Social Networking and Campaigning
In 2006, social networking became even more mainstream and influenced the media and the course of connecting large numbers of people. Organisations also started using them as part of their mix of advocacy with mixed success.
This topic could be (depends on you) a sharing of successful and unsuccessful approaches to social networking, including MySpace?, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious too and any other tools and approaches organisations have tried. It could also explore the impact of social networking and what benefits and down-sides it provides for a campaign.
Are you interested in participating in this group? Then add your name, comments and/or further edit the page with your thoughts, experience and questions to ensure it stays on the agenda.
eCampaigning / FairSay Social Networking Links
- Networks at LinkedIn: eCampaigning Forum Group and Duane Raymond's (of FairSay) Profile
- Events at Upcoming.org: eCampaigning / eAdvocacy Group and FairSay's Profile
- Facebook: eCampaigning Forum Group and FairSay's Profile
- Bookmarks at Del.icio.us: eCampaigning Tagged Webpages and FairSay's Bookmarks
- See the full range of social networking tools that are currently setup for eCampaigning related connections and activities
Interested Participants
Format: name, organisation and why this topic?
Ben Beaumont, Oxfam Eoin Dubsky, Greenpeace International (why: We do quite a bit of online outreach in social networks, have heaps of questions)
Andrew Spencer, WWF-UK, (Looking to start experimenting, looking for tips, advice on what approach to take, how to resource etc)
Emma Savery, University of Birmingham Guild of Students (Social networks are big at universities and we need to use them effectively)
Patrick Klerks, Oxfam Novib, we've developed a new volunteers-strategy and are developing an (open source) online social volunteers-network to go with it
Participant Input
Add directly here or via the comments box below.
... --benbeau, Mon, 02 Apr 2007 02:54:23 -0500 reply
Would be interested in learning from other people's experiences here - have some experiences of MySpace?, Facebook etc to share, but still not sure of the right approach, and whether we're using them in the right way. Issues I'd like to explore include how to resource using MySpace? - and whether it's worth it in terms of the interest it generates?
- **supporting lobbying through Flickr (UK) from Patrick Olszowski at
- Action Medical Research** --Patrick Olszowski, Mon, 02 Apr 2007 10:13:15 -0500 reply
My name is Patrick Olszowski and I am the PR Manager for a charity called Action Medical Research. In this role, I also coordinate our strategy and delivery of our public affairs work, round our campaign to secure more government medical research funding into preventing premature birth in the UK.
WE have used Flickr to both attract and maintain an ongoing partnership with The Sun Newspaper - which we have called the Action BabyBook?. The aim is to show the impact on real families up and down the country of the current funding dearth - namely that limited research money, means babies are dying (unnecessarily in our view).
To date, this has had just one tiny mention in a larger piece, and this still got us 11 stories. check them out at www.flickr.com/photos/actionbabybook - the great thing is that for an organisation such as ours, which funds much basic scientific research, this allows us to show the relevance of our work to average people.
Our plan is to ramp up the marketing of this and eventually secure 100 stories (nb baby death is still a very taboo subject, hence our conservative estimates for numbers of stories), and then turn this into a book which we will present to Patricia Hewitt MP and ministers at the DTI, to show the real life impact this lack of funding is having.
Click here to see an example of the sort of stories I have been breaking - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6187161.stm
and also
http://www.action.org.uk/news_media/press_releases/468/
Community management and social networking --marruizsolanes, Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:51:51 -0500 reply
We are interested in knowing how to build and manage our community, even more, how to manage our different sub communities online (young people, volunteers, campaigners, etc)
How do you manage social networking at spaces such as MySpace? , Second Life and the like? And how do you manage your community if you disperse it in subcommunities in this other networks? Which are the advantages?
Why aren’t communities today build and managed around your own site? And why not give them there a space and visibility?
