Tag Archives: public policy

The Social Round-Up

You all seemed to like this last time, so here we go again. I want to make sure I provide the best links for you–links that I feel deserve your time and attention. So, this won’t be every week. It may be every other week…or every month.

Onward.

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Social Change

Stories of Change–20/20 Predictions: For Ashoka.org’s third Stories of Change eBook series, Ashoka asked its social entrepreneurs to think about what the world would look like in 2020. And to follow-up that question, Ashoka asked them what each would do in the next year to move us closer to their vision.
A Wiki of Experts: The WeAreMedia project put together this “Expertise Map,” offering a long list of people who are passionate about doing good. If you are looking to connect with good people, this could be a good starting point.
The Other City: This film sets out to explore DC–the other side of DC, the side with an HIV/AIDS rate equal to Africa. If you are in DC, be on the lookout as I’m thinking we should get a group together to go to the screening once its announced.

Social Marketing

The Dragons of Behavior Change: If you read my “Awareness Fever” post, then you will want to read Craig Lefebvre’s follow-up post. In this post, Craig takes the conversation to the next level. Say, everyone around the table agrees to focus not on awareness–but on behavior outcomes, then what? Enter the land of the dragons. You are going to need to prepped with the right tools, resources and questions to ask. Craig’s post can help get you started on the right foot for the journey.
Healthy People and Social Marketing: Mike Newton-Ward share with us the update regarding adding a social marketing objectives to Healthy People 2020 saying, “This is proving to be quite the year for social marketing! Just today I learned that social marketing is in the preliminary Healthy People 2020 Health Objectives for the nation!” This is a big step for social marketing. BIG.
MINDSPACE: Influencing Behavior through Public Policy: This document comes out of the UK’s Cabinet Office and the Institute for Government. The fact that this type of report was even written–let alone by such two high profile organizations gives me great hope. The document aims to use behavior change theory to move policy makers to better address some of our worlds greatest problems. The document’s announcement includes the words: “Today’s policy makers are in the business of influencing behavior.” If only more people not only realized that–but were equipped with the rights tools–social marketing–to make an impact. Caveat: I just found the resource and printed it out for myself, so I can’t yet speak to it in its entirety–but a huge thanks to Craig for his post that brought this resource to my attention.
Journal of Social Marketing: Until now, the only social marketing journal was the Social Marketing Quarterly. In 2011, this will no longer be true as the first issue of the Journal of Social Marketing will be published. Currently, the journal is recruiting work for publication.

Social Media and Communications

Twitter Your Own Adventure: Remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? Welcome to the Twitter edition. I share this because as the use of social media becomes more sophisticated–storytelling is becoming ever more crucial. How can you be creative in how you tell a story?
Open for Business–The Google Apps Marketplace: With over 2M businesses having used Google applications over the last three years, Google has recently announced its Google Apps Marketplace. The marketplate is a “new online store for integrated business applications. The Google Apps Marketplace allows Google Apps customers to easily discover, deploy and manage cloud applications that integrate with Google Apps.” Already, more than 50 companies are now selling their business applications within the marketplace. This is a big development that we will be sure to watch as App stores similiar to Apple’s and Apps.gov continue to emerge and evolve.
10 Steps for Optimizing the Brand for Social Search: Brian Solis provides a jam-packed post full of helpful information and next steps.
Top 10 Best Practices for Federal Government Web Sites from USA.gov: Whether you are a newbie or a veteran, this site offers something for everyone. If not this Web page, all of Webcontent.gov is a great resource and helpful guide.

What about you? What good info have you read lately? Please provide the link in the comments so we can all check it out. Also–if you’re in love with your Google Reader like me, here’s my public profile. Let’s connect.

flickr credit: Benimoto

The BBC: More Social Marketing Please

Our brothers and sisters across the pond are onto something – and it’s called social marketing. Though the practice has been around since the late 1960s, the U.S. and other nations have been slow to adopt its methodology.

On Monday, the BBC published an article that highlighted findings from a study, Kicking Bad Habits, conducted by the King’s Fund that calls for new ways of thinking when it comes for public health – specifically, more social marketing. In short, the King’s Fund study enforced what many of us in both the U.K and increasingly so in the U.S. is that what we have been doing to address health isn’t working, and that more social marketing may be the answer. Quote:

“Social marketing techniques and data analysis tools like geodemographics should be used to identify, target and communicate messages designed to motivate people to change how they live.”

“And public health programmes should not rely on just one approach…as the evidence shows the most effective interventions employ a variety of tactics.”

“The methods used to promote public health need to be more modern, using the most advanced techniques and technologies.”

“We need social marketing techniques to target messages and understand what will make changes worthwhile for people but also we need to make sure the healthy choices are the easy choices.”

You can download the full results from the study here. This article further re-enforces why the U.K. created the National Social Marketing Centre. Once I got beyond my own excitement that 1) social marketing was being covered by mainstreams media and 2) that the use of the term “social marketing” was applied correctly (i.e. –> NOT confused with social media), I started to analyze what this means.

I wasn’t alone. Social marketing great Alan Andreasen brought the article to the attention of the social marketing list serv. A member of the King’s Fund responded to the article on the list serv backing the application of social marketing. Social marketer Craig Lefebvre blogged his response to the post as well. Hallelujah!

