| Be an Online Activist |
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Here are some ideas for how you can help us promote a better foreign policy using online advocacy and organizing tools. All you need is a computer (or a fancy cell phone) and an Internet connection. 1) You’ve already taken action. Now help us spread the word. If you are signed up to receive our email alerts and you are acting on them yourself, you can help us increase the power of our campaigns exponentially by helping get the word out. 2) Respond to and promote relevant news stories. The national conversation on foreign policy increasingly takes place online, which gives activists an opportunity to participate in exciting ways. By responding to events and highlighting important news stories, you can help shape the foreign policy debate. Here’s how 1. Use that forward button! Sure, anyone born after 1990 may tell you that email is “old fashioned,” but it’s still the most powerful way you can build attention for one of our action alerts. 2. Social networking sites. If you have an account on MySpace, Facebook, Gather, Ning, or one of many other options , you can use your profile page to tell your friends to check out one of our actions. For instance, you can tell your MySpace or Facebook friends to sign our petition to the president-elect to bring the troops home from Iraq. Want to learn more about social networking sites? Click here. 3. Your blog. Whether your blog (if you have one) is about kittens, plants or politics, you can help by linking to our blog, or by occasionally featuring one of our action alerts. 4. Other people’s blogs. Help build the conversation by adding your comments on blog posts that cover foreign policy issues. 5. Social bookmarking sites. Help us out by posting our action alerts on social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon. This is also a great way to call attention to blog post that cover news that you find important but is ignored by the mainstream press. 6. Organize! Start up a group or forum around a specific campaign or kind of action. The possibilities are endless. One example: One of our supporters set up an online listserv, news group or forum to generate letters to the editor in response to faulty or incomplete coverage from a news outlet she felt was unaccountable. Her group averaged almost one letter to the editor published in that paper every two weeks! Some options for this are Google Groups and Yahoo Groups . Another great option is to start an online group under the banner of No Soldier Left Behind! Learn more. A tip for news junkies The speed and quantity of information online can be overwhelming. The following tools allows you to filter through the noise and have the news and analysis you choose delivered to you in an easy to digest format. Once you’ve got that, the next step is to engage in the conversation. (See “4. Other people’s blogs” above) RSS feeds  RSS feeds provide a way to get instant updates from your favorite news sources or on your priority issues as they go online. You subscribe to an RSS feed by clicking on this orange symbol at left which, if available, will most often appear next to the url at the top of your browser window. All blogs, most news outlets and many websites offer RSS feeds on their sites. When you click on that symbol, your browser may ask you to select a feed reader to subscribe with. Your browser may give you the option of creating a bookmark for your feed. Or you may want to set up a feed reader with services like Bloglines or Google Reader. Netvibes is a house favorite, since it provides a great layout for tracking many news sources on a variety of topics in one place. In addition, some sites (including our blog, GroundswellOnline) allow you to get updates automatically sent right to your email. Two options for using RSS feeds 1. If you want a range of news sources on a particular topic, you can create a feed based on search results. For instance, if you subscribe to the results of a search on GoogleNews for “Iraq”, those results will automatically update with new stories in your feed reader. You can do the same on sites like Digg.com or Technorati.com. Google News gives you the option to get alerts with the latest search results in your email. 2. If you want to focus on one particular news source or blog, you can usually go to their homepage and find a feed for their headlines. You can often get feeds from a particular section of an media outlet’s website. (See example) and many outlets feature a page full of feeds they specially offer. (See example) |
