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Share This!: How You Will Change the World with Social Networking
Social networks can be so much more than a way to find your high school friends or learn what your favorite celebrity had for breakfast. They can be powerful tools for changing the world. With Share This! both regular folks of a progressive bent and committed activists can learn how to go beyond swapping movie reviews and vacation photos (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
At the moment the same kinds of people who dominate the dialog off-line are dominating it online, and things will never change if that doesn’t change. Progressives need to get on social networks and share their stories, join conversations, connect with others—and not just others exactly like themselves. It’s vital to reach out across all those ethnic/gender/preference/class/age lines that exist even within the progressive camp. As Deanna Zandt puts it, “creating a just society is sort of like the evolution of the species—if you have a bunch of the same DNA mixing together the species mutates poorly and eventually dies off.”
But there are definitely dos and don’ts. Zandt delves into exactly what people are and are not looking for in online exchanges. How to be a good guest. What to share. Why authenticity is more important than just about anything, including traditional notions of expertise or authority. She addresses some common fears, like worrying about giving too much about yourself away, blurring the lines between your professional and personal life, or getting buried under a steaming heap of information overload. And she offers detailed, nuts-and bolts “how to get started” advice for both individuals and organizations.
The Internet is upending hierarchies and freeing the flow of information in a way that makes the invention of the printing press seem like an historical footnote. Share This! shows how to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to make marginalized voices heard and support real, fundamental change—and, incidentally, have some fun doing it.
At the moment the same kinds of people who dominate the dialog off-line are dominating it online, and things will never change if that doesn’t change. Progressives need to get on social networks and share their stories, join conversations, connect with others—and not just others exactly like themselves. It’s vital to reach out across all those ethnic/gender/preference/class/age lines that exist even within the progressive camp. As Deanna Zandt puts it, “creating a just society is sort of like the evolution of the species—if you have a bunch of the same DNA mixing together the species mutates poorly and eventually dies off.”
But there are definitely dos and don’ts. Zandt delves into exactly what people are and are not looking for in online exchanges. How to be a good guest. What to share. Why authenticity is more important than just about anything, including traditional notions of expertise or authority. She addresses some common fears, like worrying about giving too much about yourself away, blurring the lines between your professional and personal life, or getting buried under a steaming heap of information overload. And she offers detailed, nuts-and bolts “how to get started” advice for both individuals and organizations.
The Internet is upending hierarchies and freeing the flow of information in a way that makes the invention of the printing press seem like an historical footnote. Share This! shows how to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to make marginalized voices heard and support real, fundamental change—and, incidentally, have some fun doing it.
- GenresNonfictionSocial Media
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
3 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Deanna Zandt
6 books65 followersDeanna Zandt is an award-winning media technologist, the co-founder of and partner at Lux Digital, and the author of Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking (Berrett-Koehler 2010). She is a consultant to key media and advocacy organizations, and her clients have included The Ford Foundation, Deutsche Telekom, Planned Parenthood, and Jim Hightower’s Hightower Lowdown. Zandt has advised the White House on digital strategy and public engagement; she has been a regular contributor to Forbes.com, as well as NPR’s flagship news program, “All Things Considered.” Zandt specializes in emerging media, is a leading expert in women and technology, and is a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN International, BBC Radio, Fox News and more.
Zandt works with groups to create and implement effective web strategies toward organizational goals of civic engagement and cultural agency, and uses her background in linguistics, advertising, telecommunications and finance to complement her technical expertise. She has spoken at a number of conferences, including TEDxBerlin, SXSW Interactive, Tribeca Film Festival, re:publica, Personal Democracy Forum, Ignite (NYC), Netroots Nation, the National Conference on Media Reform, Facing Race, Web 2.0 Expo, Bioneers, Women Action & The Media, and provides beginner and advanced workshops both online and in person.
In 2012, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded Deanna their first-ever social media Maggie Award for Media Excellence for her work on the Planned Parenthood Saved Me Tumblr blog during the Susan G Komen crisis. Deanna was a fellow at American University’s Center for Social Media (2010-2011), and at the Progressive Women’s Voices program at the Women’s Media Center (2009). She is on the board of the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank and home for media and activism, and Women Action & The Media, the activism home of gender justice in the media. Deanna also serves as an advisor to Social Media Week NYC, and the Media Ideation Fellowship.
Zandt works with groups to create and implement effective web strategies toward organizational goals of civic engagement and cultural agency, and uses her background in linguistics, advertising, telecommunications and finance to complement her technical expertise. She has spoken at a number of conferences, including TEDxBerlin, SXSW Interactive, Tribeca Film Festival, re:publica, Personal Democracy Forum, Ignite (NYC), Netroots Nation, the National Conference on Media Reform, Facing Race, Web 2.0 Expo, Bioneers, Women Action & The Media, and provides beginner and advanced workshops both online and in person.
In 2012, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America awarded Deanna their first-ever social media Maggie Award for Media Excellence for her work on the Planned Parenthood Saved Me Tumblr blog during the Susan G Komen crisis. Deanna was a fellow at American University’s Center for Social Media (2010-2011), and at the Progressive Women’s Voices program at the Women’s Media Center (2009). She is on the board of the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think tank and home for media and activism, and Women Action & The Media, the activism home of gender justice in the media. Deanna also serves as an advisor to Social Media Week NYC, and the Media Ideation Fellowship.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 1, 2012
Deanna Zandt has written a wonderful guide to social networks for people who don't feel at home there. She explains what's new about building relationships through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the like, and she encourages us all to participate.
