Archive for the ‘Activism’ Category

Do you follow over 100 news sources? Are you the first to retweet earthquake tweets? Do you send late night DM’s to major new sources then see them show up on the news a few minutes later? If so, then you’re definitely a news hound.

Here are five tips to keep you at the top of the news food chain.

1) Follow a lot of news sources via Twitter.

News agencies are changing the way they present news information online. Before they used to only post full news stories. Now many are employing the “first to break” strategy. In that strategy, news agencies will start with a tweet on Twitter then move on to a very brief post on their site. If you follow a lot of news sites then you can use some of the other techniques below to stay ahead of the story.

Actress and activist Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) is great at posting hot news. If you look at who she’s following on Twitter, you’ll see a ton of news sources. By finding then retweeting news items, Alyssa is able to provide a valuable resource to her followers. Hot news also makes for great retweet material.

2) Follow a lot of people on Twitter.

If you are really on the hunt for news, you need to follow a lot of people. Breaking news happens all the time, in all parts of the world. Reading tweets from many followers helps build a picture of what’s going on without having to cobble information based on Trending Topics.

Rich Sanchez from CNN (@ricksanchezcnn) follows over 47,000 people and feeds on Twitter. This helps him track stories and connect with potential news sources.

If following many people puts a crimp in your social media plan, then rely on method number one and follow top breaking news sources.

3) Use Twitter’s advanced search.

With Twitter’s advanced search you can track down stories based on 18 different filters. One of the most powerful measures is searching by Place. For example, if you know there is a strong earthquake in a particular location, you can enter that location in the “near this location” textbox then set the distance from that location. This will show tweets from people that are actually in the area.

Also, if you enter “Twitpic” in the Words section, you can retrieve tweets with links to pictures.

4) User Twitter lists.

My process for tracking natural disaster news is to spot the news items from my timeline then do an advanced Twitter search and identify people who are in the region. The next step is to add those Twitterers to a new Twitter List. I used that news tracking process during the Fort Hood shootings.

Tracking people near the news site during an emergency or natural disaster helps give a three-dimensional view of what’s happening. The tweets are also likely to be less “filtered” then that coming from official news sources.

5) Search emergency live feeds.

When you are on the news hunt for information on an emergency or natural disaster, do a Web search over [cityname] + “fire department live feeds.” Fire trucks are often the first on the scene of an emergency and you can usually find a live feed online. I used fire department scanners to track the plane crash in Denver in 2008.

6) BONUS: Search Web Cams.

You’ve been very patient up to now so I’m throwing in a 6th Hot Tip. If you do a Web search over [cityname] + “live cam” or “web cam” you will usually be able to get video of the area. I used this technique during the last tsunami watch in Hawaii and off the California coast.

Assignment

The next time emergency news breaks, use techniques 3-6 above and get a rich 3D view of the news story.

Do you have any other resources or techniques that you use for tracking breaking news? I’d love to hear about them.

One year ago today (July 4th, 2009), thousands mourned the death of Eric De La Cruz after he was unable to get a heart transplant in time. Eric’s sister, television journalist Veronica De La Cruz (@VeronicaDLCruz), had reached out to her Twitter network and started an historic campaign that would connect thousands, raise over one million dollars in three weeks, and play a significant role in the U.S. health care debate.

There are hundreds of stories like this on Twitter and each one revolves around a strong community. After being a part of the Eric De La Cruz campaign (#ERIC) and many other efforts, I have identified four key tips for building strong and lasting Twitter communities.

A Quick Note
Please note, Twitter is one large community, so when I write “community” in this post I’m really talking about niche communities.

1) Follow community leaders

The best way to learn about amazing Twitter communities is to follow Twitter leaders and innovators. Following leaders helps understand the way they engage their communities and the larger dynamics of that particular community.

There are thousands of leaders who have had a significant impact on Twitter, in industries, and in society in general. Here are three community leaders:

Sarah Evans(@prsarahevans) – Founder of #Journchat, a Twitter chat organized to connect journalists, PR people, and bloggers. #Journchat has had tens of thousands of participants [my guesstimate] and has been in existence for almost two years. Journchat is even crossing over into mainstream media as it will be broadcast from NBC next month.

Mack Collier (@mackcollier) – Blogger and founder of #blogchat. #Blogchat has activated a large community of bloggers, with over 400 active participants per week and is growing.
Leslie Carothers (@tkpleslie) has been connecting members of the struggling furniture and interior design for the past two years.