So, SB, what does this mean? It means the time is now. If a similiar study was conducted in the U.S., I agree with Lefebvre that we’d probably find similiar results. What we are doing isn’t working. Taking a serious look at social marketing and fully integrating it into our activities, I think, would bring about much of the ‘change’ that is a-buzz this year.

As I shared on Craig’s blog, I feel social marketing truly can and does provide an umbrella for people with various expertise across a range of fields to approach public health and well-being. Won’t you join us?

To those on board in the U.K, know we are all watching, here to support and hope a similiar initiative develops here in the U.S. Perhaps an international social marketing association would help? (Hey, it’s at least worth another plug right?)

(digg the BBC’s original article here)

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World Social Marketing Conference Recap 2: Picture This

Finally…a picture-based recap on the events from the World Social Marketing Conference, which took place in Brighton, England on September 29-30.

NOTE: PDFs and audio of all keynote presentations are available here.

<– Prof. Stephen Dann was the conference’s Twitter King, providing live coverage of the conference through @WSMC08, and #WSMC08.

Prof. Alan Andreasen gave a closing and optimistic keynote address about the future of social marketing. –>

<– Bill Smith, of AED, discusses the journal Social Marketing Quarterly, calling for more concentration towards social marketing products and services.

This quote was presented by England’s National Social Marketing Centre’s director, Jeff French, who calls all social marketers to unite together and learn from each other in moving the field forward. –>

<– Philip Kotler opened the conference with a keynote about poverty, and how we can apply social marketing to poverty to increase effectiveness and positive change.

Jeff Jordan, M.A., President and Founder of Rescue Social Change, presented his research about Social Branding (which he trademarked), along with 2 case studies about how to use social norming to influence behavior for high-risk adolescents. –>

<– The Purpose Driven Campaign – my master’s thesis that I presented during the poster session! (I also created SocialButterfly, Fly4Change.com pens that were quite popular. =)

Craig Lefebvre, presented an exciting presentation where he “dropped the gauntlet,” and presented the challenge for social marketers to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk when it comes to creating an international social marketing association. Lefebvre announced that he alone has raised a quarter of a million dollars for the project! –>

Other Highlights included:

NIOSH presented add some ‘flavoring’ to the conference by presenting their case study on a social marketing program to improve the safety of butter flavoring employees.
Ogilvy PR presented their fascinating Pandemic Flu case study.
Porter Novelli and CDC presented their case study on HIV testing.
Nancy Lee outlined 4 examples of how social marketing can offer products and services.
RT Hon. Alan Milbourne, MP, discussed how the world of social marketing and public policy relate.
Bob Marshall presented findings from studying the NSMC and from his recent survey about creating a new social marketing association for the States. This is part of an on-going discussion that can be followed here, USSocialMarketingPlan.
Ronne Ostby-Malling of AED presented her preliminary research about the behavior of online social network behavior among adolescents versus their behavior in real-life.

The Purpose Driven Campaign: Social Marketing as the Possible Link Between Journalism and Advertising

After reflecting from the World Social Marketing Conference (which I promise updates eventually) and reading Craig Lefebvre’s recent post “Social Marketing: Hard Power and Soft Power in Social Change,” I want to finally share some tidbits from my thesis paper that I presented as a poster session at the conference. As, I think it rounds out and puts a lot of themes together as I studied: the elusive concept of influence.

Abstract: This research project looks at the concept of influence within social marketing as compared to journalism and advertising. This includes examining these professions’ definitions, ethics, standards, and agenda-setting capabilities. Through in-depth interviews, a further understanding of how these three practices relate within the gray matter of the media landscape is pioneered, as well as better defining the role and influence of social marketing.

Excerpt:

The Question of Influence

While the Information Age leaps into the Connected Age, the power of a free press is offered daily to start-up bloggers. Newspapers are downsizing. Amateurism is becoming the new professionalism. Online media producers replace today’s broadcast directors; all making the gray shades of influence between the information and its consumers a thunderstorm waiting to happen. Social marketing is in the business of change, whether it is behavioral change or attitude change, social marketing can also be described as the field for social change. But, how? In today’s world, who holds more influence to create these changes, a journalist, advertiser or a social marketer? How can one tell the difference? Is there a difference? And, do the professions work together? Could they? Should they? This research hopes to add to the discussion on the evolving definition and role of social marketing, using agenda-setting relationships to examine its influence and attempt to determine its position between advertising and journalism in the media landscape.

Literature Review

It is 1961. A time when questions were raised and hope diminishing as borders became gray and a rise of an international community emerged. Two Portuguese students were imprisoned for declaring a public toast towards their dream, rooted in an idea – freedom. Having their freedom stolen from them for displaying a human right of expression, a newspaper article was written, and with it, a movement spurred. This movement would form Amnesty International (www.amnesty.org). Social change is possible, and it begins with an idea. Social marketing is an increasing movement currently being expanded because of its foundation in ideas about positive change for the welfare of the public.

Though specific definitions differ, social marketing achieves social change objectives by applying the marketing mix of product, place, promotion and price. Currently, social marketing is used mostly in public health communications and is expanding in the realms of environmentalism, civil rights, urban renewal, public service and raising awareness of international issues.

Conclusion: The conclusion of course I can’t share here, but it involves what I found consistent between journalism and advertising, but interestingly, the field of public policy was drawn into the mix through the research as well.

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