Britt Bravo (I just love her name – she sounds like a superhero!) tagged me to participate in a new meme [definition] that’s going around. I guess this is the blogger equivalent of a chain letter, minus the threats to my health and fortune if I don’t pass it along. But this is actually a topic that I would want to post about at some point anyway, and I think most other bloggers would as well.
The question is, “What five resources – online or otherwise – would you point people to, if you wanted to give them an entry into your field of expertise?”
So here are five useful resources I would recommend to those who want to learn more about social marketing:
1. Bill Smith of the Academy for Educational Development is one of the best minds in the social marketing field. He has compiled a number of his articles and presentations on social marketing into an e-book called Social Marketing Lite (pdf), which is written in an easy-to-read and conversational style.
2. Tools of Change is a great website that offers specific tools, case studies, and a planning guide to implement social marketing programs.
3. The annual Social Marketing in Public Health Conference is hosted by the University of South Florida in Clearwater Beach, FL each May or June, and is the best place to get up to speed with the current state of social marketing knowledge and practice. They offer a preconference introductory training for people new to the field, the conference itself with both plenaries and in-depth workshops, and a field school the following week for those who wish to receive training in specific social marketing topics. I always highly recommend this conference for anyone who is interested in becoming a social marketer, whether or not their focus is on public health issues.
4. The Turning Point Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project that offers numerous downloadable publications about social marketing, information on training, free CDCynergy social marketing planning CDs and more.
5. And for the latest news and cutting edge thinking on the topic, I go to R. Craig Lefebvre’s blog On Social Marketing and Social Change. He always has something interesting to say.
For those who want to get into more depth after checking out these five resources, I have compiled many other useful social marketing-related links and articles on my website and Squidoo lens.
And now, who to tag to continue this chain? I will pass the torch to some of my favorite bloggers whose fields do not overlap too much with me or each other:
Rohit Bhargava to list 5 resources for becoming an interactive marketer
Robert Avrech to list 5 resources for becoming a screenwriter
and I’ll take a big chance and invite Guy Kawasaki to list 5 resources for becoming a product evangelist.
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
