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: Twitter
rofs7l

Political web apps: UK Labour’s linking with Facebook and Twitter

UK Labour is taking the General Election very seriously – and is steaming ahead with its online engagement. With the polls showing that around a third of the electorate is still undecided, this outreach is especially important. The newest web offering from UK Labour is a web-app that allows Labour supporters to comment on the [...]

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atanywhere

Adding Twitter’s @Anywhere

Twitter has launched a new feature, called @Anywhere, for websites to integrate elements of Twitter onto their websites. This allows you to use your Twitter login to join or log into their website, as well as add Twitter-style popups over names that are Twitter accounts (such as @alexanderwhite, @UKLabour, or @climateprogress). This means you can [...]

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Unions and Twitter

The open, conversational nature of social networking offers the perfect elixir to turn this around. Check out my first Media140 blog post, discussing how union leaders can promote themselves, their unions and their activities socially using Twitter.

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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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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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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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A Twitter hashtag worth following in 2010

This year will see the UK General Election, where it is widely expected that the British Labour Party will be ousted by the Tories from No. 10 after thirteen years of Government. The election bloodletting started a while ago, although now it is really getting nasty. With that in mind, I suggest that you add [...]

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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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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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Interesting use of Twitter in elections

Via Joe Trippi, the site Tech President reports that the New York City Democratic Primary made heavy and (in some cases) innovative uses of Twitter. Joe asked in his tweet whether Twitter will be used to predict the outcomes of elections and primaries. For example, the initial winner of the NYC primary, Bill DiBlasio, had [...]

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Three more Twitter tips for trade unions

As Twitter has grown larger and faster, more and more unions are starting Twitter accounts. On the one hand, this is a good sign. Unions should exploit social media and tools such as Twitter. On the other hand, many unions are not following the basic rules of social media, or are not following Twitter etiquette. [...]

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A creative manifesto

Every good cause has a manifesto these days. Here’s the Creative Unions manifesto – the new social venture started by Atosha and myself to promote powerful union design and communications. Check it out. Let us know what you think. Send us a tweet @creativeunions or visit our Creative Unions Facebook page.

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