Livingston

May
20
2008

Bloggers Unite for Stuff, Lose Momentum

When CNN broadcasted promotion of last week’s Bloggers Unite for Human Rights movement, my initial reaction was Viva la revolution!

vivalarevolucion.jpgIt was May 15th, 2008, the very day that Amnesty International was calling for all bloggers everywhere to simultaneously cover a human rights issue to educate the masses. No time to participate myself, Twitter was a helpful fall back. Dozens of others tweeted and blogged about human rights on May 15th, demonstrating their support of the initiative.

We’ve seen campaigns like this before, and sadly, watched them fall silent shortly after the main event. The unsustained momentum leaves behind a disenchanting question: What was the point of all that?

  • Exhibit A - October 15, 2007. More than 20,600 blogs covered environmental topics as part of Blog Action Day. Twenty. Thousand. Blogs! 19 of which were on Technorati’s Top 100. Mainstream media picked up the story. It was a tremendous accomplishment, getting so many people - “influencers” - to talk about the same thing at the same time.

    After contributing a post to Blog Action Day last October, I found myself defending the campaign to my boss (who at that time was Alison Byrne Fields). Alison argued that it was a waste of time.

    In effect, she forewarned, “People are already aware of problems associated with climate change, so unless the point is action, then I’m not interested in this load of crap. If bloggers want to save Earth they should stop flying.” “But education is key,” I maintained. “This blogger campaign is meant to educate.”But we’re almost in the bottom half of 2008, and there is no sign of Blog Action Day Part II. What was the purpose of all that hype?

  • Exhibit B - One week ago: May 10, 2008. Pangea Day. Backed by Chris Andersen and the TED Conference, Pangea Day rallied filmmakers to participate in a 4-hour global screening that took place at more than 1,000 locations simultaneously. A “synchronized film festival to . . . foster understanding and peace.” 2,500 films were submitted; 12 were chosen for the screening. A quick Google Blog search produces nearly 8,000 blog posts on the event.

    Newsweek’s Brian Bailker honed in on the weak spot of this type of campaign: ” . . . the type of person who would tune in to watch the Pangea Day pageantry is probably the least likely to be going around killing anyone in their spare time.” Oh. Right. What happens now that Pangea Day is over?

The Value is Self-Education.

The true impact of these campaigns is self-serving. All participants (hopefully) learn something about the issues they cover. In the end, that adds up to more potential for commitment. Awareness is the first step, whether you’re trying to spring someone from prison, get Gary Vaynerchuck’s book ranked #1 on Amazon.com or help an independent musician top iTunes charts.

But We can do More than Bum Rush the Charts.

Why corral bloggers (or filmmakers) if there’s no follow through? After you cross “raise awareness” off the list, shouldn’t you move on to the next step? The goal is action, advocacy, conversion. Especially when nonprofits are seeing a rise in demand, but decline in resources.

Richard Becker of Copywrite, Ink. helped coordinate Bloggers Unite for Human Rights. He wants to ensure that the campaign “is not just a flash in the pan.” Richard says, “It’s something we could all think about more often.” We need to move beyond thinking.

Who doesn’t want Amnesty International to successfully thwart the inhumanity in China, Darfur and Guantanamo Bay? When is the next Bloggers Unite event? What is needed to make an even bigger impact? Please hurry and tell us what our step is: update the homepage, send emails. A campaign for time, money, in-kind donations? Let’s give the revolution feet before inertia sets in, again.

Images: “Shannon” by kellykashcrafts and “It’s Raining Lucidity” by CoolPhotos.

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by Qui Diaz | Internet Marketing |

3 Responses to “Bloggers Unite for Stuff, Lose Momentum”

  • Richard Becker Says:

    May 20th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

    Thank you QuiDiaz.

    You are exactly right. The Bloggers Unite program has been working to ensure all social awareness campaigns employ a tangible action off the Internet as well as a call for action on the Internet. The first campaign (there have been five different campaigns) raised funds for thousands of classes across the United States and resulted in securing some permanent donors and promoters for DonorsChoose.org.

    We are hoping to do the same for Amnesty International. Since Bloggers Unite For Human Rights still has some momentum behind it, Amnesty International and BlogCatalog are considering making May 15 a designated day for human rights.

    Likewise, while I still reading thousands of posts, most of the bloggers had links to action areas where bloggers and blog readers could become a member, make a donation, write their representative. I also had an opportunity to speak with Veronica De La Cruz again last Friday. She was amazed, she said, that the campaign seemed to chaneg the behavior of millions a people. That is how great things start.

    Hope you can join us next time. And thank you again.

    All my best,
    Rich

  • Allison Blass Says:

    May 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    Actually, if you go to the Blog Action Day website and click on the link that says “Next Year” it says that if you enter in your email address, you will be notified this August about what the upcoming topic is going to be. So they are planning on doing it again.

    I agree, though, that talking will only do so much and we need to come up with actions, just as your boss suggested. My goal in my own Oct. 15 piece was to talk about the issue while giving useful tips for what someone’s actions can be. My topic was on safe needle disposal (my blog is about diabetes, and many people with diabetes have to inject themselves). In order to protect the environment and animals, it’s important to safely dispose of these needles, so I provided links and information on how to do that. Several people emailed me and told me that they didn’t realize what they could do and are planning on using some of my suggestions. So as long as we don’t become an echo chamber of warnings and actually provide tangible, realistic steps to follow, I think these blog action days will be useful and hopefully we will see a difference.

  • Alison Byrne Fields Says:

    May 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm

    I feel the need to clarify my point.

    On the topic of the environment and climate change, I really do believe that we are past the point of awareness. In fact, the level of awareness is probably higher than it has ever been. The goal of advocacy at this stage should be “about action and, specifically, policy change (government and corporate).

    I respect the desire of bloggers to come together to try to create change. I want it to continue. But if you’re going to harness that energy, do it in a way that makes strategic, political sense, that analyzes the business context of the change that you seek.

    In other words, keep it coming, but do it right.

    And, yeah, stop flying to a conference every week (where the same thing is said over and over again anyway). Changing your personal behavior would do wonders for the environment.

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