The AlterNet Megaphone: How to Support AlterNet Without Spending a Penny

By Don Hazen and Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. Posted April 8, 2009.

As an AlterNet reader, you are indispensible to our success. Why? Because you are our marketing arm. You forward thousands of articles to friends and colleagues every week, post content to  Facebook and Twitter and promote our articles on Digg or Reddit.  All this activity attracts new visitors and supporters and spreads the word.

We don't have big bucks to launch marketing campaigns; nor do we get large foreign investors like some of our competitors in the political market place. Instead, we are a lean and mean nonprofit machine. So we are very happy with the support you offer us, but we are eager for more from you.

The Web has changed dramatically, with many social networking sites, the most astounding of which is Facebook, which added 5 million members a month in January and February, but Twitter is growing rapidly too.

Are these sites the real deal?

We don't want to oversell the Web 2.0 deal. We have both a lot of excitement and a little skepticism, which is woven into our editorial content. Recent changes at Facebook were criticized here, while AlterNet writer Alexander Zaitchik let his frustration with tweeting all hang out.

Some of us have vowed "not me, I'm not going to get trapped into a big time suck on a site where people from my past might find me, and 'friend me.' " Once, Facebook seemed to primarily serve as the favored means for college kids to publish embarrassing drunken pictures of themselves and destroy their chances for future employment. But no more.

For many, Facebook has become useful and necessary part of everyday life -- evolving into a great social-networking tool used to share important content and information, build online communities around shared interests and serve as a forum for political organizing that often leads to real-world action.

Also, remember how it helped to get the president elected?

AlterNet's  Facebook presence  is always expanding. Check out our page: We're forging an alternate means to share our content and building an online community on the site. We've been sharing tons of content gathered by a great group of committed fans who engage in interesting discussions about the economy, politics, the Wall Street mess, drug policy and a host of other issues.

We've added Facebook buttons on the right-hand side of every article (on the right-hand side of the page), so you can send articles on to your friends or go to our home page on Facebook.

We are looking forward to Facebook to being a good way for you to communicate with our writers and editors, and also to use Facebook as a platform to highlight important political work being done.

If you're not already on Facebook, give it a try.

If you're already a member, check out our page and become a fan of AlterNet.

See more stories tagged with: alternet, facebook, social networking

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet. Tana Ganeva is an assistant editor at AlterNet.

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