{"id":2767,"date":"2011-03-24T19:40:47","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T19:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2011-03-24T20:10:30","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T20:10:30","slug":"14-ways-labor-unions-are-using-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/14-ways-labor-unions-are-using-twitter\/","title":{"rendered":"14 Ways #Labor Unions Are Using Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"
1.\u00a0 Sharing Multi-media to Tell a Story<\/strong><\/div>\n

A picture may be worth a thousand words — but a video\u00a0is even better:<\/p>\n

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2.\u00a0 \ufeffUpdating Members on Contract Negotiations<\/strong><\/div>\n

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3.\u00a0 Promoting Members<\/strong><\/div>\n

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4.\u00a0 Reminding Members of Marches and Rallies<\/strong><\/div>\n
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5.\u00a0 Getting Members to Sign Petitions<\/strong><\/div>\n
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6.\u00a0 Encouraging workers to organize<\/strong><\/div>\n

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7.\u00a0 Reaching Out To Other Locals And Connecting<\/strong><\/div>\n

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8.\u00a0 Encouraging Elected Officials to Take Action<\/strong><\/div>\n
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9.\u00a0 Encouraging Members to Contact Elected Officials<\/strong><\/div>\n
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10.\u00a0 Thanking Elected Officials for Support<\/strong><\/div>\n

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11.\u00a0 Calling for Boycotts<\/strong><\/div>\n

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12.\u00a0 Whistle-blowing<\/strong><\/div>\n

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13.\u00a0 Using Their Profiles to Bring Viewers to Their Blogs & Main Sites<\/strong><\/p>\n


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14.\u00a0 Using Their Tweets to Promote Other Social Media Accounts<\/strong><\/div>\n
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How\u00a0Unions Could Do\u00a0Better\u00a0On Twitter<\/strong><\/div>\n

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If anyone should be good at being “social”, it should be unions.\u00a0 It’s their lifeblood.\u00a0 Yet, it’s here\u00a0where some unions\u00a0are falling short.\u00a0 How?<\/div>\n
The biggest mistake some unions are making is to simply be absent from social media, creating a void that lets their opponents dominate the arena.<\/div>\n
And some who are there would be better served by embracing some the medium’s basic social gestures, like following back those who follow it, so\u00a0a better bond can be\u00a0created and communications fostered.\u00a0 (You might even get a hot tip or two when there’s an ability for private conversation, which requires mutual following.)<\/div>\n
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The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union boasts in its Twitter profile that it “represents 1.3 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.”\u00a0 Yet, the UFCW only follows 357 accounts and only garnered a meager 1,970 followers.\u00a0 If it encouraged its members to participate in social media, it could magnify its voice within the medium in a major way, allowing it to carry its message more effectively.<\/div>\n
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There’s also not much retweeting going on, which means that union accounts are missing out on one of the easiest ways of building new connections in social media, which is through sharing great content from others.\u00a0 When retweeting occurs, the favor is often returned, allowing messages to travel much farther than they would otherwise.\u00a0 One accounts that gets this right belongs to the @AFL-CIO<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
Others have created accounts, but have let them sit dormant — for years.<\/div>\n
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Also, letting others take your primary territory is never a good idea.\u00a0 Name squatting occurs on Twitter.\u00a0 When it does, every effort should be made to regain the ground by filing a formal complaint so that a primary name is not simply wasted by someone who might or might not have a malicious intent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Also, the first step in creating a strong social media presence is completing an account profile:\u00a0 uploading a profile picture, setting an eye-catching background design, filling out a biography that has keywords to aid in search and information that helps viewers understand what the account represents.\u00a0 Links in the profile also help viewers get to sites rich in detail and connections.\u00a0 Not taking these steps misses an important opportunity.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As with so many businesses, unions are creating a presence on Twitter and still finding their way.\u00a0 Once they do, the conversation of the forum will become even more vibrant.<\/div>\n
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Glen Gilmore<\/div>\n

The writer is an honorary member of the Mercer County Central Labor Council, NJ,\u00a0 AFL-CIO<\/em><\/p>\n

Please join me on Twitter:\u00a0 @GlenGilmore<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1.\u00a0 Sharing Multi-media to Tell a Story A picture may be worth a thousand words — but a video\u00a0is even better: 2.\u00a0 \ufeffUpdating Members on Contract Negotiations 3.\u00a0 Promoting Members<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-glengilmore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2767"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2772,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions\/2772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}