Chicago Teachers Rock Social Media

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Polling in Chicago has shown that city residents back the Chicago Teachers Union in its strike against Chicago Public Schools. One explanation may come from the CTU's savvy use of social media to reach out directly to community members. From WBEZ:

The union picked up 16,000 new Facebook fans since the strike began. As an administrator of a Facebook page, I can attest that is a very enviable traffic graph. For the CTU, this activity didn't come by accident. [CTU Social Media and Video Director Kenzo] Shibata says he's been training union members for months. "We have focused a lot of attention on social media through this strike. We knew that we could not rely completely on traditional media to tell the story, so we empowered our members to become citizen journalists on the ground," Shibata said in an email interview.

He praises union leadership for being forward looking in changing his position from Publications Editor to New Media Specialist. He considers himself an "online organizer." The union claims close to 30,000 members and has more than that total backing their Facebook page. Those fans have been successful at their online activism since more than 81,000 Facebook users have been talking about CTU.

What have those activists been doing on social media? For one, they've been making photos like this go viral. Shibata says they've also been sharing a video the union made in August called "Chicago Teachers Union Vs. Astroturf Billionaires." The union made this video specifically for members to share on social media and it has clearly influenced the agenda of many of the marches and signs. Their Facebook fans have also been sharing photos and videos of those marches (including some adaptations of "Call Me Maybe&quot .

more . . . http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13857/wisconsin_anti-union_struck_down_chicago_teachers_use_social_media_victory/

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