Best of 2015 from Global Voices

Global Voices is an interesting site with content on a variety of sites all over the world.

Click on image for list of posts

 

It is worth following for insights from different perspectives.

Curation Contributes to Amazing Instagram Account

According to Mashable one government agency, the Interior Department, has Instagram figured out. This image is of the super moon in late June. "Beautiful photo of the #Moon over #TurretArch in #Arches National Park last night." Take a look at their Instagram account and marvel at the images that document the natural beauty of the United States. Don't the images make you want to visit some of these places? And maybe submit a photo to their summer contest (2013)? Notice that the contest is posted on the White House blog. Interior has a news page, but I don't find a blog. The White House would probably have more followers anyway!

Huff Post calls it "an impressively well-curated Instagram account." Director of Digital Strategy Tim Fullerton  explained some of their practices to Mashable.

Their Instagram page has over 200,000 followers at present, another testimony to the power of the channel. And their social media concentration on Instagram suggests a good understanding of the channels available.

First posted July 1, 2013. Updated March 11, 2014.

Are Non-Profits Using Social Media Strategically?

I recently pinned an infographic with data about foundation use of social media platforms. It is interesting, but not surprising. Selected data from the infographic shows that:

Facebook is the most popular platform by a considerable margin. Note that blogging was not included as a platform even though my guess is that it is widely used.

The majority of foundation users of social media do not have a formal strategy.

That's unfortunate, because a majority think social media is useful in several respects.











A recent study of non-profit organizations showed similar results. Facebook, used by 82% of the responding non-profits, was far and away the most popular. Twitter came in second with only 54% of using the platform. This study asked about blogging and that found only 32% have blogs while 48% host online discussion forums, which is an interesting juxtaposition.

Two things strike me. The first is to wonder whether Facebook is most used for its strategic value or for its familiarity. If it is a platform favored by the target audience of the non-profit, that's good. If it's a platform with which non-profit marketers are themselves familiar, that makes the choice questionable.

The second is to wonder about the nature of use of social platforms. Facebook and Twitter are excellent for announcements--programs and events, for example. Relatively little use is being made of platforms which convey in-depth information--blogging and YouTube as two good examples.

Non-profits need to make the best use of their resources, which are often scarce. Non-strategic use of social media is certainly not a best practice.

Creativity is Indispensable in Social Media Too

Here's an interesting tweet from a UNICEF campaign in the UK. Matt Rhodes from Fresh Networks retweeted it, saying it's at the edge of social media. It was a UK campaign; I did not ever see it in the US.

I agree. It's a compelling call to action, and a reminder of the limits of social media.

Or is it a reminder of the reach of social media?

Either way, it is definitely creative fund raising!

If you are interested in creative campaigns in social media, here is a recent list, all of which have thought-provoking aspects. 

First published on April 23, 2013. Updated February 21, 2014.

MFA Shares Love of Impressionism Across Digital Platforms

An email invited me to participate in a contest. The “Boston Loves Impressionism” exhibit would be curated by MFA members, who would select the paintings to be exhibited. It was a great concept, well executed.

I saw the original email, but I’m not much of a contestant, so I hadn’t tried it out. Making a visit to the MFA during the contest, it was hard to avoid. This card graced our table with a QR code connecting to the contest page. Each week for 4 weeks a set of impressionist paintings was posted and visitors to the page were allowed to vote for their favorites. The museum has a set of computers that allow visitors to look for information—great idea--and it was easy to vote from them and people seemed to be doing so while we were there.

Your vote not only counted in determining the paintings to be hung, it qualified you for an invitation to the opening weekend. The MFA has built an entire weekend of activities around the opening. There are valentine-themed activities as well as gallery talks about paintings and painters featured in the exhibit. I should note that the special Valentines Day dinner at the Bravo café is already sold out! The MFA has long been a meeting place for upscale singles as well as having many family and children’s features.

