Michael Roston at Nieman Journalism Lab has an excellent and interesting article about the New York Times’ social media desk. With over 5 million followers on Twitter, The New York Times has some very pertinent advice and hard lessons, many of which are relevant to unions and other progressive organisations. The reason I encourage you…
Should unions advertise online? This question came up while I was travelling in the USA. How can your union determine whether it’s worth spending the time and money running ads, whether Google pay-per-click ads or those annoying banner ads you see everywhere? (There’s also growing use by unions of social media ads, especially promoted posts.) Unions…
A few years ago, I remember regular requests for “viral” content for the union campaigns that my colleague and I ran. This was not only a mostly impossible task, but also misunderstands the utility of social media for unions. Very few worthwhile campaigns, videos or articles go “viral”. The job is so difficult that it…
I’ve long been scornful of Google+, but no longer. And your union cannot afford to ignore this much maligned social network either. Only a few unions are on Google+. Unions like the SEIU or peak bodies like the AFL-CIO are there, but even these are just empty shells that have not been updated in over…
Here’s a quick question: what is the most important number for your union’s Facebook page, Twitter account or website? Take a few moments to consider the answer before you read on. If my experiences with a number of unions and non-profits is representative, I’m willing to bet that “traffic” or “page views” or “likes” or…
Forgive my hyperbolic heading, but hopefully this article will be worth it. All the union digital campaigning talk these days is about social media. But practical experience and lots of research from the non-profit sector and private sector shows old-fashioned email is still far more effective than social media in prompting members and supporters to action….