I was honored last night to be invited to share some social media perspective on PBS’ NewsHour. You can watch my comments here.

Invisible Children’s #Kony2012 campaign has a lot of people talking. After three days on YouTube, the video had 40 million views.  Now, a few hours later, it has 52.5 and every time I refresh the page, the number grows. It has been a worldwide trending topic on Twitter for days. At the peak on Wednesday afternoon, there were 4,000 mentions a minute on Twitter related to the campaign. I don’t know of another video that has gone so big so quickly.

Now compare that to when the earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, stunning the world with devastating images and a rapidly increasing death toll, some of the world’s top celebrities gathered to re-make the We are the World video. After two days, that video had half a million views. Today, two years later, that video has 98 million views and is one of YouTube’s top 10 all-time viewed videos.

So now the big question: What’s the point?

We know that the biggest demographic sharing this video and talking about it is girls in the U.S. ages 13-17.

The call to action on the campaign is to “make Kony famous” so that the pressure and visibility to eventually capture him and bring him to justice this year. The campaign launched with the support of A-list celebrities like George Clooney and quickly gained new celebrity supporters like Justin Bieber when it became a trending topic worldwide on Twitter in a matter of hours. Invisible Children’s Facebook page went from ~400k fans to 2 million in 2-days’ time!

But while this campaign has already made Kony more famous than anyone ever expected it could, what can come out of it?

In Egypt and Tunisia, social media helped to bring down dictators. In Haiti, social media helped to raise millions. Can social media sweep through the jungles of Uganda to find Joseph Kony?

That is the question on everyone’s minds. And frankly the criticism of the campaign –how Invisible Children spends their money, whether capturing Kony will have any impact, whether this is the right issue to pour so much attention into–is only fanning the flames of this viral fire.

My big question in all this is: How much will Invisible Children raise through this campaign? I think that’s going to break another record. And I hope they put it to good – to healing those children whose childhood was stolen from them and from helping Uganda, the DRC and other countries torn apart by war to have a fresh start and a new beginning.

At the end of the day, isn’t there value in the simple fact that we are getting teenage girls in the U.S. to use their texting thumbs to spread awareness of an issue that couldn’t be farther from their backyard?

Watch the video and tell me what you think:

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I am seeking men and women ages 25-35 in Washington, D.C. who spend at least one hour per week using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to participate in hour-long focus groups. The research study is for a graduate thesis on what motivates adults to donate to charitable causes through social media.

All participants will be entered in a raffle to win a brand-new iPod Nano with video playback and 8 GB of capacity. The iPod comes with Apple earphones, USB cable and a dock adapter. Snacks and drinks will also be provided.

The focus groups will be held in the evening or on weekends at the Johns Hopkins University campus near Dupont Circle at 1717 Massachusetts Ave NW.

Contact Dawn Arteaga at dawn.arteaga@jhu.edu if you are interested in participating. You will then receive a consent letter, and meeting and contact information.

Thanks so much for your help with this project.

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Hope you enjoy this presentation of a digital communications strategy I did for a nonprofit organization in St. Louis, MO: EnTeam Organization.

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It’s been a while since I posted to this blog. If you’ll allow me to make excuses, I do think I have a couple of good ones. I’ve been madly working to finish my master’s degree at Johns Hopkins in digital communication while working full time. On top of it all, I’m currently 35 weeks pregnant! I’m now in the final stages of two of these three all-consuming activities (being pregnant and completing my master’s) and I’m hoping I can get your help on the latter. (If you want to help me with my pregnancy, donations of caramel apples are warmly welcomed…that’s all I crave these days.)

Over the next several weeks I will be writing a thesis on social networking fundraising strategies. I’ll conduct several focus groups with people who are plugged into social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Yes, I’m looking at YOU.

I want to know what makes donors feel motivated to give to social causes of all sorts, and when, if ever, that motivation has started with a recommendation from a connection online.

For all you academics, my working research question is: What factors motivate people to donate to a charity through social media?

But before I even start recruiting for my focus groups, I’d love your help.

Do you think traditional best practices in fundraising apply to social media?

We know that organizations such as Charity:Water have been able to use networking on Facebook and YouTube to raise millions. The Red Cross credits their outreach on Twitter and other key social media networks to bring in $5 million in donations via text message following the earthquake in Haiti.

But what makes these effective appeals different from traditional fundraising? Anything?

Do you interact differently with charities because of social networking? If you see a friend’s recommendation for you to “like” a non-profit on Facebook, what makes you want to click?

In sum, does social media push you any closer to clicking that famous “DonateNow” button? And why?

Ok, now your turn. Let me have it…

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“NOOOO!” I heard myself issue a blood-curdling scream as the realization sunk in: Someone had just stolen my iPhone. The young punk ripped my lifeline out of my hands and ran through the closing metro doors before I could do anything. I leaped to my feet, banging on the doors to no avail. As the train gradually eased from the station I turned to my fellow passengers in utter desperation. “I WAS JUST ROBBED! HE STOLE MY PHONE!” A few lazily looked over in my direction. One woman unsympathetically muttered, “mmm hmmm, they do that.”

Didn’t they realize that I had just lost my connection to the world? What was I supposed to do without my iPhone? I was heading to the airport. How on earth would I survive a flight? What if someone sent me an e-mail? What if I got lost? My world slowed to a halt.

Despite herculean efforts on my part…from yanking the emergency brake to stop the train (in case anyone from the DC Metro is reading this, you might want to look into those bad boys. Both of the brakes on my car were loose in their sockets)…soliciting the help of a slightly over-eager DC policeman to track down a similar-looking guy and frisk him…getting the metro police to agree to review the tapes from the station to try to match our suspect to the theft…nothing worked. To make matters worse, I nearly missed my flight.

Here I am, two weeks later, still using a $20 Nokia phone with one ring tone, no games and of course no data access. It has been an interesting process. Some would probably say that I needed the cleansing. I disagree. I’m trying to hold out until the new iPhone comes out this summer. Until then, I’ll have to resign myself to the following lessons learned:

Without an iPhone, a lot of time is wasted

In the morning before I was ready to get out of bed, I used to lie in bed reading my favorite blogs and posting the best entries to Twitter. I would clean out the junk e-mails from my work account and skim the others to see what I needed to work on right away.

Now, I just lie there.

On the way to work, I’d have any form of entertainment my heart desired–from the day’s sudoku to the day’s news, to audio books, to a real book, to mindless entertainment like Ms. Pac Man.

Now, I sit and look around for punks eying my stuff.

Waiting ANYWHERE I’d have the instant ability to let my office know where I was or catch up on responding to e-mail.

Now, I wait.

There are a few benefits, though, to not being constantly plugged in

For one, I have a great excuse not to respond to work e-mails after hours. “Shoot, I don’t have an iPhone…sorry I missed that!” I shrug and move on with my life.

But, the biggest lesson I’ve taken from this is that it’s not good to get too plugged in. When my phone was stolen, I was so lost in my own world that I had no idea of my surroundings. For better or worse, it’s important to look up every now and then. And now that my phone commands far less attention, I have a lot more time to do that.

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There’s a trend for Facebook users to present an almost irritatingly cheery image of life. The standard “news feed” of friends’ activities is littered with news of the latest engagements, babies’ first steps, graduations, etc.

Meanwhile, our friends in the professional news business (especially local TV news) seem to have the opposite approach to life. “Could your new kitten kill your children? Find out at ten!”

Why the contradiction? Why is it that when we write our own headlines we spin everything toward the positive, while the most popular news outlets do the opposite?

Does Facebook bring out the inner PR agent in each of us?

We carefully weed out only the best, most complimentary photos of ourselves and our family, share the high peaks of life, and minimize the low ones. Our grumpiest moments are converted into cryptic messages that only the closest friends can decipher: “Jane Doe is done.” But across the board, it seems that if something really great happens, you’ll see a photo album dedicated to its celebration.

All of this positive spin on our own lives made me wonder what would happen if skimming headlines of major news outlets read more like a Facebook news feed? Would anyone read the news? Or is cheery news only interesting when it comes from people we care about (along with those people from High School who we think we remember and can’t bring ourselves to “ignore”).

What would the alternate universe look like? Which approach do you prefer?

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Look out folks, it's on the rise.

