I love the connection that Anne Driscoll (contributor to Mashable.com) makes in her article “5 Tips for Sparking a Grassroots Movement Online.” She says that social action is easy for those who understand the value of service and helping others. They already devote themselves to making the world a better place and overcoming the odds. What Driscoll says the real trick is “turning that personal motivation into a widespread and impactful movement.” This is where in 2012, social media comes into play big time. Grassroots communities are a way to get actionable success even with limited budgets and resources. If you can make these communities go viral, on a global level, you can increase the power of the movement exponentially.
If we take a look at the recent Occupy Movement, it is apparent that the powerful tool of social media is no secret to grassroots movements. The Occupy group did a fabulous job utilizing social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Google to rally Americans across the nation to congregate in large cities (and smaller ones) and to fight Wall Street, the wealthy “top 1%” – in other words, “The Man.” There is no question that the effort made an impact from a numbers standpoint. Thousands of people gathered in public parks or other locations in major metropolitan areas like San Francisco, New York, Boston, Miami, and Los Angeles to make their voices heard. Social media played many roles here: gathering people to one location in their region, encouraging a rigorous dialogue, and grabbing the attention of members of the media – both traditional and new.
According to Twitter, “over 100K different hashtags have been used to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement and similar ‘occupy’ tactics.” Twitter reported the following (sample stats for Occupy Movement):
• Top occupy-related hashtags: #occupywallstreet #ows #occupywallst #occupy #occupyboston
• Up to 330K total hashtags /day, 17K different hashtags daily
• Top cities tweeting occupy hashtags, in order: NYC, LA, DC, SF, Boston,
• Top cities outside US: London, Cairo, Toronto
In my opinion, these high numbers are so absurd, but at the same time very exciting. This shows the power of social media to give momentum to a movement. The following question arises…if the movement was this popular and powerful, why was there so much controversy over media coverage? People argue that the movement got too much, too little, and not the right kind of coverage. They make every argument under the sun. I happen to agree with Capital New York’s Joe Pompeo in his article stating that the movement has received its fair share of publicity. Despite the back and forth quarrel about whether the Occupy movement deserves “top story” status, the fact remains that Google News indexed over 2,000 articles and news stories in the first 10 days of the movement. The A.P. published 30 photos, a half-dozen stories and at least one video in that same time period. Finally, CNN broadcast the story on Newsroom, The Situation Room, Piers Morgan Tonight, and CNN International. If that’s not coverage, I don’t know what is.
The real question here is why the controversy in the first place? What makes the media uncertain about the Occupy story? This boils down to the fundamental elements to a grassroots movement and leveraging the social media tool properly. Like any media story, the Occupy movement needed to have substance, meaning: authenticity, a clear message, and it needed to tell a story – not simply raise an issue (according to Driscoll). Perhaps this final item is what was lacking. Although the Occupy movement did tell a story (it told many, actually) it did not always do so in a clear manner. Facts were not always accurate and the stories did not present one, united message. Much of the time, the movement appeared disorganized and lacking leadership. Without a clear communications team working the front lines, reporters in the media got caught up in many of the smaller side stories and the message was mixed. Of course the average story was important; the entire movement was centered around every day people. However, these people needed to understand why they were doing what they were doing—they needed some guidance. The lack of organization also put the movement at a disadvantage when countering negative PR. I don’t believe that there was manipulation of the media coming from the movement itself, but I do think that there was a bit of anarchy and chaos within the movement that resulted in a lack of control or strategy from a PR perspective. I believe that the media can only be “manipulated” as much as it allows itself to be.
There are many success stories and examples of grassroots movements embracing social media in the world of healthcare. One very interesting example is the interactive healthcare movement led by physicians, themselves. “Interactive Health is transitioning clinical care from real-world, costly encounters to virtual, inexpensive, cloud-based care.” This means that the patient/doctor conversation happens virtually, in a safe online space like HealthTap, instead of in-person as health care delivery has traditionally be done. Ron Gutman points out that when looking at this movement, interactive healthcare is supported by three pillars: quality, access, and care. If these can be sustained at a low cost to provider and patient through an online social movement, all the more reason to move forward. There is great potential for social media to support health movements such as these, especially in areas like global health where access to care can be a great obstacle. I would predict that the challenges here would be the human inclination to resist change, as we move away from traditional care, as well as the legal risks affiliated with Patient Health Information (PIH) and HIPAA laws.
This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.
Sources:
http://mashable.com/2011/08/26/grassroots-online-tips/
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/is_occupy_wall_street_getting.php?page=all
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/09/29/occupy-wall-street-12-days-and-little-sign-of-slowing-down/#ixzz1ZLnzPK5c
http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2011/10/21/over-100k-different-hashtags-have-been-used-to-discuss-occupy-wall-street/
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2011/09/3533389/occupy-wall-street-media-blackout-myth-plenty-stories-none-them-big http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/02/21/a-new-grassroots-movement-by-doctors/
