Monday, May 24, 2010
How social media can get you caught in a lie!
Shamable just posted a story about the implications GPS location-based social networks, most notably, how they can end up getting you in trouble at work or with others you tell a white lie to. This is not the end of privacy, but it's certainly something we all need to be aware of when our tweets don't match our lies, etc. Check it out!
Blogs! And how they can help your cause...
According to Karpf's article on Measuring Influence in the Political Blogosphere, there are over 112 million active blogs online. Is a blog worth starting to promote an organization when it will have to compete with the other 112 million for an audience?
Matt Bai's The Argument shows how blogs can be an essential community builder and a way to spread your organization's message. Blogs can have 1 author or a community of authors. The comments feature allows for people to not only follow your blog but participate in it. And depending on how you respond to them (see the Social Media tips on Facebook and Twitter for some ideas), you can include encompass user comments in your posts, respond to the comments creating a dialogue, or even find blog contributors from these comments.
The key to creating a successful blog is: identify the message your organization wants to get out and frame this message as an interesting story that evokes emotion and empathy. Reach out to your target audience and direct them to your blog, and activate the comments function and even direct email, so your community can start to grow. Add other interesting blogs that pertain to similar topics or blogs that your users have written that relate somehow to your topic. Success: you've created a community where before there was none.
To track the success of your blog or to research other blogs, check out:
Technorati.com
Sitemeter.com
Matt Bai's The Argument shows how blogs can be an essential community builder and a way to spread your organization's message. Blogs can have 1 author or a community of authors. The comments feature allows for people to not only follow your blog but participate in it. And depending on how you respond to them (see the Social Media tips on Facebook and Twitter for some ideas), you can include encompass user comments in your posts, respond to the comments creating a dialogue, or even find blog contributors from these comments.
The key to creating a successful blog is: identify the message your organization wants to get out and frame this message as an interesting story that evokes emotion and empathy. Reach out to your target audience and direct them to your blog, and activate the comments function and even direct email, so your community can start to grow. Add other interesting blogs that pertain to similar topics or blogs that your users have written that relate somehow to your topic. Success: you've created a community where before there was none.
To track the success of your blog or to research other blogs, check out:
Technorati.com
Sitemeter.com
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Social Media Bans
First Pakistan banned Facebook for the user-created event that invited people to draw the prophet, Muhammad, to show Muslin extremists that people were not scared of the kinds of threats that have been doled out to cartoonists in the recent past. Then the government of Pakistan decided they would add YouTube, and certain pages on Flickr and Wikipedia to the ban list.
This is an interesting early effect of globalization. Certain countries, like China and Thailand, decide they do not want their people to have completely free access to all of the news and ideas coming out of other countries. But was Pakistan's ban more than that? Did the thousands of Muslims in Pakistan who protested Facebook have just cause to be angry? When using social media tools to reach global audiences, do we need to be more sensitive to alternative views and religions?
If the Facebook event had not encouraged people to draw the prophet (which is extraordinarily offensive to Muslims), if it had instead asked for discussion on the topic for example, would that have been as affective and not offensive? It it one thing to make a great point, but if your point causes the entire social media platform to be banned in that country (not to mention the thousands of people you made angry) is it still a point that needs to be made?
I'm not sure. I am an avid believer in freedom of the press, of course, and I think the global reach of social media tools is one of the most exciting things about them, but how do we approach possible censorship? If we give in to making our messages more politically correct are we guilty of allowing censorship to exist?
Interestingly enough, the Pakistani government has not yet banned Twitter. Let's see how long that lasts....
This is an interesting early effect of globalization. Certain countries, like China and Thailand, decide they do not want their people to have completely free access to all of the news and ideas coming out of other countries. But was Pakistan's ban more than that? Did the thousands of Muslims in Pakistan who protested Facebook have just cause to be angry? When using social media tools to reach global audiences, do we need to be more sensitive to alternative views and religions?
If the Facebook event had not encouraged people to draw the prophet (which is extraordinarily offensive to Muslims), if it had instead asked for discussion on the topic for example, would that have been as affective and not offensive? It it one thing to make a great point, but if your point causes the entire social media platform to be banned in that country (not to mention the thousands of people you made angry) is it still a point that needs to be made?
I'm not sure. I am an avid believer in freedom of the press, of course, and I think the global reach of social media tools is one of the most exciting things about them, but how do we approach possible censorship? If we give in to making our messages more politically correct are we guilty of allowing censorship to exist?
