Using Social Media for Social Change: Follow Up to Feast On Good Twitter Chat

[Kevin Asuncion]

Two days ago, AllDayBuffet along with Netsquared co-hosted a Twitter chat on using social media for social good. There were some great contributions from community members and a lot of great questions being asked. At the end of the chat I felt a bit blue balled as I'm sure many others did as well. A lot of good conversation started, but not enough discourse to provide any sort of closure. So I thought it might be interesting to just spew out all my thoughts and to give a space to advance the conversations and offer up my own conclusions.

The chat started modestly enough with a simple question asking participants to give an example of a venture using social media for social change. A lot of great examples came up including CarrotMob, Twestival, and the Young Invincibles. But the question I felt that really got the discussion going was the second one. “How can we better leverage social media for less talk and more action?”

Here are some of the interesting responses:

jchou: A2 link simple actions to communications and offer social capital rewards Ie: collective building like Kluster? -

iamtexture: Q2: Foster the creation of real world social networks. The for distributing and storing information

insearchofsanuk: just do it: more calls to action, more updates from the field, more stories and feedback

MotivateCanada: Q2: work together-so many people/groups are working towards social good in silos. We should network and collaborate more

ANWHR: Remember action doesn't necess mean offline meetings or $$ - can be signing a petition or making a diff decision at the store.

I think these responses cover it all. We need to use social media to network and collaborate along with linking communication with actionable tasks, but Sakura Hayes' (ANWHR) response struck me, and begged the question “ What is the scope of social change?” Are we aiming for a massive social movement? Or are we aiming to make a difference in one person’s life? My understanding is that many non profits and social change agents don’t aim to just make a difference, they aim to change the world. To not just reform, but to radicalize. To not just change our norms, but to change our value systems. They aren't modest people, as Bill Drayton once profoundly put it, "Social entrepreneurs are not content to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."

When I think of how social media and social change connect I can’t help but think of the growth and maturation of social movements (eg. Civil Rights Movement). One process that has allowed for the social movements to arise is urbanization, helping facilitate social interaction with large quantities of people. These cities, allowed for people with similar goals and values to gather and organize. We’ve already seen cyber urbanization happening for years now, from gatherings of like minded folks on forums, to product reviews, to now social networks. So the question is how do we harness the latent action in these cyber gatherings and organizations for social good? Which is a good segway into the third question of the chat. “What is social media & bottom up web missing to make massive social change?”

Here are some of the responses:

Sue_Anne: Part of the problem is the focus to make "massive social change" instead of focusing on individuals and what can do most good

brookeestin: A3: Mass adoption! Good start but does anyone's parents or grandparents use it? Imagine if the baby boomers hoped on board...

amysampleward: a3: important to remember that value doesn't always = "massive change" per the save 1 child example

I think these responses take a good stab at the problem, but I find there is something else more closely related to the question. One problem that makes activism on social media difficult is the free rider problem - convincing people to join your cause and act upon it. Most people will instead think “I can let others do all the work and still reap the benefits." People can invite others to fan pages, and causes but is that convincing enough? I support causes on Facebook morally, but I don’t physically act upon all of them. So can social media really help convince people to overcome the free rider problem? I think it can help, but it won’t do it all.

So what is social media missing to get others to act and create social change?

I don’t think it’s missing anything. According to the Alliance of Youth Movements Field Manual for Creating Grassroots Mo... (Really long name I know) here are some of the steps that I can see being used along with social media strategies in order to start, grow, and scale movements for social change.

1.) Recruit a small group of people who are passionate about your cause

2.) Build compelling discourse around the cause

3.) Take offline action such as hosting an event

4.) Build consensus as movement grows

5.) Establish an infrastructure that provides leadership

6.) Create funding streams to maintain growth

7.) Establish a code of ethics by which members agree to act.

8.) Provide tools to empower self organization

9.) Build alliances

Throughout all the steps I see social media playing a large part in building a successful movement. I can see social media playing a part in recruitment of people on Facebook pages, to building discourse on Twitter, to providing tools of self organization through web applications, so ultimately social media isn’t missing anything to create massive social change, the tools are out there. I think when it comes down to it, it’s about how we use these tools and how we integrate them into a larger goal of creating a social movement that will truly bring the change we all want to see.