"Sharing is daring," she says. By putting more of yourself out there, within limits that you consciously set, you increase your credibility with people who are just getting to know you. As you become more well known, you win people's trust. At the same time, she argues, sharing personal and professional information helps build a better world. If someone reads and enjoys a tweet I send out about good communications AND they go to my blog and find my Jewish musings, then it registers that a person they respect can be serious about being Jewish (or gay, or a feminist, or...whatever you are. Fill in the blank.) It may be overstating things to say that this will change the world, as she does in her subtitle, but at least it will show what the world is already.
In any case, sharing more about ourselves is the direction we are all heading. "Transparency is the new black." So, better try it on and find a style of social networking that compliments you. In the Resources section of the book, you'll find tips for individuals and tactics for organizations that she recommends. Try a couple and see how they work for you.
Reading this book, I felt as if I were a traveler in a new and foreign country, with a helpful guide pointing out the landmarks and explaining local customs. At the same time, paradoxically, I felt as if I'd come home. Really being interested in other people, helping them with what they're doing, and offering them ways to help me too (or promote a cause we both care about): this is what I've always done.
Back in 1986, when Rona answered a personal ad I'd placed in a newspaper, I realized that we already had met through the local chapter of a progressive Jewish organization. It would have been very awkward if I had kept that to myself and didn't tell her that right away when I wrote her back. By letting her know, not only did I show that I cared about honesty in relationships right from the start. I also (not realizing it at the time) let her see that she knew people who knew me and shared some of the same values that moved me. That was the basis for beginning to trust me. Reader, she married me.
Organizations are also looking to woo people, and they will have to open up more to build lasting relationships with volunteers, supporters, donors, customers, or investors. I would like to focus on helping them do it, online and off.
"Sharing is daring," she says. By putting more of yourself out there, within limits that you consciously set, you increase your credibility with people who are just getting to know you. As you become more well known, you win people's trust. At the same time, she argues, sharing personal and professional information helps build a better world. If someone reads and enjoys a tweet I send out about good communications AND they go to my blog and find my Jewish musings, then it registers that a person they respect can be serious about being Jewish (or gay, or a feminist, or...whatever you are. Fill in the blank.) It may be overstating things to say that this will change the world, as she does in her subtitle, but at least it will show what the world is already.
In any case, sharing more about ourselves is the direction we are all heading. "Transparency is the new black." So, better try it on and find a style of social networking that compliments you. In the Resources section of the book, you'll find tips for individuals and tactics for organizations that she recommends. Try a couple and see how they work for you.
Reading this book, I felt as if I were a traveler in a new and foreign country, with a helpful guide pointing out the landmarks and explaining local customs. At the same time, paradoxically, I felt as if I'd come home. Really being interested in other people, helping them with what they're doing, and offering them ways to help me too (or promote a cause we both care about): this is what I've always done.
Back in 1986, when Rona answered a personal ad I'd placed in a newspaper, I realized that we already had met through the local chapter of a progressive Jewish organization. It would have been very awkward if I had kept that to myself and didn't tell her that right away when I wrote her back. By letting her know, not only did I show that I cared about honesty in relationships right from the start. I also (not realizing it at the time) let her see that she knew people who knew me and shared some of the same values that moved me. That was the basis for beginning to trust me. Reader, she married me.
Organizations are also looking to woo people, and they will have to open up more to build lasting relationships with volunteers, supporters, donors, customers, or investors. I would like to focus on helping them do it, online and off.
December 28, 2010
For me, the biggest takeaway from this book isn't a deeper understanding of the tools and processes Deanna describes so well - it's the "why". Why sharing makes a difference - in my case, helping me to tap into an understanding of the frustration I have largely inflicted on myself over the last few years. Having been used to sharing a great deal of my personal and political process, and then consciously denying myself that outlet (for other reasons) I found myself furiously nodding at so much of what Deanna writes here. Not "I agree!", so much as "I remember, now!"
A really great read, and a worthy re-read.
A really great read, and a worthy re-read.
April 5, 2011
LOVED THIS BOOK. Deanna is funny, and this book explains complicated concepts in a really accessible way. Interested in social media? Use it for work? Want to know what it all means? Though this does have how-to elements, what it's really about is the cultural and political impacts and implications - what does it mean for racial justice? organizing? WAY more relevant to my work, especially compared to the last social media book I read (unmarketing).
For anyone who uses Twitter or Facebook. Seriously.
For anyone who uses Twitter or Facebook. Seriously.
July 3, 2010
I really enjoyed this book. Zandt is a fun writer and makes a strong argument for using social media for civic engagement and social change. She argues that if we don't take our social networks seriously, we run the risk of allowing the new medium to settle into the bad habits of old media: bias, unbalanced power structure, etc. I highly recommend this book to social media theorists and beginners alike.
October 12, 2010
Fairly interesting book about social networking. Recommended more for those who are new to social networking as there are lots of parts that others would already know. A quick and easy read, with lots of tips, even if you think you know what you are doing! :-)
January 22, 2011
This book made me aware of how many fewer women than men are voicing their opinions on the web for fear of being judged and how they keep rewording their postings to get them perfect before hitting submit.
June 18, 2010
Good times. As much as I'm online and on social networks this book taught me a few things. Mostly stats and other interesting facts from a womens point of view. Cool stuff.
July 9, 2010
Great book about how to use social networking to facilitate change. The book has a great tips/reference section. The author did a fantastic job keeping the book light by injecting humor throughout.
July 5, 2010
A must read for newbies to social media, haters of social media and anyone who wants to know how to use social media for good.
March 15, 2017
There is some good information here, but I think it needed to be organized better.
June 13, 2013
Find your voice. Share your voice. Your participation in the conversation is needed.
July 26, 2016
I liked it alright, yeah.
April 15, 2012
Very insightful.
May 2, 2016
I'm a bit biased.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews