Google, KS

For the month of March, Topeka doesn’t exist. The town of 120,000 is now officially named Google, KS. The big question, of course, is why?

Earlier this month Google announced a contest to bring Google Fiber (ultra-high-speed broadband Internet) to one or more trial communities around the country. A Topeka Facebook group urging locals to support the project spread like wildfire, and culminated with the mayor’s proclamation to change the city’s name.

Topeka’s stunt kicked off a marketing feeding frenzy, with hundreds of communities vying for Google’s attention – several in utterly bizarre ways. The mayor of Duluth actually promised that all future first-born children will be named GoogleFiber or Googlette, then jumped in freezing Lake Superior and yelled, “I’ve laid down the gauntlet! You want Google Fiber, you jump in Lake Superior!”

While not all campaigning cities are going to such (ridiculous) extremes, many have wisely turned to social media to bolster support:

• The mayor of Memphis is using Twitter to ask residents to post videos with reasons their town is the best choice for Google’s experiment.
• The ‘Google Fiber for Grand Rapids’ Facebook group has more than 34,000 fans, with user-generated photos and videos.
• Greenville, SC created a YouTube Channel to spread the word about ‘Google on Main,’ a quest to build the world’s first people-powered Google chain (though I’m not exactly sure what a ‘Google chain’ is, somehow it involves glow sticks and a helicopter).

This is how social media can be used to your advantage. These communities are finding creative ways to use social media platforms, both to spread information and engage their residents in conversations. This give-and-take exchange taps into a value the user actually cares about (100x faster internet) and offers it as a potential reward for participating. Everybody wins!

So what about you? How can you use social media to engage your customers?

Social Media Tips From Google, KS is a post from: RSA Blog

Politics and Social Media

Social media introduces a new paradigm of increased grassroots involvement in politics.  Everyday people are finding their voice and influencing the conversation in Washington D.C.

Our country was founded on democracy – of the people, for the people – but in a society where money talks, few would say their opinion matters.  Rather, a large majority view politics as reserved for the rich and powerful…I admit I once agreed with them, but times are changing and so is the voice of politics.

Those conversations that were once reserved for the country club elite are being overrun by the public at large on social networking and viral media platforms.  Politics is still about that conversation – the difference is in how many more people can participate and how quickly one person becomes tens of thousands – at no other time have modern Americans been so connected and so easily organized.

In any successful democratic society, civic participation is a necessity – everyone needs to do their part.  With the emergence of social platforms like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, eventful, and Meetup, democratic engagement is becoming increasingly achievable.

Social Media Spaces

Through these social networking spaces people have the opportunity to shape the conversation and decide on what issues politicians need to place their focus – a sharp break from traditional top-down politics, where the politician talks and people listen.  For example, organizations like MoveOn.org have embraced this bottom-up concept, allowing  members to set the organization’s priorities, and in-turn bringing every-day people back into politics.

Social media is breaking down a system that today revolves around big money and big media (which leaves most citizens out all together). It creates a system of bottom-up democracy where people are actively participating in our nation’s politics.

The question now is, “will politicians keep up?”  The 2008 presidential campaign proves those who take note of the trend win.  Barack Obama and his team utilized social media at an unprecedented level where other candidates barely scratched the surface.  However, even Obama’s camp, which was touted as having “crushed” social media sites, doesn’t have a full grasp of what social media can do and is doing to change politics:

Andrew Rasiej, founder and publisher of Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com, said “Barack Obama’s campaign is also backwards thinking.  The webmaster running the Obama MySpace site—with 160,000 supporters—asked Obama for a salary, $39,000 and was refused.  That’s 25 cents a voter and they said no.  Keep in mind, campaigns often spend one dollar per email address for mailing lists.”

Most politicians are behind the eight ball. The good news is that it’s not too late to tap into this new media resource.  People are looking for government transparency and social media platforms (like tweetcongress) offer them the public forum they need to solicit the attention of their elected officials.  Politicians and would be candidates who choose to “listen” to and participate in these conversations online can find supporters and quickly mobilize them to advance their political or social agenda.

How Social Media is Re-Democratizing Democracy is a post from: RSA Blog