The term “mhealth” has been thrown around a lot lately but what does it mean? Short for mobile health, mhealth is the practice of medicine or public health that uses mobile communication technology, usually cellphones.
People are excited about mhealth for its potential to reach even the poorest and most difficult to reach communities domestically and internationally (international mhealth project funding opportunity here: http://bit.ly/XVq2EO). Both our 2011 white paper and a recent study released by Pew Research, entitled Teens and Technology 2013, affirm that cell phone usage is especially high among young people, which presents a tremendous opportunity for reproductive health and HIV/STD prevention.
In parallel with this trend, our newest track at YTH Live, Youth + Tech + Health, is entitled “mHealth for Youth.” As previewed at our Google Hangout on Text Messaging Beyond the Basics, topics we will discuss are how to:
Leverage cell phone technology to reach youth with health messages,
Create effective health reminders through SMS, and
Address personal and sensitive health topics through the small screen.
If you have questions like “how do I start my own text messaging campaign” or “how do I create a health app?” then you need to register for YTH Live and learn from the experts!
The reproductive health of young women is a central theme at YTH Live. Teen pregnancy may be on the decline but teen birth rates still remain disproportionately high for non-hispanic black youth, Hispanic/Latina youth, American Indian/Alaska Native youth, and socioeconomically disadvantaged youth of any race or ethnicity.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, we highlight the YTH Live speakers who work in the tech innovation space to support the lives of young women at risk for unplanned teen pregnancies.
Jakevia L. Green will present data from Tulane University’s BUtiful project, an internet pregnancy prevention project for African American women ages 18-19.
Katherine Meerse from Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department will discuss the digital media strategy of their MySelfMyHealth campaign to take the scare tactics out of teen pregnancy prevention.
Sandra Serna-Smith will talk about United Way’s community-based mixed-media campaign to decrease teen pregnancy in Milwaukee called “Baby Can Wait.”
To interact with these innovators in teen pregnancy prevention and to learn best practices, check out YTH Live. Register at: YTHLive.org/register
By Jessica Ken
Jessica is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley and will pursue her Masters in Public Health at Columbia University. She work at ISIS as a youth representative, curating social media, and managing various projects. Her interests include reproductive health issues, social impact, user-centered design, and bad pop culture. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
February was Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month (aka #TeenDVmonth on Twitter), and while it may be March now, the problem remains just as pressing. One-third of students report some sort of abuse and 80% of school counselors are unprepared to address incidents of abuse.
There are conflicting feelings out there on the role technology plays in teen dating violence. On one hand, parents are worried about the dangers of sexting and cyberbullying. On the other hand, we recognize the power that social media and technology have to reach youth regarding sensitive topics.
Join us in exploring this concept at YTH Live in San Francisco April 7th – 9th. Lauren Littleton from Ogilvy PR will talk about the first CDC program using text messaging to target young high-risk urban youth and teen domestic violence, Lisa Sohan from Futures without Violence will explain the benefits and limitations of online outreach to prevent abuse, and David Beasley from Scenarios USA will discuss using Tumblr to launch a youth-driven sexual violence prevention campaign.
Get tips and advice to overcome the challenges of using social media for Dating Violence Prevention at YTH Live.
Register now at: www.YTHLive.org/Register
This Valentine’s Day, ISIS held its first ever Google Hangout called “mHealth for Youth: Text Messaging Beyond the Basics” with an expert panel in preparation for their annual conference in April, YTH Live.
Over at the ISIS offices, everyone was a bit nervous, but the hangout turned out to be tons of fun and a huge success with tons of Twitter and Google interaction.
In ISIS’ 2011 white paper, we discovered a few things. One, the first place most young people go when they have a question about sex is Google. Ok, I know you knew that. The second thing was interesting as well: Most young people surveyed and interviewed had never heard of the top 3 sex education websites online: Sex, Etc., Scarleteen, and Planned Parenthood Online.
I recently searched for, “How do I have sex?” and not one of those three sites was listed in the first two pages. Wikipedia and Cosmo were among the first, and the college advocacy campaign from a few years ago titled, “I have sex”. Hmmm.
This is why search engine optimization is so important. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or unpaid (“organic”) search results (Wikipedia).
Most of the tips below will be things your webmaster is already aware of, however, she or he may not be setting the code in a way that’s most effective to drive traffic and raise your website in search results on Google, and other search engines such as Yahoo! and Ask.com.
Here are a few quick tips to optimize your organization’s website:
- Use a strong title tag. It goes within the <head> of your home page code. This is what shows up in search results, so be sure to include pertinent information about your organization.
