Saying that there are a number of brilliant videos out there. Here is my Top 10

1. WaterAid – 1 in 3 women

This chilling video is so effective and talks directly to a western audience. Many people have no idea that millions and millions of people do not have access to sanitary facilities. This video makes that point very clearly. I’m surprised it has only around 5,000 views.

2. Invisible Children – Kony 2012

I’m not a huge fan of this video, but no one can doubt it’s phenomenal success as a “vital video”. It’s been debated to death so I won’t comment here – see my earlier blog if you are interested in a critique. If for some reason you haven’t watched it – please be patient and watch all 29 minutes. Apart from the oversimplification of the storytelling, my other big criticism is that they have turned off the comments.

3. Mismanagers Folliers – Development Boy

Very professionally executed and so catchy. A great parody. I haven’t been able to get the song out of my head for the last 2 weeks, which is why it gets such a high position in my “chart”.

4. Oxfam – Pregnant women dancing in London

A staged flashmob to highlight the dangers of pregnancy and birth around the world. I also love breakdancing. Not personally, just as a spectator. Are they pregnant or aren’t they?

5. SAIH Norway – Africa for Norway

A simple but clever idea with brilliant production values. Not only has this video had over 2million views it also received international media coverage within a couple of days of its release. Read more about the seeding of the video in one of my past blogs.

 6. Greenpeace – Barbie, It’s Over

I must have watched this video 20 times and it still makes me laugh. Brilliant scripting and production. Most importantly it succeeded in its goal. Love it!

7. Rainforest Alliance – Follow the Frog

I really can’t say why I like this video so much, it just makes me smile. I’m not sure if it will increase ethical purchasing much though.

8. Mama Hope – African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes

Another interesting video in a similar vain to Africa for Norway. It seems that there is a new paradigm of development communication emerging.

9. Comic Relief – Ricky Gervais

A great sketch for Comic Relief with a few surprisingly funny cameos. See my blog on the Huffington Post about irony in development communications.

10.International Aid Worker Meets African Villager

A tongue in cheek look at development workers in ‘Africa’. Note the negative comments in the YouTube comments.

TEXT BOOKS

General – Communication / Social Media

Castells, M (2011) Communication Power
A key text in mass communication and power strategies. Castells coined the phrase “mass self-communication” to describe how social media and internet technologies have aided social movements.

Hindman, M (2008) The Myth of Digital Democracy
Three years before the Arab Spring, Hindman argues that political blogs and the internet have done little to change the public sphere. Was he wrong?

Jarvis, J (2011) Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live
Jarvis firmly believes in the power of the internet and social media and how it ‘publicness’ allows us to think, collaborate and organize in ways that were impossible before.

Rheingold, H (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Rheingold, a veteran technology writer predicts how mobile technologies will change the world. He predicted the power of the mobile phone ten years before the Arab Spring.

Shirky, C (2009) Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens When People Come Together
An excellent book about group forming and how social media has made collective action “ridiculously easy”.

Trapscott, D (2009) Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World
A fascinating insight into the ‘Net Generation’ and ‘Digital Natives’.

Arab Spring and other social media “revolutions”

Castells, M (2012) Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age
An analysis of the new forms of social movements by the leading academic on networked societies.

Dabashi, H (2012) The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism
Dabashi uses the phrase ‘delayed defiance’ for how the Arab Spring has transformed the geopolitics of the ‘Middle East’.

Gerbadou, P (2012) Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism
Digital activism and contemporary protest culture.

Ghonim, W (2012) Revolution 2.0.
Wael Ghonim is considered one of the most influential people in the 2011 Egyptian Revolutions. This is his personal account of the events. A fascinating and compelling read.

Mason, P (2012) Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions
A discussion of the various ‘social media revolutions’ of 2011: from London to Egypt. An excellent account of the various uprisings around the world.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

General (social media)

Castells, M (2007) Communication, Power and Computer-power in the Network Society
An seminal paper by Castells on the emergence of mass self-communication, power and politics. The new public sphere.

Kaplan, AM (2010) Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media
One of the most cited papers on social media, often quoted for it’s definition of social media. But is it still current?

Social Media and International Development

Ali, AH (2011) The Power of Social Media in Developing Nations
An excellent paper on social media and international development with a comprehensive introduction and some insightful case studies.

Bailard, CS (2012) A Field Experiment on the Internet’s Effect in an African Election: Savvier Citizens, Disaffected Voters, or Both
A study of the internet and social media’s influences on the Tanzanian political elections.