Interestingly enough, the Pakistani government has not yet banned Twitter. Let's see how long that lasts....
Using Twitter and Facebook to Promote Your Issue
Instead of using them just to be able to say "We're on Twitter and Facebook!" There are so many ways to use social media as popular as Twitter and Facebook are around the world to your advantage but not without a strategy. Treat Twitter and Facebook like any other aspect of your campaign: set goals, plan, act, and then evaluate.
The concept of using social media in campaigns is not a new one. In fact, in the dawn of the internet, the "Aryan Resistance" attempted to use online groups to spread their message and gain supporter. To read their frightening yet surprisingly useful tips for social media, visit DrDigiPol.com.
Some of the useful advice we can take from the "Aryan" strategy are:
1. Seek out other groups with similar goals/messages and connect with them, share your org's ideas
2. "Create posts that are succinct and self-sustaining." Man, were they right about that! You don't have much time to get/hold people's attention, so keep it short, clear, and informative.
3. Post often and a lot. When using social media platforms, your group or page must look active and exciting. It is also nice if you respond to all individual comments made on your page, so people feel involved in the cause.
4. When someone joins your group or "follows" you on Twitter, contact them! As the extremely helpful DigiActive Guide to Twitter Activism reminds us, we should not direct message users when they follow us on Twitter, since the direct message is a rarely used, special function on this site. Keep it casual, tweet at the new user, welcoming them and giving them some info or a link to your Web site/upcoming event, something to let them know how to get more involved if they so desire. With Facebook, you can post on their wall or simply invite them to an event with a personal message etc.
DigiActive's Guide to Facebook Activism has some great ideas on how to most effectively use Facebook for a causes, the best of which I will list here:
1. Make your group page interesting and update frequently. Post multimedia and links to your page and invite group members to do so as well. Since people don't spend too much time on any one Facebook page, keep your group description succinct, and update it with the most relevant news and the few upcoming events every week or so.
2. Invite users to comment and listen to their ideas. If you get some good contributions, highlight them in messages or on the group page to encourage other submissions and to let your members know this is their organization.
3. Make your plan for Facebook and then ask your members to help in every part of the process. Facebook groups are an eclectic bunch, so chances are you'll have people who can build media lists in various cities, people who can design flyers, write press releases, post in blogs, or recruit lots of other members. Use them!
4. Since Facebook is used all over the country and the world, encourage group participation in event-planning, etc. If you want members to organize protests in their respective cities or college campuses, allow active members in those areas to customize the events the way they think will best attract attention and gain followers and then invite them to share multimedia and feedback on how the events went.
DigiActive's Guide to Twitter Activism is a great tool to get more familiar with Twitter tools and language and also offers these great activism tips:
1. Use the hash tags (#) in your tweets to attract traffic to your page, and encourage your followers to hash your cause/group name to also direct people to your initiative.
2. Since Tweets are tiny and not the most informative, use Twitter to direct people to the videos on your YouTube channel, the events and activities on your Facebook page, the news articles you have on Digg, or the new content you have on your Web site.
3. Twitter is great for "swarm intelligence" and "collective action." If you tweet a hashtag (#) for Healthcare protest photos (#healthcare_protest_photos), at the end of the day you can search that tag and get an entire user-generated history of photos. It is also great for spontaneous collective action or real-time updates since many use Twitter on their mobile phones.
4. Find and connect with other activists on Twitter. Follow them, re-tweet them, and start the conversation that could lead to a joint-event, some member crossover, or maybe just an interesting idea/cause to share with your followers.
5. Keep track of twitter activity with a Twitter desktop application: http://twitter.com/downloads.
Have your own tips or experiences using social media for activism? Comment them here!
DigiActive is also a great resource for ongoing tips and information about using social media.
The concept of using social media in campaigns is not a new one. In fact, in the dawn of the internet, the "Aryan Resistance" attempted to use online groups to spread their message and gain supporter. To read their frightening yet surprisingly useful tips for social media, visit DrDigiPol.com.
Some of the useful advice we can take from the "Aryan" strategy are:
1. Seek out other groups with similar goals/messages and connect with them, share your org's ideas
2. "Create posts that are succinct and self-sustaining." Man, were they right about that! You don't have much time to get/hold people's attention, so keep it short, clear, and informative.
