Appropedia:Publicity: Difference between revisions

Template:CPheader

If you are from the media or a blogger and wish to report on Appropedia, see Appropedia:For the media for useful links, an introduction to the site, and contact details.

Quality

"You want a product that is so good that the sales people are basically order-takers." (says Jason Calacanis[1])

Our product is knowledge. Making a site that informs and excites people is a great way to raise Appropedia's profile. Of course, the media is attracted to flashiness and what's "new" so the ideal is to use both style and substance to attract attention.

But when we have good content, it's important to give it a push: Pages ranked as Good Articles, or even better Highlighted Articles or Highlighted Projects or good portals are suitable for blogging, Stumbling, Hugging etc. To help get more pages ready for this, see Appropedia:Article improvement project.

Media strategy

When we have a newsworthy story, we should:

• Write a press release (see #Press releases below) and release it.
• Tweet it (including Chriswaterguy via @Appropedia, also anyone with an Identica or Twitter account)
• Put it out through our other social media channels, including blogs, friendly bloggers, and Facebook.
• Notify all our journalist contacts Who has contacts? I have some - who else? Let me know --Chriswaterguy 04:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Press releases

Blog posts and press releases can be released together on the same subject - one can be used as the basis for the other, where appropriate. (Probably this will work for big announcement blog posts or posts that profile a particular aspect of Appropedia's work.)

Notify

Mention Appropedia on email lists and comments to blog feeds on topics like:

• permaculture
• eco-village
• sustainability
• worldchanging

Mention Appropedia to:

• sites with a similar kind of focus to Appropedia. When you edit a page and link to a good resource, contact the owner of the resource and let them know, e.g. You may be interested to know that I've cited your page at Appropedia.org - see (link addresses of page where you've linked to them).

• activist NGOs, and political parties (especially Green type parties, but members of other parties may also share the passion, albeit with different perspectives).
• appropriate technology advocates

Mention it to likeminded bloggers:

• Find bloggers with similar interests through blog search sites. E.g.:
  • Blogs relevant to Appropedia
  • Find blogs with the "blog tag" "appropriate technology" (then change search, e.g. to "blog posts" to get more hits)
  • Find blogs with the "blog tag" "international development" (then change search, e.g. to "blog posts" to get more hits)
  • When searching, remember that phrases must be in quote marks or use a hyphen between words.
  • The above searches use technorati. Google's Blogsearch is another useful one.
  • (seems like we should have something about del.icio.us but I'm no expert)
• If we're active on these blogs, engaging with these people, we can mention relevant Appropedia pages as appropriate. This should be done specifically where it's relevant to the topic being discussed, not just promoting Appropedia, as we absolutely don't wish to spam.

Organizations, such as the various Engineers Without Borders groups (chapters and national organizations):

• EWB Australia via email;
• EWB NSW at a meeting, with positive response. Not much action yet, but there is still interest. --Chriswaterguy ^talk 23:29, 9 August 2006 (PDT), updated 23:57, 27 October 2006 (PDT)

See #Draft notifications, below.

Some won't reply, so we will polish our pitch and send the word out again later... Do not spam! Be sure that most of the targeted group woul likely be interested.

When you have notified a person, group or site, it helps if you add it to the list below (#Already notified) with a date, to avoid unorganized repetition and to keep track of what is achieved by the promotion.

Specific media

Media outlets to approach:

• Yes! Magazine
• Slashdot & other online news sources where anyone can post (but may need an article to link to?)
• Periodicals that focus on appropriate or alternative technology, sustainability, permaculture or international development... (contact re getting an article or column published; failing that, write a letter)
• Syndicated column for relevant periodicals or even more mainstream papers, or local papers...? Something to dream about, but we can practise by blogging first. (e.g. [http://wannaresolution.blogspot.com/ Curt & Chris's blog...)
• Small local papers might be happy to snap up a well-written article or column, particularly if it's free, and particularly in areas with a lot of hobby farmers or progressive/liberal/greenie/hippie readers, e.g. the North Coast of NSW, Australia.)
• English language papers in developing countries. These sometimes have articles on appropriate technology. Ideally tailor the article, e.g. mentioning specific organizations in that country and the local term for appropriate technology (which may not be an exact translation). Language should be slightly simpler and clearer to allow for non-native English speakers. See Appropedia:Promotion of Appropedia/Developing country media.
  • Offers to tailor the article and contact media:
    • Chriswaterguy · talk for Indonesia.
• Find relevant media outlets by searching on Google News for "appropriate technology" "alternative technology," "international development," or permaculture, or other specific terms, and sustainability-related terms.
• Cite the use of Appropedia in peer-reviewed articles see Appropedia:Citations in the literature

