In case you’ll be at SXSW Interactive this weekend, and in case you want to see me and some pretty amazing folks doing some killer speaking and workshopping… Monday is the Day o’ DZ:
- Monday, 9:30am. Hyatt TX Ballroom 1.
The best donuts you’ve ever had in your life will be served!
People Power: Leveraging Personal Stories to Build Influence.
http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP7037
With: Twanna Hines, Jean Russell, Cheryl Contee and Andrea Miller.
Now, social is personal. From finance site Mint.com’s anti-immigration blog post gaffe to YourTango CEO Andrea Miller’s “How to Date an Indian (Advice for the Non-Indian),” social media fuses personal with public in a way never seen before. Whether sharing taste in hiphop, dating preferences, provocative political ideas, or insider information about a soon-to-be-launched business, social media strategically develops personal and professional reputations. Stories can build audiences, grow support for campaigns and change mainstream ideas about social issues. They can also alienate various communities, compromise business information confidentiality or damage brands. If social media has shown us anything, it’s that stories still matter. This panel will be a concrete conversation on how successful online personalities have managed their personal and professional lives using social media: telling authentic stories about our experiences, and using those stories to build powerful, engaged communities.
- Monday, 11:30am. SXSW Bookstore — ACC Ballroom Foyer D
Book signing! I’ll be there till 12pm.
http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_OE00561
- Monday, 12:30pm. Icehauers, 83 Rainey St.
Twitter for Good at SXSW and Beyond
http://claire.us.com/twitter-for-good-at-sxsw-and-beyond/
The lovely Claire Diaz Ortiz, who leads philanthropy and social innovation at Twitter, is hosting this lunchtime discussion and workshop to answer the question: “What 1 THING could Twitter, Inc. do to better help non-profits, causes, and anyone trying to make a difference in the world using the platform?” More details at Claire’s blog post.
There’s a lot of talk about being able to manage our privacy and boundaries on various online social networks, but one thing that’s in part missing from the conversation is reminders to ourselves and others that there should be guidelines on how you treat other people. I feel like there’s this notion out there that we are each an island at the mercy of whatever mercurial whims our friends, colleagues, and family throw our way. But what if we started thinking about “do unto others” –not just as we would have done to ourselves, either–as we also cavort about online?
In that spirit, here’s some simple advice about how to treat others with respect and still have fun online. The number one rule? Ask first.
Mind-blowing concept, I know! But with the ease with which we can refer to and tag each other on different services, we forget that sometimes people don’t want to be referred to or tagged. Just because someone has a public profile, doesn’t mean they want to be quoted at every juncture! Here are some standard questions I use:
- Can I post what you just said to Twitter and Facebook? Should I credit you, or should it be anonymous/overheard?
- I took a great picture of us–check it out. Can I post it and tag you with it?
- I’m checking into Foursquare for this restaurant. Can I say that I’m having dinner with you?
Not only does this tell your friend that you actually care about their privacy (most people like that), but it also helps spread the reminder that they should do the same for you and others.
The more you do it, the more comfortable it’ll be for both you and your friends. Now, onward with your sharing!
I had a perfect storm of a project recently, and decided to write it up as a case study in how to manage a short-term social media campaign. I’ll discuss tools, tactics and metrics — hope you find it useful!
At the beginning of December, Aspen Baker, the executive director of Exhale, wrote me an email. “I’m looking for a social media coordinator and web person for a short-term project,” she said. “Interested?” I’ve always been a fan of Aspen’s work at Exhale — they’re a nonprofit organization which provides the first and only nonjudgmental national, multilingual after-abortion talkline. One of the things I love most about Exhale, which I learned largely through their campaign, is their advocacy of “pro-voice” in dealing with abortion. Every woman’s voice deserves to be heard; women (in numerous political contexts) don’t need to be talked at, shamed, have numbers and percentages thrown at them as much as they need to be listened to, and told that they are loved.
[read the rest of this post » ]
Note: This how-to became quite popular, and I wanted to be clear that it is available for reposting and reuse for other campaigns, so long as you respect the Creative Commons license (Attribution non-commercial share-alike).
THE INTRO
For background on the #dearjohn campaign, check out these posts from Sady Doyle and Amanda Marcotte.
If you’re not on Twitter, but you’d like a helping hand through the sign-up process, go here.
If you’re new to Twitter, and want an introduction to basic concepts– retweets, hashtags, and mentions, oh my!– go here.
THE GOODS
One of the more attractive social media tactics when it comes to creating a stir is to use hashtags. Hashtags, in the case of campaigns and politics, can be useful to:
- collect all the tweets about a particular topic in one place;
- put pressure on public figures to respond to a topic (because of the above);
What’s a hashtag? It’s an agreed-upon keyword preceded by the pound sign that’s added to your tweet. In this case, we’re using #dearjohn. No special skill is required–just type it into your tweet, or copy and paste it.
Tweets with the #dearjohn hashtag should convey one or more of the following:
- A sense of urgency about sexual assault and reproductive rights.
- A personal story–storytelling is what gets to people, not isolated facts and figures.
- Deep conviction. You don’t have to tell your story to be authentic, but your words should be your own.
UPDATE: Check out Sady’s newer post for content ideas and guidelines.
Consider also monitoring the #dearjohn hashtag (how to do that is explained below) and retweeting posts that you agree with. Amplifying powerful messages and diverse voices goes a long way towards building critical mass.