3. Post often and a lot. When using social media platforms, your group or page must look active and exciting. It is also nice if you respond to all individual comments made on your page, so people feel involved in the cause.
4. When someone joins your group or "follows" you on Twitter, contact them! As the extremely helpful DigiActive Guide to Twitter Activism reminds us, we should not direct message users when they follow us on Twitter, since the direct message is a rarely used, special function on this site. Keep it casual, tweet at the new user, welcoming them and giving them some info or a link to your Web site/upcoming event, something to let them know how to get more involved if they so desire. With Facebook, you can post on their wall or simply invite them to an event with a personal message etc.
DigiActive's Guide to Facebook Activism has some great ideas on how to most effectively use Facebook for a causes, the best of which I will list here:
1. Make your group page interesting and update frequently. Post multimedia and links to your page and invite group members to do so as well. Since people don't spend too much time on any one Facebook page, keep your group description succinct, and update it with the most relevant news and the few upcoming events every week or so.
2. Invite users to comment and listen to their ideas. If you get some good contributions, highlight them in messages or on the group page to encourage other submissions and to let your members know this is their organization.
3. Make your plan for Facebook and then ask your members to help in every part of the process. Facebook groups are an eclectic bunch, so chances are you'll have people who can build media lists in various cities, people who can design flyers, write press releases, post in blogs, or recruit lots of other members. Use them!
4. Since Facebook is used all over the country and the world, encourage group participation in event-planning, etc. If you want members to organize protests in their respective cities or college campuses, allow active members in those areas to customize the events the way they think will best attract attention and gain followers and then invite them to share multimedia and feedback on how the events went.
DigiActive's Guide to Twitter Activism is a great tool to get more familiar with Twitter tools and language and also offers these great activism tips:
1. Use the hash tags (#) in your tweets to attract traffic to your page, and encourage your followers to hash your cause/group name to also direct people to your initiative.
2. Since Tweets are tiny and not the most informative, use Twitter to direct people to the videos on your YouTube channel, the events and activities on your Facebook page, the news articles you have on Digg, or the new content you have on your Web site.
3. Twitter is great for "swarm intelligence" and "collective action." If you tweet a hashtag (#) for Healthcare protest photos (#healthcare_protest_photos), at the end of the day you can search that tag and get an entire user-generated history of photos. It is also great for spontaneous collective action or real-time updates since many use Twitter on their mobile phones.
4. Find and connect with other activists on Twitter. Follow them, re-tweet them, and start the conversation that could lead to a joint-event, some member crossover, or maybe just an interesting idea/cause to share with your followers.
5. Keep track of twitter activity with a Twitter desktop application: http://twitter.com/downloads.
Have your own tips or experiences using social media for activism? Comment them here!
DigiActive is also a great resource for ongoing tips and information about using social media.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Finding the Right Message
I recently read Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations which is a study on how society's behaviors are changing to make use of new technology. I was excited to discover different ways the general public is using social media and how they like to be reached through it. Unfortunately, Shirky's book was more of a collection of case studies about how people are using social media with very little insight into how organizations can tap into those new behaviors.
There was one example I did find helpful though. It was a case study about how an ordinary citizen used social media to force the NYPD to take action. Evan Guttman's friend Ivanna lost her cell phone in cab. She asked him to help her find it by emailing the phone to see who had it. Turns out, the new owner of the phone was a teenage girl who was not about to give back the phone and had no problem taunting Evan and Ivanna. So, Evan started a blog with updates on the different things they tried to get the phone back and eventually received so many comments from empathetic people that he started a discussion forum as well.
After a few weeks, the media picked up this story as an extraordinary example of how social media could connect people. With the press coverage, the NYPD (who had originally dismissed Evan and Ivanna's pleas for help) actually helped them get the phone returned.
The key here is how powerful and engaged all of these strangers became in this event because of the way the message was framed. As Shirky puts it:
"Had [Evan] presented his mission in completely self-interested terms ("Help my friend save $300!) or in unattainably general ones ("Let's fight theft everywhere!"), the [social media] tools he chose wouldn't have mattered. What he did was to work out a message framed in big enough terms to inspire interest, yet achievable enough to inspire confidence."
This is the goal for all campaigns striving to use social media to unite and organize people. Tell an interesting story with a universal appeal and people will rally behind it.
