Social Media

Trust Me. I’m a Digital Immigrant.

I admit it. I didn’t know much about Marc Prensky or his 2001 article on digital natives until about, oh, 2006. Though I find his article fascinating and the conversations and research that it sparked equally interesting, I want to bring a slightly different and lighthearted perspective to this conversation. I have found that there isRead… Read more »

Government Communications: How Not to Be Evil

I’m going to keep this quite short considering this is post about obedience, public sector managers, the nature of evil and social media. I’m going to argue how findings of a few psychological studies suggest the modern communications person needs to be more in touch with ‘the people’ avoid being complicit in evil acts. ARead… Read more »

Tips to Engage a New Audience with Social Media

Back in 2011, before the former White House aid ever assumed public office in Chicago, Twitter user @MayorEmanuel accrued nearly 50,000 followers and published more than 1,500 aggressively funny tweets showcasing the prospective mayor. In 2012, Secretary of State Clinton was similarly satirized, this time on the Tumblr site Texts from Hillary. Nearly 45,000 TumblrRead… Read more »

4 Reasons You Need to Market with Data

When you provide 5,600 blood transfusions, 424,000 measles vaccinations, 18,000 safety trainings, and countless other services to citizens each day, how are you supposed to present a single organization and mission? That was the question the American Red Cross’s (ARC) first Chief Marketing Officer, Peggy Dyer, was challenged with five years ago. Her response wasRead… Read more »

Social Media Screening: Guidance for Individuals and Organizations

Social media screening (aka social screening) has become an almost commonplace recruiting and hiring practice. Employers are “googling” job candidates and searching social networking sites as part of their pre-employment background checks, and admissions counselors and coaches are using similar practices to make acceptance decisions about prospective students and athletes. Results of a recent CareerBuilder study indicated thatRead… Read more »

Empowering Citizens with Money and Social Media

The White House’s Open Government initiative encourages citizens to become more actively engaged in budget decisions in their communities.  How does this work in practice?  Do busy citizens actually get involved?  Inspired by successful efforts in Brazil and other countries around the world, several U.S. communities have undertaken pilot efforts to allow citizens to directlyRead… Read more »

Empowering Citizens with Money and Social Media

The White House’s Open Government initiative encourages citizens to become more actively engaged in budget decisions in their communities. How does this work in practice? Do busy citizens actually get involved? Inspired by successful efforts in Brazil and other countries around the world, several U.S. communities have undertaken pilot efforts to allow citizens to directlyRead… Read more »

Small Umbrellas

Here’s a conversation that I have quite frequently during training courses when we play Dave Briggs’ evergreen Digital Engagement Game: Me: So, tell me how you’ll implement your plan… Team: Well, we’ll [do creative stuff with social media] and work with our stakeholder group to get the message out to the audience. Me: So, areRead… Read more »

92% of Australia’s Federal Politicians Now Use Facebook and/or Twitter

I’ve been tracking the number of Australian Federal politicians using Australia’s leading social channels for two years now, seeing the number using at least one of Facebook and Twitter grow from 79% in April 2012 to 90% in November 2013 to a current level of 92%. What’s even more interesting is in the details, whichRead… Read more »