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: social media
YesWeDid

Book Review: “Yes We Did” by Rahaf Harfoush

Yes We Did: An inside look at how social media built the Obama brand Over Xmas, I purchased and read “Yes We Did: An inside look at how social media built the Obama brand”, by Rahaf Harfoush, a volunteer new media campaigner on the Obama 2008 election campaign. This 185 page book promises to give [...]

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David Cameron on the campaign trail

Just before the election was called, there were some very interesting articles about David Cameron and the UK Tory Party’s approach to online campaigning. The Tories (like most opposition parties, such as the Democrats with Obama in 2008, and Labor in 2007 with Kevin 07) are being quite innovative and creative with their online activities. [...]

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erq3mi

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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aZEmz

Engaging the progressive grass-roots in the UK

The UK Labour Party have been widely decried as being on their last legs, out of ideas, dead ducks, etc. However, behind the scenes, a growing movement of vibrant progressives is building and organising. Much of it is being supported and encouraged by the Labour Party. This rise of progressive online political action also coincides [...]

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Five effective political lobbying tools for unions

Unions and union members are the largest voluntary associations in Australia, representing millions of workers in tens of thousands of work places. Legislation can have a profound impact on the rights and entitlements of working people, such as changes to occupational health and safety, tax, industrial relations, and trade and industry policy. It is therefore [...]

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social-media-and-young-adults

Young people don’t blog

For my Project 52 post, I thought I’d comment about a recent Pew report has come to my attention via DownloadSquad that says that young people are blogging less: Pew Internet released a report yesterday called Social Media and Young Adults that shows teen blogging down by 50% over the past four years, even as [...]

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Seven online campaigning activities you should already be doing

In Australia, most elections take place during the normal, general election period. The accepted wisdom is that local campaigns make up, at most, 3 percent of a candidate’s primary vote. The rest comes from the central campaign from party head office: television ads, the leader’s personal appeal, the party’s policies and so on. There are [...]

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We Are Social opens up their analytics

If you are a social networking junkie then you should make the time to read an enlightening post by We Are Social – a leading UK social media agency – which opens up their site metrics for 2009. Their article is a very insightful addendum to my post from the other day about email being [...]

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site_traffic_breakdown_exp

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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Guest post over at Stronger Unions

Last November, I was asked to guest post over at Stronger Unions, about Creative Unions – a new project by Atosha McCaw and myself. The topic was the Creative Unions manifesto. A point that I’d like to underline from my post is this one: The thing that we noticed was that there was incredible variety [...]

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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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Some key message ideas for #NoCleanFeed

Some key message ideas for #NoCleanFeed

The No Clean Feed campaign has exploded on Twitter, received extensive coverage on the tech blogs, several independent campaign sites, and has spawned its own “Glenn Beck” style domain registry controversy. Unfortunately, much of the commentary, especially from “Pirate Party” officials, is shrill and near-hysterical in its pitch. Simply put, the majority of Australians, even [...]

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socialmedia

Going local – social networking for politicians

While there’s a million and one articles on the internet about how Obama built his success on social networks. There are fewer articles about how local candidates’ campaigns used social networking to promote their candidacy. I’ve previously written about one instance of a local campaign – the governor race in Virginia – using text message [...]

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Four pillars of social networking

I often get asked by friends, colleagues and acquaintances about why x, y, or z social networking tool is useful. (The question is alternatively phrased to ask me to justify why social networking is not just a waste of time.) I think many people of a certain age (even Generation X) find it very difficult [...]

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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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