online sharing.

An article on Forbes illustrated the 12 lessons we can learn from the video about how powerful social media can be in aiming for social changes.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project published a survey about the role social media played amongst young people, ages 18-29, in sharing the video. It was based on telephone interviews conducted 9-11 March 2012, among a national sample of 814 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States, the report says.