Open Knowledge Café: Social Media & Citizen Science in Gen Z’s Life

On 28th July 2022, the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (ULSIT) in Sofia, Bulgaria held an Open Knowledge Café entitled “Social Media & Citizen Science in Gen Z’s Life”, as part of the CeOS_SE Project.

The focus of the Open Knowledge Café was to raise awareness about CeOS_SE project & Citizen Science Activities. The activity looked at social media and its ability to build a successful promotion strategy. The Open Knowledge Cafe involved youths from Erasmus+ exchange, young scientists, specialists from ULSIT’s university library, and University staff. The event was open to citizens, university lecturers, and pupils.

After a presentation of the CeOS_SE Project by Prof. Tereza Trencheva, PhD, Svetoslava Dimitrova, PhD, presented the Facebook Algorithm and Facebook Insights. Key indicators and signals that the Facebook algorithm considers prioritising different types of content in the News Feed were discussed. Answers to the questions about the meaning and role of the concepts Edge Rank, Social Graph, and Open Graph and how to optimise and create content to be shown more prominently in the News Feed were given and the platform specifics and how to create a personal and business profile were addressed. Hashtags and how to use reels to our advantage were defined and explained. The history, current trends, and benefits of TikTok for businesses were also considered.

The event continued at the University Library of ULSIT, which was a co-organizer of the event. In this informal environment, we continued with the group tasks for the participants. The participants were divided into 5 groups and each group received a product/service/app and they had to design a campaign to promote it on social media. Each group had to present two posts for social media and one influencer to work with for the promotion. The campaigns they had to design were about new books, the app “Duolingo ABC”, the TV series “Only murders in the building”, and skincare products. While each team presented their promotion campaign, guidance was given, and all the teams chose the best presentations.

The event was an opportunity for interested participants to learn about social media usage in an Open way, whilst also contributing to our knowledge on how young people view the marketing potential of online platforms.

Read more about the activities that CeOS_SE is piloting in Southeastern Europe, here.