The following post are 5 tips that will help in your Social Media strategy for any organization. These are just 5 easy tips out of 10 that can be used in order to strengthen any social media platform. We hope that you find these extremely useful.
Why should businesses bother with social media? From Twitter and Pinterest to Facebook and Google+, the social realm can bring the human element to a product or service. A Facebook page enables a company to share behind-the-scenes photos or answer consumer questions. On Twitter, that same company can offer coupons, or get in touch with a person immediately over a complaint.
|Photo by birgerking|http://www.flickr.com/photos/birgerking/4731898939|
I’ve really appreciated recent conversations with my colleagues Melinda Weekes and Gibran Rivera about how the use of on-line technologies is not just about the technology, but the new possibilities that they reveal for interaction and creation in both in person and virtual spheres. I’ve been impressed by stories about and personal experiences of some of the social media tools out there that show how they are able to help us supplement, extend, and innovate around collaboration for social impact. And I’m enjoying playing with some of these in my various client engagements. Here are a few tools for new possibilities, and I’m eager to hear what experiences you have had with them, as well as other ones not mentioned here, that have helped you realize the greater potential of collaboration and collective intelligence. Thanks to Matthew Dryhurst at Craigslist Foundation and the Working Wikily team for a number of these leads! Read More
So many new and interesting tools out there with the potential to use the virtual sphere to reconnect us person to person, and perhaps fuel the new economy. You might also want to check out this article by Bill McKibben on some neighborhood developments using technology in Burlington, VT.
I am just getting familiar with this new tool that is still in beta (the creators would appreciate any feedback about it). Wondering what applications you may see to collaborative social change work. I am imagining polling people in a system for key resources, ranking the best sites to hold a convening, possibly doing something related to stakeholder identification . . . . And while you are pondering this, check out Kare Anderson’s list of collaboration related sites and books, add to it, or create your own.
I’ve really been enjoying reading The Dragonfly Effect, by husband and wife team Andy Smith and Jennifer Aaker. Having just recently shared the opening powerful story about Teams Vinay and Sameer with my wife, I was delighted to see this slide show come up via Twitter (how appropriate). Take a look (don’t be intimidated by the number of slides, you can move through them very quickly). It’s also a great example of how to tell a story with PowerPoint. Curious to know what thoughts and possibilities this inspires in you.
|Image from cambodia4kidsorg|http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/2296887265|
I’ve been working with a couple of organizations and initiatives lately as they discuss enhancing their strategies for stakeholder engagement. Throughout all of this work is the emerging awareness that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our field with respect to what engagement means and looks like. This, of course, has been captured by many writers and thinkers who have been looking closely at what social media is enabling (see, for example, Clay Shirky’s work, the Working Wikkily blog, or the writings of Beth Kanter and Allison Fine). And at the same time there is a realization that this is not just about technology, but a return to some of what we’ve forgotten as well as a step towards something new. Read More
I’ve said a word about my point of agreement with Gladwell, and then a word about my first point of disagreement, I will wrap up this series with my second point of contention – Gladwell’s apology for centralized hierarchy. The popularized story of a civil rights movement “run” by a few male leaders and a few national organizations is actually offensive to the rich history of a diverse and decentralized movement that provided an ecology through which the notion of civil rights could thrive. Read More
Gladwell misses the mark with two key parts of his argument. First is his misunderstanding of how weak-ties and strong-ties play play out in social media networks. Second is his defense of hierarchical, centralized structures, which is based on a clear (and popular) misreading of how the civil rights movement actually happened. Read More
“The revolution will not be tweeted” – No sh*t Sherlock! But let me start with what I did like about Malcolm Gladwell’s annoyingly limited article. Revolution can only happen in the real world, it is neither virtual nor abstract. Revolution can only be measured as actual, successful and good when it has a real impact on increasing people’s capacity – people’s power – to determine their own destiny. A true revolutionary act, the sort of revolutionary act that re-defines power relations, will always be a risky endeavor – power most often has to be taken, for it rarely ever surrenders itself. Read More
Are you amazing? Are you one of those people who are working to define the next phase of movement? Are you connected to a crew of local organizers, activists, innovators, dreamers? If you are an amazing movement builder then I want to be able to follow you on Twitter and I want to be your Facebook friend.
I find myself travelling from place to place and meeting some truly amazing people, I keep getting hip to really interesting projects and innovative approaches to the work of social change. I’m connecting to my tribe; I’m getting to know the people who are actively redefining the way we do social change. Here is the problem though – I can’t keep up with all of them! And here is where I notice an important distinction. When these people are using social media tools I can at least have a sense of what they are up to, I can get a glimpse of how their work evolves – but if they are not, then I’m left with hearsay. Read More
