We’re Moving into Social Media!

By Darien De Lu
WILFP US President

How comfortable are you with social media? As a hundred-plus-year-old organization, WILPF may not be an obvious candidate to become a force in social media; after all, quite a few of us are more familiar with mimeograph machines and typewriters than Bluetooth and Instagram. Nonetheless, we are a living and vibrant organization! So we’re preparing Twitter content for the Sept. 20 climate crisis general strike. Maybe you can help?

Some of you readers may be put off or even baffled by my reference to Twitter content. Read on to feel more at ease and to learn! While this article has some important messages for you, I’m especially reaching out to those WILPFers and WILPF friends who are curious about social media or even post regularly to it.

Also, both baffled and more experienced social media users might want to watch for future announcements about WILPF’s revised social media trainings.  For now, the trainings have been suspended. Once the new Social Media Committee is started, it will work with our communications worker, Michael Ippolito, to develop specific trainings for different levels of knowledge and experience.

Social media trainings are just one of the ways that WILPF is moving into the modern world of electronic social communications. To reach a wider audience and to publicize WILPF perspectives, we’re sharpening our social media skills and looking to develop a social media plan. Already, we’ve expanded from having only 1,400 Twitter “impressions” (people seeing WILPF US content) in the 15-month period ending July 31, 2017, to 81,200 impressions in the 15-month period ending July 31, 2019.

If you have an interest in social media – whether active or passive – I invite you to think about joining the new Social Media Committee. The committee will meet by conference call to learn more and strategize about effective posts, how WILPF can increase our visibility, and the different social media networks (especially Facebook – FB – and Twitter, but possibly Instagram and others). The committee will encourage and guide other WILPFers in posting WILPF news and info on personal FB pages and in Tweets on individual accounts. Those committee members ready to represent WILPF will do “official” WILPF FB and Twitter posts.

All of us can help! You don’t have to know much of anything about social media to creatively come up with an idea for a powerful image. An image is a key component of many posts, and with Twitter’s tight character-limit, images are even more important. Come up with an idea, and we’ll find someone to draw or otherwise create it! Most WILPFers already know about the major role of the US military in driving climate chaos, but the public is ignorant about this under-discussed connection. So in September, in Facebook and /or Twitter, along with a verbal message and appropriate WILPF link, we want to share a powerful image that communicates some key aspect of the military-climate crisis connection.
 
Can you help us with some good original suggestions?

This is peace work through art and imagination! Help us think peace, talk peace, and share peace messages! Please send me your image ideas, in words or as an image, for this and other WILPF issues. Also contact me for more information about the Social Media Committee, which is forming now:  President@WILPFUS.org.    

Are you ready to join others in working together to transform your compassion into action? There is a place for you on one (or more!) of our varied national WILPF committees. Also, of course, now is the time to apply to be a candidate in our national Board elections. I would be glad to talk with you about the opportunities in WILPF US where you can make a difference for peace. Give me a call:  916/739-0860 (Pacific time zone).