Bidwell, NJ et al (2010) Please Call ME.N.U.4EVER: Callback and Social Media Sharing in Rural Africa
I admit to not having read this yet. But it looks too interesting not to include… I hope I’m right.

Briones, RL, Kuch, B, Liu BF, Jin, Y (2011) Keeping up with the digital age: How the American Red Cross uses social media to build relationships
How the Red Cross use social media to communicate with its various publics/stakeholders.

Chiumbi, S (2012) Exploring Mobile Phone Practices in Social Movements in South Africa – the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
Mobile phone usage in South Africa to mobilize deprived communities.

Gamal, H (2010) Network Society: A Social Evolution Powered by Youth
Published in the Global Media Journal, Arabian Edition the year before the Arab Spring. A discussion on the digital divide and cyber-optimists. An important article in a literature review considering the author and its timing.

Jurgenson, N (2011) When Atoms Meets Bits: Social Media, the Mobile Web and Augmented Revolution
“Digital dualism” – I’ll let you decide.

Lovejoy, K and Saxton, GD (2012) Information, Community, and Action: How Nonprofit Organizations Use Social Media
This paper looks at 100 Nonprofit organizations in United States and how they utilize Twitter as a communications tool.

Mandianou, M (2012) Humanitarian Campaigns in Social Media

Neumayer, C, Raffl, C (2008) Facebook for Global Protest: The Potential and Limits of Social Software for Grassroots Activism
Social media for grassroots activism in Columbia

Seo, H, Kim, JY, Yang, S (2009) Global Activism and New Media: A study of Transnational NGOs’ online public relations
A survey of 75 transnational NGOs and how they use new media as a public relations tool.

Sheombar, A (2011) Social Media for International Development: Social Media Usage by Dutch Development and Aid Agencies
An MRes research project examining social media potential in the sector of Dutch Aid and development organisations.

Shirky, C (2011) The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, The Public Sphere, and Political Change
A discussion on the impact of social media in mobilizing mass political protests.

Smith, BG (2010) Socially Distributing Public Relations: Twitter, Haiti, and Interactivity in Social Media
This study explores social public relations through a qualitative analysis of user involvement on Twitter regarding relief efforts to support Haiti following the 7.0 earthquake that hit Port-Au-Prince in January, 2010

Valenzuela, S, Arriagada, A, Scherman, A (2012) The Social Media Basis of Youth Protest Behaviour: The Case of Chile
An interesting exploration of social media’s contribution to the Chile Winter student protests.

Youmans, WL & York, CY (2012) Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements
An analysis role of social media in the Arab Spring uprisings using four case studies.

Zuckerman, E et al (2010) Blogs and Bullets: New Media on Contentious Politics
A critical analysis of “cyberutopians” and “cyberskeptics” perspectives on the impact of new media on political movements.

POLICY BRIEFS AND REPORTS

Bohler-Muller, N and van der Merwe, C (2011) The potential of social media to influence socio-political change on the African Continent
A detailed account of the Arab Spring uprisings with some policy recommendations.

Gao, H and Barbier, G (2011) Harnessing the Crowdsourcing Power of Social Media for Disaster Relief

Johnson, R et al (2012) Social Media Amongst Most-at-Risk Populations in Jamaica
I was totally intrigued by this study as it offered some important practical insights into how social media can be used to disseminate health information. I’ve written to the authors twice to find out if it was successful but have not received a reply.

Firstly I was intrigued to know how many people were involved in the process of producing this video and was surprised to find out that over 70 people were involved including music, video production, lyrics, planning and marketing. When you consider the number of people singing in the video I suppose it’s not as surprising as I thought. But on a meagre budget of 20,000 Euros the success of this video is incredible.

Sindre explained the main goal of the creative team “We felt the need to do something different. There are so many NGOs producing video with predictable content and narratives. So many channels are providing information about Africa and other developing countries. People are getting fed up with negative stereotypes and we wanted to make something new that would grab peoples attention.”

The marketing campaign to launch the video was carefully planned. 10,000 stickers were produced and distributed through a range of ‘gatekeepers’ such as activists in a range of cities across Norway. I have an exchange student from Norway in one of the modules I teach on who said that there were stickers everywhere within the University – in corridors / noticeboards / backpacks etc – you couldn’t miss them. The team also contacted online activists via social media, specifically Facebook. A key to their success was a post on the popular Africa is a Country blog which was achieved through a tweet to their account. Little did they know that they had mutual contacts at the blog – it’s a small world! Via this contact the media storm snowballed and within a couple of days an article on the Guardian and a tweet from BBC Have Your Say twitter account. Since then Africa For Norway has received global media coverage and last week presented at TEDx Barcelona.