There was one example I did find helpful though. It was a case study about how an ordinary citizen used social media to force the NYPD to take action. Evan Guttman's friend Ivanna lost her cell phone in cab. She asked him to help her find it by emailing the phone to see who had it. Turns out, the new owner of the phone was a teenage girl who was not about to give back the phone and had no problem taunting Evan and Ivanna. So, Evan started a blog with updates on the different things they tried to get the phone back and eventually received so many comments from empathetic people that he started a discussion forum as well.
After a few weeks, the media picked up this story as an extraordinary example of how social media could connect people. With the press coverage, the NYPD (who had originally dismissed Evan and Ivanna's pleas for help) actually helped them get the phone returned.
The key here is how powerful and engaged all of these strangers became in this event because of the way the message was framed. As Shirky puts it:
"Had [Evan] presented his mission in completely self-interested terms ("Help my friend save $300!) or in unattainably general ones ("Let's fight theft everywhere!"), the [social media] tools he chose wouldn't have mattered. What he did was to work out a message framed in big enough terms to inspire interest, yet achievable enough to inspire confidence."
This is the goal for all campaigns striving to use social media to unite and organize people. Tell an interesting story with a universal appeal and people will rally behind it.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Twitter Can Help the Unemployed!
It's true. Every day people are thinking up more creative ways to use the social networks we already have. Some people think social networks are for the self-involved or the exhibitionist, but the longer these networks are in place, the more avenues we discover from them.
Brian McCullough, writer of the blog JobBored, writes blogposts to answer people's questions about how to find and secure a job. After answering a good deal of these questions, he realized he could use Twitter to more effectively connect people in their job searches. If he could get all of his readers to follow his twitter account, JobEachDay, that twitter account would be a community of job seekers. He could then randomly pick one user each day to tweet their question instead of submitting it just to him. Instead of receiving his answer, they could receive answers from many of the followers and anyone else listening on Twitter.
It's the old two heads are better than one.
With so many educated people on Twitter, the chances of someone reading the question of the day and being able to answer it or maybe even provide a job opportunity are very high. Plus, since everyone is different, JobEachDay will produce many solutions to each problem, so the tweeter can get a wealth of advice all at once, completely free. This may put a market of resume builders and cover letter wizards out of business.
Or, it may prove to be another kind of information hub just as wikis and info sites like ChaCha and e-How also utilized the knowledge of the crowd.
To read more about the JobEachDay experiment, click here.
Brian McCullough, writer of the blog JobBored, writes blogposts to answer people's questions about how to find and secure a job. After answering a good deal of these questions, he realized he could use Twitter to more effectively connect people in their job searches. If he could get all of his readers to follow his twitter account, JobEachDay, that twitter account would be a community of job seekers. He could then randomly pick one user each day to tweet their question instead of submitting it just to him. Instead of receiving his answer, they could receive answers from many of the followers and anyone else listening on Twitter.
It's the old two heads are better than one.
With so many educated people on Twitter, the chances of someone reading the question of the day and being able to answer it or maybe even provide a job opportunity are very high. Plus, since everyone is different, JobEachDay will produce many solutions to each problem, so the tweeter can get a wealth of advice all at once, completely free. This may put a market of resume builders and cover letter wizards out of business.
Or, it may prove to be another kind of information hub just as wikis and info sites like ChaCha and e-How also utilized the knowledge of the crowd.
To read more about the JobEachDay experiment, click here.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Using Web 2.0 in Issue Campaigns
Everyone is talking about it. And it doesn't seem that hard, "All we need is a Facebook page and a Twitter account, right?" Of course not. Like any other public relations campaign, organizations need to carefully plan a strategy for using these new mediums to get their message out.
For beginners, Online Politics 101: http://www.epolitics.com/
If you want more in-depth coverage on what kind of media actually works in a campaign and why, Ben Rigby's Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0 serves as a step-by-step guide on how to utilize online media to perfect and spread an organizational message. Chock full of insightful case studies and articles written by experts, Rigby doesn't espouse to know what kind of media work best for issue campaigns, he shows countless examples of online campaigns that succeeded or failed.
The best advice I could gather from Rigby's book and Online Politics 101 was the following:
1. Develop a strategy that integrates online media as a fluid branch of your campaign. Maintain the same message throughout.
2. Online media can be used to reach more people and increase the amount of people who are actually engaged in a campaign. But the campaign will only succeed in doing this if it uses online media to allow the audience to interact and participate. For ex: Don't post a video that echoes your campaign flyer. Post a video that answers audience questions or starts a dialogue. Always allow comments, and if you can allow users to post photos and videos you should.
