Help Us Save Darfur

Special thanks to Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells for encouraging us to blog on the SMC site about some work we are performing on behalf of Save Darfur. This week marks the beginning of an aggressive campaign to take advantage of the administration change and use social media to encourage President-elect Obama to action and end the Darfur genocide.

The Save Darfur Coalition’s “Be A Voice For Darfur” postcard campaign seeks to ensure that Darfur is a top priority for the Obama Administration. Obama has already promised “unstinting resolve” to end the Darfur Genocide.   The effort, which aims for no less than 1 million postcards to be emailed, blogged and snail-mailed to President-elect Obama within his first 100 days in office.

The hottest part is the unveiling of a petition application developed in conjunction with Facebook Causes. Other social media components include an influencer relations campaign, and a Darfur Blogger Toolkit with videos, photos, and other resources at http://www.addyourvoice.org/pages/blogger_toolkit.  And of course, there’s the mandatory Twitter hashtag: #voice4darfur .

The appalling genocide in Darfur continues – now in its sixth year and at the price of nearly half a million lives. Ironically, this December marks the 60^th anniversary of the United Nations  Genocide Convention, and we are still dealing with this horrific issue.

The time to for action is now, and in a year when many of us are suffering financial hardship, we can still make a difference. Signing the petition, tweeting or writing blog posts  are great ways to help without expending a lot of cash.

This is a great example of social media for social good.  But for it to work, you, the Social Media Club member needs to believe in the cause and do something about it. Help us end genocide, and spread the word to your friends online and with other local Social Media Club members

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Social Media Now 10.22.08

Here’s a quick round-up of some recent news in social media. Did we miss your favorite social media news story? Add it in the comments or email us to add it to the next post for social media now.

Shel Israel writes about not mistaking popularity for influence. There’s an interesting post on Mashable about top blunders from the social media gurus, with a little something we can all learn from. Chris Brogan reminds us that it’s not necessarily true the famous bloggers are the only ones with anything important to say, and to promote and encourage others to keep the conversations fresh. Blog Action Day showed how social media can help us raise our voices and awareness about critical issues and thousands of bloggers responded in their own ways. Nonprofit Bootcamp happened in San Mateo, and over 2000 people got the resources they needed to get down to business online. Nielsen online ratings showed huge traffic growth for several social media sites this year, especially Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, while some other sites like Buzznet and imeem slipped a bit, and imeem may be doing some cutting back. FriendFeed announced their real-time API, so now you can keep up to date on your friends in real-time.

Bright Shiny Objects

• AppLoop is an iPhone friendly RSS reader that’s getting good reviews.
• Lijit search just added advertising to it’s bag of tricks.
• Twine can help you track your bookmarks and other content, and learns what you like the more you use it and then makes recommendations based on your usage.

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• FriendFeed Announces Another Update
• Followers, Friends, and Fans: Expanding Your Online Community - Emetrics Summit DC 2008 - Day 1

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Social Media Now 7.6.08

Here are some interesting links we’ve come across in the past week. Have you got some favorites to pass on? Share them in the comments section!

John McQuaid is thinking about hyperlocal in his post ”The Big Die-Off, And The Long Tail Of Hyperlocal”.

Josh Bernoff discusses the benefits and drawbacks when politicians delve into social media in his post Barack Obama vs. my.BarackObama.com on FISA — When Your Fans Disagree With You

Jeremiah Owyang discusses the Social CMS Dilemma and wonders if we’ll be seeing better tools for community management, and if community managers are ready for that.

Scoble points out some interesting stats about FriendFeed, and how participation can win you friends and followers.

Bright Shiny Objects
My favorite new Twitter App, TweetDeck launched in beta on the 4th of July.

I also discovered ClipMarks, which allows you to clip parts of a page and send it by email, to your blog, FriendFeed, or add a Clipmarks widget pretty much anywhere you want to.

And last but not least, check out TwitterPacks, a wiki that groups twitter users by areas of interest.

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