A recent study shows that organizations that use social media are more financially successful than those that don’t. There’s been some talk about what this means for corporate companies and non-profit organizations as well.

Organizations that were measured to have the greatest depth and breadth of social media engagement grew company revenues by an average of 18 percent of the past 12 months. Companies that showed little engagement or interest in social media experienced an average decrease in company revenues of six percent.

The study, ENGAGEMENTdb: Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands, reviewed how the top 100 most valuable brands (as identified by the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands rankings) use more than 10 different social media channels, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, wikis and discussion forums. The study examined the width and breadth of each organization’s social media use, and scores for overall brand engagement ranged from a high of 127 to a low of 1. The top ten brands with their social engagement scores are:

Starbucks (127)

Dell (123)

eBay (115)

Google (105)

Microsoft (103)

Thomson Reuters (101)

Nike (100)

Amazon (88)

SAP (86)

Tie – Yahoo!/Intel (85)

As a pr and social media professional, I have worked primarily with non-profit and social justice organizations, The findings from this study was no surprise to me, but it begged the question: what does this mean for non-profits? How important is social media to the way we raise money, recruit volunteers and most of all, build our base?

Rosetta Thurman has a few answers:

The web has created new and low-cost options to get the word out about your organization. This new study just goes to show that if you want to achieve maximum success in the work you do, social media will have to become part of your communications strategy with clients, donors and customers. If your organization is not yet engaged in social media, now is the time. Seriously.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending the Women Action and the Media Conference. It was a great place to meet and network with other young women activists from across the country, and there were a lot of panels devoted to the impact of social media–especially blogs and viral video–to the women’s movement. I really loved how intentional the Center for New Words was with keeping developments in social media at the forefront. I was really excited to see how WAM! would integrate a social media strategy into future conferences.

And then, around August of this year, I learned that the Center for New Words was phasing out and that Women, Action, and the Media would become an independent organization. I’m excited for this new development, but the pr/social media nerd makes me wonder how big of a roll will social media play in this transition. How will they keep conference goers engaged in the next steps of the organization? How can people get involved as donors or volunteers?

Having a good mission, vision, and tool$ to form an organization are all important, but just as important is building a base and using a variety of strategies to make that base strong, and diverse.  It can also keep past conference-goers connected to WAM’s mission…and keep them coming back to see what the organization’s next moves will be.

Bottom line, building and maintaining a base–a community of supporters–should be just as important as building all the other aspects of a non-profit.

My second post devoted to the movie Precious was going to be about how Tyler Perry should consider leaving the director’s chair alone for a while and funding more smaller projects by black directors other than himself. It could really show Hollywood the real scope of his power.

Then I started seeing the new cut for the Precious Ad. I couldn’t find a video to show you all (but if you can find it hit me up!), but in summary it is basically a mashup of all of the main character’s happy daydreams with Mary J’s “Just Fine” playing in the background.

Wat?

Now I understand the idea of marketing and doing whatever it takes to get more people to pay money and see the movie, and I realize that it’s the way that business works.

But what I didn’t understand was the complete 180 that was made in the marketing of this movie. I read Push well before watching the film so I knew not to expect a lot of happy moments. What I worry about are people who have never read the book nor know much about the movie seeing these new ads and expecting the movie to be a happier, more hopeful story. It’s pretty misleading if you ask me.

Some of you know that I’m a PR/media professional by day, and so the media geek in me is wondering if this move by the movie marketers was a good one. Sure, it might get more people to the box office, but what good is it if some folks won’t be informed enough to know not to expect a happy, more hopeful film? To me, this makes as little sense to me as Lee Daniels recent comments.

From NYMag.com:

Some guy came up to me at a screening that I was at recently and he told me that he, um, was sexually abusing his 14-year-old daughter,” said Daniels. “That’s what he told me. And he was crying. To me, that is the award. There is no award on this earth that can get a man to admit that. So to me, that is my award. My award is healing. You know what I mean? I want to be acknowledged or whatever, but I’m happy with people healing.”

There was one thing that was severly lacking from Daniels’ little story: the part where he reported this man to the police. What sense does this make? I hate to think that Daniels was so immersed in his own ego that he didn’t think to do the right thing and PROTECT THAT CHILD.

