Organizing Armchair Activism

May 16, 2014 8:49 AM

An organization I'm involved with spearheaded an initiative: we asked huge groups of people to wear red for our cause on a particular day, take a picture of them doing so and send us the pictures. We got about 30 pictures and more keep coming. Some people even made videos! My question is, what can we do with these pictures? We have contacted the press and some of the pictures have run in a national newspaper, but it would be great to put them all together in one place that could be accessed by all those who sent stuff in - are the choices to make a big file and send it back to all those who sent in or post them somewhere on the web? Any other suggestions? We have a website that we could host something on, but, what?

I've thought of making a powerpoint or a collage in picasa, and both those ideas sound SUPERlame. But that's kind of it for my skillz and knowledge in this area.

posted by pick_the_flowers to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

FYI: the next time you do this, have a plan in advance for what you're going to do with them! You've just demonstrated terrific engagement with a pretty big group of people - reward their engagement with some immediate feedback!

Typically what you do with the photos for this kind of campaign is share them on Facebook (in an album) and then the people in the photos tag themselves and share them, and it becomes a) awareness building for your cause, and b) creates a feeling of community for those already invested in your cause.

You can also make a Flickr album with them and share them on your orgs regular web page.

If you do print, you can also
- make a collage page of the photos to put in your next print newsletter
- use the individual photos in direct mail pieces (I'd pair these with a quote from the person in the photo saying why they support your cause. Try to script the quotes, if possible, with a standard phrase like "I wear red because....")

If I knew more about your org and the campaign and what you're currently doing for outreach I could probably suggest more, but that's the obvious, low-hanging fruit. Memail me if you want to...
posted by anastasiav at 9:13 AM on May 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd make a little video with good music - film some folks talking about the cause while wearing their shirts and then showcase all their photos. Then post that to a blog and twitter and facebook, etc. Make sure to put a URL at the beginning and end of the video, so viewers can easily find you for more info.
posted by barnone at 9:19 AM on May 16, 2014

Facebook is the obvious platform -- please tell me your organisation has a Facebook page!
posted by DarlingBri at 9:23 AM on May 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you have a Google account for your photos, you might be able to use the Auto Awesome tool to make them into something nifty. I went to a festival recently and between one long video I took and a ton of photos, it used the video and interspersed photos, then overlaid them with a musical track which I could customize for a nice "memory" video. Pretty neat!
posted by miratime at 9:47 AM on May 17, 2014