Weaving a Professional Network at Web of Change

After years of running web marketing campaigns for companies and not-for-profits we’ve learned that it’s critical to approach every campaign from a human perspective. What personal connections are you trying to make? What flesh-and-blood problem are you trying to solve? Thanks to the magic of the web, there are endless technical tricks for pushing out online campaigns–Facebook ads, contests, donation microsites, and more. But at the end of the day, if a web-based campaign doesn’t connect with your audience on a human level and move them to act, it will fail.

This is a hard-won lesson we’ll be sharing with other web technologists, campaign organizers and web marketers at Web of Change as we discuss failures, successes and the finer details of running online campaigns that make a real impact at this annual conference for not-for-profit leaders.

Web of Change takes place in September on Cortes Island in British Columbia, Canada. Over five days, teachers, leaders, practitioners and learners (which is everybody!) share their secret recipes for leading movements and running successful social change projects.

Past participants include Greenpeace UK who recently delivered The Dark Side campaign and engaged over 230,000 people from around the globe. The leadership behind 350.org and tcktcktck have attended Web of Change and brought their climate science expertise to the table as well as stories of how to engage massive online communities. At Web of Change, Moveon.org has connected web technologists and leading campaign organizers working on the ground to learn how to better mobilize supporters using online tools so that they can affect real change, offline.

We’re looking forward to this year’s Web of Change conference, the Cortes Island air, and the genesis of ideas that are likely to shift our perspective and lead us down new avenues of innovation. We hope to see you there, too.

Registration is open for the 2011 conference. Visit WebofChange.com for details.