TV One’s series uses new media to spark new conversation centered on an old issue

Last month, TV One (a cable network with programming geared toward African Americans) premiered a 10-part series designed to highlight unsolved cases of missing African Americans.

Find Our Missing, a new, hour long docu-drama series, will put names and faces to people of color – young and old- who have disappeared without a trace. Each riveting episode features a dramatic and emotional tale that places the viewer within the lives of the missing person, along with reflecting the pain of their loved ones, while confronting dead ends at every turn.

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The series’ premiere has sparked new conversations focused on a long standing issue – media bias in reporting missing persons.

Every day in the U.S., 2,000 children are reported missing, and the Black and Missing Foundation, says 65 percent of the ones abducted by a non-family member are members of minority groups.

Though blacks comprise only 14 percent of the total U.S. population, they account for nearly 40 percent of all reported missing persons cases.

Well this is awkward …

November 7, 2011

That was the date of my last post.

Somewhere between then and now I became engrossed in the daily grind of new employment and abandoned my blog entirely. I totally broke my own social media vows.

I struggled with balancing my personal social media adventures with those of the organization I work for.

But, now it’s time to dust this thing off and get back on the saddle.

I have learned so many things throughout the last three months that I am excited to share with you.

I guess ideally I would have been sharing them with you as they happened, but as Kurt Vonnegut would say, “So it goes.”

I’ll be flipping my blogging switch back on starting next week.

I hope you’ll follow along.

Until then,

Brit

 

Lessons learned in using video to increase engagement

Video is the next best thing to meeting your fans in person.
-Social Media Examiner

I have been managing my organization’s social media accounts for over a month now, and I have seen firsthand the importance of using multimedia to connect with one’s audience.

When posted, multimedia content consistently leads to spikes in user engagement.

While there are cases when the ROI of social media is an increase in sales, for nonprofits brand loyalty is just as important as the bottom line.

I believe that video is an essential tool in creating this.

Here’s why …

Slackin’ on my “Mac”in’

My blog has been quiet the past couple of weeks. The track pad on my Mac went out a couple weeks ago, and I had to take it to get replaced.

The good news is that I am back up and running now, and will continue my normal blogging on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Curating is caring

“There is a saying in computer science “garbage in, garbage out.” Well, if the source is 100% garbage the answer is easy: just turn off the spigot.
The problem is when it’s 99% garbage and 1% gold. A good curator finds the gold and passes it on to their followers.”

-  Artem Filikov, online marketing professional

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTENT & CURATION

“Curation” has become a buzz word in the realm of digital media.

Like other new digital trends, it has been pitted against traditional practices by many and treated as a separate notion.

In this case, some have argued that curation and content are mutually exclusive — that curation has somehow overtaken content as the primary focus of digital media.

I disagree.

Without content, curation is meaningless.

Steve Jobs’ Impact on Minorities & Low-Income Citizens

 “Artist. Role Model. Innovator. Life changer.”

- NY Times

I never met Steve Jobs.

But like many, my life has been substantially impacted by his innovation and will continue to be shaped by his legacy.

Right now, I am typing this post on a MacBook Pro, which is connected to an iPhone, while listening to music on my …

You get the point.

The minute that news of Jobs’ passing broke, the web was flooded with articles and posts about his contributions to technology and culture, his witty and inspirational quotes on life’s greatest lessons, and his ability to believe in the unseen and to maximize the potential in every moment.

Apple Co-Founder Ronald Wayne put it best on Anderson Cooper 360 saying: “It was as if he could stand above the world and see what was, what is, and what’s coming.”

My interview with Twylah Co-Founder Kelly Kim

There’s no shortage of services that take content from the Twitter firehose and present it in a different way. But one caught my eye recently, because it’s doing something I’d always hoped a really good RSS aggregator would do: track topics. Nobody ever built the RSS topic tracker that I’d dreamed about. It’s not a technical problem, more of a demand one. As you all know, the Web has evolved over the past 5-10 years into a very social tool. People prefer to follow (= track) people, more so than follow topics.

However, perhaps the time for topic trackers has come – given the ever growing problem of information overload in the Social Web. Twylah is thinking along those lines and has served up a pretty good (beta) solution. (via Read, Write, Web)

Last week, I participated in my first #fiercechat, through which I “met” some very smart, interesting people.

The focus of last week’s chat was Twylah – a site that offers magazine-style Twitter branding pages to showcase the topics you’re most interested in.

The site’s founders, husband and wife Eric and Kelly Kim,  participated in the chat to offer advice on how to use the site to increase engagement while showcasing one’s personal brand.