Social Media Means Urban Chickens Now Legal In Asheville NC | Chicken Coops Texas
Social Media Means Urban Chickens Now Legal In Asheville NC
Very happy to see that the news that urban chickens are now legal in Asheville, NC (pop ~220,000, map). The city council approved the measure just last night, in front of a crowd of 120 citizens whod shown up to urge the ruling.
Whats most exciting to see about this particular effort to legalize urban chickens is how the group Asheville City Chickens was able to leverage social media to mobilize their cause.
In addition to coming up with a cute logo as an identity, the folks (Cathy, Josh, et al) pulled out all the stops in setting up a digital toolbox to rally the troops and equip people to dive in.
Among their social media portfolio:
- a blog to announce their progress and needs and act as the platform for sharing news
- a Twitter account (@avlcitychickens) for those bite-sized updates that can mobilize folks away from their computers
- A Google Sites wiki to facilitate rapid collaboration and editing of content the group created together to press for the change
- A Facebook group and a Yahoo! group to tap into the already-existing social networks of Asheville citizens and broaden the reach of their messages
- Online petitions and bumperstickers, too.
The best part of all of this effort? All the tools they used are free for anyone to put to work on their own efforts to legalize urban chickens. Thats right: the tools are free, you just need to apply effort, just like Clay Shirky has written in his book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
(I highly, highly recommend it if you havent yet read it). Its almost as if the Asheville City Chickens crew used it as their playbook.Please join me in dropping a quick Tweet of congrats to the Asheville City Chickens crew!
Social Media Means Urban Chickens Now Legal In Asheville NC