TIP: You can add a unique title tag for each page.
- Create a descriptive meta tag. This is a summary of your website, which also goes within the <head> of your home page code. Search engines often use these as “snippets” in search results.
TIP: More people search for sex than for reproduction.
- Label your urls simply. Create file names and categorize so that you can stay organized, and also so as to create better crawling of your site. Use words in the urls that are content-related.
- Optimize your use of images. Using accurate alt-text will help your pages show up in image searches as well as content searches.
- Verify that Google can access your mobile urls. Some mobile optimized sites will only allow mobile browsers access to them, prohibiting the google bots.
Google offers free tools to web folks to help optimize your own websites – the trifecta: Google Analytics, Google Website analyzer and Google Webmaster tools. Here’s a video from a Google developer about the five most common mistakes, and six good ideas to increase your SEO. (Try to ignore the commercial language, for instance, a value proposition is your mission statement.) It will take some time, and it will be well worth it when the right people are finding your content and using it to improve young people’s sexual and reproductive education, health and justice.
By Deb Levine, Executive Director and Founder, ISIS
Many of us have woken up one day and realized that our social media efforts have stalled. Primary Reason: One person in your organization is in charge of social media, and that person feels tired, burned out, and like they’ve completely tapped their networks on the org’s behalf.
One way to light a fire under your social media efforts is to fully engage (or re-engage) ALL your staff members and your board. Despite the cries of protest you’ll hear, like,
“I’m too busy.”
“What’s our policy on what I can say and do and what I can’t?” and, the ever popular,
“I hate Facebook,”
In order to be truly social, it takes a village.
Here are a few steps you can ask each staff and Board member to take, and the estimate of time required:
1) Like the organization’s Facebook page (provide a link).
You may have assumed that everyone has already done this. There are always a few, up to 50%, who haven’t. Time estimate: 5 minutes, unless they need to set up a Facebook account, then ½ hour.
2) Encourage a merge of personal and professional identities.
This one is tough for some people. Remind staff and board that they can use their regular Facebook account, drawing their own personal boundaries and using the privacy settings creatively. Time estimate: 1 hour to prep and go over privacy settings with staff who are unfamiliar.
3) Visit the organization’s Facebook page daily.
Read the postings and updates, as well as the articles you’re linking to. Time estimate: 10-15 minutes daily
4) Make a minimum of one comment per week on a posting on the organization’s page.
Time estimate: 15 minutes per week
5) ”Like” 3-4 updates a week
Time estimate:5 minutes per week
Other ideas: Post a question to the organization’s community, like and comment upon the org’s partners’ links and pages, and share organizational updates with their personal networks. We’d also suggest that all staff and board spend more time reading the articles that are linked to from the organization’s Facebook page.
The Benefits for the Doers:
You’ll start to find more partners and people to follow on social media,
You’ll support the organization’s professional friends and colleagues, and
You’ll begin to understand the content of youth sexual and reproductive health and rights more deeply.
Breathe deeply and repeat: Being social is not something we “do”, being social is something we are. This is the digital age.
Happy Birthday! Traditional SMS (Short Messaging Services) or text messaging just turned 20 years old. Only two decades later, communication using mobile devices has expanded even further with the rise in use of smartphones, tablets, and mobile apps. According to a September 2012 study done by Pew Research, 45% of American adults now own smartphones. Our March 2011 white paper survey found that 26% of youth and young adults also use smartphones, and these populations are constantly growing. This presents an amazing opportunity to increase the reach of your social justice cause.
Why use mobile apps for social justice movements? Well, smartphone users are not limited to the people in their contact list, they are open to the possibility of reaching people all over the web. Twitter is a great tool for reaching large audiences and interacting with influential people. Now, with the Twitter smartphone app, an activist can quickly and seamlessly tweet their messages anytime they carry their phone. Same can be said of Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and the next big social media platform.
Customized apps, such as “Obama for America,” are more complex and multi-functional. It allows supporters to get live election updates, post directly to social media about the campaign, directly donate, and easily set up their own campaign team. With its interactive map functionality, the app also gives users advanced ways to connect with other campaigners and to find household information needed to engage with potential voters.
Additionally, mobile apps can help reduce stigma around sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence. The “Circle of 6” app, co-created by ISIS’ Executive Director Deb Levine and winner of the HHS / White House Technology Challenge and the Institute of Medicine Challenge, is an app designed to empower college students to reduce gender-based violence on their campuses. It allows a student to de-escalate a situation by quickly and discreetly contacting their closest circle of friends for help. Its GPS function can automatically send their location to their friends with one click, and the companion Facebook page mobilizes campuses to engage.
