Compassion in Politics: Christian Social Justice, Non-Profits, and Life Theology

With a great vision and an easy to use user interface….We the Church…..a site for sharing prayer and praise. Church social media in action. Very cool.

Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0:

Samantha Power, in the most recent issue of Time Magazine suggests criticism of web 2.0 trends in “Technologies’ power to narrow our view.” Power highlights the ongoing trend in technology, politics, and social movements:

Much has been made of the convening and mobilizing power of today’s technology. A person inspired by a cause can blog about their outrage and plot a response on Facebook with other similarly animated people. While any single congressional district might not produce a groundswell to demand a halt to global warming or killing in Darfur, a virtual community unmoored from geography can deliver a critical mass.

Power, however, worries:

But while the long tail ensures once obscure documentaries remain available, citizen advocacy may have a short tail, causing the number of viable causes to get winnowed to a handful of megacauses. Burma may achieve the requisite market share, while Burundi fails to penetrate at all.

Non-profit Advocacy and Outreach 2.0:

While I agree with Power’s on-point recognition that this is an issue that needs to be highlighted, addressed head-on, and discussed robustly in society, I fear her analysis may be slightly askew. Certainly an undercurrent of the issue Power discussed is emerging, however I feel Power may miss the larger point. Initially, Power’s analysis forgets the power of the network online. Social movements, non-profits, and advocacy groups are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the community and community aspects of web 2.0, particularly as mobile expands. A nonprofit concerned with Burundi can find other folks interested in similar issues via social media platforms and social networking communities (for instance those interested in human rights in Burma and China, as well as those concerned with genocide and ethnic conflict). Further, a non-profit concerned about Burundi can talk about related issues on their blog, as well as provide context and depth for what may be more shallow coverage in mass media. Video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and UStream along with Ovoovoo and Seemic provide the ability to provide dramatic documentation of rights abuses, environmental destruction, and compelling stories of cancer. Video can tell these stories in a way the written word may not. Further, as mobile video expands, the ability to cover issues and international news, including international human rights, ethnic conflict, and genocide, will vastly expand.

A More Viable Criticism of Web 2.0 Communities and Trends:

Non-profits may struggle to find the most strategic platforms to use amongst the thousands of web 2.0 platforms. Understanding how their customers and donors will behave online in three to five years is certainly a difficult calculation. Third, dealing with the struggles of getting outside the echo chamber of the non profit blogosphere in constructive ways and dealing with the information overload in productive ways (aka social networking overstrech may be larger concerns that the ones Power outlines). Fourth, web 2.0 uniquely risks encouraging the younger generation to conflate knowledge of human rights with more robust forms of activism and volunteerism. To me these seem like the more urgent risks and disadvantages of a web 2.0 world for non-profits, social movements, and advocacy groups.

Are the criticisms Powers outlines a real concern? What are the actual disadvantages of a web 2.0 world?

Check out this post, for more a more robust explanation of the advantages and disadvantages of web 2.0 for personal and professional use.

About the author: Nathan Ketsdever provides ethical social media optimization (SMO) and search engine marketing (SEM) for entrepreneurs, startups, and non-profit organizations.

According to the tech savvy folks at CNET, government agencies and political representatives are increasingly leveraging web 2.0 technologies (also know as social media, the Interactive Web, and Live Web) for greater citizen (customer) interaction:

Governments are expected to increasingly use social networking and other Web 2.0 innovations as a means of fostering greater participation and dialogue with their citizens, as well as encouraging more effective intragovernment communication.

“A lot of Web 2.0 applications will allow government to change the nature of what they can do, in terms of interaction, but apart from the technical side of things, there will be a greater focus on improving the business of government,” said Richard Harris, research vice president at analyst firm Gartner.

About the author: Nathan Ketsdever provides ethical social media optimization (SMO) and search engine marketing (SEM) services for entrepreneurs, startups, and non-profit organizations.

Branding:
• What is the purpose of your social media strategy? Is it to increase customer support? Branding? Marketing? Product and service innovation?

• How is the blog helping your branding?

• How could the blog better help your branding?

Audience and Customers:
• What content should you be addressing for your audience?

• How can you address your customers needs better with social media?

• How can you better address your audience needs and concerns in your campaign?

• How can you make the experience more participatory and community oriented?

