It has been an important few weeks for those of us in the HIV community—we just wrapped up the U.S. Conference on AIDS, President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009, and, as you may have heard, on Monday the U.S. took the next step in removing HIV from the list of diseases that prevent entry into this country. The repeal on the HIV “entry ban” will be effective in January of 2010. To learn more, read Secretary Sebelius’ press statement.

We just got back from the United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) , sponsored by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) , and are feeling very energized. There were several themes and key messages that we took away from the conference. The opening plenary, “Transgender People and HIV: Our Time Has Come!” emphasized the importance of better understanding our audiences, specifically the transgender community. We also continued to hear that we need to improve our capacity and reach. And this year there was a new emerging theme - that of new media’s role in the response to HIV. Case in point - at last year’s USCA in Florida, we had seven people attend our new media workshops. This year we had over 150 participants!

JoAnne Keatley , UCSF Center of Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention delivers the opening plenary remarks at USCA

Many of you at USCA told us that you’re assessing how you can use new media in response to HIV. For example, Jeffrey Campbell from St. Hope Foundation in Houston told us how he is using text messaging to promote their educational and social events, primarily to African American men who have sex with men (MSM). And Kendel Powers from RAIN Oklahoma told us how they have used MySpace, Twitter, and Facbook to recruit volunteers and bring in new clients for care and treatment. It’s an exciting time for our HIV community and it’s an exciting time for new media. Because of new media, we were able to watch the President sign the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 at the conference.

USCA New Media Panelists

NMAC also embraced new media tools more than ever for this year’s USCA. Not only did they blog , they also used Twitter , posted photos , and will post videos next week . And they supported several new media sessions and our day-long AIDS.gov new media institute which had beginner and experienced user tracks. In the afternoon both tracks came together to hear from a panel of new media experts including: Ian Anderson from POZ , Allegra Madsen from ISIS Inc , Murray Penner from NASTAD , Bonnie Goldman from TheBody.com , and Erik Ireland, a podcaster for the SF AIDS Foundation . During our panel we also had a demo of AIDSspace, a new social network site focused on AIDS, from Edward Mishaud and Annmarie Hou from UNAIDS . We’ve posted our slides from the institutes and a presentation we gave on slideshare .

Throughout the conference we also heard that some folks are still getting familiar with new media tools and are trying to understand how best to use them to meet their audiences’ needs. After the opening plenary, JoAnne Keatley , Director of the UCSF Center of Excellence for Transgender HIV Prevention told us, “In the transgender community, we’re using texting and other new media tools in our personal lives and it’s time now for us to adapt these tools in our work and response to HIV and AIDS.” Christopher Bates, HHS’ Director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, also reinforced this statement in his closing remarks at the conference saying how important it is to use new media to expand the reach of our HIV programs. We look forward to seeing how the HIV community continues to adapt and adopt new media this year.

Thank you to:

AIDS.gov Facing AIDS Photo Booth (Photos two and three via the USCA blog , by Brandon Joseph Baker )

• The hundreds of you who stopped by our AIDS.gov Facing AIDS photo booth to share your personal messages about why you are helping to Face AIDS for World AIDS Day. We’ll soon post photos from the booth. Speaking of World AIDS Day, we hope you’ll join us on November 17th for Federal World AIDS Day Conference Call. Register now to hear from and ask questions of leadership across HHS.
• All of you who participated in our focus groups and usability testing about our new website.
• NMAC, in particular Circe LeCompte and Paul Kawata for putting on such a powerful conference and for helping to support our AIDS.gov activities.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWsBTwNIXL4
• All of you working so hard to address HIV and AIDS in your communities—USCA brought together many voices from across the country who are working so hard to address this epidemic.

President Barack Obama and lawmakers applaud Jeanne White-Ginder, right, mother of Ryan White, during his remarks before signing the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House. October 30, 2009.

Today President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. In his remarks at the signing, the President said, “over the past 19 years this legislation has evolved from an emergency response into a comprehensive national program for the care and support of Americans living with HIV/AIDS. It helps communities that are most severely affected by this epidemic and often least served by our health care system, including minority communities, the LGBT community, rural communities, and the homeless. It’s often the only option for the uninsured and the underinsured. And it provides life-saving medical services to more than half a million Americans every year, in every corner of the country.”

Jeffrey Crowley, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and Senior Advisor on Disability Policy at the White House, wrote a blog post to commemorate this important event and honor Ryan White’s Legacy.

This means that now we can focus our attention on other matters, preparing for the drafting of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and beginning in earnest our efforts towards lifting the Federal ban on needle exchange.

