Let’s reach into the jar and see what we pull out this week…
- Michael Organ has put together The Internet Advocacy Book — a guide to help nonprofits use online marketing to promote their causes. It includes chapters on topics like keyphrase research, internet copywriting, search engine optimization and inbound link campaigns. It’s about much more than social media, and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to get noticed on the internet. The case studies bring the technical advice to life. Just don’t spend several minutes looking around for a link to download the book like I did, until I realized that the chapters are linked on the left as web pages rather than as a pdf.
- Why would the South African government be upset that students are snapping up the free condoms they are handing out? Mack Collier relates the story of how the intended audience discovered another use for them — fixing the scratches on their CDs by rubbing them with the silicone oil and dusting powder that coat the condoms. Suddenly it’s perfectly okay to be found with a supply of condoms on hand. Does this new use make it more likely that they will also be used for sex, or are they all being wasted? It’s not clear, but if I were the government I would be glad for the fact that people are no longer embarrassed to take the condoms.
- Pictures of your grandchildren may be useful for more than bragging rights. Life-sized cardboard cutouts of children placed near oncoming traffic have been found to be effective in getting drivers to slow down. A family who initially created the realistic cardboard children to sell to grandparents is now getting calls from police departments and neighborhood associations that want to curb speeders by tapping into people’s natural inclination to drive cautiously when they see children near the road. It’s a low-tech and inexpensive, but clever, way to change driving behavior.
- How would you feel if you got home and discovered that you had been walking around all day with this sticker on your back without knowing it? Volunteers on the streets of Lima (clues point to Peru, not Ohio) discreetly put stickers on passing pedestrians that said “You may carry HIV without even knowing it. Get tested.” This sneaky campaign resulted in an 80% increase in phone calls to the printed number and a 70% increase in HIV testing. And perhaps a 20% increase in volunteers getting beaten up for turning people into involuntary walking advertisements?
- If you are the person in your organization who ends up creating basic flyers and brochures despite no graphic design training, this guide to how to mix fonts together compatibly will be helpful. And if you are the de facto in-house photographer, Kivi explains when you need a model release.
- Katya points us to a great data resource called PollingReport, which provides the latest public opinion poll results on many timely topics — perhaps even including your issue. Another useful, but not entirely free, source of public opinion data on social, cultural and political trends in the US over the past 30 years is the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. If you are looking for past polls on an issue or validated survey questions that you can use for your own research, this is the place.
- What do you think of when you hear the word “Africa”? If you are like most people who don’t live on the continent, you probably think of poverty, hunger, AIDS, war… While these may be accurate associations for some regions, they do not hold true for all of the 54 countries on the continent. BrandChannel has an article up about the branding of Africa and how the charity branding that formed the aforementioned associations is spurring individual countries to “re-brand” themselves with more positive images. This, of course is not a new concept, with Western countries like the US, Australia and Israel periodically rebranding themselves as well.
- And this cartoon is not really on-topic, but it gave me a giggle. It’s fun to see the “other side” of iconic images.
I hope you were able to see the annual Perseids meteor shower tonight. I caught a few, but the combination of city lights and clouds made it difficult. Though tonight was the peak, you may still be able to see them for the next few days. There’s nothing like watching a shooting star fly across the sky.
Photo Credit: la_sabrita
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. 