With my keen interest in social media and ‘celebrity advocacy’ I asked Sindre whether celebrity outreach was considered in their strategy – a bit ironic I know considering the narrative of the video. It wasn’t, but it hasn’t stopped support from a range of celebrities and politicians tweeting about the campaign and aiding it’s success.

Africa for Norway’s Youtube stats suggest that their video is most popular with 35-54 year olds. Their Facebook insights reveal that their largest group of followers are 25-34 year old females (17%), followed by 25-34 year old males (14.4%). Could it be that the video speaks loudest to the “Band Aid Generation”.

So why was it a success? Well, firstly it’s different, creative and funny. All three of these factors are key ingredients for ‘shareability’ – as I like to call it. What has it achieved? Hopefully it has opened the eyes of some NGOs to the power of producing something different. The power of creativity. Sindre commented “There are a few small NGOs making different and exciting types of development videos. We hope we can help shift the communications of larger humanitarian organisations such as UNICEF.”

I asked what’s next for Africa for Norway. There’s been a lot of creative brainstorming going on and a lot of networking with similar minded organisations. They definitely don’t want to be a one hit wonder but recognise the age old problem of the 2nd album syndrome.  I have no doubt that their 2nd album will be as successful. It is obvious from speaking to Sindre that they have learned a great deal from their experience and have carefully taken note on how to improve next time.

Thanks for Sindre for answering my questions so thoroughly and honestly. It was a pleasure talking with you!

Live Below the Line has been running in the UK now for 4 years. Last year they raised £500,000 for several charities, the year before it was £188,000. I’ve been fascinated with this campaign ever since I first heard about it a few months ago as I think it’s an excellent way to combine fundraising with awareness raising. I asked if I could meet up with Stephen to discuss two areas that interest me the most: social media and celebrity advocacy.

Below the Line have two main aims for this years campaign: participation in the challenge and raising brand awareness. For deepening engagement and brand awareness they target the national media, and to encourage participation they target the local/regional media. Nationally they are very interested in publications such as Heat Magazine and the Daily Mail as they hope to change mainstream perceptions on aid. I asked Stephen if he feels that celebrities are important for non-profit organisations to deliver their message. He believes that in order to get coverage from the mainstream media it is essential to have celebrity support otherwise they simply aren’t interested. For example, they managed to get coverage by the Daily Star this year as they had a small quote from Gordon Ramsey who had made a recipe for their website. They also had potential coverage by Channel 5, Sky TV and Sky News – that was until they realised that they had no ‘A’ list celebs taking the challenge. I’ve worked with, and in, the media for a long time, but I didn’t quite realise how shallow they can be. Below the Line have tried to get celebrity supporters but they insist that they must take the challenge. It is important to them that the celebrity has integrity and cares deeply about the cause. This makes their agents/publicists nervous who are often risk adverse when it comes to their clients ‘public brand’. Securing a top celebrity is a key milestone for next year.

So what about social media. Last year 11% of their participants signed up for the campaign via social media. A lot lower than I thought. However this year that number is already up to 18% and they have employed a paid intern specifically to manage their Facebook and Twitter channels. On Twitter they engage with their audience, retweet stories, hold competitions etc. They also actively contact celebrities and politicians on Twitter to see if they can raise awareness. Melanie C tweeted about the campaign on their launch date and she has 373,392 followers.

This year they’ve produced a Facebook App which has recipes from celebrity chefs and also allows you to upload and share your own recipes. Participation is not great at the moment but there’s still time. They also have a video due for release the week in April from the makers of the #danceponydance viral.

I’m surprised that the Below the Line campaign hasn’t spread more on social networks. It’s a quirky challenge and I thought it would attract a young demographic who would then share the challenge with their friends.

So what did you think? I think it’s very funny and 1,728 people on YouTube seem to agree. The video has had over 500,000 views and has only received 55 ‘dislikes’. I sat down and read all of the comments on YouTube to see if I could get a sense of what people think it is trying to achieve? The vast majority of the comments are merely praising Ricky and others for their “comic genius”. Jamie Oliver has won over a new audience, with several people saying they didn’t like him before, but now they’ve changed their mind. I’m sure that the sketch encouraged people to pick up the phones and donate some money. But did it change anyone’s perceptions international development and the lives of people in other countries?