2) Care and have a mission

Amazing Twitter communities start when the founders are passionate about a topic or cause. The topic may be promoting the furniture industry, sharing ideas between journalists, or helping to raise awareness for a cause. Chances are, the community will flounder without a strong reason for its existence.

Here are some examples of Twitter users who create community by caring:

Stacey Monk -(@staceymonk) has help created some of the most innovative and heartfelt fundraising efforts including Tweetsgiving.

Danny Brown – (@dannybrown) set up a network of tweeters that helped charities contribute via his #12for12 campaign.

Beth Kanter – (@kanter) has built a massive community of non-profit organizations that are promoting social change.

3) Reach Out

Community building on Twitter is a proactive behavior. Once you have a network of trusted friends, you can reach out to them and encourage them to reach out as well. The more powerful the intent of the community, the broader the reach.

The number of community members is not as important as the strength of the network. In the diagram above, the blue areas represent the “density” and connectedness of the trust network. The largest circle is the larger Twitter community, which may be listening but not necessarily engaged in the community.

Magic happens when different communities meet and support each other. At some point, the #ERIC group connected with a large number of Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails supporters and Trent (@trent_reznor) ended up joining and helping the cause in an amazing way.

4) Stay Connected

Twitter is a big place and it’s easy to get lost. The top three ways to stay connected are to use a hashtag when tweeting community-specific information, to set up a chat, and to use an avatar banner.

Hashtags
A hashtag is a combination of a “#” symbol in front of a short keyword or keyword phrase like #ERIC, #journchat, #tweetsgiving, #blogchat, or #12for12.

The hashtag is something Twitter users created and has since been adopted by Twitter. Twitter clients like Twitter Web and TweetDeck allow users to click on a hashtag then be linked to a search over other tweets using that hashtag. For example, if a tweet contains the “#blogchat” hashtag, clicking on it will take you to the #blogchat search results.

Hashtags become extremely powerful when community members start to monitor the hashtag content on a consistent basis. I monitor the #blogchat, #ERIC, #vlogchat, and the #WordPress hashtags and have them set up as different search columns in TweetDeck. This process allows even people who follow thousands of others to see the single conversation stream related to the hashtag.

Chats
Twitter chats are conversations held at regular times that use the related community’s hashtag. This Google Document lists over 150 Twitter chats and includes the names of the chat founders and the chat schedule. Chats help sustain long term community relationships.

Avatar banners
Avatar banners are the little graphics that are added to avatars to represent a cause or community. During the Iran election, thousands of people changed their avatars to have a greenish tint. During World Cup, I noticed a lot of country flags on avatars. For the #ERIC campaign, I created an avatar banner that also included the #ERIC hashtag. Once I started using the #ERIC banner on my avatar, others in the group created ways to easily distribute the banner and in a couple of weeks hundreds of people were wearing them.

Review

So if you are interested in starting your own strong Twitter community, you may want to follow Twitter leaders and learn, make sure you have a compelling reason to start a community in the first place, reach out and build your forces, and stay connected using things like hashtags, avatar banners, and scheduled chats.

Do you have any other tips for building an effective and strong Twitter community? Do you have any amazing stories that you would like to share about an existing community? I’d be honored if you left a Comment and shared with this blog’s community of readers.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were decided upon by 191 countries in 2000. With only 5 years to go, 8 top filmmakers got together to mobilize others into action. They created 8 short videos which were compiled into the feature film “8.” Each of the short stories focuses on one of the MDGs which are:

1) Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
2) Achieving universal primary education
3) Promoting gender equality
4) Reducing child mortality
5) Improving maternal health
6) Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7) Ensuring environmental sustainability
8) Creating global partnerships for development

I spent a week at the United Nations in 2002 so I have a very personal connection to this mission and hope to become more involved.

You can find out more about the project by visiting NoTimeLeft.org and by viewing the videos on YouTube.

I was particularly taken with the way the global partnership and develpment video was created. The story was directed by Wim Wenders and is below.

Twitter has changed it’s Suggested User section list by creating 20 user categories.

This change was made to introduce new Twitter users to a broader base and group them by interest/categories.

Josh Elman from Twitter explains in the Official Twitter Blog:

Today we’re making the first of many changes here to help people ease into the twitterverse by finding and following accounts that interest them.