The invitation email featured all of the above as well as a link to the Pinterest posting of the paintings to be exhibited—just in case you can’t make it to the museum. Note that the newsletter has the usual sharing icons. It mirrors the page on the museum site which also prominently features sharing opportunities. As might be expected this “crowdsourced” exhibit drew considerable favorable publicity. The Globe reports that 10,000 people voted in  the third week of the contest.

This contest made great use of MFA resources and its digital marketing abilities. It has been a wonderful membership engagement—and thank you—activity. I have just two suggestions.

I forget things like going to a site to vote. When I first voted, I would have happily opted in for email reminders each time a new set of paintings went up. In terms of voting itself, the number of votes for each painting were displayed on the page. I would suggest hiding the current vote tallies until the visitor has voted. Seeing them while you are voting makes you wonder how much you are being influenced, even if you are trying hard not to be.

I repeat. It was an excellent concept in the annals of social media for good. It was well executed, and I’m sure the exhibit, which of course starts on Valentines Day, will be a great success!

Can Privacy and Free Speech Coexist in a Surveillance Society?

In a post that argues that surveillance is not the only problem faced by those who live under authoritarian governments, Yemeni activist Walid Al-Saqaf makes an interesting distinction. He draws a line between Western nations where free speech is a constitutionally-protected right and countries where censorship is a reality. It is easy to accept the primacy of the surveillance problem when free speech is protected.


In Arab countries, he says, people are still trying to find their own voices. He finds it harder to draw a line there between surveillance and censorship, finding that surveillance often leads to censorship.

In the profile linked to the post, the author is described as "one of a few Arab cyber activists working on censorship circumventing technologies." Both his activities and his perspectives are worthy of attention.

Creating Brand Personality for the Mars Curiosity Rover

I'm one of 1.49 million followers of NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity on Twitter. That’s a hefty following, whether for a government agency or for a robot millions of miles away!

It’s fascinating on several dimensions. What Curiosity is doing is interesting, even to the non-scientist.  As a marketer I’m intrigued by the way in which the NASA communications people have established and consistently executed a delightful brand personality.  A little digging shows it to be no accident.

The social media team is led by Veronica McGregor who has been Tweeting  for NASA  since the Mars Phoenix in 2008. Most NASA missions have a Twitter feed, so there is considerable institutional knowledge. One thing the rover teams learned early on was that first person was more engaging than third. It’s also easier to humanize the vehicle and give it a personality. The Mars has frequently been described as “sassy.” McGregor told Forbes:

“Back when Twitter was new, we tried tweeting both ways – in the first and third person. We always got more feedback when we were in first person. It’s also an advantage given the 140 character limit – ‘I am’ is a lot shorter than ‘The spacecraft is.’”
“It’s easier to anthropomorphize rovers,” added Smith. “The cameras make it look like she has eyes. So it’s tempting to think of the rover as a bodacious chick on the surface of another planet with a rock vaporizing laser on her head.

The rover started Tweeting on November 19, 2008 with a naming contest announced by Pixar robot WALL-E. Curiosity was suggested by a Kansas 6th grader, won the online voting, and was announced by NASA in March 2009. All pretty standard stuff–effective in generating awareness of the mission but time consuming. Curiosity’s Facebook page was started in mid-2010; the actual Mars landing was August 2011. So, as usual, this is no social media fluke. It took time, lots of effort, and a real understanding of social media and the various target audiences who might be interested.

How do the three women on the team do it? Have they made any mistakes in execution? This Bloomberg video gives a lot of insight into those questions.

What constitutes a good brand personality? Brand consultancy Amicus identifies key dimensions:

1. Demonstrates a Brand’s Passion and Expertise … Defining the Brand’s Ultimate Purpose and Differentiating It from the Competitive Set.
2. Creates an Affinity with Targeted Customer Segments … Touching and Energizing their Motivations.
3. Projects the Brand’s Core Values and Beliefs … Describing How Customer’s can Expect to be Treated.
4. Communicates an Over-Arching Tone, Style, and Attitude about the Brand’s Experience and Customer Interactions.

