| wildfire |

The evolution of digital activism

Greenpeace has been busy. 

Its latest campaign to make Apple products greener is setting a new standard for sophisticated use of internet, online advocacy and social media activism.

The campaign, (which urges Apple to create greener products and reduce its use of toxic chemicals), makes use of all the newest, latest, coolest web 2.0 trends and popular emerging online channels (social bookmarking, Technorati, YouTube, StumbleUpon, blogging, tagging, etc.), as well as a fantastically designed campaign microsite (www.greenmyapple.org), which looks shockingly like Apple's popular website. 

The underlying reason why this campaign works is because it uses just the right tone and media to address its target audience.  The campaign is directed at people who love Apple, (the tag line being "I love my Mac/iPod/etc., I just wish it came in green"). The objective is clearly to mobilise this group to persuade Apple to improve its environmental record.  Die-hard Apple users are more likely to be technologically savvy - so they can handle a cutting edge web campaign.

Visually mimicking Apple's website is a bold move, which adds strength to the campaign:

• It creates a "buzz" - getting people talking about "the spoof Apple site"
• It allows the microsite to benefit from Apple's proven web usability (after all, the real Apple site is highly usable, well used and well liked)
• Finally, it enables the viewer to understand the message immediately - the campaign is obviously about Apple products.

The campaign is also supported by its effortless viral aspect, which utilises the latest social media trends. For example, anyone who mentions the campaign in their blog will see their post on the campaign website www.greenmyapple.org/buzz (via a Technorati feed). 

User-generated content is featured in the section called proCreate, where motivated activists and Apple fans can create campaign T-shirts, videos, animations, games, etc., the best of which are also displayed on the site:

The thing that struck me about this campaign is something I hadn't considered trying before.  Whenever an online campaign is launched the organisation or agency will monitor results by searching different areas of the web to see whether there has been an impact.  But, as we all know, Google News alerts only go so far.  If the campaign is discussed in the blogosphere or other social media channels we may or may not find out, depending on how it is tagged, or where it occurs.

Greenpeace's campaign has taken a proactive approach.  By encouraging people to use a proscribed tag ("greenmyapple") and by listing recommended social media sites and actions - they already have a good idea of where to look, at what to look for. 

This means that the people in charge of the online campaign can easily track and measure their results, which in turn makes their jobs easier, (probably) makes their offline counterparts jealous, and helps them champion their successes internally.  As online professionals are always looking for ways to prove their "new ways of doing things", the more results they can show the better.

Whether you focus on B2C, B2B or social change, you'll recognise a good online campaign when you see one. Activist and advocacy organisations, including myself in my upcoming role, will certainly benefit from Greenpeace's innovations.  It will be very interesting to see what the next evolutionary step will be.

Postscript:

I posted a piece about this campaign on the IABC blog last Friday, discussing it from a communicator's perspective - imagining how Apple may respond.  I noticed that the IABC blog traffic spiked with Greenpeace /buzz referrals.  I was very pleased to find an e-mail from Greenpeace in my inbox this morning. The web team is clearly monitoring this campaign and engaging with their audience.  Once again it shows how the web is changing our profession: We can now hold conversations between campaign creators and audiences via social media.  One way communication is truly dead.

So, once again, I wish Greenpeace the best of luck and kudos for such a genius digital campaign!

Good and bad news...

The good news is that Steve Crescenzo called me interesting today at the Simply-Communicate masterclass on social media.  The (sort of) bad news is that he said he was going to start reading my blog... which sent me into a virtual panic as I have barely posted anything for over a month.  Well, at least he has motivated me to get back to it! 

Here are some thoughts from today's discussion: 

Global communications...

... is everyone's nightmare - and online just makes it more difficult because it is transparent. 

We hear great things about this or that company's successful CEO or leadership blog - but we forget that if they are blogging in English for a global organisation, they are excluding many of their internal audiences.  The trouble is, blogs do not lend themselves to translation.  So, how does a global communicator balance linguistical constraints with the desire to enable dialogue with an English speaking leader?

A suggestion is to introduce blogs at the local level in local languages.  These blogs could cover completely different local issues, but could also offer commentary on the English leader's posts in the local language, presented from the local perspective.

From my experience, employees from offices that do not speak English consider their local leaders more open and credible than the remote HQ leaders anyway.

Really simple - what?

I remember a discussion I had a few years ago about introducing RSS feeds to an external website.  My very smart, very tech-savvy (geek) colleagues thought it was a great idea, but I told them I thought we should wait a few years because 99.99% of our visitors would have no idea what RSS was.  Today most websites have an orange RSS feed subscribe button () but chances are most of their audience still has no idea what it means, or how to use it.

RSS is actually a brilliant tool for communicators.  External communicators may be ahead of the curve, but internal communicators should be just as excited about it.  It enables your audience to subscribe to your content, so they are automatically notified EVERYTIME you publish something new (rather than having to wait for you to tell them).

Once notified they are much more likely to read your content - at no additional time/cost or effort on your part!   You can create as many feeds as you think are relevant - so for example - Global News, Global News in German, today's canteen menu, management Q&A's, and so on.  Your audience selects the feeds most interesting to them, so you don't have to worry about complex segmentation strategies.

The other brilliant advantage for communicators is that RSS enables other publishers to easily feature your content on THEIR sites, which in turn increases your audience base.  This is something that savvy external comms people have been doing for a while.  Internal people may not see the immediate advantage to this, but trust me, it is there.  If you happen to have more than one Intranet homepage, for example, and you want to provide the same global news stories on all of them, having an RSS feed makes it very easy to do.

The BBC has one of the best explanations of RSS on the web, and an ex-colleague of mine, Anu Gupta, is also a huge guru on the applications of RSS for internal communications.

Working for a good cause

Finally - the past two events I have attended, I have been introduced as working for Amnesty.  I actually don't start until the end of next month, but already I have been given a glimpse of what it is like to work for a good cause.  The most interesting reaction is that people I have never met before confess how they would similarly love to do something worthwhile with their skills.  Many have expressed the desire to move from corporate or commercial organisations into the charitable sector. 

Interestingly, I just read an article in Business Week about the increase of professionals who aim to use their "business know-how to effect social change" and who see "a corporate job as the first step in a career working for nonprofits".  A quote from IABC's Paul Sanchez noted that the corporates are not very happy about this.

Corporates are starting to fight back, in some cases by offering charitable sabbaticals in which they encourage employees "to keep the day job but work with a nonprofit on the side." At Bain there is a scheme that allows eligible employees to work full-time with a nonprofit for three to six months.

So, for anyone who mentioned this to me today - maybe you can use your talent for good!  Why not convince your employer to give you a short sabbatical?  I am certain you'd enjoy it, and the right charities would be delighted to benefit from your highly valuable skills.