• How can you increase reader engagement?

• How can you better use the collective knowledge of your readers?

Blog Productivity/Getting Things Done:
• Are you creating focus in your posts? Individually and collectively?

• Could you improve your current social media schedule and workflow? How?

Online/Offline Strategy Integration:
• Are your offline and online strategies integrated?

• Could you do a better job of integrating your strategies?

What would you add to this social media audit and assessment for web strategy and branding?

Check out this earlier post for more perspectives on return on investment assessments for web 2.0 and social media.

About the author: Nathan Ketsdever provides ethical social media optimization (SMO) and search engine marketing (SEM) consulting services for entrepreneurs, startups, and non-profit organizations.

After completing my undergrad at Middle Tennessee State University in english, I decided to travel northward for some midwestern influenced learn’n in the middle of nowhere Indiana. I recently was contemplating where this near two year section of life moved me personally and professionally, and here’s what I came up with:

• Everything you ever wanted to know about communication you can learn from Malcomb in the Middle, Friends, and The Simpsons.

• Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. And sometimes Mythos.

• So what?

• The power of stories.

• Metaphors will get you everywhere. (see also Metaphors We Live By)

• Muncie, IN is not just a made up town in a lesser known Cohen brothers movie (The Hudsucker Proxy)

What did you learn in college, university, or perhaps graduate school?

If you liked this post and would like to friend me on Stumbleupon or Twitter feel free to do so.

My mom teaches kindergarden and kid safe media is always important, so enjoy Totlol. (thats TOT LOL) Its YouTube for the younger demographic–unfortunately, I didn’t find any embedd codes.

(image credit: tread via creative commons license)

New Web 2.0 Technologies Enable Effective Business Communications:

Is Tokbox the Future of Web Communication and Social Media? With out of control gas prices nearing the $4 per gallon. One wonders, “what can be done to stop the costs of oil and gas from spiraling out of control?”

Social Media and Video Conferencing Tools Meet the Environment:

Well, perhaps we don’t have a direct effect. However, we can a) decrease our overall consumption of gas and b) decrease the price we end up spending at the pump by using social media platforms like Tokbox to connect, communicate, and share ideas. Ultimately, this and other video conferencing tools are time savers, because you don’t have to spend time on an airplane or sitting in traffic. The applications send endless….from brownbag lunches to meetings to interviews to conferences. In my book, thats a pretty high return on investment (ROI).

Questions Moving Forward in Video Conferencing:

The question becomes…How smooth is the streaming? And how will they integrate mobile?

Nathan Ketsdever is a New Media and Business Blog Consultant in Nashville

Podcasting across the Web 2.0 Frontier:

The Wiggly Wigglers podcast demonstrates how even remote businesses can leverage social media tools, like podcasts to reach customers and spread the overall message of the organization globally. In fact, its a great case study in the small business use of social media and web 2.0 technologies. [Just grabbing the first 45 seconds or so of this gives you a good idea of how they are leveraging the technology in their marketing efforts]

Solutions to the Return on Investment and Web 2.0 Metrics Discussion:

With the emergence of Web 2.0 and social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and the explosion in corporate blogging, web analytics and Return on Investment (ROI) in experiencing a renewed interest and scrutiny.

Knowing what to listen to and track is critically important to a business bottom line. On Linked In Answers, I just asked “What are the most important metrics to track?” More specifically:

-Visitors per day/week/year
-Repeat visitors
-Time on site
-Website conversion action (# per on site to conversion–ie on email list, inquiry, purchase)
-Links for SEO purposes

What do you think is most important for a business website?
And how can you track the ROI of the web over time? (ie the ROI is often 3 to 6 to 12 months down the line on various web techniques. How do you take that into account?)

You can see the Linked in Answers here.

Web Metrics Resources and Update:
Dave McClure has a great Slideshare that provides a great deal of focus to the social media and web 2.0 metrics conversation.

For more info about social media marketing, corporate blogging, and web 2.0 strategy.

(image credit: Brian Solis)

Michael S. Hyatt, famous Nashville CEO blogger, says even his family is now on Twitter, after a 30 day trial run. He provides 12 Reasons to Be on Twitter. You can follow Michael S. Hyatt on Twitter here.

Twitter in Plain English for those not familiar with this new social networking from the Common Craft Show.