One criticism of the movie I agree with is that they didn’t give enough space in the film to talk about the social and political implications of WHY Precious lived the way she lived. Why did she think lighter skinned people were more beautiful with lives worth living? Why was she obese? Why did her mother abuse her and allow for her husband to rape his own daughter? None of these questions were answered through a sociopolitical lens, and that to me is a bigger marketing fail than the ads I’ve discussed earlier in this post.

…before we get busy.

Prior to dating my current partner, I was in an almost 2 year relationship with someone else. One afternoon when we first started dating, my then-boyfriend asked me if I had recently gotten tested.

At first I got scared. Oh no, I thought. Is he going to tell me he has something? I didn’t want to be rude and ask him the very question I was thinking. I also knew that he was asking for the safety of both of us, and I admired him for that. This was my first relationship after college and while I had gotten tested while in college and also a year prior to us dating, I had never had a significant other ask me if I wanted to get tested together, or at all for that matter.

I let him know when I was last tested. That’s when he said, “I just got tested last week and I wanted to let you know that my results all came back negative.” He even showed me the papers to prove it. For him, getting tested was a good habit, one that he took seriously.  He took my hand and told me that if I was umcomfortable going by myself then he’d go with me. I agreed and the next week, we headed to the clinic.

We actually made a date out of it sorta, which put me at ease since it cut down on my stressing out about what the results would be. As is the case with many people who get tested, you sometimes become nervous right before getting the results. I have always protected myself no matter what, but yet and still I was still racking my brain trying to rememebr if there was any situation that would make me worry that my HIV test would come back positive.

We were in and out of the clinic in an hour if that long, so to take my mind off of my jumpy nerves we ended up spending the whole day together–going out for breakfast, window shopping at the mall. I received my results the following week, all of which came back negative.

I tell this story to let people know that getting tested with your partner isn’t nearly as scary as it seems. If anything, it taught me about trust, and about the power of monogamy. It helped me bond with my partner in a way I hadn’t before.

I absolutely think everyone should take the time to get tested whether they are coupled up or not. But hopefully, getting tested together becomes more of the rule and not the exception, and that more couples catch on to it as a good habit.

If you love them, get tested together. If you like them–or even if you like them like them–get tested together.

Play safe out there, folks.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of days, you’d know that today is World AIDS Day. I decided to try something this time and do a short series of posts talking about my experiences with protecting myself, getting tested, and losing people I care about to the disease.

The next two posts will be dedicated to Damon Eskridge, a family friend of mine who shared his story about living with HIV to me and other young people years ago at my church back home in Los Angeles. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I talked about how Damon influenced me and informed what I know about HIV and AIDS along with other STD’s. Damon passed away in December 2000 after a long battle with AIDS.

I am remembering Damon today as I write these next few posts. Thank you, Damon for sharing your story and your light. You are loved and missed.

For those of you in DC and wanting to get tested for HIV today call 202.442.9152 to find the nearest testing location.

Those of you tweeting on twitter about World Aids Day, the official hashtag for world AIDS day is #WAD09.

Shout out to the Red Pump Project, who raise awareness about HIV and AIDS 365 days a year.

BET actually does it right and remembers Black celebrities we’ve lost to AIDS.

Lastly, did you know that trans women are most impacted by AIDS? Get familiar. Many times we forget that more than Black cisgendered women* are trans women who are the most impacted by the disease and yet served the least…because trans women are often rendered invisible by the status quo. Some food for thought.

I’ll make this brief and get right to the point as it will sum up all that I feel we need to know about the White House Party Crashers:

They’re rich and white. Therefore, they looked the part and got away with being as close to the President as they are in the above pic. Ain’t nothin else on it.

Now I know I might get told I’m playing the race card here, and I’m prepared for that. But I absolutely believe that if this couple were working class and perhaps not white, if this couple looked more like me and my fairly-new partner–young Black people with natural hairstyles (another topic in its entirety)–they wouldn’t have even seen the inside of that State Dinner. Like, at all.

I’m not saying that the CIA is racist or that there was racially-charged intent in their actions–all they’ve admitted to so far is they “made a mistake” (no sh*t sherlock) and that’s all we can really accept for right now. What I am saying though, is that the Salahi’s ability to get away with crashing a White House dinner speaks to their class and their level of white privilege.