Foursquare is what some in social media circles are calling the Twitter of 2010. It is a social media game that rewards you for logging your location at any point in the day.  Eating a burrito? Tell the world where and when! The more you do, the more “badges” you earn. If you are the person who has logged the most visits to a specific place on Foursquare, you will win the additional honor of becoming the “mayor” of that location. Smart locales are playing along and giving out freebies to their “mayors.” Taste D-Lite lets customers accrue extra points on their TastiRewards cards for Foursquare check-ins and tweets.

From January 2010 to February, Foursquare passed the 1 million mark on Twitter (you can opt to have all your posts on Foursquare automatically post on your Twitter stream as well). In that month’s time, the number of check-ins doubled–showing remarkable promise. It list of seed-money investors include some of the most innovative minds in social media, including Digg Founder Kevin Rose, who endorsed the site to the tune of $1.35 million.

Some cite the brilliance of Foursquare in the fact that real-life social interactions become a virtual game. The person who wins the game is the person who is best able to show the world that he/she has the most interesting life.

So why do I think it’s such a bad idea?

Don't people realize the power they are giving to others when they reveal their whereabouts & spending decisions?

Because so far, the only benefit I can see in Foursquare for the common man–the Joe-the-Plumber, if you will–is that it’s entertaining.

Who really wins in Foursquare? Marketers, big businesses, anyone hoping to use your personal information to make  buck…oh yea, and the FBI. And trust me, there are bucks to be made in this. I hate to be a fear-monger here. I swear, I’m not one of these “all change is bad” people. I am a quick adapter. Half my family has me to thank for their Facebook pages. But I also believe that information is power. And by making public every location where we spend money, we are giving incredibly powerful information away for free.

Twitter, which some would argue does the same thing (see cartoon on left), you have the option to generate meaningful conversations (albeit short ones), show off expertise, track breaking news, donate to a cause, and much more. You can also remain anonymous if you need to (on Foursquare, you can’t be a “mayor” unless you’ve posted a profile photo). No one ever needs to know your location in order to tweet.

Time for the Twitter vs. Foursquare Face-Off

Looking at this from a different angle, let’s take John Bell‘s five key questions to determine the viability of a new technology as a “groundswell” threat.

• Does it enable people to connect in new ways? – Yes, both Twitter and Foursquare present creative connection tools for people around the world.
• Is it effortless for people to use and signup? Yep. and Yep.
• Does it generate enough content to sustain itself? You bet.
• Is it an open platform? Of course.
• Does it shift power from institutions to people? This is the key question. In Twitter, the answer is an unequivocal YES. During the Iran elections, voices resonated worldwide because Twitter gave them a mobile platform. With Foursquare, I would argue that the institutions are the ones who still hold the power. Users feed information that otherwise would have been painstakingly cataloged by expensive marketing research firms and sold to big businesses in order to improve their bottom line. At most, you could argue that it shifts power from big institutions to smaller institutions. Those mom-and-pops shops who can’t afford market research can log into Foursquare and see what kinds of people are coming regularly, and try to capitalize on them.

My question is: Do the benefits outweigh the negatives? With Foursquare, they do not.

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I’ve been working hard on coming up with a cohesive social media strategy for EnTeam Organization, a non-profit based in St. Louis, MO. If you want to read the full thing, ping me and I’ll be happy to send you a copy.

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Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge have some great advice in PR 2.0: Putting the public back in public relations. I’ve taken it to heart by coming up with my top ten ways to utterly fail at public relations in today’s world of social media.

Read this list to find out how NOT to practice PR 2.0

10. Invest your entire budget on the latest technology so you have nothing left for staff time or training to put the tools to strategic use.

9. Automate as much of your content as possible so you never have to worry about visiting all those different social sites (what was that called again? Tweeter?) this way, all your sales pitches can reach as many people as possible with the click of a button.

8. Never respond to criticism or negative comments (this only stirs up trouble–plus, it’s hard.)

7. Don’t worry if the people following you on different networks are interested in your content. There is power in volume. Surely, someone somewhere will swallow your pitch.

6. Focus on producing as much content as possible at all times. With all your other systems completely automated, this should be no problem.

5. Send as many long press releases to as many recipients as you can. You want to make sure that these press releases include every detail about your products and services as possible. You should also be sure to repeat important points several times. Most people aren’t very smart.