For the best tactics, tips, hacks, and strategies for using Twitter effectively and productively, you should check out Connie Bensen’s post.

If you would like to join Twitter for free or follow me on Twitter click here.

For more tips and resources about the strategic use of web 2.0, social media, and productive corporate blogging click here.

Photosharing site Flickr recently made the jump to video (click here for an example of Flickr video: Flickr’s Golden Age), perhaps in an effort of Yahoo to keep up with Google’s YouTube. Can’t wait to see the other new features Flickr rolls out over the next 6 months.

Read at the Ragamuffin Soul blog how Los, who is the Worship Pastor at the Buckhead Church is embracing video commenting with Seesmic.

Phil Wickham has amazing Christian music…and he’s giving away his music for free.

I just think this is pretty cool. Not only is he releasing the music and the live performance for free, he’s inviting his listeners to vote on the tracks he selects (aka crowdsourcing). A great way to embrace faith and his Christian music community.

Please feel free contact me with your web 2.0 and social media marketing, as well as your blog consulting and coaching questions. I look forward to helping introduce you to blogging, the wonderful world of social media, and helping you increase your search rank in Google via search engine optimization (SEO).

Ten critical questions to ask to best evaluate your search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), or social media optimization (SMO). These are critical to answering the return on investment (ROI) questions associated with all your internet marketing needs and efforts. So whether you are looking to get into corporate or small business blogging, web 2.0 marketing, social media marketing strategy or a Google Adwords management campaign, here are 10 questions you want to consider before you dive in or hire an SEO or internet marketing firm.

Pre-Search Engine Optimization Evalution:

• How many are searching the terms you want to rank for?

• Where in the search ranks (SERPS) are you?

• Where are your competitors?

• How much traffic are you getting?

• What is your conversion ratio?

• What phrases are your users using to find you now?

• What keywords do you want to rank for?

• What are associated keywords?

Post-Search Engine Optimization Evaluation (SEO)

• Where are you in the search results?

• How much traffic are you getting?

• What is your conversion ratio?

To discover more about the world of marketing with web 2.0, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization click here.

Twelve Fundamental Principles of Smart and Productive Blogging:
1) Content is king (original perspective)
2) Create pillar content
3) Community and Relationships (inclusivity)
4) Collaboration
5) Find a model-mentor or three
6) Leverage your blog with real world events (networking)
7) Guest posting on others.
Interview people your audience is interested in or bestow credibility upon (and optimally that your audience will be searching for)
9) Mix in fun content 
10) Consider PPC
11) Consider a formal blog launch after 1-2 weeks of blogging
12) Reciprocal link building can help your SEO.

Engage Key Blogging Communities:

Get accounts on all five and enter your blog’s info on each network.
1) Technorati-Google for blogs.
2) Del.icio.us-social bookmarking. save your best content
3) MyBlogLog-great blog community that can augment blog traffic for the better
4) BlogCatalog-great blog community that can augment blog traffic for the better
5) Flickr-great way to tell the story of your organization and for people to find you

Three Blog Design Concerns
• e-mail subscription
• RSS subscription
• Widgets

Quick Brand and Reputation Management Tips
• Linked In
• Zoominfo
• Add other social networking and social media networks as necessary

For more about strategic search engine marketing and social media optimization.

Determining the advantages and disadvantages of particular activities for people and organizations is an important task. Why else would education, books, think tanks, and presidential debates exist. I thought fleshing out my personal experience with the advantages and disadvantages might be instructive in determining “the truth” about social media, web 2.0, and blogging technologies.

Advantages of Social Media

• Democratization of media.
• Relationships and conversation.
• Creativity and re-mix culture.
• Embrace your passion and identity.
• Community, sharing, and connecting.
• Increase transparency in government and organizations.

Criticisms of Social Media

• Lots of great content still gets overlooked. Current lack of filters creates problems finding the best content
• Writers have problems delivering content.
• Anonymity can engender polarization and hate

• Information overload and social networking overload
• Work/Life balance is hard to achieve

As society and technology moves forward we stand at a watershed moment and history, so it is vitally necessary to stop and think about our societal trajectory. Thoughts? Did I miss an advantage or disadvantage?

