{"id":402,"date":"2013-04-29T11:09:06","date_gmt":"2013-04-29T18:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=402"},"modified":"2017-05-16T19:26:29","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T02:26:29","slug":"ugh-slacktivism-i-still-dont-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2013\/04\/ugh-slacktivism-i-still-dont-like-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Ugh – Slacktivism (I still don’t like it)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>UNICEF Sweden has an image that’s floating around the Internet<\/a>\u00a0and causing quite a stir:<\/p>\n

“Like us on Facebook, and we will vaccinate zero children against polio. We have nothing against likes, but vaccine costs money\u2026”<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s part of a fundraising and awareness campaign<\/a>\u00a0by UNICEF Sweden that includes this video<\/a>\u00a0 (subtitled in English). The point is a powerful one: “liking” something on Facebook, or sharing a status update, or retweeting something, often has no impact at all beyond a momentary “Oh, that’s sad” moment for the viewer. By itself, it does NOT create any real impact.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danny Brown<\/a>, a blogger and author,\u00a0doesn’t like the campaign<\/a>; he thinks slacktivism or slackervism campaigns – where a person is encouraged to “like” something on Facebook and feel like he or she has made a difference – are terrific.<\/p>\n

As I’ve said before, I LOATHE slacktivism. As a consultant and researcher that works with nonprofits every day regarding community engagement and fundraising, I see again and again just what little return on investment the vast majority of nonprofits get for investing in such campaigns. I also see the endless posts by young people on YahooAnswers<\/a> who believe this is all they have to do – like something or click on something – to make a difference, and don’t understand why they have to actually volunteer or donate something to actually support a cause.<\/strong> These campaigns imply that actually donating money, volunteering, writing a letter to a politician or turning out for a demonstration aren’t really necessary – just click “like” and we’ll solve domestic violence, homelessness, hunger animal abuse, and on and on! It’s a misconception that is growing – and it’s creating generations of people who don’t see the point of actually investing time or money.<\/p>\n

I note in detail in this blog from 2010 why slacktivism does NOT generate donations or increased awareness for most nonprofits or causes<\/a> – and the blog also notes nonprofits CAN (and do) use Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to create a real\u00a0social marketing\/health marketing campaign, with\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0impact (changed behavior, new awareness, etc.) – so I won’t repeat myself here.<\/p>\n

And for those who want to accuse me of being a Luddite, or implying that the Internet isn’t an effective way to donate time and talent to a nonprofit, NGO, charity, etc. – I’ve been promoting virtual volunteering since the mid-1990s<\/a>. Online action can have HUGE impact for a mission-based organization. But it takes more than just a “like” on Facebook.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Also see:\u00a0what ROI for online action\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0looks like<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNICEF Sweden has an image that’s floating around the Internet\u00a0and causing quite a stir: “Like us on Facebook, and we will vaccinate zero children against polio. We have nothing against likes, but vaccine costs money\u2026” It’s part of a fundraising and awareness campaign\u00a0by UNICEF Sweden that includes this video\u00a0 (subtitled in English). The point is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20,13],"tags":[597,74,98,195,210,596,304,595,594,477,570],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-volunteer-engagement","category-community-relationsoutreach","tag-awareness","tag-campaign","tag-communications","tag-facebook","tag-fundraising","tag-impact-online","tag-microvolunteering","tag-slackervism","tag-slacktivism","tag-tech4good","tag-virtual-volunteering"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-6u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3215,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/3215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}