Out of the 400-500 comments that I read there are only a handful of people discussing the content of the video other than its “comic genius”. Comments like “What he’s getting at is the celebrity’s [sic] do these appeals just to raise their profile. Ricky Gervais does a lot for charity and gives a lot to charity.” and “Genius. Gervais subtly deals with the whole concept of Comic Relief and how it is ironically saturated by self-indulgent and outrageous tokenism. Underlying this piece, for me, is the message: millions of pounds isn’t the answer and NEVER will be; human action is of more value than every [sic] can be.”

In her recent academic book, ‘The Ironic Spectator, Lilie Chouliaraki argues that humanitarian communication has shifted from being based on pity (e.g. the images of distant suffering used during Live Aid), to being based on irony (the spectacle of others like ‘us’ to elicit self-reflection). She suggests that this shift is a result, in part, of attempts to overcome a perceived sense of compassion fatigue amongst the public (generated through previous ‘poverty porn’ campaigns). It is also due to the explosion of mass self publication that social media has enabled.

If the reaction to the above Ricky Gervais video is anything to go by, it looks as though irony does (or at least can) work. The three videos in this blog have received 500,000, 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 views and feedback on YouTube is extremely positive. But whether these videos are wholly effective depends on their goals. If their goal is to encourage views / clicks or donations, then we might regards them as successful. But do they really provide us with a meaningful way of engaging with the other? Do these videos merely highlight the seemingly irresolvable tension in humanitarian communications between fundraising and raising awareness?

Charity:Water are a relatively new charity which started in 2006. I’ve seen a couple of their videos before but not really heard much more about them. Within the presentation Paull explains about their marketing strategy and how they raise 75% through their digital channels and social media. They were the first charity to have 1 million followers on Twitter and now have nearly 1.4 million followers. They have 248,000 likes on their Facebook page. Compare this to WaterAid in the US which has 28,000 likes. Charity:Water were also one of the first three brands on Instgram and have over 80,000 followers. They attribute their success on Instagram to the quality of their photography. Smiling faces and clean water images share! In fact through their marketing communications their emphasis on strong design and image is evident - their annual report is stunning. The only other charity annual report I have seen that is so design-led is by Invisible Children. Is it a coincidence that two charities who are incredibly successful at social media marketing apprecaite and understand the value of good design? Charity:Water also have a very clean website with simple and effective information architecture. The photography is beautiful and portrays a powerful message.

An innovative addition to their digital comms is a microsite ‘My Charity Water’. Every single dollar that is donated by the general public goes to providing clean water for those in need and every dollar is tracked via GPS and photos so that individual donors can track the impact that they have made. One of the ways people can fundraise is to give up their birthdays and ask their friends and family to donate to Charity:Water instead. They have had over 15,000 people give up their birthdays including several celebrities such as Justin Beiber and Will and Jada Smith.

As a parent of two young girls it is the emotional story of a nine year old from Washington State called Rachel Beckwith that moved me. Rachel gave up her birthday as a nine year old so that she could help provide clean water for people in Africa. She raised $220 and vowed to raise more on her 10th birthday. Rachel was tragically killed in a car accident before her 10th birthday. As a memorial her parents asked people to donate to her campaign and literally thousands did, raising $1.2 million.

Charity:Water truly understand the power of digital and social media. I look forward to seeing future innovations.

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Not all the reviews were positive though. In a critique by Elliot Ross on Africa is a Country, he says “People might want to see this video as a counterpoint to Kony2012, and it’s of course nothing like as egregious, but I’m not sure exactly how far we can move away from the Invisible Children with a video by Joe Sabia (who directs the Mama Hope stuff). Sabia is another Silicone Valley, TED-talking master of viral narrative, which seems to boil down to not much more than a heavily concentrated dose of American sentimentality, however that sentiment is directed. Mama Hope is another white-staffed NGO run out of California. They are doing something very different by attempting to engage very broad cultural currents (as opposed to, say, organising the world’s most self-congratulatory wild-goose chase in Central African Republic), but that’s not without its problems.”

I agree. It is quite cheesy. But does cheese sell so to speak? Did the video change perceptions? Will it change behaviours? This is one of the downsides of social media for international development – it’s very hard to measure. It is near impossible to segment on social media, therefore do NGOs have to cater for the masses? One recent comment on Mama Hope’s YouTube channel states:

“I would like to see also the African Women in the video, make it douple [sic] that long and show the Women from the movies that are not shooting but only have the role to show how bad the bad guys are and than show these who are Doctors, Engineers, Scientist….”

Well yesterday, Mama Hope released a new film The Women of Nyamonge Present: Netball to coincide with International Women’s Day.