How you can learn more or learn how to make your corporate blogging efforts more strategic and productive:

If you liked this post you might be interested in a more comprehensive criticism of web 2.0 which suggests that its a little early to drink the social media and web 2.0. Alternatively, if you want to strategically blog or productively use web 2.0 which addresses many of these concerns, you should check here.

(image credit: pikkus)

The Annenberg News highlights the “Mass Media Myths Realities” report by Ketchum:

Advice from family and friends is the No. 1 source consumers turn to when making a variety of decisions — from purchasing consumer electronics to planning a vacation — and advice from an expert rates highest when making medical decisions and purchases based on a product’s environmental impact. Despite the strong evidence that friends, family and experts play a key role in influencing decisions, only 24 percent of communicators report having a word-of-mouth program in place.  

In its second year, the Media Myths & Realities survey examines the use of more than 40 media channels, ranging from newspapers to social networking sites. This year’s survey was expanded to include the fast-growing BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The Annenberg News continues:

With digital media giving rise to increasing media choice, fragmentation and personal empowerment, the term “mass market” is being outmoded. As a result, it is imperative that communicators view their audience as distinct groupings of individuals.”This year’s findings magnify the point of last year’s benchmark survey, which showed that communications professionals need to vigorously reassess their communication priorities to meet consumers’ needs in this multimedia channel world,” said Nicholas Scibetta, Ketchum senior vice president and global director, Global Media Network.

Thoughts?

Nathan Ketsdever New Media, Business Blog, and Ethical Search Engine Marketing Consultant

Beware of friends and media mavens bearing Koolaid:

I don’t want to be want to drink the koolaid but I also don’t want to be a rabid chicken little…so heres my middle ground:

Problem 1: Blogging Away in an Echochamber

There is a sense that as much as web 2.0 and pr folks talk about important issues in the social networking environment that its still an echochamber. That whatever we determine about Beacon is still just bouncing around 350 or so Blogs. While that can have a trickledown effect, its hardly news in mainstream media and if someone searches for Facebook…I don’t imagine anything comes up

Problem 2: The Disconnect to the Audience/Search Gateways

SEO is a dirty word. But content + SEO = success. Certainly content + community = success. But without SEO (or at least top search ranks) important info is being lost from the public. Its like the tree that’s falling with no one around.

A search for Facebook + Beacon on Google=s Techcrunch and Giga Om along with Download Squad and an article from Moveon.

A search for Facebook + Privacy on Google =’s Weinberger from Huffington Post (near the very bottom) and some old posts from 2006 including Dana Boyd.

Problem 3: Information Overload

There is a serious way in which Jeremiah’s desperation with keeping up is real. Very real. I think this has been echoed on virtually every other major blog on some level. If it hasn’t, I’m sure folks are thinking it—or just holding it in because they think it will scare clients away.

Problem 4: No Watercool. No Wiki. Where do great old posts go to die??

Does the best in the bloggosphere end up partially in delicious, stumbleupon, and digg never to be seen again. (certainly they all get ranks in the search engines—but there isn’t a central place for say best practices of Facebook and no place to put the best practices of Twitter post) I don’t know if delicious or wiki is the answer)

Problem 4: The Overload Blowback

A consequent problem from number 3, is lack to time to make connections. Lack of time to visit all my friends blogs and facebook postings. Lack of time to make creative media. Lack of time to make quality posts that will have value over the years. Lack of time for family. And the ultimate feeling of spinning your wheels.

I hope this is not overwhelming—and I hope it doesn’t sound too dire. I also hope its clear and to the point. I think one and three are probably the most important, but I think that they an interconnected issue.

Concluding reflections:

Believe me. I am confident that things will get better and will improve. I just hope its sooner rather than later.

I have some solutions, but I’m curious what other folks think…. So what do you think? Do you agree and how can this be rectified? What needs to be done to move forward? Are their productivity and GTD hacks that can allieviate the fourth issue I identified? Are you guilty of being perplexed with the fourth issue?

For more posts on Web 2.0 click here.

thanks to this dallas photographer

I’m excited. My grandparents have attended Crieve Hall Church of Christ as dedicated members for over twenty five years and have had a relationship with the church since 1964. My grandmother’s preacher Bill Watkins and a pastoral assistant Andrew Leeper are both passionate about the word and are interested in receiving technical knowledge about the so-called “social media space” including blogging and web 2.0 interactivity. I have one other meeting scheduled later this week to help and am looking to widen that number in an effort to help bridge the generational and culture gaps with web technology.

