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.
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It’s been a hilarious couple of months working on this project, and I’m thrilled to launch the site hosting the genius work of Alice Bradley (aka, Finslippy) and Eden M. Kennedy (aka, Fussy). Tired of all the condescending parenting and pregnancy advice that’s out there, they took it upon themselves to write the funniest non-advice series ever. Have a look!
http://www.lets-panic.com/
I’ve had the privilege of working with author Betty Fussell and her publicist, Fern Berman, for the past several weeks on launching a website to display Betty’s myriad of books (Raising Steaks is her latest), writing and other savory bits. I often count my lucky stars that I get to work with fierce, passionate women who inspire me to do good work, and working with Betty and Fern was not just that, but a hoot to boot. (It’s not often that you’re told as a designer that dayglo is the direction the client is thinking of going…)
Check out BettyFussell.com.
The Media Consortium was looking for a way to better highlight the projects they’re working on, and their old site solely focused on the membership community. I was happily selected to rearrange the sites and install WordPress with a couple of nifty doodads to help them show both the community and the rest of the world what’s happening. We launched yesterday, at long last! Check it out: www.themediaconsortium.org
Ah yes, the trilogy is complete: my third launch in Launch Madness concludes the flurry (for the moment) of WordPress sites I’ve set up for various folks. This one is promoting AlterNet’s new book, Water Consciousness: How We All Have to Change to Protect Our Most Critical Resource. Edited by AlterNet’s own supremely awesome Tara Lohan, it’s an incredible set of articles, analysis, ideas… you name it, it’s here. Some of the artwork’s just stunning, too, and working with such a great piece makes it easy for designers like yours truly to implement a complementary website. Hurray!
I did mention that it’s launch madness ’round these parts, yes? Over the weekend, I launched Gotham Acme, a personal music blog for a Democratic consultant. It’s reeeeeally pretty and lovely, and I’m quite proud of it. Record turnaround on this one, too — just under two weeks from concept to launch.
It’s Launch Madness here at DZ HQ, and this particular project is an issue near and dear to my heart. I can’t really say it better than the organizers, so, from http://thisiswhatwomenwant.com:
Tired of being talked about this election season? Done with being represented by skewed polls and stereotypes?
This is your chance to cut through the spin and tell the media, the candidates and the world exactly what you want this election season, both right here online and live in cities across the country this Fall.
Oh. Freakin’. Yeah. There were a lot of interesting technical challenges for the project: how to get WordPress to take anonymous submissions, how to make the site as managable and geek-free by the end users as possible, and so much more. Can’t wait to rip this election season up!
Remember the funniest press release of all time? The final performance was Thursday night, and I’ve got a bunch of pictures and videos from it… watch as John and Dogbowl discuss Nancy Pelosi, perform some hits, talk about the other musician John Hall (who just got elected to Congress), as well as read from his forthcoming book, “Daily Negations.” (Watch the videos here, after the jump.)
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In an obvious move marking a new low point in an already declining career, poet and sometimes-musician John S. Hall has released a new book with Soft Skull Press, entitled “Daily Negations,” and will be making two, no doubt poorly-attended, New York appearances.
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I’m much too undercaffeinated to go into much detail, but in the wee hours last night, we relaunched Room Eight, a scoopy-insider-snark-scoop blog on New York politics. I was the designer and CSS tweaker on this one; much thanks to Doug Green of CivicActions for doing the heavy-lifting (and creative problem-solving) of coding. Happy relaunch, Room Eight!
