Archives for 2012

The 10 Most Popular Blog Posts for 2012

eVentures in Cyberland: Through the Web 2.0 Looking Glass, and What Communicators Found There! turned 3 years old this fall, and 2012 was my blog's best year. Even though I post less often now that I've returned to semi-full-time work, the blog on average attracted some 2,000 unique visitors a month this year. That's up from a dismal low of 50 unique visitors a month when I first started out in 2009 and an average of 500 unique visitors a month in 2010 and 1,400 … [Read more...]

8 Ways to Stop Misinformation in Its Tracks

Editor's Note: I usually refrain from discussing politics. Last week's U.S. Senate theatrics, however, were way too Animal Farmish to resist addressing. The truth will not always set you free when Web 2.0 unleashes scary boogeymen. That sounds harsh but sadly illustrating my point is last week's U.S. Senate vote killing U.S. ratification of a United Nations treaty aimed at bringing the rest of the world in line with U.S. standards on how to treat the … [Read more...]

Can Social Media Build Peace and Understanding?

My compassion turned to shock after reading the caption of a photo of mourners at the funeral of a child killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza earlier this month. The caption indicated the photo's main subject, an elderly woman wearing a bright blue leopard print head scarf, was making the victory sign as women grieved in the background. When I first saw the photo I assumed she was making the peace sign, perhaps to signal her frustration with the fighting between … [Read more...]

HOW TO: Craft Calls to Action that Overcome Barriers

Why would people ignore your call to action even when you effectively grabbed  their attention and engaged them emotionally? Most often, your messaging failed to provide solutions to barriers stopping them from taking action. There are six common barriers to action: 1. Hard. Your call to action must be perceived as easy to do—either immediately (e.g., "give $15 now without leaving Facebook" versus making people click off to another site to support your … [Read more...]

Mobilizing Grassroots Communities with Social Media

Editor's Note: Shonali Burke recently let me know about some exciting public relations work she is doing for the nonprofit Center for Community Change and connected me with Zack Langway, its digital campaign director. Zack is also the digital campaign director for its nonprofit sister organization, the Campaign for Community Change. Both organizations are doing some innovative work using social media for grassroots organizing of low-income people and people of … [Read more...]

Need for Strategists, Not Tactical Wizards

Editor's Note: The Twitter button counter is malfunctioning on this post. I write a lot about social media. How it is important. How it is changing the communications field in fascinating—but sometimes wacky—ways. Today, I am going to step back a bit. While social media represents a massive shift in the way we communicate and inspire action, it is not a magic bullet that enables you to ignore timeless communications principles. Like any other form of … [Read more...]

Using #SMEM Lessons Learned for Public Diplomacy

What do natural disasters and social media swarm-fueled diplomatic disasters, such as the recent anti-Islam film riots, have in common? One hundred percent certainty that they will occur regularly, albeit unpredictably. Now that one third of the world's population has Internet access and 79 percent of people in the developing world have a mobile phone (more than the percentage with access to electricity), anything anybody writes on social media, no matter how … [Read more...]

Castrating Hate-Fueled Leaderless Web 2.0 Swarms?

A low-budget Islamophobic video translated into Arabic and crafted to provoke, offend, and evoke outrage near the anniversary of 9/11 is the latest example of how almost anyone can incite powerful leaderless social media swarms. The scary thing is a tech savvy but disturbed high school or college student could pull a similar stunt. It turns out the producer of "Innocence of Muslims"—which mocks Muslims and the prophet Muhammad and incited mob protests against … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Free Mobile Books for Africa

I first heard about nonprofit Worldreader—which gives Kindles to students with little access to printed books in rural sub-Saharan Africa—last January on the Build It Kenny They Will Come Blog....  The following line in the post really wowed me: "Imagine, all the books a child would ever need to see them through their basic education, all packed into a ~$100 device." It turns out WorldReader is taking its idea of bringing free digital books to the developing world … [Read more...]

Finding Out Via Facebook Your Husband is Dead

I grew up in a military town during the Vietnam war. I remember my friends' dads going on tours, particularly submarine cruises, for months at a time with little or no communication. There was just a lot of wondering. Today, social media has made life for military families another universe. You can keep connected with military personnel via Facebook and YouTube just about every day. Dads and moms serving abroad can help their kids with their homework, read … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Women Who Tech Promo

I apologize to my regular readers for the lack of posts the last few weeks. I've been busy visiting my family out of state for Easter, had some unexpected Internet connectivity problems, and then was busy with client catchup. So my monthly video clip of the month post, usually posted around the first of the month, is way, way overdue. So without futher ado, here's my April 2012 video clip of the month: a video excerpt from the Women Who Tech TeleSummit after … [Read more...]

KONY 2012 – Finally a Realistic Theory of Change

Reprinted with permission from the Peace for Sale blog. For background on this post, please see the earlier The making and breaking of KONY 2012 Peace for Sale blog post.  The Enough Project has worked with Funny or Die to produce a pretty funny short film. It's a parody on KONY 2012 with a call to action. The action, however, does not claim to end a war – its goal is to build awareness and to inspire people to send the letter below to President Obama. This is a … [Read more...]

Limits on Federal Public Relations Activities? Sort of…

I read with interest yesterday a post on a "wide-ranging" Senate investigation into the federal government's use of public relations services. From the Institute for Public Relations website: "Twice in the past year there have been investigations into public relations spending by the federal government. The most recent was launched in late February by Senator Claire McCaskill (D–Mo.) and Senator Rob Portman (R–Ohio), who have triggered a wide-ranging investigation … [Read more...]

A Sure-Fire Way of Engaging Readers… Literally

Do you know a sure-fire way of engaging readers? Yes, a way of literally causing more brain synapses to fire. Use language that depicts movement or triggers the senses. According to new brain research detailed in the New York Times, brains respond to written depictions of smells, textures, and movements as if they were the real thing. Unlike with bland language, they trigger additional neurological regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas. … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Precise Strategies Liberate

A sound communications strategy or creative brief is the most important part of a successful communications campaign or product. It is the firm foundation determining how your communications mix (i.e., public relations, advertising, promotion, and direct marketing) will work together to achieve your communications objectives. It is the genesis of every word you write, every product you produce, every conversation you start. All too often, however, communicators … [Read more...]