Your Journey and Reflections:
I’m interested to hear your opinion. What do you find to be the biggest challenges of blogging and the social media space? [you don't have to be Andrew Keen or Dooce to know there are struggles] Alternatively, what are your favorite parts or favorite experiences? Or what is your blogging story?

My Crazy Journey through Social Media and Blogging:
Mine seems more like a random series of crazy events…but here goes: Its pretty crazy to think that someone from Asian (and probably Singapore) read my blog after I tracked back to Mitch Joel after he did a conference in Asia and its even crazier to think that someone from South Africa read and commented on my blog. And these are events I know about without the help of google analytics or a geographical map feature (which is soooo the next addition to my blog). I talked in forums to second life pastors in Australia. And I was added to the rotating blogroll at Swerve (the biggest church in the country Lifechurch.Tv). And just this last week I got some link love from Rex and social media guru JD Lasica. For being so young in the blogging part of the space–to me thats pretty cool. Not to mention, I’ve gotten a lot of link love from the Nashville blogging scene in the Music City Bloggers and Volunteer Voters (and all the Nashville readers like Newscoma and Ginger who dredge through my occassionally typo-rich texts) If I failed to mention Travis M, from Maryland who writes for Relevant and Lifted Magazine like it was his job I would be remiss and a host of other folks who read and comment and even lurk. This just scratches the surface. The metaphor of the social web is alive and well. I think one of the projects that epitomizes it is the Twitter Mosaic. The twitter mosaic compiles individual Twitter pictures of people who are following him/her in a mosaic. This month’s Twitter mosaic is of college football.

Nathan Ketsdever Nashville New Media and Blog Consultant

I include this mostly for the comic aspect.  But it does ask a relevant question about media broadcast that increasingly is a part of our cultural wallpaper.  And the writers are on strike…so why not watch YouTube instead of stale re-runs.  [or your could create your own content....]   Is video blogging always navel gazing?  Does navel gazing have a value?  Does it ever become too much?  Is there value to video blogging beyond navel gazing?  Thoughts?  Perhaps this is the cool thing about new media.  YouTube + video (actually optional w/ a macbook) + Macbook + Creativity + Message/Idea + Socks + Funny = Cool for Free.  I think the folks that made this seized on a unique issue, but there seem to be plenty of ideas (it just seems hard to find which one will get this much exposure)…

Beth Kanter, nonprofit tech consultant and social media guru, asked an SEO question on her nonprofit technology blog:

When you do a google search on this person’s name, my blog posts come up first and lower hers! I looked at the results and I’m number 2. Number 1 is another blogger. Many of the rest of entries on the next few pages are references to this campaign, including some — ugh - splogs.

So how can SEO or social media help? The question made me think, how does social media specifically effect SEO? And which social media network gets the most bang

1) My WordPress Blog
2) Linked in
3) Ning
4) Amazon profile
5) Digg
6) Another Ning
7) My Care 2
Magnolia (this appears a couple times)
9) Ex.pode.us (social media overload anyone????)
10) Comments I’ve made on other blogs that are Linked to my blog

What did I learn:

Social media can definitely have a direct effect on your branding and the scope of your impact online. Linked in and blogging are particuarly helpful in branding, as are comments linked to your blog [note the number of results you get here are also dependent on the types of comment links the individual blogger allows] In other results for other search terms, MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog often show up high too, which is can help magnify your branding online.

Test your name out. What results do you get? Any social media optimization tricks? Can you suggest any social spaces that are particularly helpful in this regard?

So, if you have great, cool, or unique info on your blog or an awesome product or service service…(or hopefully the tri-fecta) perhaps social media can help you in your attempts to connect with people online.
____________
Note: this won’t hold true for everyone and for every keyword. In fact my delicious account has a name of “dcmusicfusion” instead of Nathan Ketsdever and I’m curious why my MySpace and Facebook don’t show up higher in the ranks (because they should be very link heavy). I think for most people they do.

As a pre-empt, this does seem at tension with my recent post about twitter, however I think your identity online is different than you day to day stats or technorati ranking.