The video has been live for 13 hours and so far has only 262 views. I’m interested in whether this video will go viral as well. I wonder what Mama Hope’s seeding strategy is. Was the last video considered an antidote to the Kony video(s)? Did it effectively piggyback on their virality? It is hard to analyse as the YouTube public statistics have been disabled, but a million views is incredibly successful for a small NGO.

Mama Hope only have a small fan base on social media, Twitter (1,556 followers) and Facebook (3,969 likes). It will be hard to seed this film via their social media channels alone. So what made the last video so successful? What is through mainstream media? Was it through various blogs that commented on the video?

On a recent blogpost by Hubspot they claim “Most videos we track see about 75% or 80% of views in the first 3 to 5 days.” I’m pleased to see an NGO experimenting with a new style of video and I sincerely hope that this second video also has an impact in the next couple of days.

 1 in 3 Women – Water Aid

Africa for Norway – SIAH Norway

Follow the Frog – Rainforest Alliance

African Men. Hollywood Stereotypes – Mama Hope

This page told me nothing whatsoever! Is this deliberate? Continuing the suspense of how I can change the world with an app.

The description within the App Store didn’t tell me a lot more

I really must have this App now as it’s going to Save the World. In reality I’d have given up at this stage and not bothered downloading the app, but I have a blog to write so I need to download it now.

Ok, so I’ve downloaded and basically I can choose to support the 2 campaigns they currently have. The first “issue” is to ‘Ask UK Govt to lead in Europe’. The App is quite neat if I decide to support the campaign. It basically takes me to a standard email which I can edit if I want and then gets sent to the appropriate email address in Parliament. The design is clean and navigation is clear. The next step takes me to a screen where I can easily share with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Why not LinkedIn too?

So far 1220 people have supported the campaign for Europe. The other campaign which asks you to support the #IF campaign only has 46 ‘supports’ so far. Maybe it’s early days in the campaign? The App doesn’t tell you when a campaign started.

I’m not a huge fan of Apps, so maybe I’m not the best person to critique Tearfund’s new campaign ‘tool’. It’s certainly simple to use. But why oh why don’t the web page and the App description in the App store tell you more information about the purpose of this App. Is it clever or lazy communication?

I’m guessing this App cost in the region of £10,000 – £20,000 to produce. More if you include the admin cost of staff at Tearfund. I hope it’s a success, but I fear it’s just a novelty and very much doubt it will change the world.

“Do you fancy a bakewell tart Sarah?” said my mother. “No thank you, Jackie I’m still on my challenge.” “What about a chocolate eclair?” mother said. “Mum, you are not allowed to eat anything except what you have bought with your £1 a day allowance.” I said. “It’s a gift, and you shouldn’t refuse gifts it’s rude.” she said with a smile on her face. Sarah resisted.

We both found the challenge interesting more than anything. Day One as anyone will know who has dieted before is hard. A couple of times in the past Sarah and I have both detoxed for a week. This however was different. With a detox you just have to cut out certain food types depending on the detox you are following. With the £1 a day challenge you had to think ahead about what you are going to eat and stick to the food you have bought. I suppose you could purchase your food daily or more than once a week, but the economies of scale would not be in your favour.

When we complete the challenge properly in the next few weeks we will definitely be making some changes to our purchases. We had a lone potato left over and didn’t touch the pasta. Eggs will be on the shopping list. Sarah wants a pint of milk too. We’ve both agreed the vegetable curry was really lovely and something to look forward to at the end of the day.

Today and you can see from the photo I treated myself to scrambled eggs on toast. I often have this for breakfast and I nearly always have 1 egg + 2 further egg whites. This morning I felt really guilty for throwing those 2 yolks away. I also had a skinny, one shot, decaf cinnamon latte when I got to work. Yes I know. The coffee shop staff find it a challenge remembering it too. It cost me £1.75. Today I’m meeting my friend for lunch. We often meet on a Friday and go for a buffet salad on campus. It costs £4.00. It’s Friday, my family are away for the weekend, I’m sure I’ll fancy a bottle of Co-Op Fairtrade Sauvignon Blanc. That will be another £5.99. So before I’ve even eaten my evening meal I will have spent nearly £12. Puts it into perspective doesn’t it?

There are 1.4 billion people in the world living on less than £1 a day. That £1 has to cover ALL living expenses not just food. The Living below the line challenge only provides a tiny insight into extreme poverty. We were still living in a lovely detached, suburban house, with running water, sanitation and central heating.

I hope many others will join the Below the line challenge this year with the aim of beating last years £500,000 fundraising results. I also hope it will help provide awarness on the conditions that many people in the world suffer on a daily basis.