General magazines (e.g. lifestyle, news) that have an interest in global issues:

• (In Taiwan) 30 monthly and parent, Commonwealth Publishing Group
  
• Marie Claire

Wish List

• Add Appropedia to the wikis indexed on Qwika (wiki search engine)
• Short article for TreeHugger
• Project writeup/link on Make Zine
• WorldChanging.com. Work on the Worldchanging submissions

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is highly synergistic with Appropedia. A high percentage of visitors to Appropedia come from Wikipedia. Why? Because the nature of the content that Appropedia focuses on is not "encyclopedic". So it's not just "okay", but important to make sure to add a link (in the "External links" section) to Appropedia to all Wikipeda articles with an "Appropriate Technology" twist. The links should be as honest and relevant as possible. An appropriate link might look like:

* [http://www.appropedia.org/XYZ Related article(s)] at Appropedia, a wiki for non-Wikipedia (projects & practical "how to") content.

The "XYZ" should be modified to point to a relevant category (for several articles) or specific article.

Similarly, all Appropedia articles could potentially benefit from a link to a relevant Wikipedia article. See Template:Wikipedia for ways to provide linkage from Appropedia articles to Wikipedia content.

Other wikis

Where there is a lot of overlap we should consider whether we could combine our efforts... being tactful of course, so we don't sound like "leave your wiki and join our better wiki." See Chriswaterguy's The Wiki Synergy Project at WikiIndex.

• WikiNode
• See WikiIndex categories and Sustainability, International development and Technology.
• List of Wikia (verrrry long... but many of the most relevant ones already at the "WikiNode", above - which was partly taken from the List of Wikia).
• Many more wikis can be found by googling, e.g. sustainability wiki, appropriate-technology wiki, international-development wiki, build-capacity OR building-capacity wiki or poverty-reduction wiki.

See #Notifying another wiki.

Already notified

• The Global Development Research Center --Lonny 12:23, 3 August 2006 (PDT)
• Journey to Forever --Lonny 12:23, 3 August 2006 (PDT)
• Campus Center for Appropriate Technology --Lonny 12:23, 3 August 2006 (PDT)
• Wikipedia:User:Ethanz, Ethan Zuckerman of Geekcorp. (Has an interesting blog, too). --Chriswaterguy ^talk 10:54, 5 August 2006 (PDT)
• RDI-Cambodia --Chriswaterguy ^talk 23:45, 7 September 2006 (PDT)
• This list is now very long and mostly undocumented. Google appropedia -site:appropedia.org for the many sites that link to Appropedia. Much of the information on this page is purely historical. --Lonny

Done, positive response

Some of the groups above may need occasional posting/contact. Those below have already had a good result, e.g. already link to us from their resources page... but occasional contact may still be good, to foster the relationship.

• Appropedia's WikiIndex entry - needs the logo uploaded to WikiIndex. --Chriswaterguy ^talk 23:45, 7 September 2006 (PDT)
• EWB-International - already on their databases page --Chriswaterguy ^talk 16:41, 13 August 2006 (PDT)

Draft notifications

These are just examples... please adapt accordingly or help to improve them.

Sample request to add a link

Hello _____________,

First, thank you for your fantastic site; I have used ______ as a resource many times.

Second, I would like to introduce you to the Appropriate Technology and Sustainable Development Living Library - http://www.appropedia.org/ . This site is a wiki (i.e. anyone can edit and add to the content) with a focus on sustainable projects (mostly homemade), curricula, tools, howtos, organizations and social networks. See http://www.appropedia.org/?title=Category:Photovoltaic for an example... especially the project articles at the bottom.

Third, I ask you to consider adding Appropedia.org to your links page at http://www._______.org/links.html . We have added your site to our page, Useful sites - http://www.appropedia.org/Useful_sites .

Thank you again for the important work that you do,

___________________

(Remember, this is only a sample. Before submitting any request, please make any changes that you feel would make the request more appropriate)

Email lists

Permaculture lists:

Hi,

I know that many permaculture people are interested in appropriate technology and international development, as well as sustainability (of course!), so you might be interested in this resource: Appropedia - it's a wiki, like Wikipedia, so that anyone can contribute. Add a link, describe a project, share your experiences, add a comment or question to one of the talk pages... or just have a read.

There are categories such as Alternative building, Water and Solar.

Note that unlike Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia, Appropedia accepts a wide range of materials such as project descriptions, how-tos, original research, and (within limits) commentary. Appropedia is meant to complement Wikipedia, not compete with it.

Cheers...

___________________

Notifying another wiki

Hi,

First, thank you for your fantastic site that I have used as a ______ resource many times.

