Context:
There is wide agreement that USSF and movement organizers should have presence on the Internet and utilize online tools for the purpose of communicating and mobilizing audiences. Generally this means having a website, being searchable, utilizing email & email marketing, utilizing social web platforms for engagement with target audiences.
Popular social web & media platforms present a unique opportunity in today's organizing landscape and raise new questions of information sharing and engagement at a mass level, not merely ones of online presence.
There are disagreements about whether links and logos to online platforms that are corporate-owned should be on the front page of the USSF website, debating whether 'endorsement' of a corporate entity in that way would be more or less strategic to our overall goals than not linking to those platforms.
Overall Online Communications Goals:
1. To be searchable so folks can find information about the USSF. 2. To be able to reach out to those who don't know about the USSF. 3. To engage folks over time in order to mobilize them to register and get to the USSF 4. To encourage self-organizing and lines of communication within the movement, before and after the USSF.
Online Outreach Audiences:
1. Those who already know about the USSF and know where to find it online. 2. Those who are interested in the USSF and are looking for it online. 3. Those who don't know about the USSF, but we can directly reach out to them about it online. 4. Those who don't know about the USSF, but are are reached indirectly through online sources and sharing platforms.
What social web engagement means to USSF organizing:
While having a website that is searchable allows us to accomplish Communications goals 1 and reach audiences 1 and 2 and utilizing email & email marketing allows us to accomplish goals 2 and 3 and reach audiences 1 and 3, standard social web strategies allow us to accomplish Communications goals 1, 2, 3 and 4 and reach audiences 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Proposal:
Granted that new opportunities in online engagement exist and our general audiences and progressive & radical organizaitons are participating at scale in popular social web practices, USSF should at the least link to our diverse social web platforms (proprietary and open source) on USSF sidebar in the form of a 'USSF Everywhere' box with USSF logo, and then list of social web platforms we are present in so our visitors can find us there in the online communities they use. Logos for the various platforms are not necessary. As a sidebar item, this will be on all pages of USSF website so that all of our dynamic content can be shared and cross-promoted by site visitors over time. We're allowing and encouraging visitors to share our information with their networks, rather than being dependent on one way traffic that doesn't effectively encourage engagement over time or information sharing.
Obama's campaign, undoubtedly effective at using the Internet to mobilize a huge base, has on their front page a lower left section that includes this. http://www.barackobama.com/index.php?splash=false. New Organizing Institute, social web organizers, also adapt this practice: http://www.neworganizing.com/. Ruckus Society has a very clear box with links to used platforms http://ruckus.org/
Also importantly, we introduce a splash page where visitors first are asked to sign up for our listserv, such as http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ofasplashhc. This would help us reach our engagement communications goals considerably and help take off the stress of needing to connect with audiences through social web platforms.
Because of the sheer power of social web interactivity and engagement levels, to not use them at even a standard practice is already taking away from our overall goals of mass communication & mobilization.
Social web platforms will be used by our audiences before and after the USSF, and they're looking for us through standard methods, so this proposal is to engage folks where audiences are most present in today's landscape and in a way that lets them share and socialize online about the USSF.