 |
What rhymes with Skittles? |
 |
If you’re joining the series already in progress:
- Lessons from Skittles for poets and activists introduced the series, briefly described how Skittles’ Twitter-centric viral marketing campaign caught fire, and concluded that Activists and poets — and anybody else who wants media attention without spending a lot of money — should consider including Twitter in their plans.
- Mr. President, do you like Skittles? and Activism at the speed of Skittles, looked at how a small group of activists used Twitter to highlight a question about homeless vets and it was answered on the White House blog less than 48 hours later. The conclusion: Things happen very quickly in the Twitterverse
This week, it’s the poets’ turn. My brother Greg’s Twitter, #poetry, #kidlit… and an invitation! on Gottabook sketches the opportunity
There are millions of users of Twitter … but only a few of them are tweeting about #poetry and #kidlit. National Poetry Month seems like a good time to change the former, and Poetry Friday, all the great children’s poetry blog projects this month, and the growing Kidlitosphere make it a great time to change the latter, too. But why? Well…
One thing I re-learned when Fibs were spreading around the web is that there are poetry lovers in every walk of life. They may not write or read poems regularly, but they love to be reminded of it… and get re-invigorated. They’re on Twitter. Parents are on Twitter, too, maybe not spending enough time thinking about kids’ books… or maybe looking for information.
Poets and activists have some very similar challenges, for example a lack of mainstream media coverage. How often is there anything about poetry on network or cable TV? How much poetry and discussion is there in newspapers and mass-circulation magazines? And yet the world is filled with people who like poetry. Social network sites like Twitter offer them the possibility of connecting with each other directly.
The same’s true for children’s literature: minimal media attention, a heck of a lot of people who care about it. Children’s literature bloggers (aka the Kidlitosphere) have made a lot of progress here with projects like Poetry Friday (memorably described by Susan Thomsen on The Poetry Foundation as “a weekly online literary happy hour without the drinks”) and an annual bloggers’ conference. Twitter offers the opportunity for deepening the community.
Can Skittles help?
Get involved!
If this sounds interesting, why not get involved? Greg’s #poetry! has several good suggestions about how to start, including
Tweet a link to any National Poetry Month event or news story… to your favorite poet’s website… to a blog where people are talking about poetry.
Tweet short poetry – create Twitter verse for the Twitterverse!
Tweet about poets you love… and why. Create a conversation!
The goal here is to have fun, with us all tweeting about what we’re passionate about.
Indeed. Please join us! If you’re looking for a good poem to start with, check out Children Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky’s A little poem for poetry month, kicking off the 30 Poets/30 Days series on Gottabook.
Reusing an approach that’s worked well for activists, we’ve got sample tweets up on the Tweeting Points page on the Book Promotion Wiki. Check ‘em out if you’re looking for inspiration.
Whether or not you’re on Twitter, you can follow along with the conversation about #kidlit #poetry using Twitter Search.
And make sure to have fun. Because lesson #3 from Skittles is
Everyone knows: fun rules.
jon
Skittles photo from ambibambie39507’s flickr page,
licensed under Creative Commons
Jon Pincus is a strategist, writer, and activist living in the Seattle area, currently working with Deborah Pierce and his brother Greg on Tales from the Net, a book on social networks. As well as being an co-founder with Tracy Viselli of the #p2 (”progressives2.0″) Twitter hashtag and an organizer for the Voter Suppression Wiki and Get FISA Right , he’s vice-chair for online visibility for the 2009 ACM Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. He blogs about these and other topics at Liminal States and elsewhere.
DISCUSSION
One RESPONSE to “What rhymes with Skittles?”