A talk on social media for social change offered at the PopTech social innovation fellows meeting in Camden, ME.

1. social media
what works?
ethan zuckerman
october 19, 2008
pop!tech

3. 1950s-60s - age of local organizations
robert putnam - “bowling alone”
rise of the mailing list organization

4. photo by extraface

6. “2.2 million people around the world...”

8. danger that social media is just today’s mailing list
can you listen to 3.2 million people?

9. Is online action enough?

10. older organizations tend to assume the internet is just
another mailing list
web-generation organizations tend to assume that activism
is just web organizing

11. mosaic by stabillo boss

12. Hao Wu
Blogger, Filmmaker
Detained February 22, 2006

13. freehaowu.org

14. don’t speak - point.

18. what works?
internal
external

19. photo by Jerry Luk

24. what’s your organizational medium?
email vs. phone vs. chat vs. skype vs...
who’s your least flexible user?

25. realtime communication
asynchronous communication
document sharing
scheduling

30. realtime communication
asynchronous communication
document sharing
scheduling
presence
face to face

34. DIY vs. KISS

36. why?

37. PR is cheaper than marketing
Online presence is PR
you control
Winning via Google

38. link economy
comments
freshness

39. your users
are lower tech
than you are.

40. digital storytelling

41. 10 hours work, 500 downloads? - be ruthless on ROI

42. not possible to try them all
be ruthless about ROI
metrics
mosaic by stabillo boss

45. the “first blank to use
blank” trap

46. figure out why you’re using a tool before you use it

48. online to coordinate offline
work
expertise of the organizers
with the tools
getting trapped in the
platform

49. don’t speak, point
internet and external
PR is cheaper than marketing
win at google
choose
be ruthless about ROI
“new” can equal “no one uses it”