They go on to say, “Personality gives a brand dimension and depth. It can breathe life into inanimate images. It can be the cornerstone for service delivery … and connecting emotionally with customers.”

The personality must carry through at all touchpoints to be effective, It must also persist over time, although it can grow and develop, just like a real personality. The Mars Curiosity Rover is still going strong--and still tweeting--almost 2 years later. It recently sent back an image of Earth as seen from Mars. The tiny speck in all that space is awe-inspiring.



The @MarsCuriosity team makes it look easy. It takes consistent creativity over time which is not easy to sustain. We can all learn a lot from them!

First published on Nov. 6, 2012. Updated Dec 7 2012 and Feb 11, 2014.

Snow in Atlanta—on Facebook and Twitter

It’s late morning on Thursday, January 30—two days after the paralyzing snow storm in the South. Atlanta, of course, is the poster child. I’ve been looking around, and there is plenty of both good and bad social media to go around.

First on the “good list” has to be the SnowedInAtlanta Facebook page. It was started by an experienced Facebook user, Michelle Sollicito who lives in Marietta, GA. Looking at her page, it looks like she started it about 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday.  As I write this Thursday morning the page has over 55 thousand followers.

At this moment it is still quite active, much of it with people inquiring about road conditions. Over the past 2 days it has been filled with requests for information and help but also with people offering to help people stranded in nearby areas, people who have welcomed children home or found missing relatives, even a lost cat who wandered into someone’s home. 

Notice that Michelle has pinned today’s emergency management report to the top of the page. If you read further you find that the page has spawned a large number of neighborhood-specific pages to systematize the process of getting the right type of help to the people who need it. Also note the petition (on the White House site) to honor Michelle for her unstinting effort over the last almost-48 hours.

There is also “plenty of blame to go around” on social media. Can we have civility—not northerners goading southerners for not being able to handle the rare ice or snow storm? And government officials like Mayor Reed certainly should not respond to uncivil and ill-informed posts from outside his city/state.

Mayor Reed @KasimReed may never recover from his post on Monday that says that Atlanta is ready for the snow storm. Both government officials and corporate execs take note! His tweets have changed their tone in the past two days—some informative, more retweeting information from state and local agencies. He (or more probably his staff) have also been careful to retweet items (from political followers?) who are reporting what great shape some parts of the city are in!

Governor Deal @GovernorDeal doesn’t score any higher on my “good use of twitter” scale. He will have a hard time living down the tweet at 3:05 p.m. on January 28 touting his introduction of Mayor Reed as he won the Georgian of the Year award. The next tweet was the twitter page announcement of the emergency declaration at 7:42 p.m. that evening.  Beginning on January 29 there are an uncountable number of retweets mostly from the Georgia DOT and the 511 reporting line. Those are useful information, but putting all them on the governor’s page makes it hard to find anything of value.  Michelle’s solution of links to area-specific information makes a lot more sense (quel surprise!!!).

We all owe a great debt of gratitude to citizens like Michelle, especially those who jump in to provide important services when our government fails us.

Politicians should train their staffs in the effective use of social platforms. It might also be wise to train them in what improves the politician’s brand image and what makes them look venal and self-serving.

Vine Videos Promote Animal Adoptions

First published on February 24, 2013.

On January 24 [2013] Twitter launched Vine, a platform for 6 second looping videos. Right now they are mobile-only. The free app can be downloaded at the App Store.

The New York Humane Society was one of the first users. They tweeted a video of Parker the cat.

The good news is that Parker found a home as a direct result of the video. NYHS was smart enough to tweet again, the image I captured, announcing that Parker had found his new home.

Good job!

The Humane Society of New York continues to use Vine to promote adoptions and to support their fundraising.