The other week, I announced a new way for us book lovers to connect in a fun and meaningful way–through an online social change book club named #read4change.
After a week of collecting votes, and a battle between Allison Fine’s Momentum and Tom Watson’s Causewired, Causewired came out on top and will be the first book we discuss.
Bonus
What’s better than friends, social media and books? Imagine getting to go to your book club–and the author shows up. That’s right. Tom Watson has agreed to join us and be available for our comments, feedback and our questions!
To Participate
- Grab your copy of Causewired.
- Read and reflect.
- Join us November 10 at 8pm EST on Twitter
- Follow @read4change and track the conversation with the hashtag #read4change.
About the Book Club
Each month, lovers of books, people and making this world a better place will gather online to discuss a social change-related book–its story, its info and how it can be applied towards our work. Ideas for featured books are always welcome. Email me at socialbutterfly4change[at]gmail.com with suggestions. Until November 10, happy reading!
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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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