It’s also helpful to include the Twitter handles of people that you want to hear your message. House representatives who are sponsoring the bill should be considered first–start with @SpeakerBoehner himself. A list of the rest of the co-sponsors–all 173 of them!– can be found here (click on “Co-sponsors” under Representative Christopher Smith). You can use GovLuv to find the Twitter handles of the representative you wish to mention. Consider also sending messages of thanks to representatives who are speaking out and standing up for women in this fight. UPDATE: Amaditalks on Tumblr compiled the whole list here.
You might also think about starting (or joining an existing) an act.ly petition to collect #dearjohn tweeters in yet another online location.
A word about decency/politeness: You don’t have to be nice in your tweets when confronting folks that support HR3. But calling names, making false or libelous accusations, etc., only hurts the rest of the movement. Be outraged, but keep your head on straight.
A word about trolls: If you’re new to this kind of thing, you might not have had much experience with trolling behavior. Basically, a troll is someone who actually isn’t interested in having a productive discussion, and only posts extremely inflammatory comments to derail the entire conversation. Ignore them. Block them. Do not, repeat, do not respond in any way, shape or form–do not even tell them that you’re blocking them. Trolls are vampires: they are emboldened and strengthened by any response to their antics, and you will inevitably be weakened. I know it’s hard to ignore them. But trust me, it is the only way.
To see the running log of all #dearjohn posts, you can do a few things:
- Keep coming back to this post and clicking on #dearjohn
- Look at the top of your Twitter page–there’s a search box. Enter #dearjohn into it, and when you see the search results, you’ll notice a button at the top right of the results–”Save this search.” Click that. Then, to find it again, look at the top of your Timeline for the “Searches” link. Click on it, and you’ll be shown a list of your saved searches.
- For more advanced options, you can perform an advanced Twitter search here: https://search.twitter.com/advanced
I’ll continue to update this post as the movement builds and evolves. Have a tip for me? Feel free to @me on Twitter, or drop a line.
(Note: I’d written this for a client as a handout, and finally turned it in a post that’s a little easier to share. If you’d like to download the PDF to print, it’s right here.)
So, you’re ready to sign up for Twitter! Sometimes the signup process can be a bit daunting, so I created this short guide showing you what you need to know. Let’s get started!
[read the rest of this post » ]
Last night, my friend Nancy Goldstein asked me for some help* in tracking clicks and references in Twitter… and I thought, as I was laying out for her what I do, “man, this would be a good blog post.” Before we begin, though, let’s all repeat the first rule of Twitter: it’s not about you. It’s about the conversation. Being obsessive about ego-checking can breed an addictive, greedy ego-monster (not that I know from experience), so it’s important to remember why you’re doing this set up–not just so you can see people referring you, but also so you can monitor what’s happening in conversations that refer to things you care about.
Here are the tips I shared with Nancy:
- Backtweets. Enter any URL and see who’s tweeted it, no matter what URL shortener they used. Especially handy if you don’t have access to analytics of a particular site. (RSS feed of results available)
- Favstar. See who has favorited your tweets, and also new-style RT’ed your tweets. (RSS feed of results available– handy for seeing a old tweet that was recently favorited).
- Advanced Twitter search. The search function at the top of Twitter home page doesn’t seem to have all of the results when referencing users. Go to http://search.twitter.com/ and enter your username preceded by the @ symbol (i.e., @randomdeanna) and hit enter. You should see results of when someone else new-style RT’s something with your username in it. (RSS feed of results available)
- Other Twitter searches. I also have saved searches for deannazandt, which brings up both mistaken username mentions (people sometimes forget I’m @randomdeanna), as well links to my website, deannazandt.com. Plus a saved search for “Deanna Zandt,” when people read something I’ve written, but don’t know my twitter handle.
Got (free, easy) tips of your own? Feel free to share them in the comments!
(*UPDATE: Nancy reminded me to share with you that she is “the most selfless, confident, least ego-driven person you’ve ever met and would NEVER dream of checking my RT thread to reassure myself that people like me or are actually reading my work :)” OMG NANCY ME TOO)
(Update/edit note, 12/15: If you, like me, tend not to read comments in general because they’re troll-fests, I suggest suspending your disbelief and reading the comments on this post. There’s an incredibly useful, thoughtful and productive discussion going on. With that, let me also say that I’m a tyrannical comment moderator and delete unproductive/trolling comments.)
(Note: There are so many parts to the Wikileaks story that it’s almost impossible to cover them all–once you start to detangle one angle, you discover twenty more. Slip down that rabbit hole, and you’ll come out dizzier than when you went in. In any case, this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive discussion of the entire topic, but to expand on a conversation sparked yesterday.)
I attended Personal Democracy Forum’s symposium on Wikileaks yesterday–a fantastic lineup of speakers and attendees, gathered quickly to discuss one of the most complicated intersections of Internet and politics that we’ve seen in a while. During one of the earlier forums, my friend Noel Hidalgo put forth an idea that divided the room pretty quickly: that distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are a legitimate form of civil disobedience.
A quick lesson on DDoS for the unfamiliar: a group of people gets together and decides to render a website unusable. They do this by flooding the website’s server with so many requests that the server gets overloaded and either slows down, or stops responding altogether. A big important point: this is not hacking. “Hacking” generally applies to incidents where systems are actually broken into and data is compromised. DDoS doesn’t do this.
[read the rest of this post » ]
Check it out: full text, audiocast with slides, and guerrilla video:
You can also have a look at other presentations, workshops and talks that I’ve done.