In this new media strategy series, I explore ways to develop an effective new media plan that considers available resources, integrates existing services, and uses the right tools for the job. Part I of this series discussed identifying audiences and needs. Part II discussed using an appropriate technology approach to select your new media tools.

Part III: Create Once, Repurpose Often

New media allows us to repurpose existing content, make it available in different forms, and reach our audiences through multiple channels. We can summarize a webinar as a blog post, make it available in an RSS feed or email feed , cross-post it to our Facebook and MySpace pages, and Tweet about it. The slide presentation can be uploaded to SlideShare . We can record the webinar and make it available as a streaming audio or downloadable audio file, along with a text transcript of the webinar. We can read a blog post about the event aloud and include it in a podcast feed . There is a wealth of opportunities to repurpose content created from a single event, potentially reaching a wider audience than we would through one channel.

You can also take all this information to create a newsletter. You can embed the text in the body of an e-newsletter or you can email it as an attachment and provide it as a downloadable PDF. Field offices can, in turn, print out the PDF and it make available for clients to pick up and read at each location -- or even include it in mailings to those without an Internet connection, giving them access to some of the same content available online.

This brings up an important point — new media works best when it is integrated with traditional media as part of a comprehensive communication strategy. In many ways, talking about a “new media strategy” is misleading — new media offers new tools, but the underlying communication and outreach needs remain the same. New media, used effectively, provides ways to reach broader audiences, usually at a lower cost, using fewer resources. (For general information about various new media tools, please refer to our New Media Toolkit one-pagers.) It's also important to get to know the different tools that you use and see how you can make small changes to tailor the content to that tool (even though the core content and message might be the same). This can have a big impact on how messages are shared. You can also track who consumes your content in different ways in order to tailor messages more for those audiences.

A number of organizations in the HIV community are repurposing, and not only using new media as part of their communications and outreach, but also to communicate in new, multidirectional ways. The Howard Brown Clinic in Chicago uses video to enhance their website , and posts the videos and other content to their YouTube channel and Facebook page . They have also used Facebook to communicate with and get feedback from their community. Whitman Walker Clinic in DC has taken a similar approach — using Facebook , Flickr , YouTube and Twitter to repurpose content. The National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) is using a number of different platforms to share information about next week's U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA) , ranging from more traditional e-newsletters to a Facebook event (be sure check out last week's post on what we'll be doing at USCA!).

How do you get the most out of your content? Have you found that a particular audience prefers information delivered one way versus another? Have you come across opportunities to engage your audiences by making the same content available in multiple ways? We'd love to know!

What do new media institutes, usability, and a BIG RED photo booth have in common?

They are some of activities we're planning for later this month at the U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA) . This annual conference, hosted by the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) , will take place October 29-31st in San Francisco and will bring together public health experts, people living with HIV, government employees, activists, and community leaders from across the country (and a few from around the world!). We're so grateful to the organizers of USCA — they've put together a packed agenda for the conference, and we look forward to taking part.

Here's a sneak preview of some of our USCA activities for those of you attending the conference-- and for those of you who can't be there in person, we encourage you to follow USCA on Twitter , Facebook , and YouTube .

New to new media, or looking to take your skills to the next level?

• We're facilitating two new media institutes on Thursday, October 29. In the morning we're holding two simultaneous sessions— for new and intermediate users. In the afternoon we'll bring the groups together for a panel of new media experts (from organizations such as POZ , TheBody.com , NASTAD , ISIS Inc. , and others). Be sure to register online now before the October 26 deadline!

Have you heard that AIDS.gov is getting a new look? Want to take a peek and share your thoughts?

• Register to participate in a focus group on Wednesday, October 28 at USCA to discuss the new site and to its mobile presence. Please note you don't need to be registered for USCA to participate in this activity or the one mentioned below.
• Register for a simple walk-through of the site one-on-one with a facilitator on Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30. (Note: If you're not going to be in San Francisco next week, there'll be other opportunities to share your feedback.)

Say "cheese"! Don't miss our BIG RED photo booth at USCA! We're launching our Facing AIDS - World AIDS Day campaign at USCA, and you can:

• Stop by booth #306 in the Golden Gate Ballroom, on the lobby level, and fill out a card saying "I / We are Facing AIDS because: ________________."
• Go in to the booth with your sign and a red ribbon (we will provide the art supplies) and have your photo taken.
• You'll get a copy of the photo and a link to the photo online so you upload it to your social network profile on December 1, for World AIDS Day!

For those of you who won't be at USCA, stay tuned for how you can take part in Facing AIDS for World AIDS Day 2009. We're building off our experiences and your feedback from last year's campaign — and look forward to Facing AIDS with you again this year.