“Facing AIDS,” created by Aids.gov aims to de-stigmatize HIV/AIDS and increase testing among people of color and LBGTQ communities in the U.S. Advocates snap a photo of themselves holding their sign about why they support the issue with their smartphone and the app uploads it directly to a photostream. AIDS.gov also created a HIV/AIDS clinic locator app with GPS and mapping capabilities.
We’ve come a long way with our cell phones since the inception of text messaging, and during that time, the price of creating these apps has come down considerably. Given the lower cost of development and the widespread use of smartphones in the U.S., the possibilities for creating apps for social justice are endless.
Jessica is a recent graduate of UC Berkeley and will pursue her Masters in Public Health at Emory University. She work at ISIS as a youth representative, curating social media, and managing various projects. Her interests include reproductive health issues, social impact, user-centered design, and bad pop culture. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
We all are using social media to reach our communities and educate, advocate and inform about our organization and about sexual and reproductive health and justice. Most non-profits also have special campaigns that may be seasonal, news-related, or topically focused. Rolling out a special campaign involves a different timeline and set of techniques than your usual stakeholder communications. Click through for ISIS’ 1-2-3-4 method for success, complete with a timeline of tasks and activities.
1. Figure out your goal.
Be as specific as you can be so you can measure your expected (and unexpected) successes.
Samples:
- To develop a contest to promote awareness of new [website/campaign] and normalize conversation about an issue
- To promote awareness of new [film/ campaign] and reach stakeholders/ policymakers with a message
- To promote awareness about a new [mobile tool/ app/ social media page] and increase [downloads/ likes/ engagement].
2. Identify your primary and secondary audiences.
Samples:
- Primary intended audience: Young women 18-24 years old (primarily unmarried); teens of color in a particular state or community; parents of college aged students in the U.S.
- Secondary audience: Young heterosexual men 18-24; State or community policymakers; stakeholders in parents’rights (in fields other than SRH, such as PTAs, college alumi associations etc.)
3. Define campaign success.
Set your goals before you start. Base them on your previous work – look back at your metrics for prior campaigns. Pick goals higher than your least successful campaign, while stretching towards your blockbuster. The numbers below are based on ISIS’campaigns over the last few years.
Process Samples:
# of Contest participation (200)/# of social media shares (3,000)/# of contest votes (5,000);
# of times full-length film/video is viewed (DB-?)/# of social media shares – YouTube clips (10,000)/ # of PR mentions (20)
# of mobile tool downloads (10,000)/ # of social media likes (4000)/ # of PR mentions (20)
Advocacy Samples:
# of meetings with community stakeholders (12) / # of meetings with key policymakers (2-4)/ # of influential blog postings (10) / # of other communities-states who join the cause (2-6)/ # of pieces of legislation introduced (0-1)
4. Make a plan and get started!
Following is a grid with tasks and dates. Start from your launch date and work backward to figure out when to ramp up. Make sure all of the information you push out has an action item (watch the video on YouTube, call your Senator; tell a friend).Promotional messaging should also let people sign up to follow the campaign on another platform (Facebook, Twitter).
Whether you hire a contractor to help or not, YOU MUST SEED every social media channel you use before launch. That means, staff and your engaged constituencies must all like and comment, tweet and re-tweet, re-post on Twitter and Facebook.
Much of the work can be done by individual contractors, social media experts hired for a few hours a week for a few months. Budget up to $500 a month for 3 months.
Click below for a usable spreadsheet of timeline, task and activities.
Do you still post your organization’s status updates by hand? Count your re-tweets and mentions one by one? There are a number of free tools out there you can use to streamline your social media process. Once you have them configured, you’ll have more hours in the day to focus on your mission.
First thing to understand is what tools are out there. Then, you need to know what platforms it works on, and what exactly it does on these platforms. Some tools, like HootSuite, allow for updates AND measurement across multiple platforms. Others, like Google Analytics, work only for measuring website traffic.
TIP: Look closely at your most engaged platform and start by selecting one tool to configure with the goal of saving time and analyzing your impact.
At ISIS, we’ve created a list of the best tools, with a simple formula for what each does, what it’s best at, what it’s worst at, and cost for basic and premium versions. Check out the easy-to-read list that includes the currently trending tools such as HootSuite, Crowdbooster, and Facebook Insights. You’ll be referring back often.