Second, I would like to introduce you to another wiki on a related theme - [Appropedia http://www.appropedia.org/], the "Appropriate Technology and Sustainable Development Living Library." It has a focus on sustainable projects (mostly homemade), curricula, tools, howtos, organizations and social networks. See Photovoltaic for an example... especially the project articles at the bottom.

Third, we have placed your site on our WikiNode. Please consider adding [Appropedia http://www.appropedia.org/] to your main, or links, page.

Thank you again for the important work that you do,

___________________

Topic notification

Mention relevant wikipedia projects as well as Appropedia.

Blog mentions

Include link text such as:

 <a href="http://www.appropedia.org/">Appropriate Technology Living Library</a> 

Check out this TreeHugger article for an example.

You can sign up to Worldchanging Headlines, and when there's a relevant article, leave a comment and link when appropriate. Note, this should only be done where this is a valuable and relevant comment and link (otherwise it's spam, and we don't want to do that!)

SEO (search engine optimization)

In order to pool our ideas with a larger number of people, it is suggested that we work on strategy at OLPC:SEO for the OLPC wiki‎.

Any specific issues for Appropedia can be placed here.

SEO tasks on Appropedia

1. Develop related pages: This is a bit speculative, but makes sense.
   1. Determine key focus areas where there is already good content, and a good landing page, e.g. Appropriate technology.
   2. Do a web search on the term and find related terms (including the key term or not). E.g. Intermediate technology, Small is beautiful. The key here is to find helpful terms that people use. Our primary goal is to create useful content that readers are interested in, not to game the search engines.
   3. Develop pages on these related terms, and any others that come to mind where useful content can be created. E.g. for Appropriate technology, helpful pages might be Appropriate technology for refugees; the Appropriate technology for Indonesia might explain, for example, why water conservation is important even when there is high rainfall, highlight work done by certain organizations, and link to relevant pages and categories.
   4. Ensure those pages are categorized, and also add links to these pages from other relevant pages (in body or under See also).

Check progress

Search for links to appropedia (using google).

Note this only searches for links to one page - so you have to enter a specific Appropedia page for links to that page. (However both links to the main page, i.e. link:www.appropedia.org and link:www.appropedia.org/Main_Page seem to give the same result.) In addition, this searches only for some links to that page, i.e. many links will not show up.

See also: Appropedia talk:Statistics tracking to see other metrics of progress.

Ideas to promote Appropedia

Note that the intent here is not to be ambitious for Appropedia for our own benefit - rather, we want to let people know what is on offer here, to increase collaboration with other groups (whether or not they actively join in the editing here) and spread knowledge about appropriate technology, development and sustainability.

Offer our services

If a group wishes to develop material, such as a brochure on an environmental issue, we can let them know that they can do it here, so they can edit collaboratively, and get the input of Appropedia community. E.g. Sustainable Energy booklet.

Design a poster

Some ideas to communicate demotech are also suitable for the promotion of appropedia. In order to promote these projects, designing a poster could be helpful to advertise the websites. The poster (as print or digital version?) could be send to Universities, libraries and Internet cafes in developing countries.

Hand outs

Hand out useful products with web address printed on – objects should be eco-friendly, therefore product should be carefully considered. e.g. Stickers, food wrappings, matches, pens/pencils, notepads... Problem: Sponsoring is needed to fund the products --Demotech (anna) 11:25, 16 November 2006 (PST)

Who can help?

Anyone. See Appropedia:Community portal for categories of helpers and how they can help.

When this page is fuller, mention the task at Wikipedia's promotion page (can't find it now - ask at community portal) and suitable WikiProjects.

Notes when notifying

• If posting a link for a category page, never link to a category, which one day may become a dead link if the category is renamed. (This is because there are No redirects for categories. Always link to redirect instead, as this can be expected to stay constant. E.g., rather than linking to Category:Greywater, link to Greywater instead.
• Do not spam! Only post quality, relevant links to Appropedia pages that people might find useful. This is important for our reputation. Plus, it's just the right thing to do.

Links to Appropedia

• Appropedia:Press coverage
• Live feed of Appropedia Mentions
• Del.icio.us bookmarks of Appropedia
• Google links to Appropedia
• Yahoo links to Appropedia
• Technorati blog mentions

Publicity team members

Template:Apsubcommittee

• Lonny (talk · contribs) (lead on subcommittee)
• Joel.scott (talk · contribs)
• Chriswaterguy (talk · contribs)

Interwiki links

• OSE: Friendly Organizations
• OSE: Network Leaders

External links

• Meatball:WikiReputation
• Op-eds & Letters to the Editor - tips from The Communications Consortium Media Center.