Civil Society Groups & How They Use Social Media

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Keystone XL issue and even down to small, localised activities, civil society groups (from radical left-wing activists to the average and necessary protest) have figured out social media and are making increasingly effective use of it. Below, we’ve provided a diagram of how these groups, some that have been around a long time, others that just form for a short period, are using these tools. Businesses would do well to understand them and the processes for marketing, investor and public relations.

In the Management block, we can see how social media tools are used to manage the administrative functions of the group. In this case they may use email, a Facebook group, Wiki’s and other tools, that are a mix of “open” to the public and private. In the second block, Communication, we see how they use the various tools to communicate/broadcast the messages developed as a team. All forms of digital content are used across multiple platforms (e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr etc.) Once the content and creative has been released it moves to the “Engagement” phase, where the grassroots group enters into dialogue with the general public, answering questions and ensuring the message is consistent and understood by the public and hopefully shared. The Actions shows how once the message is out there (i.e. “meet at the town hall, wear your t-shirts and bring signs at 2PM”) it can result in a number of real-world activities. The green circle indicates that if an event in public or online piece of content (e.g. video) is successful, the general public shares the results of the activity that took place in public and the feedback communications loop is triggered (the green line returning to the communications block.) Once news media picks up on a story, such as a highly successful public rally, this transitions the story to a broadcast public, usually significantly increasing recognition for the civil society group and expanding their message. Social Media is a highly cost-effective route to organizing, creating and communicating a mission. Traditional news media then plays a vital role in expanding audience attention and driving further public actions.

We have seen this process used in a number of actions over the past two years. It works and has become highly effective. The gap we often find that our business and government clients miss, is that these social media is simply a set of tools used to galvanize support and actions that take place in the real world. They might see videos after  a protest or action and say “oh well, yeah, we know that happened.” But the same tools were used beforehand to organize the rally. Those affected by these necessary and key parts of a democracy could, however, be better prepared.

The Next Big Thing in Social Media is Television

Yes, television. That old hunk of electronics is going through some major overhauls and it may very well be where Apple will be disrupting things yet again. You can easily connect your telly to the Internet today. Most via devices like AppleTV or Boxee, SlingBox and others are simply streamers of content via online channels. But the biggest problem isn’t the features and functions of these devices. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and all the others are building in processors to their TV’s already with no need for hanging devices like an AppleTV. The biggest issue is input – it’s just not easy to use a little remote control to type in a blog post, let alone a “tweet”. Added to this is little capability for engagement – its much like the Internet pre-social media.

But that engagement is coming. Within a two years, perhaps less, you’ll be able to send a “tweet” when watching a show telling others what you’re watching. Perhaps rate, tag and comment on a movie you’re watching or songs you’re listening to. Already Apple has enabled the use of an iPad via Apple Remote to interface with an AppleTV.

Once software companies and major social media technology brands like Facebook and Google+ figure out easy ways to input and interact with the television set a whole new slew of tools will be available and television will see a renewal of content and applications. This will also present several new challenges in regards to privacy, content rights and revenue models. On the revenue side, it will likely impact in increased “splitting” of fees amongst carriers and creators. To offset broadcasters and carriers desire to have “metered” access, content creators will likely pay “gateway” fees to have their content delivered over networks. Eventually the consumer will pay for this. We also suspect that micropayments will take off significantly when the integration of television and the Web happen – already we see this with Apple in regards to shows and movies. Consumers will face greater complexity in buying and leasing content in the near term. A complexity that may damage the business models. It’s been quite easy to turn on the telly and just flick through channels and that form of media consumption will not change for a very long time.

But social media tools and services will hit television and it will spark a new level of application development and entirely new social media tools and interactions. We continue to see in our research the adoption of more “social technologies” and limited growth in “single user apps” such as photo editing software (even those apps are seeing integration of social elements.) We have little doubt that in short order, televisions will come with a hard drive.

So the question then becomes…what are men going to do when the easy to hold remote is gone?