A Golden Ticket?

If you’ve ever followed anyone who was suddenly added to the previous Suggested Users list, their follower count skyrocketed hours after the new designation. Since there are more categories, the follower count increase might not be as steep but they will still take off like wildfire.

What are some possible effects of this change?

Just looking at the Politics category, being listed could have a make or break effect on politicians. Twitter follower numbers matter big time as Twitter is now one of the largest political organizing tools.

To see the possible impact, look at Carly Fiorina’s account. As of right now, she has 231,655 followers and is campaigning for the US Senate race in California. Fiorina is currently listed in the Politics Suggested User list. Although she has first has to compete for the Republican nomination, Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer only has 18,432 followers and is not on the Politics list. This could be a huge factor, but we don’t know how frequently the lists will change.

The other high impact Suggested User category is the Staff Pics for Haiti category. It’s now easier than ever to find top tweeting sources on the ground in Haiti to help support the crisis after last week’s massive earthquake.

How do the lists work

We know a little bit about how the lists work and the way they are formed from the Twitter blog post:

These lists will be refreshed frequently as the algorithms identify new users who should be suggested in these lists and some that are not as engaging to new users will be removed.

These are the new categories with links to the actual lists:

* Art & Design
* Books
* Business
* Charity
* Entertainment
* Family
* Fashion
* Food & Drink
* Funny
* Health
* Music
* News
* Politics
* Science
* Sports
* Staff Picks
* Staff Picks for Haiti
* Technology
* Travel
* Twitter

What are your thoughts on the Suggested User change? Is this a good direction?

Related Post:

• Review: “open” Listorious vs. “closed” new Twitter suggestion list by Robert Scoble (@scobleizer)

I’m passionate about supporting health care reform. This Animoto video is a compilation of pictures and video from yesterday’s Health care reform rally in Ventura, CA.

During the rally, I sent Twitpics images to Twitter, recorded video using a Mino HD Flip video camera, and streamed live footage using Qik software via my cell phone.

After reading Mashable’s post on Animoto’s new Remix Video feature, I knew I had to try it out. I think this makes a great way to capture some of the energy and spirit of an event.

After reading Seth Godin’s blog post “Willfully ignorant vs. aggressively skeptical” on screaming and being the most informed, I thought I should share my thoughts on using screaming for social causes online.

Many people know that I’ve been screaming in support of healthcare reform and many have joined in. But screaming doesn’t always work. There has to be genuine urgency aimed at one’s trust network and one’s intent must be clear. Without those elements, the screaming and the message will be ignored, perceived as an annoyance, or worse.

Sense of Urgency
For screaming to be effective, there has to be a true sense of urgency based on an emergency (Amber alert, natural disaster, loss of life), time based situation (live event/speech), or information alert (such as a hot news event). At this point, having a decent (but not necessarily the best) understanding of the situation is necessary. If money is involved (as in an urgent fundraising situation) then the more information one has, the better.

Trust Network
If you need to scream to get your message out, scream at your trust network first. If you yell outside of your trust network, it just looks like yelling for yelling’s sake and people will often shut you out, regardless of the message. This is where trust comes in. If people don’t trust you, they won’t even listen, let alone pass on the information or line up with you to scream.

On Twitter, the folks who follow me are my trust network. That certainly doesn’t mean they agree with everything I say or with every position. But it does mean that we rely on each other for true bits of information, which can go a very long way to building trust over time. Over time and with enough fire line situations, these folks become friends and part of what Godin would call a “tribe.” You can find my tribe at http://www.tweet4eric.com. Please ask me about it.

Intent
To have your message heard, your intent must be clear. If people in your trust network see that you have a genuine concern for a cause, then they will lend an ear and maybe even act. If you appear to have a different or unclear agenda, then people will ignore you or maybe even go as far as to call you out on it. For example, if, let’s say, an insurance agent was pushing people to his business blog for more information on squashing healthcare reform, I’d be very skeptical and would certainly question his intentions.

Other Factors
There are many other factors that influence whether screaming for a social cause works (is received, listened to, and acted upon). Is it a political message, what is the timing for the receiver, and what is the “social cost” for repeating information or joining in the yelling?

Online sites like Twitter and Facebook can be used for many purposes, ranging from sheer entertainment to changing the world. If you have a message to get out for a cause, screaming can work to get people’s attention but this should be done sparingly and only when it comes from the heart.