4. Never link to a related company’s web site. That will just boost the competition.

3. Increase your follower count on social networks by setting up automated follow based on as many keywords as you can think of. Granted, you’ll soon be following millions of people, but you won’t be logging onto the actual sites ever anyway, so you don’t have to worry about the clutter. Plus, some of those people are bound to follow you back eventually

2. Measure your success by quantity, not quality. It is more important to get millions of people viewing your sales pitch than a few hundred passionate advocates posting their personal experience with your product/service to their own networks. You don’t want to lose control of your message or let them water down your perfect pitch.

1. Ignore all this social networking stuff online. It’s probably just a fad.

The straight and narrow path to successful public relations on the social web includes making sure everyone knows you are human, not a machine.

If you’re sensing a common theme in this list, you’re right. It seems that many professionals mistake the ease provided by social media as an excuse to mindlessly accumulate followers without putting much thought into it. This is not the case. If anything, social media requires an even more personal touch in order to be effective. People are incredibly adept at spotting mechanical responses. This is why the point is repeated over and over in Solis and Breakenridge’s book. It’s also the underlying theme in Groundswell, a book by Forrester Research execs Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

Small organizations like this one can put this to practice easily by finding a few key opinion leaders and learning what they want to hear from you. When you can get a sense of what type of information will be useful to your key contacts, you can start to build meaningful relationships and cultivate them.

Ironically, the key to succeeding in our increasingly wired world is making sure everyone knows you’re human.

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Thank you for participating. You are now an expert.

In the booming world of social media, words like “guru,” “expert,” and … ugh…”innovator” are handed out like participation trophies at a 3rd grade swim meet. But what–or who–determines the line of demarcation between average social media consumer and social media guru?

If you believe communications theorists’ definition of Diffusion Theory, Opinion Leaders (what you or I would call the gurus or experts) are defined by how many people fall in line behind them. So yes, folks: the number of Twitter followers you have does matter after all! Opinion Leaders also have to be well connected, good communicators and relatively innovative (that means that they are ahead of the masses following them, but not too far ahead).

Diffusion theory is all about how to measure social change: When it happens and how. And these opinion leaders are key in the formula.

So when diffusion theory is applied to our society’s massive movement to using digital media as a key communications tool, who are the Opinion Leaders?

Here’s my short list. Who am I missing?

• Steve Jobs — the creator of the iPhone has to place high on anyone’s list, right? Even major phone companies are copying Apple’s designs…and now to my amusement, their advertising strategy. (Side rant: Will someone please tell the “iDon’t” people and the “I’m a PC” people that they are just strengthening the already die-hard crowd of Apple believers???)

Just look at the picture and you can tell Pete Cashmore is a true Opinion Leader...or sumthin'.

• Pete Cashmore — he went from starting a blog in his basement at age 19 to the founder of social media’s mecca. Mashable.com is the source for everything from how-to tips to breaking trends.

• Evan Williams – The co-founder of Twitter has a remarkable record of reinvention and innovation. And if you watch the interview with him at the journalism industry’s best association event of the year, you’ll see he is widely worshipped in the crowds of information dissemination. The tool he helped created has vastly changed blogging and mass communication forever.

This top-three list is just for those related to the field of social media. It’s highly disputable–and I’m sure as soon as I hit “publish” I’ll think of someone huge who should knock Ev off…but no list is perfect. If we had to look at the U.S.’s biggest opinion leaders overall, we’d have to include Oprah and Barack Obama to the list. But thankfully, we won’t try to go that big.

But now I ask:

How is innovation diffusion changing with social media?

Get in line, folks the "guru" has spoken!

I do believe that these opinion leaders are becoming weaker as social networks strengthen. Oprah can still send a book to the bestseller list with a 15-second recommendation and a link on her Web site. But surely there’s less room for more Oprahs within mainstream media. Instead, we are grouping off into many stronger, but smaller, networks–each with its own opinion leader.

This gives more people the opportunity to be considered a “guru” but at the same time less weight to the crown. So maybe our swim coaches had it right all along. Maybe we all deserve participation trophies for being opinion leaders of our own niche. Or perhaps we should start rewarding those who are just following along. They are becoming the rare ones.

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