Archive | Good For The World

RSS feed for this section

How To Handle Tragedy On Social Media

13 May

So when something crappy happens, what are we supposed to do online? The same things we do offline actually. Here’s what I’m talking about.

There was a historically huge Bangladesh factory collapse that killed over 1,000 people recently. My friend David posted a link from The Village Voice showing a screenshot of Joe Fresh, the retailer’s homepage, after the body count was posted:

joe_fresh2

OK so this is kind of ridiculous. Should Joe Fresh have done a bit more considering this was their factory? I think so.

Now posting a small condolence message is not quite the same as:

Epicurious-Tweets

So this second instance of a brand handling a tragedy got A LOT more negative feedback on social media then the first one. Probably for a couple reasons:

  • For better or for worse, people seem a lot more sensitive about US-based tragedies. That said, it’s important to mention what is happening overseas in some cases so please mention something even if it seems far away… just know a US-based audience will react to a US-based tragedy more strongly as a general rule.
  • Acknowledge the tragedy if you want, especially if it affects your company.
  • If you go the acknowledge a tragedy route, don’t try to sell to people.
  • You can ignore a tragedy (without any or many negative consequences) if it has nothing to do with your business.
  • If you schedule social media updates ahead and something bad happens, skim your scheduled updates of accidentally offensive content. (Ex: There is a huge fire in your city and you have a post scheduled to go out called ‘Sell like your store is on fire.’ with a link to your latest blog post. Yeah, you might want to change that.)

In other words, you can’t be selling your stuff and be mournful at the same time. Your customers will think it’s kind of weird and creepy. And if you go the ‘we’re a sensitive company’ route, be prepared to wait a respectful amount of time before returning to your regularly scheduled program.

Want to read other opinions on this subject? Check out:

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Can_companies_ignore_their_way_out_of_social_media_14329.aspx

http://www.enveritasgroup.com/2013/04/26/when-tragedy-strikes-how-does-social-media-respond/

http://holtz.com/blog/crisis-communication/the-conundrum-of-being-a-non-u.s.-company-when-tragedy-strikes-the-u.s/4103/

Why One Woman Wrote A Whole Book From An iPhone

10 March

This morning, I heard a story  on NPR about a woman who got diagnosed with ALS, a slowly degenerative disease that is eventually fatal. She spent the next year of her life living: travel with her family and doing all those other things you say you’ll do before you go.

She also wrote a book. Since at that time she only had movement in one thumb, she had her husband put her iPhobe in her non moving hand and she typed over 80,000 words with her working thumb into the Notes app on her phone (her iPad keyboard she said was too big to navigate).

I wanted to understand a bit how this felt so I typed this blog entry the same way. It was slow and I got the luxury of correcting my spelling errors, etc. on a full sized keyboard when I posted the blog.

It is amazing what the human spirit can do. Rather than seeing her limits, this woman saw her one working thumb and her still working mind and wrote the book she wanted to. Also made me realize there is more than one way to do something, even if one way takes longer and seems tedious. I thought it was the perfect thing to hear on a Sunday morning when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself feeling under the weather. Made me get up and do something with my day!

If you want to read (or hear) the interview too: http://kgou.org/post/living-life-joy-until-i-say-good-bye

Another great story about the same woman: http://thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/930473-her-toughest-assignment-reporter-chronicles-her-last-days

 

Darthia Farm: An Experiment In Social Giving

10 May

A couple years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Cynthia Thayer, a local author who hired me to train her on how to use her WordPress blog and also happens to run an organic farm. (This is a very Maine thing: to have two seemingly completely separate careers going at one time but often artfully combining them.) I also knew her through my friends Tom and Beth Walsh who happen to be a next door neighbor and farm share recipient of Darthia Farm.

Sunday, tragedy struck the farm when the barn burned and the animals inside died.

Tom called me up Tuesday morning and wanted to have a website set up right away. Wanting to turn this around quickly without any up front costs to Tom, Cynthia, or anyone else, I threw up a donation page on Give Forward and shared it to my Facebook profile. It was interesting to spend relatively little time on something (besides researching First Giving and other sites like it to narrow down the service I’d use) completely blow up online.

Here’s a screenshot of just how my Facebook friends and business pages I follow shared the news:

The true power of sharing... and beyond the people I regularly keep in touch with, I can't even track the shares through Facebook anymore!

The true power of sharing… and beyond the people I regularly keep in touch with, I can’t even track the shares through Facebook anymore!

If I click for further sharing information, here’s some even deeper data:

Social media sharing acts kind of like compound interest: one share could result in many more over time.

Social media sharing acts kind of like compound interest: one share could result in many more over time.

Now I can see this data because I’m on Facebook and happen to be friends with hundreds of people. The true test of if a campaign is working is ‘Is it driving traffic to the website?’ and ‘Once people get to the site, are they acting on your call to action?’

The results as of 11:30 this morning:

It’s nice to see how social media is helping to spread the word about this farm. Small businesses and individuals do have power to get messages across and these online channels and can help the word spread faster.

Thanks to all who donated so far and will donate. I’ll update this blog entry periodically with results of the campaign.

Why Ending Effective Educational Programs Makes Terrible Economic Sense

26 September

Recently, a local school district has closed off a computer technology program open to high school students. Their reasons cited were low enrollment. My old boss Chris wrote an excellent letter about his experience with the program in the local paper. It got me thinking, beyond the impact of one individual student, how do these programs effect the world beyond the classroom?

Schools exist to make productive members of society. And when you look into the data, a lot of these technical programs end up being pretty effective. They increase graduation rates and beyond that, students who go through these programs earn more money, have lower unemployment, and lower rates of substance abuse.

So subjectively, these programs are fantastic. But what is their actual return on investment, beyond preventing bad things from happening to teenagers?

ROI on a student enrolled in a technical program in high school. Not bad. Actually pretty darn great!

Continue Reading →

Online Fundraising Follow-up

23 June

The place to set up an online account where anyone can contribute.You may remember about a month ago I wrote about my friend Susan’s relatives that were going through a hard time financially. I asked:

Is there a site that someone in need could turn to online to help in this desperate situation? And to turn it around, how do people in not-so-desperate circumstances know that their money is actually going to their selected family/charity? 

Continue Reading →

Spend $20 On June 20 For Your Local Economy

20 June

We all know buying local keeps money locally and helps local businesses but how often do you think about your purchases?

Spend $20 on June 20 is a concept to raise awareness of what we can do in our own local economies. Our local Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce has been promoting this heavily but I was able to find other locations in North Carolina and New York.

Continue Reading →