Community management and social networking --marruizsolanes, Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:53:13 -0500 reply
Sorry, I'm web editor for Youth Programme at Intermon Oxfam in Spain.
Speciality social networking --myriam, Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:34:09 -0500 reply
I understand that the NGO Witness (against Human Rights abuse) is about to bring a video/photo social network site proposing to anyone able to film and /or picture HR abuses to post direct, using the concept of multi-media social networking for a permanent alert on HR abuses. Unclear yet how successful it will be but then am unaware of any ground breaking online social network beyond the commercial ones. So it would also be useful to see whether the NGO related sector needs to create its own set of networking platforms such as Current TV, or if it is more strategic to use already existing platforms such as myspace or youtube, etc... with the similar risk of having to "compete" not only with content beyond the CS realm but also carry on the competition for attention in-between ourselves as well. Myriam
Be Everywhere, but prioritize --Justin P, Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:38:47 -0500 reply
I'd like to get down and dirty with some metrics and figure out how much time it really takes compared to impact for using existing social networking sites in comparison with other options available to campaigners and communicators. There is some exciting stuff happening, but when you run the numbers, is it worth it? And I think Myriam asks a great question as well. New niche sites are popping up all over the place. It's daunting. How does one prioritize time and efforts?
-Justin @ Care2
Jean NUS --Jean, Tue, 01 May 2007 05:59:59 -0500 reply
It would be good to assess the impact of social networking sites, what can they achieve policy wise and how much effort should be invested in them if they are a limited campaign tool. How can we expend the impact of these sites, should we focuus on one platform and link others to this or maintain a presence on a few?
this is interesting and would echo Jean's comments --Oistein, Tue, 01 May 2007 06:39:09 -0500 reply
Jess Day, Which? --Jess Day, Wed, 02 May 2007 03:43:04 -0500 reply
We're starting to dabble in this, so keen to get experience from others, and run some of our ideas past some peers. I've got real concerns about the time investment, and about making sure you choose your moment/issue and are clear about what you are expecting to get out of it. And how do you select which of the myriad sites/technologies to use?
Glen Tarman will join this --duane, Wed, 02 May 2007 11:26:53 -0500 reply
Echo Chow will join this --duane, Wed, 02 May 2007 13:07:29 -0500 reply
Branislava Milosevic will attend this --duane, Wed, 02 May 2007 15:06:16 -0500 reply
Hot topic, but not well understood --Brian, Mon, 07 May 2007 18:19:00 -0500 reply
Web 2.0 engagement is the buzz now and considering sites like MySpace? are in the top websites, it makes sense to fish in the pond that has the most fish. But what are the rules of the game and how long will it be an effective outreach channel before it reaches a competitive saturation point?
**interesting dilemmas ** --Dan McQuillan?, Mon, 07 May 2007 18:24:55 -0500 reply
looks like this will be a good debate; what with the agility deficit of large organisations, the fragmentation of social spaces, the emergence of social networks focusing directly on activism, and the potential intolerance of monopoly owners toward any disturbance of their pseudo-public spaces. (i've posted a few notes here http://www.internetartizans.co.uk/social_networking_and_social_change)
Bex Sumner (Greenpeace UK) would like to attend this --bex_sumner, Tue, 08 May 2007 07:57:39 -0500 reply
Tom Allen would like to attend this session --Tom Allen, Tue, 08 May 2007 09:26:57 -0500 reply
Discussing the trade offs between effort invested and impact achieved from social networking sites would be really interesting, as mentioned by others. What I enjoy about these websites is how it is hard to stop "work" identities and priorities intermingling with the more "personal" information of these hyper-public worlds. When organisations get involved in social networking it sometimes feels quite stale, fitting too tightly to their brand and their well worked out messages. I like the idea that these technologies only prosper when they grow out of the real, messy social needs of participants, with all the personal gossip and publicly articulated social networks those entail. Is it best if organisations only get involved inasmuch as individuals working for them are already using social networking technologies?