Name of Site: HootSuite What it does: A tool that allows recipients to measure traffic, track activity, and update messages across multiple social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, MySpace, Foursquare, Mixi, WordPress and more) from a computer with a browser or mobile device What it’s best at: Posting prescheduled messages in bulk and giving recipients the choice to manage +10 different social media platforms What it’s worst at: Does not continuously stream updates and interactions from each platform, instead it updates in intervals or requires refreshing Price:
• Basic: Free to manage 5 social profiles and have quick reports, message scheduling, and 2 RSS/Atom feeds
• Pro: $9.99/month for 2 team members + $10/month/additional team member to manage unlimited social profiles and have message scheduling, 1 enhanced analytics report, Google Analytics integration, Facebook Insights integration, and unlimited RSS feeds
• Enterprise: $1,499/month to manage unlimited social profiles and have unlimited team members, one named account manager, online HootSuite certification program, Enterprise customer service, unlimited RSS feeds, Ow.ly Pro Enterprise vanity URL, enhanced analytics, advanced security, professional setup assistance, archived tweets, and Enterprise exclusive tools Url: http://hootsuite.com/
Name of Site: Tweetdeck What it does: A tool that allows recipients to follow and interact with other recipients on unlimited Twitter and Facebook accounts from a desktop dashboard, mobile device, or Google Chrome What it’s best at: Displaying social media interactions, on one window, in real time, with sound notifications, and giving recipients the ability to respond to messages immediately What it’s worst at: Does not provide any statistics on site traffic or performance Price: Free Url: www.tweetdeck.com
Name of Site: Google Analytics What it does: A service that provides insight into site traffic and the success of a website by generating statistics on visitors to a website and their actions there What it’s best at: Giving an estimate of how many people visit a website over a period of time and identifying the most popular method that visitors come across a site using linkbacks What it’s worst at: Does not allow recipients to contact visitors and isn’t entirely accurate due to its reliance on cookies and other restrictions Price:
• Basic: Free tools to measure traffic and engagement on a website, create visualizations that reveal the path visitors take on the website, implement content experimentation, measure site speed, and understand how mobile; social media; and advertising impacts the site
• Premium: $150,000/year for basic features, 24 hour support, more custom features and modeling tools, faster and more advanced data, and increased reliability and security Url:http://www.google.com/analytics/
Name of Site: Google Insights for Search What it does: A tool that allows recipients to compare search volume patterns across geographic regions, categories, seasonality, and properties What it’s best at: Giving an idea of what keywords are relevant and popular in a particular field and a comparison of the number of searches between different keywords What it’s worst at: Does not give data on searches from search engines other than Google Price: Free Url:http://www.google.com/insights/search/
Name of Site: Facebook Insights What it does: A feature that gives Facebook Page administrators data on the recipients visiting the page, their trends, and their interaction on the page. What it’s best at: Giving an idea of the types of visitors that view and share the page and how successful it is in terms of reach and popularity What it’s worst at: Does not give a time of day that viewers are most likely to see posts and how often posts show up on people’s newsfeeds Price: Free Url:www.facebook.com
Name of Site: Crowdbooster What it does: A tool that allows recipients to manage multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts, prescheduled posts, provides statistics on popularity of site, and give recommendations on how to improve popularity What it’s best at: Allows recipient to track new fans and followers and gives recommendations on when posts are most productive and who to interact with What it’s worst at: Does not give information about how visitors found the page Price:
• Personal: Free for 1 Twitter and 1 Facebook page, audience growth; reach; and engagement metrics, recommendations, post schedulers, weekly account summaries via email, and community and email support
• Professional: $39/ month for 10 total accounts, personal features, and live chat and phone support
• Business: $99/month for 30 total accounts, personal features, and live chat and phone support Url: https://crowdbooster.com/
Name of Site: Buffer What it does: Allows recipients to make a queue for updates to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter via email, browser, or the native phone app; and recipients can also add app extensions
What it’s best at: Makes it fast and easy to make updates at a regular frequencies and to share links, articles, photos, and videos
What it’s worst at: Does not allow recipients to update posts immediately or schedule individual tweets Price:
• Basic: Free for 10 updates/day and one account each with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
• Awesome: $10/month for unlimited posts, 12 social profiles, and 2 team members Url:www.Bufferapp.com
Name of Site: PageLever What it does: Provides metrics into Facebook pages that go beyond Facebook Insights What it’s best at: Giving recipients page alerts with updates on significant changes in activity and allows recipients to post tags to quickly identify which posts or campaigns are most effective What it’s worst at: Does not give recipients a way to reach out to individual visitors Price:
• Minilytics: Free site, created by the same people, that measures a recipient’s Facebook page and provides answers to common questions (http://minilytics.pagelever.com/)
• Premium: $99/month for up to 5 pages with combined 100K fans, 250+ metrics and charts
• Business: 199+/month for unlimited fans for one page, customizable reports, multi-user permissions
• Enterprise: $599/month for 5 pages with no fan count limit, custom page groups, dedicated support
• Agency: volume pricing, customizable client dashboards, co-branded reports Url:http://pagelever.com/
Name of Site: Social Mention What it does: A social media search engine and analysis platform that allows recipients to search keywords from aggregated user-generated content from 30+ social media platforms What it’s best at: Giving recipients an idea of what the online community thinks of a certain topic, how they are responding to it, and a way to identify specific users What it’s worst at: Not very reliable due to the abundance of irrelevant information that can bias the data and restrictions due to privacy settings Price: Free Url:https://www.socialmention.com/
For More Reading:
Beth Kantor’s blog, Measurement archives
http://www.bethkanter.org/category/measurement/
JD Lasica’s SocialBrite, Non-Profit Social Media Measurement
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@circleof6app.com
Website, Video, Resources: circleof6app.com
Social Media: @Circleof6app
September 6, 2012 (New York, NY) – As students nationwide head back to school, the award-winning Circle of 6 team is thrilled to announce the release of a Circle of 6 mobile phone application for Android, designed to prevent sexual assault and dating violence among young adults. This much-anticipated release builds upon the success of the Circle of 6 iPhone app launched earlier this year, which has exceeded 30,000 downloads in six months. [circleof6app.com]
Said Vice President Biden, “Thanks to the creativity and vision of these developers, young men and women now have a new line of defense against violence in their lives.” Circle of 6 was the winner of the White House “Apps Against Abuse” Technology challenge launched by Vice President Joe Biden and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
“’Back to school’ doesn’t have to mean ‘back to rape’,” said Nancy Schwartzman, Circle of 6 co-creator and Executive Director of The Line Campaign, Inc. “Incoming first year students can be especially vulnerable, if Circle of 6 can increase support and help prevent violence, we’re doing our job.”
”As Android is the U.S. leader in the smartphone market, it’s critical that Circle of 6 be one of the 40-50 apps downloaded on every college student’s phone,” said Deb Levine, Circle of 6 co-creator and Executive Director of ISIS.
Nearly 1 in 5 young women report assault while in college, and recent studies have found that in even earlier, 10-30 percent of teens report being physically hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Circle of 6 evolved from candid conversations with students across the country on how consent, dating culture, and rape affect their lives and what strategies have proven most effective in preventing violence. Since the launch of Circle of 6, there have been over 4,000 Facebook pledges to stop dating violence and many reviews, comments, and testimonials:
• “Circle of 6 has changed my thinking — it applies technology to the fight to end sexual assault in a respectful way! Love it! Very cool!” – Erin, app store review.
• “[with Circle of 6] I never walk alone…” Alexandra, Duke student, as quoted in the New York Times.
• “I work in the student safety department at Stanford. This app is for everyone – not just women. We care about our friends, and we all benefit from a safe campus.” – Sacchi, male employee.
With only two taps, Circle of 6 connects users threatened with possible sexual assault and abuse to a network of trusted friends, using GPS technology, anti-violence hotlines, online resources, and a commitment to support each other: “I won’t let violence happen in my circle.” Resources, Circle of 6 video, and iTunes and Google play downloads are available at circleof6app.com.
Circle of 6 has been funded by the Motorola Mobility Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in addition to private donations.
Circle of 6 team includes mobile and women’s health expert Deb Levine (isis-inc.org), filmmaker and violence prevention specialist Nancy Schwartzman (whereisyourline.org), MIT-trained app developer Christine Corbett Moran (christinecorbettmoran.com), and award-winning Creative Director Thomas Cabus (thomascabus.com).
More information and updates are available on twitter @Circleof6app and download at circleof6app.com. For press interview contact media@circleof6app.com.
ABOUT: ISIS, established in 2001, is a non-profit organization using social and mobile technology for promotion of sexual health and healthy relationships. Our mission is to provide leadership, innovation, educational resources and research at the intersection of youth, tech and health. http://www.isis-inc.org/
ABOUT: The Line Campaign, Inc. is a non-profit organization and movement that is committed to empowering young leaders to create a world without sexual violence. We create critical dialogues and original media to inspire action. We develop leadership among diverse groups of people reaching and mobilizing them in their communities. http://whereisyourline.org/
Many of us have woken up one day and realized that our social media efforts have stalled. Primary Reason: One person in your organization is in charge of social media, and that person feels tired, burned out, and like they’ve completely tapped their networks on the org’s behalf.
Happy Birthday! Traditional SMS (Short Messaging Services) or text messaging just turned 