From Anovelista:

I am having major issues with the White House State Dinner crashers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi. The first description of Michaele Salahi referred to her as a “glittering blonde decked out in a red and gold sari” and I knew we were in trouble.  Even at the White House, the automatic assumption about a “glittering blonde” is why of course she belongs! She looks the part, right?

My point exactly. My friend Wise told me a great story that further illuminates this point. A few years ago, Wise went to a VIP party a professional colleague of his threw in the Hamptons. While he had every right to be at the party as anyone else, Wise was hassled by security because he doesn’t “look the part”: a tall brotha in a suit with a smallish afro. They questioned his being there, asked to see his ID, the whole nine, simply because he didn’t seem like he”belonged” there. What message does that send about how we feel about class and privilege and who gets to “own” high levels of such things?

In any case, the White House Dinner Crashers don’t tell us anything else, and it doesn’t get any more complicated than this. They were white, they were rich, and they got over on the CIA because they looked the part. Open and shut case of what is afforded to people who are at the top of the class ladder.

I’ve been psyched for Precious ever since I saw the trailer this past spring. It was released here in DC this weekend, but up until then I had read varying opinions about the movie.

From Hit me Back!

I should be clear: When I say that Precious was horrifying, I don’t mean it in a “Wow, kudos to Sapphire/Lee Daniels/Oprah/Tyler Perry because they just outdid themselves” and got me wanting to testify about it kind-of-way. No.

Make no mistake — Lee Daniels is a pathology pimp. Plain and simple. He’s not the first. Some of our most prolific movie directors (Scorcese comes to mind…) are pathology pimps. Pathos tells good stories and, often, creates great, watchable art. But, see, this is my problem with Lee Daniels. He’s a pathology pimp and he’s not even good at it. His work, ultimately, is not art. It is raw, unchecked, internalized oppression that he is peddling as “important” stories about Black folk that “need” to be told.

There are elements of Precious, of course, that are real. In this country and around the world there are Black girls like Precious — morbidly obese, abused, victims of incest, illiterate, HIV-positive, etc. There are women in my family who, in one aspect or another, have been subjected to the same atrocities as Precious.

But, really, tell me something I don’t know. I live in Chicago. All I have to do is watch the news, read the paper or visit my proverbial cousins “Pookie an’ ‘nem” to know that there are elements of Precious that exist. One look at the health, socio-economic and class status of many African-Americans is proof of that.

I wanted to hold my tongue on my own critique of the movie until I saw it for myself. And now that I have I’m revisiting some of the reviews I’ve been reading over the last few weeks.

I think she makes an interesting point. It is the type of criticism that I could imagine Boyz n the Hood received–the fact that a painful black narrative is being created for the “amusement” of white audiences. But I’m of the belief that even though a movie is heralded by white audiences doesn’t make the story less valuable. That said, it shouldn’t be implied that this is the story that all Black girls grow up with having to endure.

I also think the fact that there are kids just like Precious in hoods all over the country, and that it shouldn’t take a movie to alert people to this. But part of the power of this movie is that Precious is telling someone’s true story. It’s unfair to deduce Lee Daniels to a “pathology pimp” when this is one story that is being told on film; by saying that the motivation for making the movie was solely to exploit or glamourize black pathology for White people’s entertainment doesn’t give Daniels nearly enough credit.

from Afrobella:

Precious is the kind of film that needs our support. It’s a film that reveals a slice of American life that we too often close our eyes to. Because we don’t want to see.

It’s such an ugly slice of reality, you want to keep it hidden. But people NEED to see this movie. I hope it’s shown in schools. I hope the people who need to see this movie, see this movie.

As raw and real and painful as it is, Precious is uplifting. And important. We can’t let movies like this come and go without making some noise at the box office. Because there are many, many more stories like Precious, that need to be told.

While I tend to side more with Afrobella, I think there is room for many of the varying opinions to be right. Yes, Precious is a difficult story to watch, just as novel Push was to read. But it’s an important movie nonetheless. For one, I’m glad to see us telling a story about a Black girl growing up in the hood. So many times we see hood coming of age stories that center around boys; The Wire comes to mind. This isn’t to say that every girls story of growing up in the hood includes rape, incest, and abuse, but that the story of Precious Jones is just one of several that we can tell, and I hope that it leads to more explorations of a black girl’s life on film and in literature.

