Ustream Broadcasters Can Now Make Money With Google Ads (mashable)
Ustream, a free, live-video broadcasting service, now has given its users the ability to profit from their popularity with Google Ads.

Double-Edged Sword: How Social Media Can Fuel & Extinguish Crises (PR News Online)
With fact checkers and journalists able to file stories 24 hours a day, crisis communications experts now have to be on the same schedule. PR News takes a look at how social media can help in crisis communications sitautions.

Thanks to Mary Fletcher Jones at the Examiner, you can read an excellent synopsis of the event.

Mary also posted this video that summarizes the key points from all the panelists:

If you have any techniques or tools you use to measure the success of your social media campaigns, please let us know.

Matthew Zablud is a partner at Adfero Group.

Use Video to Advance PR Efforts (PR News)
Want to go viral? It’s not as easy as it seems. According to data from TubeMogul, less than 1% of all YouTube videos get more than a million views. Joseph Kingsbury, head of Text 100 Global PR’s social media practice in North America, has a few recommendations to help your video go viral.

Social Media Policies from 80+ Organizations (Mashable)
Many modern businesses often struggle with building an acceptable Social Media Policy for its employees. Here are over 80 policies to help you out with creating one that fits your business.

Three Top Ways to Damage Your Brand with Social Media (Social Media Today)
Looking for ways to improve customer relations? Here are three easy social media mistakes to avoid when starting your social media networks.

Another Twitter-inspired idea from Thursday’s CAP/Internet Advocacy Roundtable discussion: when Alan Rosenblatt talked about Tweeting to “influence the influentials,” he didn’t just mention policymakers, the press and policy professionals. He also brought up the idea of “network influentials,” by which he meant people who reach large numbers of others either publicly or behind-the-scenes. Alan specifically included national and state-level bloggers, prominent Twitterers, individual activists with large personal networks and administrators of sizable email lists, but he basically meant anyone with a following.

Alan’s network influencers are related to an idea that’s come up around here before, the observation that niche audiences have proliferated beyond anything we’ve seen in the recent past. “Network influentials” are basically an expression of the same concept, though put in more interactive terms (Alan’s all back-and-forth; I’m by nature a propagandist). We could easily find extreme examples of either approach — some online publishers interact constantly with their followers while others effectively ignore them — but regardless of their degree of “networkitude”, we’re essentially talking about people with disproportionately loud voices.

Loud, and potentially amplified — network influentials tend to listen to one another, so a message placed in one space may spread to others, meaning that a small audience can have power beyond its numbers. For a great example, see Mark Bowden’s story in the current Atlantic showing how the work of a pair of essentially unknown conservative bloggers shaped the public debate about Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, and in the process injected the “Wise Latina” meme into the public mindspace to the undoubted delight of pundits for years to come.

Their blog was read by maybe 30 people on an average day, but among that tiny audience was a handful of more prominent writers, and the videos of past Sotomayor speeches they unearthed began to climb their way up the media food chain. Within weeks, the footage had shown up on blogs read by millions, and ended up being played over and over again on cable talk shows — not that the guys who did the initial work got much in the way of credit.

Obviously, for every idea that catches public attention, uncounted others will fly by unnoticed, making it hard to predict which story will catch which voice at the right moment to break through the clutter. The best answer seems to be a combination of targeted and untargeted outreach: online communicators can use a rifle-shot approach when appropriate, connecting personally with targeted bloggers, Twitterers and journalists for instance, while still blasting information out via mass email, YouTube, Tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts.

Sometimes the targeted approach will work, but other times a random and potentially overlooked channel will actually turn out to be the most productive. As communicators, we must cast our bread upon the waters! While still saving some loaves to drop off at the right front doors.

– cpd

One recent example is from the American Academy of Dermatology who just launched a moving video about their Camp Discovery program for children with severe and chronic skin diseases. Please take 5 minutes to watch the video. Click here.

Other groups who have effectively used video to get their message heard include the National Association of Children’s Hospitals (over 140 constituent testimonials, along with statements from prominent politicians, all organized by State and Congressional District), The American Medical Association, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine.

