If you want to use social media and mobile applications to make the world a better place, a number of blogs can help you chart your way, even as technologies change. Among the many strong ones out there, here are my favorite 12:
Beth’s Blog—one of the most popular and useful blogs for nonprofits (and anybody else interested in making a difference)—provides the latest insights into social media, online networking, and transparent organizational management. Its author, Beth Kanter, is a huge peer learning advocate who generously posts commentary and SlideShare PowerPoints from the talks and lectures she gives in the United States and abroad.
Build it Kenny, and they will come… helps grassroots nonprofits in the developing world use mobile technology to enact meaningful change. Its author, Ken Banks, created FrontlineSMS, a free open source software for collecting and distributing information through mobile phones, with no need for the Internet.
Danny Brown’s Social Media Marketing Blog offers suggestions, solutions, and idea starters on combining marketing, public relations, customer service and more with social media to change the way you and your clients or company does business. Danny is more than a good writer and strategic thinker. His authentic writing style inspires trust on many levels, leaving you confident to chase your dreams.
The Dragonfly Effect Blog, part of the companion website for the must read book of the same name, is about how individuals, organizations, and companies can leverage social media with the power of design thinking and psychological research to propel social change. It’s full of big strategies, small tips, and real-life success stories to inspire you.
Geoff Livingstson is about creating, sustaining, and measuring successful social media campaigns in the face of fast-changing technology. Geoff is one of the rare visionaries who understands communications strategy and the difficulties of culture shift.
idisaster 2.0 is about the benefits and challenges emergency managers (or anyone) face when introducing or expanding the use of social media and mobile applications before, during, and after a crisis. The blog has plenty of useful advice for speaking to and working with new media newbies at all levels.
Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog offers sound advice based, grounded in the latest research, on using social media for marketing, fundraising, and branding. Aimed at small nonprofits, her advice is about doing good in the world better and faster (and at a low cost).
Max Gladwell provides strategic and tactical advice on using the combined powers of social media and geographic location applications to connect with customers and accelerate change. Particularly focused on green living, the blog’s underlying message is that social and environmental problems are solvable and entrepreneurs can lead the way to those solutions.
MobileActive provides incredible case studies on how mobile technology is being used to change the world.
My Hearts in Accra provides excellent analysis of the African tech space, international development, and free expression versus state censorship in the digital world. Its author, Ethan Zuckerman, cofounded Global Voices, an international community of bloggers who report on blogs and citizen media from around the world.
Social Butterfly is about using social technologies with social marketing to make the world a better place. The blog has an infectious optimism that will make you believe you can achieve anything.
White African is about ditigal activism and mobile and web technology change in Africa. Its author, Erik Hersman, is a cofounder of Ushahidi, a free and open source platform for crowdsourcing information and visualizing data.
Is your favorite blog about changing the world missing from this list? Please let me which blogs you would have picked instead.
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Very interesting! thanks!
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