Building a Campaign with Online and Visual Media

Take Action Campaign A Campaign to Inspire Specific, Targeted Actions: – Donating money, letters to newspaper, blog mentions, petitions, Facebook likes, tweets, community screenings, home screenings, Timed outline for impact – fundraising goal, election, legislation change, etc Example: Organize 1000 letters to representative on particular issue

Community Engagement Campaign Long term effort - Build strong relationships with existing advocates and supplement their work More difficult to measure impact – behavioral change (climate change), attitudes about immigrants, etc Example: Series of screenings/discussions on gun violence

A Small Idea: NicaHOPE

A Small Idea: It Gets Better Response to suicides of gay teenagers Inspired user participation – fostering a digital conversation that also serves as the website content

User Participation

Networking!!! Network with organizations early! Organizations with similar goals that could help spread your message, sponsor events, provide expertise, etc. After the fact, network with teacher’s groups, etc to get your message and material out there!

Build a Website Get web help, if needed, or have a friend donate time Websites build a community before an initial release Website also allows for participation from the community – not top down, but collaborative Not only online though – older people don’t have internet, and reaching them requires traditional outreach and education

Build a Website Websites include: – Factual information – Links to organizations working on the issues – Concrete ways to get involved – A forum to share and build a conversation – A place to receive s/Facebook/tweets/etc

Building Community Build a community and activate/direct that community Events should be multifaceted – think a screening with music, discussion with an organization, along with a contest that collects addresses, facebook friends, etc Collect Information – Everything expands your list and Facebook Friends!

Why Visual Media? Visual media as part of a “campaign” to expand audience and reach Film and media can serve as a starting point for discussion, behavioral change, social change Websites serve as focal point to connect communities and provide legitimacy

Your Options You can use exiting material, partner with a filmmaker, or create your own media content Advantages of Your Own: Quick and Easy, Create a lot of content Disadvantages: Less professional quality, not enough time to create long-form story

Planning the Campaign What is the issue? Clear Goals Specific Plan/Timeline Appropriate Partnerships Expertise and Resources

Case Study: Obama 2008 Small, passionate group Reach out, through and traditional means, to “create the database” 17 million cell numbers/ s – communication with the campaign Participate – create your own events, part of the campaign Competitions to collect numbers

Educate and Change Behavior: No Impact Man and An Inconvenient Truth Films paired with education, along with steps people can take to reduce carbon footprint Political and behavioral

Starting a Conversation: I Am Norm Youth led – nationwide “inclusion campaign” Changing minds, nothing targeted – PR campaign Funny, off-beat YouTube videos paired with educational handbooks, discussion guides

Starting a Conversation: Beyond Beats & Rhymes A series of screenings in targeted African- American communities Starting a conversation, making people think differently about what they accept everyday What are the targeted outcomes?

Brave New Films Short Films, used to organize community blasts with multiple links “Home Screenings” and maps with others

Online Tools

Build Your Own Website

Fill Your Website with Content Prezi Graphs Timeline Maps YouTube Flickr

Make Your Own Film

Publish Your Own Book Lulu: Print and E-Books Lulu Smashwords You bring your Word file and cover image, upload it into the company's "meatgrinder" tool, and you create your e-book in just about every format you'd want. Scribd – Createa PDF of your book with the cover image embedded in the first page of the PDF and upload the PDF to Scribd. Amazon Digital Text Platform Create your own cover via MobipocketeBook Creator or Calibre

Release Your Own CD

Additional Reading mpactPaper.pdf mpactPaper.pdf fault/files/docs_on_a_mission.pdf fault/files/docs_on_a_mission.pdf