And speaking of videos, there is going to be an upcoming event on Tuesday, October 27 co-sponsored by Adfero Group and The Hill newspaper called “Promoting Your Agenda through Viral Video.” Participants will get a chance to see how videos are being used to reach Capitol Hill, the public, the media, their membership and constituents. Best of all, the cost is free, including a cocktail networking reception following the event. Confirmed speakers include the co-founder of Ustream, a new media expert from the US House of Representatives, and grassroots, advocacy and PR leaders from some of America’s top trade associations. We will post a link to register later next week.

Matthew Zablud is a partner at Adfero Group.

Group wants to chalk Capitol steps with entire healthcare bill (The Hill)
Looking for a new way to advocate for your cause? Try chalking. ReadtoVote.org is seeking permission to chalk every word of the healthcare bill on the Capitol steps.

Required Reading: The 10 Social Media Stories You Might Have Missed (Mashable)
A quick recap of the top ten Social Media story highlights you might have missed after a busy week.

The most fascinating aspect the fallout from South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You Lie” moment during Barack Obama’s healthcare speech? What it reveals about the changed world of politics in an internet age.

Since Wednesday evening, Democratic and liberal organizations, websites and email-list-owners ranging from Daily Kos to Wesley Clark to MoveOn to the the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have pounced on Wilson’s outburst, pushing their readers or supporters to donate to Wilson’s Democratic challenger. In a pre-internet era, this could not have happened so quickly, effectively or visibly:

How many of those offended by the heretofore little-known Wilson’s outburst — a sense of offense riled up by not only progressive blogs but the DCCC and other Dem organizations — would have, in the pre-Internet age, have searched for a stamp and sent a check to Miller for Congress? Not many, that’s how many. Now, that outrage can be channeled with a few clicks.

Rob Miller, Wilson’s 2010 Democratic opponent, is rapidly closing in on a $1,000,000 haul, a ridiculous amount of money for a congressional challenger to have on hand a year out (hint: if you’re an out-of-work Democratic field organizer with a Southern accent, give ol’ Rob a call). How did it happen?

First, as Nancy points out in her tPrez piece, the Dems have a robust online fundraising apparatus in place, something that the Republicans are still scrambling to replicate. Wilson’s currently attempting to capitalize on his new-found heroic status among some conservatives, but he’s lagging far behind the Democratic blitzkrieg (of course, considering that most of the liberal money is coming from outside his district, he’s set up for an anti-carpetbagger message during the general election, but I doubt that’ll offset the value of Miller’s actual cash).

Second, the anti-Wilson reaction happened in public, where people could see what others were doing and get excited about it themselves. Judging from personal conversations and the discussion on my own Facebook post, it created almost a carnival atmosphere among progressives, and as Miller’s totals went from $100,000 to $200,000 and finally all the way above $600,000 over the course of Thursday, bloggers and activists could urge people to push the number just a little bit higher. Traditional political fundraising happens behind the scenes, but internet fundraising can be very public — and its public nature can create a self-reinforcing spiral.

Finally, liberals were PRIMED to act — they’ve spent all August and part of September under siege from conservatives, at least judging from media coverage. With cable news dominated by discussions of the Birthers, Townhallers and random gun-toters, the public impression has been been that the Right is on the rise, and progressive frustration has been building toward a slow boil. When Wilson finally gave them a concrete enemy, they let fly, using his opponent as a concrete outlet. Obama’s online army may have been AWOL throughout most of the healthcare battle so far, but it looks as though they’ve just been waiting for the call to arms.

We’re in a fundamentally different political world than we were just a decade ago. Blogs, email lists and other online communities gather us by the millions, and easy e-commerce and online organizing technologies give us something to do with our enthusiasm. Just as MyBarackObama.com let the future President’s supporters go to work on his behalf well before paid campaign staff arrived in their communities, the availability of distributed and effective online political tools gives ANYONE with an audience the means and opportunity to spark collective action. Political actors at all levels ignore this new reality at their own peril.

– cpd