Occupy Social Media and Build a Social Justice Movement

Priscilla Grim, social media team member, http://occupywallst.org

Meet Social Media

Facebook

Over 845 million users worldwide Town Square of social media Fastest growing user demographic is the Baby Boomer generation

Twitter

Over 140 milion active users

Over 340 million tweets per day

Twitter users tend to be Influencers in the media

Sources: http://mashable.com/2012/04/16/social-networks-tips-infographic/
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2011/08/30/retirees-fastest-growing-users-ofsocial-networks

It starts with an idea

Know what you want to promote Know your audience

Engage with others who share the interest of the institution/mission/cause Create compelling timeless messaging and media
Share online Stir, adjust, and repeat until virality strikes
PHOTO CREDIT: Adbusters

How #occupywallstreet was built

Once the call for occupation was sent out from Adbusters the following online actions occurred

Material was posted online beyond the Adbusters audience to gauge interest

July 16th the website http://occupywallst.org published to the web with information about planning meetings with Bloombergville organizers
Google groups were created to assist the organizers of the action

After initial organizing promotion began

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com is created and presented to the NYCGA

Tweets to the Streets is launched via Facebook to build interest

Announcements about the action posted on http://indymedia.org

Starting the Conversation

Content is Only As Good As the Diversity that drives it

Diversity of Voices Drives Social Media Autonomous action drove the social media efforts of
#occupywallstreet

Once the call hit the web social media people picked up the information and disseminated in many ways, some through established websites such as http://occupywallst.org and http://occupywallstreet.org (owned by Adbusters) and some through twitter and tumblr accounts Many people were writing, blogging, and communicating about the effort No one entity is responsible for the shift in media conversation

How does this apply to one year later?

Social media efforts should be emerging from different areas both demographically and geographically

Different personalities and various points of information communicate to a diversity of audiences

Affordable avenues of access to online information for financially challenged

#Hashtags& #Awareness
Build It And They Will Come

#hashtags contextualize Twitter

#hashtags created the #occupywallstreet channel on Twitter

This channel enabled information to be easily found by activists looking to plug into the founding action of September 17th Twitter users began connecting and communicating with each other online to meet offline at the action on the ground

How does this apply to one year later?

Use trending #hashtags to outreach for both message saturation and on the ground involvement Ask questions of the Twitter audience about what they would like to see/know/learn about #S17 #occupy #occupywallstreet #election2012 #ows #occupywallst and dont forget trending topics

#hashtags contextualize Twitter

How to write tweets

Twitter users connect and communicate with each other online to meet offline at the action on the ground
Include #hashtag trending topics as part of the sentence of the tweet Watch live sit-in on White House lawn chanting "#ACTUP &#OCCUPY, how many more have to die?"http://occupywallst.org/article/call-actiontomorrow-dc-we-can-end-aids-mobilizati/ We #occupywallstreet coz we are tired of wealth inequality & need real change Feel free 2 use numbers in place of words where it makes sense Try to stick to as many traditional grammar rules as possible When writing to someone use their twitter handle @OccupyWallSt tired of working long days and struggling to pay bills.

Strategies & Best Practices

or how to make Facebook work for you

People Like Images

On Facebook, many of the most successful postings are images with quotes

Measure user engagement by comments and likes Allow users to guide the conversation in Facebook, post items that will resonate based on prior behavior of the same type of material Share links and status updates from others Link the names/Facebook profiles when possible

Always tag photos with the names/Facebook profiles of people who appear in or would be interested in the material posted
Survey audience to determine the best course of engagement for overall social media strategy

Do not feed the troll

Conservative bloggers are being paid a lot of money to engage with progressive voices online and muddy the message. Ignore them, we have too much work to do to engage with those whom you will never convince of the honor of a world in which capitalism does not crush us. It is time for us to imagine what the next step is, nothing else.

Questions?
(seriously, do not feed the troll)

priscilla@occupywallst.org http://occupywallst.org The only solution is worldwide revolution