by Nedra Weinreich | Jun 20, 2006 | Blog, Social Media
A new social networking site for teens called YouthNoise is built around teens’ desires to make a difference on social issues.
YouthNoise, a nonpartisan, nonsectarian, nonprofit organization, creates an authentic experience for young people ages 16 to 22 by featuring 100% youth-generated content. Content is organized into 15 easily navigated channels spanning War, Peace & Terrorism, Religion, the Economy, Tolerance, Life & Culture and the Arts with the ability to expand into any social issue the community chooses. User profiles are organized based on their cause and issue preference, which allows peers to easily search the network for other users with like interests.
YouthNoise was founded in 2001 by Save the Children as an online community for youth to share and convert ideas into action and improve the world around them. Since the original conception, YouthNoise spun off in 2004 and has spent the last two years evolving from an online community for youth to the internet’s premiere social network for youth who want to create social change.
By featuring only user-generated content, YouthNoise has effectively created a politically neutral media outlet for youth to discuss social issues and receive news, opinions and events through a familiar channel and voice that is devoid of gatekeepers and agendas. Each channel on the network will include blogs that host debates and allow users to upload photos and text to post along with their entries. In addition, YouthNoise will feature a showcase of user created poetry, art, and photography as well as profiles of projects in progress or completed.
The site already has over 113,000 users, and right now it looks like the main area for user-generated content is in the forums section, which touches on all of the topics and has a high volume of postings. It doesn’t look like the profiles can be personalized as much as a service like MySpace but it has a lot of potential.
by Nedra Weinreich | May 19, 2006 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion offers a model for thinking about how to use both old and new media together for maximum advantage:
The Magic “T” of Marketing is really simple to understand and use. Basically you leverage the mainstream media world for what it’s best for – big reach. And you use new media to develop a deep level of engagement by conversing with a very narrow slice of your audience. This taps into two big marketing needs – reach and engagement.
An astute commenter noted that the “T” should ideally turn into an “I” because by reaching deep to evangelists, they will spread the word at the bottom to their own constituencies.
But don’t forget that, just as important as having people hear your message, is making sure that the message itself is effective. If the message that’s spreading is ineffective in bringing about the desired behavior — or worse, negative — the Magic “T” is not going to help you.
by Nedra Weinreich | May 19, 2006 | Blog, Marketing, Social Media
Fard Johnmar at HealthCareVox discusses the ways blogs and bulletin boards can be used to foster discussion and community around health issues.
He concludes that
Bulletin boards are a great way to forge close, vibrant virtual communities of people who share common medical conditions or healthcare-related interests. Blogs are an ideal means of educating readers, shaping dialogue and aggregating diverse commentary on a range of topics.
In the rush to take advantage of new media technologies, don’t forget the oldies but goodies like bulletin boards that have been around since the Internet was nothing but a bunch of BBSes.
by Nedra Weinreich | Apr 27, 2006 | Blog, Social Media
An amazing case study in progress shows how social change can happen quickly within the MySpace generation.
From Leadernotes (via Seth Godin): How to Raise $500,000 from Middle Class White Kids (and Why the Red Cross Never Will)
Three 20-something kids with a video camera wind up in northern Uganda. They see incredible horror and encounter heartbreaking suffering, most especially among children.
Instead of turning their backs, they can’t stop thinking about it. They decide to do something about it.
What can three white kids do to stop 20 years of horror and war? They decide that alone they can’t do much, but if they can mobilize enough other youth, they can influence the powerful.
They know their audience – other youth. They use multimedia, they use rock music, they use myspace, they make music videos, they portray things raw and gritty and honest and authentic.
…They make their message viral and easy to share. Buy a DVD of their documentary and they send you two – one to share with someone.
They brilliantly merge online content with offline activities, such as house parties and private screenings. They provide materials to allow people to host their own house parties.
People who sign up online get regular updates on their Ipod to motivate and give them insider information.
The organization is dedicated to ending the war in Northern Uganda where children are abducted and forced to fight with the rebel army as child soldiers. For fear of being hunted by the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), these children commute on foot every night to find safe places to sleep in their town centers. To date, more than 30,000 children have been abducted and forced into war.
The Invisible Children campaign that they started is sponsoring a nationwide event this Saturday April 29th in 130 cities. In this Global Night Commute, participants will walk to their cities’ designated locations and sleep outside on behalf of the invisible children of Northern Uganda. It will be interesting to see if they are able to get mainstream media coverage of this event, or if it will remain under the radar except to the youth population.
by Nedra Weinreich | Mar 8, 2006 | Blog, Social Marketing, Social Media
Kudos to Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research for changing the name of their previously titled “Social Marketing Boot Camp” to the “Social Computing Boot Camp” (official title – “Social Computing: Tapping Into the Power of Connected Customers”).
After my recent post bemoaning the fact that the term “social marketing” was being co-opted by bloggers and others talking about peer-to-peer and consumer generated media, Charlene agreed that the dual use of the term could be confusing. Thanks to her example, and hopefully others like her out there, we may yet win the war of words, keeping the meaning of the term “social marketing” free from confusion.
And I think the term “social computing” describes what she is doing perfectly.
by Nedra Weinreich | Feb 16, 2006 | Blog, Social Marketing, Social Media
I’ve had all I can stands and I can’t stands no more. – Popeye
Social marketing. It’s brand-new, word-of-mouth, viral, social networking, blogging, buzzing, consumer-generated media, right?
WRONG!
Looking at Technorati results, you would think that “social marketing” is all about the use of new media, social networking and Web 2.0 applications. Because bloggers have these things on their minds, not surprisingly, they write about them. But increasingly they are using the term “social marketing” as a catch-all phrase to describe what I would call “social network marketing.”
Google the term. You’ll see that the phrase “social marketing” already has a very specific meaning. I would define it as the use of marketing techniques to bring about positive behavior change related to health and social issues. You have to go through five pages of search results that follow that definition before you come across a link to Forrester Research, which offers a “Social Marketing Boot Camp” on “new technologies like blogs, social networking, and RSS.”
Even people who should know better, like Chris Perry (Sr. VP at PR company Weber Shandwick), who says “he has followed the social marketing movement through the Going Social blog since 2002,” are using the term incorrectly. CMO Magazine (“the resource for marketing executives”) ran a story called “Social Marketing in Four Flavors,” which talks solely about word of mouth, blogs, RSS and podcasting. And the Association of Internet Marketing and Sales is offering an event called “Social Marketing: Tapping Into The Power Of Connected Customers” that is clearly not about bringing about social change, but bigger profits. I have found many other examples as well.
Keeping these two marketing subdisciplines distinct and clearly defined is in everyone’s best interest. Imagine the confusion that someone searching for information on blogging or word of mouth marketing would have if they googled “social marketing.” There is not a useful link for miles around in Google distance. Likewise, I am constantly frustrated as I search for others writing on my kind of social marketing in the blogosphere. Everyone is better off if the term keeps the meaning it has had for a quarter century, rather than having the new definition propagate until nobody knows what anyone else is talking about.
This is not to say that social marketing does not or should not use the many useful tools offered by social network marketing. But they are not one and the same.
So, new “social marketers,” please continue the great work you are doing. But let’s come up with a new term to use – whether it’s “social network marketing,” “consumer-generated media,” “social media,” “word of mouth marketing” or anything else you prefer.
But leave us our one small piece of semantic real estate.
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. 
