New feature! Regular Epolitics.com contributor and friend-of-the-site Beth Becker has just launched a “Political Social Grab Bag” email newsletter, and she’s been kind enough to share it with us. Rock and roll! I’ve excerpted a couple of choice items below, but you should definitely check out the whole first issue archived right here. The Grab Bag is monthly for now, and I’m sure it’s going to be a hit with social media advocacy and politics crowd. Congratulations, Beth! Sign up now to get the next Political Social Grab Bag delivered straight to your inbox.
Excerpt: Political Social Grab Bag
What’s new to think about?
Ello, is anyone out there?
There has been a lot of fuss in the last week and a half around new social network Ello. It bills itself as a social network that won’t sell your data to anyone and is free. They have said that in the future there will be features that are for pay only and that is how they plan to monetize the platform. They have also taken some venture seed money and it’s widely believed that eventually they will have to take more, what that means for the platform is also a subject of discussion.
For now I’m focusing on what it has the potential to be. Could it be that third viable social network that isn’t just a Facebook or Twitter wanna be? Will there be unique ways to engage people in your cause? The possibilities are endless.
The functionality still leaves a lot to be desired, for example there’s no way to “like†a post as a way to let someone know you saw it, read it or even actually like it. There’s no way to easily share someone else’s post with your audience. You can however upload gifs that are fully functional.
Imho, it’s early and the jury is still out. I’ll be continuing to play with it and dream of what can be done with it and will keep you posted.
What do you think?
What I’m Reading
The most informative or thought-provoking articles of the month (IMHO)
Social Media Users are More Charitable Than You Might Think – this article had me thinking a lot about how we use social media to build the stronger relationships with people that in turn allows them to feel invested in what we do and thus contribute financially
How social media is reshaping news News plays an important role for both our content creation and driving our messaging, this report from Pew contains some useful nuggets of information we should be aware of
Minnesota campaign board gives social media advice More and more we are seeing advice from official Campaign related enforcement agencies regarding how social media can and can’t be used…the latest is from Minnesota
How to Make Social Commerce More Appealing Some interesting numbers on why people aren’t really buying through social. The standout to me was something that reflects what I’ve been saying about social content in general…if someone doesn’t want to be seen buying it, they won’t do so socially
How Twitter's 'Buy' button will shake up social media and more on social commerce, this time with Twitter dipping into the scene but again I’ll add the reminder that regardless of what you are asking people to buy if they don’t want to be seen buying it publicly they won’t
The real story behind Facebook likes nothing new here other than yet another link we can point to when explaining to the people we report to why the number of likes/follows is meaningless when we can actually report meaningful numbers like engagement and conversion to social action
Tools…
Want more? Of course you do! Check out the whole first issue archived right here.