This is the website of Alex White, in Melbourne Australia, a campaigns and communications professional working in the trade union movement.

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Tag Archives: communications

Why the conservatives are wrong on the economy

UK Labour media master Alastair Campbell has an excellent post on his blog today about how the Tories consistently fail on strategy, even if they excel on tactics. He basically makes the point that even though the media is on their side, and they are able to get their line in the paper each day, [...]

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Connected candidates: Beyond Twitter

Most political candidates are on Twitter and Facebook – using these social media tools to reach out to younger voters, and instantly communicate with supporters, the public and the media. I’ve written previously about how political candidates can use social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, Google Apps and how campaigns have made use of [...]

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#NoCleanFeed campaign starts to focus messaging

The #NoCleanFeed movement is not an organised campaign, but rather a loose connection of disparate groups including ISPs and civil liberties organisations. For a while, I’ve been arguing that the #NoCleanFeed campaign should drop the focus on censorship: I suggest avoiding commenting on the refused classification – most Australians aren’t going to be sympathetic to [...]

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The #Nocleanfeed campaign, DoS and political nous

The #Nocleanfeed (aka, #OpenInternet) movement won’t succeed in blocking the Australian Government’s filter because its leadership are captured by the dead-end Democrats and fringe libertarians with little political campaigning experience. This capture means that unfortunately the movement is receiving ill-informed political counsel from serial Democrat losers like elitist apparent drug-taker Kathryn Crosby (links to screenshots [...]

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What union members want from their union's communications

In my line of work, I hear a lot of opinion expressed as fact. A common one is that “union members don’t want our communications to look too corporate”, or “our members want a lot of detail, not a short summary”, or “our slogan should be ‘screw the boss’ or something like that”. You get [...]

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Use your union’s Facebook page to build your email list

Facebook is a tremendous communications tool for unions – especially white-collar unions – and with only a small amount of technical know-how, it can also be super-charged for organising and campaigning. If you haven’t already, check my earlier articles about unions using Facebook: Best practice use of Facebook for unions and Using Facebook as an [...]

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Email is the “killer app” for online campaigning

The Massachusetts election has blown open the mainstream media’s infatuation with social networking tools, with headlines like “the iphone app that killed Coakley“. On the techblogs, there is also detailed examination of new tools that aided the winning Mass. Senate candidate Scott Brown. I am hardly immune to the temptation of writing about the exiting [...]

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Key messaging advice for unions

Every union communication challenge is unique – the circumstances, membership, employer, and so on are different every time. Having a framework to assist in messaging for diverse campaigns can make each campaign easier, and can help union communications anticipate what the employer (or opponent) may say. (George Lakoff called this “framing”.) The messaging quadrant The [...]

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Microblogging: Jumping on the bandwagon

A lot of people are starting to talk about microblogging – a short form of blogging. The most successful and well-known microblogging platform is, of course, Twitter. However, there are several others, such as Tumblr, Pownce and Posterous. Microblogging is a kind of social networking, as it focuses on sharing, networking and communities. Eric Lee [...]

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Social media and the vulnerability of "old politics"

The big difference between the current Liberal Party leadership tensions, and previous ones, is the role that social media such as Twitter and blogs, and “live updates” from SMS, are playing. Journalists in the Canberra press gallery are getting updates from Liberal MPs from inside party room meetings. The updates are “live” – that is, [...]

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Communicate, don’t sell

An interesting article from our friends across the ditch, about how to use social networking tools. Don’t act like a salesperson. Interact with your potential members/customers/voters in order to build a relationship with them. Andrea Mitchell writes: Obama’s campaign sure got it right through social media. As Obama adviser Scott Goodstein said: “Some people only [...]

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Best practice use of Facebook for unions

Many unions now have a presence on Facebook. However, I am aware of only a few unions that make full use of Facebook’s many tools. 1. Use Fan Pages, not groups When Facebook first got started, it didn’t have Pages. Instead, users created groups, which allowed people to join, and for administrators to “email” members. [...]

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Six effective print communications tips for union campaigns

Unions have little hesitation in spending thousands of dollars, in some cases tens of thousands of dollars, on printed communications – leaflets, posters, newsletters, fact-sheets, stickers and so on. At the start of a campaign, the first thing many union officials think is: “we need an A4 leaflet and a poster for this campaign”. Unfortunately, [...]

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Using Facebook as an organising tool

Facebook, like Twitter, is one of those social networking tools that unions are struggling to figure out. It is the most used social networking tool on earth, and an increasing number of Baby Boomers are starting to use it, expanding out of the younger 16-30 year old demographic. I have experimented with using Facebook as [...]

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Seven ways for unions to use Twitter

Twitter is definitely one of the new cool things on the Internet – the epitome of “Web 2.0″. Unions have traditionally been slow in their uptake of new technology. A quick survey of many union websites show that they are seriously out of date (technology wise, if not their content). Many union leaders and officials [...]

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