On the acting front, I absolutely enjoyed both Mo’Nique and and Gabbey Sibide’s performances. I can’t say that Mo’Nique’s acting was necessarily Oscar-worthy the way I can with Gabby’s, but it definitely will help her break out of the comedic actress box, so it’ll be great to see what other roles will open up for her after this. Solid performance by Paula Patton as well. Mariah didn’t move me either way, and of course I didn’t mind the addition of the nurse character played by Lenny Kravitz not only because I thought his character was endearing, but because anytime I can ogle at that fine hunk of man candy for 2 hours on screen is a CLEAR WIN (don’t argue with me on this point, okay?)

Speaking of Paula Patton, I”m gonna have to agree with Racialicious here and say that I was disappointed at the casting of Paula Patton to play the part of Blue Rain. In the book, Blue Rain was a woman who looked a lot like me–a dark skinned Black woman with dreadlocks. For Precious, a girl who already suffers from self-hatred and sees light skinned people as more beautiful and more capable of being loved and cherished, Blue Rain presented an alternative image of Black beauty, and an entry point to healing and reinforcing a more positive image of herself. Paula Patton as an actress is perfectly fine, but I think casting Blue Rain as a light skinned woman was a HUGE mistake given what her character represented in Precious’ life.

There’s been lots of discussion about whether or not Lee Daniels has colorstruck tendencies in his casting selections. All of the “good” characters in the movie adaptation are light skinned while all of the bad or dysfunctional characters were dark skinned. I can’t say either way Lee Daniels is colorstruck because I don’t know the man well enough to label him as such nor was I in the room when the casting took place. that said–I wasn’t bothered by Mariah Carey or Lenny Kravitz being cast as the “good” characters. The only casting I saw as problematic was Paula Patton because omitting her the significance of her skin tone in the book omits a huge part of Precious’ healing.

One thing they didn’t omit was the fact that Blue Rain was a lesbian. I was glad they actually showed Blue with her partner, because oftentimes black lesbians are fetishized on film, shown only for the entertainment and arousal of men. While Blue was only shown with her partner a few times, I think it’s important that the audience sees a positive image of Black lesbianism, especially in a Black film. It’s also a subtle way confronting homophobic attitudes in the Black community.

Overall, Precious is a great film, and important film, and I hope it gets all the attention and notoriety it deserves.

Did you see the film? What did you all think? I should probably point out that if you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, there may be spoilers in the comments.

As I settle into another work week, I realize that this hasn’t been a good couple of days for Black America. First, Serena Williams loses her shit after a bad call during the US Open, which cost her the match. Then, Kanye decides to be a jerk (again) and ruin country music star Taylor Swift’s very first acceptance speech at the VMA’S by bum rushing the stage and declaring Beyonce’s Single Ladies video the greatest of all time.

The two situations above may seem very different, but I think the only difference between Kanye’s outburst and Serena’s outburst was a bottle of Hennessey. These are grown ass people who are fairly young. Black, and at the top of their game. So why did they act out in public like they could get away with it?

The way I see it, Serena and Kanye’s fame and talent, and even their wealth will not make up for their lack of privilege. Kanye didn’t get to perform at the VMA’s and was escorted out of the event. Serena lost  the match and had to pay  a $10,000 fine for her behavior. It wasn’t waved away as just being “colorful” the way it was when McEnroe did it, and I’ll venture to say that it’s because she is a Black woman and he is a white male. No matter how high a Black celebrity climbs, they will not just be a celebrity getting out of pocket, they will be a Black celebrity getting out of pocket. They will not escape their lack of privilege to do certain things and be able to LOL it up on the David Letterman show the next week.

That’s not to say I”m excusing Kanye and Serena’s behavior because I think both of them showed an extreme lack of decorum and what my Nana would call “home training.”  Everyone has to be accountable for their actions, but what I need for Black celebrities to understand is that their fame doesn’t put them on an equal playing field with white celebs that act out in a similar manner. Get your decorum game up and let’s cut back on the nigga moments from here on out.

So what you think? Does a lack of privilege mean greater attention to our public behavior?

Please welcome my long-time friend D.L. Chandler to the blog as he discusses actress Maia Campbell’s painful drug addiction and her struggle with mental illness. I too was saddened by how so many people made light of the recent youtube, and I hope some of you feel the same way. As always, feel free to post a comment here or hit him up on Twitter @dlc123.

