Going viral – is social media an effective campaigning tool?

Going viral – is social media an effective campaigning tool?

by | May 7, 2012 | mental health | 0 comments

What are your views about the effectiveness of social media as a campaign tool? Read the final part of my three part interview with One in Four editor and Social Spider development director, Mark Brown, to get his take on where we’re at with social media and what the future holds. Social media suicide reporting guidelines are a great example of influencing a live debate on Twitter.  I remember re-tweeting them when Gary Speed died but hadn’t realised you developed them. I’m interested in how this came about When Alexander McQueen killed himself, Chris O’Sullivan (@mentalcapital) thought that it would be good to do some Twitter suicide reporting guidelines in the manner of the Samaritan’s excellent press ones.  We spent an hour knocking something up over email, got it online and then injected it into the various hashtagged conversations, asking people to read them and retweet them. Given an event that people were discussing that couldn’t have been foreseen, we moved our arses quickly to do something useful and helpful.  There’s amazing scope for this kind of reactive agenda altering on Twitter.  You can directly affect how people think of something as it’s happening.  Tell me a bit about campaigns using social media which have impressed you I think one of the greatest examples of boundary fu**ing is the Broken of Britain campaign and its Responsible Reform #spartacusreport. Disabled people and supporters have come together entirely through social media and developed an effect way of responding to government plans.  I think this is the first truly social media age government and it’s been noticeable how susceptible they have been...
Social media is my rocket fuel – part I of a three-part interview with @markoneinfour

Social media is my rocket fuel – part I of a three-part interview with @markoneinfour

by | Apr 22, 2012 | mental health | 4 comments

Do online networks enhance offline relationships? How can you make the most of Twitter? Read part I of my interview with One in Four editor and Social Spider development director, Mark Brown, to get his take on where we’re at with social media and what the future holds. So tell me a bit about you… I’m Mark Brown. Real world age 34. Twitter age 3 as of 23rd April 2012. I edit One in Four, the mental health magazine written by and for people with mental health difficulties. It grew from my own experiences in my early twenties when I was unemployed, unwell and wondering just what I was meant to do with my life; or more correctly, wondering what sort of life someone with a mental health difficulty was meant to have.  At the time I felt a huge sense of being on the outside of things, not knowing what I was meant to do to have a ‘proper’ life. When did you first start using social media? In 2001 someone I was sharing a flat with won a computer and brought it with him when he moved in.  I didn’t own one of my own until 2006. I’d been writing while I was unwell and it seemed to be the natural step to try to find places to share my writing.  I’m old enough to not be a digital native and grew up in a world where what I had access to intellectually and culturally depended on what was physically there. In what ways did you use social media in the early days? I did what a lot of people...