3. Give people a reason to participate. Offer a reward like the possibility of winning a contest. Or better yet, get people excited about participating by showing them the outcome of what they can do. For ex: Let them know that texting SAVE WHALES to your short code will put their name on an electronic petition sent to Congress or let them see a map on your Web site that is layered with beautiful pictures of whales in the locations where those whales are being mistreated or killed.
4. Tell a story with every campaign. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most universal traditions, and it never fails to make people listen. Stories also tug at a person's emotions, and if you can get someone emotionally attached to your issue, you've immediately got a participant.
There are so many inspiring, creative ways people have thought to use social media and new technologies to promote their campaigns. And no non-profit wants to invest precious funds and man hours into a project that will seem like old news by the time it is launched. How can we ever keep up?
http://www.mobileactive.org/ is one resource that lists innovative internet media campaigns on a regular basis. Are there any other resources we can use to stay up-to-date?
One other fear that I'm sure many campaigns have is the fear of losing control of their social media. Rigby mentions a few wikis that got out of control because the organizations gave users too much power, and wiki pages were vandalized and deleted. When using these new online tools how does an organization make sure they're not taken advantage of?
I stumbled upon a Facebook group the other day for my high school's upcoming reunion. The page was unsurprisingly dull, but I noticed there were over 100 photos on the group page. Intrigued, I clicked on the link. Usually over 100 photos on a page, would be a great indicator that the group was alive and well. But upon a quick glance at the photos, I found that after a few people had posted 1 or 2 cute "now and then" photos of themselves and their friends, one user had posted over 100 pictures that were all essentially the same photo with a few different people from our high school.
How does an organization respond to these over-posters without alienating potential supporters? Any ideas?
Until next time...
For beginners, Online Politics 101: http://www.epolitics.com/
If you want more in-depth coverage on what kind of media actually works in a campaign and why, Ben Rigby's Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0 serves as a step-by-step guide on how to utilize online media to perfect and spread an organizational message. Chock full of insightful case studies and articles written by experts, Rigby doesn't espouse to know what kind of media work best for issue campaigns, he shows countless examples of online campaigns that succeeded or failed.
The best advice I could gather from Rigby's book and Online Politics 101 was the following:
1. Develop a strategy that integrates online media as a fluid branch of your campaign. Maintain the same message throughout.
2. Online media can be used to reach more people and increase the amount of people who are actually engaged in a campaign. But the campaign will only succeed in doing this if it uses online media to allow the audience to interact and participate. For ex: Don't post a video that echoes your campaign flyer. Post a video that answers audience questions or starts a dialogue. Always allow comments, and if you can allow users to post photos and videos you should.
3. Give people a reason to participate. Offer a reward like the possibility of winning a contest. Or better yet, get people excited about participating by showing them the outcome of what they can do. For ex: Let them know that texting SAVE WHALES to your short code will put their name on an electronic petition sent to Congress or let them see a map on your Web site that is layered with beautiful pictures of whales in the locations where those whales are being mistreated or killed.
4. Tell a story with every campaign. Storytelling is one of the oldest and most universal traditions, and it never fails to make people listen. Stories also tug at a person's emotions, and if you can get someone emotionally attached to your issue, you've immediately got a participant.
There are so many inspiring, creative ways people have thought to use social media and new technologies to promote their campaigns. And no non-profit wants to invest precious funds and man hours into a project that will seem like old news by the time it is launched. How can we ever keep up?
http://www.mobileactive.org/ is one resource that lists innovative internet media campaigns on a regular basis. Are there any other resources we can use to stay up-to-date?
One other fear that I'm sure many campaigns have is the fear of losing control of their social media. Rigby mentions a few wikis that got out of control because the organizations gave users too much power, and wiki pages were vandalized and deleted. When using these new online tools how does an organization make sure they're not taken advantage of?
I stumbled upon a Facebook group the other day for my high school's upcoming reunion. The page was unsurprisingly dull, but I noticed there were over 100 photos on the group page. Intrigued, I clicked on the link. Usually over 100 photos on a page, would be a great indicator that the group was alive and well. But upon a quick glance at the photos, I found that after a few people had posted 1 or 2 cute "now and then" photos of themselves and their friends, one user had posted over 100 pictures that were all essentially the same photo with a few different people from our high school.
How does an organization respond to these over-posters without alienating potential supporters? Any ideas?
Until next time...
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