Chances are, if you’ve been working in union communications, you’ve been asked at sometime to “make something go viral” by a colleague or superior. If you’re like me, you probably silently sighed to yourself. I’m a big advocate of social campaigning — that is, campaigns which integrate online and off-line action and emphasise the power …
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 …
Should “viral” be a goal for your union social campaign? Read More »
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 …
Why your union cannot afford to ignore Google+ any more Read More »