Social Media for Mobilization
From Lakeinnovation.org
Challenges: Kristin
Challenge 1: Mobilizing people around the gap year, making access an automatic part of the conversation. Is this a campaign?
Challenge 2: One World 2011, Seattle, Sept 11, citizen exchange between US and Muslim world to put Obama’s Cairo speech into action. Around this event will be a youth movement around breaking negative youth stereotypes of the Muslim world. How can we mobilize our youth partners AND youth groups around this event?
Feedback from David:
Challenge 1 is a meme. Activate people to propagate an idea, not to do a specific action. More advertising and marketing than mobilizing issue? Separate two audiences: young people, who we want to DO the gap year, and the audience we want to accept the idea (teachers, professors, parents, counselors, etc in addition to youth).
Fundamentals of campaign strategy:
Goal
Tactics to meet goal
Message
Messengers who can meet it
Targets of the campaign are those who have the power to make the gap idea seem acceptable.
Secondary targets: those who influence the first target set. What message do they need to receive, and who is the messenger who can deliver that message to them?
Message: taking a gap year is a GOOD idea – it will help you in college, not hurt you. The org then promises to take care of making it happen (“holding their hand along the way”).
Messengers: bosses, other students who have done this and are role models
Challenge 2:
Ex: Step it Up national day of action around climate change. Needed to get people offline to meet, aggregate online, and use that as a tool for influence with congress.
Process for Step it Up
Anyone goes online, signs up to host, others rsvp to attend. Everyone uploads photos and submits a “report back.” Meetings were mapped to congressional districts – someone dropped off photos and names of local contacts, localizing the issue. Webcast showed videos and streamed out to everyone participating. In Nov – did it again and got presidential candidates and representatives to come. High impact, low organizational burden. Can use existing technology (facebook linked to wordpress blog, for example).
Question / issue: so – people all came together, NOW WHAT? Can we hold on to these people or is it one-time?
Provide resources, training and infrastructure for identified leaders (“handholding”). Need secondary program (second event), something concrete to organize. THE KEY IS NURTURING LEADERS YOU HAVE IDENTIFIED.
How do we scale mentoring? Documentation, production, giving people who are already empowered the tools to move forward.
Example of crowdsourcing mobilization: Greenpeace campaign against Apple’s eWaste: Green my Apple. Had people take photos and make flyers and videos to YouTube – upload all under the same tag.
Possible application to One World 2011: might have people make videos about work w/in the Muslim world.
Crowdsourcing: need to figure out the GOAL. End product or fact of involvement itself?
ENGAGING VOLUNTEERS BEYOND ONE LARGE EVENT
- Have an ask before they come to the first event / project
- Leaders – engage them, have them engage the average Joe
- Staff that provides support / infrastructure
- Social media (whatever that is) can FACILITATE connections between developing leaders, but it can’t necessarily support and create those leaders.
What can social media actually replace / shortcut / facilitate:
Peer to peer knowledge sharing