Like many young men in the 1990s, I found actress Maia Campbell to be one of the more attractive young black starlets on television. Early on, I discovered that she hailed from the Greater Washington Metropolitan area just as I did and that factoid endeared me to her as well. Of late Maia Campbell has fallen out of the public eye, and has been unfairly ridiculed by her poor life choices fueled by her bout with Schizophrenia. The daughter of late bestselling author Bebe Moore Campbell, Maia found fame on the LL Cool J vehicle In The House. For 3 seasons, the show enjoyed some mild success and Maia Campbell was a prominent fixture of the sitcom. Once the show ended, Maia worked bit parts in television and small movies, but nothing more.

I am not going to play reporter here and try to guess what happened beyond that point. What I do know is that in the last three years, nude photos of an obviously inebriated Campbell and a very recent video of the actress has appeared on the Internet. The gossip blogs, Twitter, message boards and news outlets (such as The Examiner) have all had their say to the inner workings of Ms. Campbell’s fall. We don’t know what’s leading her down this path nor do we know if she’s ever had adequate help – at least as far as what’s been released publicly. However, what is quite telling is how much of my Twitter feed was filled with hurtful jokes about her condition. The blogs and their comment fields were also filled with the same insensitive and lame commentary found in the linked Examiner piece above.

I immediately felt sorrow for Maia Campbell after viewing the video and wanted nothing more than to protect her. It triggered an almost instinctive brotherly reaction. It was if I saw my little sister on that screen and just wanted to snatch that camera away from her antagonist and whisk her away. There wasn’t anything humorous about this scenario. There wasn’t a reason to make this a Twitter topic of the day. It didn’t have to become this ugly display of humanity – anonymous keyboard cowards levying all types of hurtful, insensitive words towards Maia. I’ve just read that there’s a prayer campaign for Maia Campbell and that’s great. I’m not a religious person but this is obviously a step in the right direction so I support it fully.

Many of us know a Maia Campbell, a young person lost to their own devices and lacking the help, love and care needed to rise above whatever demons ails them. Are we to look at Maia Campbell with pity or are we to act when we see this pattern in our respective cities and towns? What did you truly feel when you saw Maia in that state? What would you do if you saw it? Are you witnessing something of this nature now? Are you out there helping to prevent more lost souls? Are you content with reading the insensitive comments and hashtags on Twitter? I know I’m not. I know that any time I can help a person – young or old – I’m going to give whatever time I can spare. I don’t see how we can look at this as a laughing matter. Moreover, for those of you that I know who choose to see humor in such a sad situation, you’ve lost a huge chunk of my respect.

If you follow me on Twitter, then you probably saw my shock and awe at seeing Roger Sterling in Blackface on last night’s episode of Mad Men. Wat? Blackface? In the 60s? I was in disbelief. In my last post I talked about my frustrations with the lack of race commentary on the show.  Wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing but I now think that we will see more commentary on race and white privilege in this season than we ever have before on the show.

From Basket of Kisses:

Matt Weiner has been criticized often enough for not quite getting there about race. We have, on this site, discussed “Magical Negroes” in Mad Men, and the Sheila storyline ended up fizzling in an unsatisfying way.

So now that he’s decided to address it, it’s not just a scene or an incident, no, it’s Matt, so it’s a holistic embrace of everything privilege; the privilege of race, of gender, of age, of money, of social class, and of how all of those things intersect.

Surely the most privileged person on the show is Roger Sterling; even more so than YodaBert, because Roger was born with his silver spoon. Roger is so incredibly privileged that he can parade an embarrassingly young wife and make a lot of powerful people treat her politely, and do it, nauseatingly, in blackface to boot. Blackface! (And don’t even try to say “sign of the times;” privileged people still do this). Roger can make people swallow any kind of bad behavior, because he’s got the money, class privilege, and power.

I certainly think Roger in blackface was a symbol of his level of privilege. On another note, I loved seeing the tension between Betty’s father and Carla–of course he accused Carla of taking the money without actually saying, “that n*gger stole my money.” And then when he got her name wrong? “We don’t all know each other, you know”…..a woman after my own heart as I’ve retorted with that in my travels.

Damn…the Black blogosphere might go nuts over this one.

So…what did you all think about Roger in Blackface? Did we like it? Was it a sign of the times? Do we hate him more?

And isn’t Joan’s husband just a complete loser (and a rapist)?