A big week in New York

A big week in New York
NEW YORK - DEC 29: The iconic Empire State Building and New York Skyline on December 29th, 2009 in New York City, USA

It’s been a big week in New York. The great and good have spent the last week discussing a range of development issues. From health and Ebola to gender equality, and from climate change to poverty alleviation, some of the world’s greatest development minds have been deep in heated discussions and meetings.
But it’s the way those conversations have also moved onto the digital stage that makes them truly global discussion topics.
While just a few years ago, these issues would have only been the subject of discussion by a small few, before dissemination through specialist media, this is no longer the case – social media has changed this forever.
Our development and digital experts have spent the week tracking how these conversations have moved their way from closed-door meetings to Twitter and other social media platforms. With event- or issue-specific hashtags creating a digital discussion that will continue after the events have come to a close.
We’ve seen how these events are no longer limited to a small group of first world policy experts – and are now being discussed by huge numbers around the world.
We’ve followed the explosive growth of a gender equality campaign, tracking how the video of an emotional and engaging speech can drive large-scale engagement in a short period of time.
We’ve seen how the debate about climate changed grew on a global scale ahead of the UN Climate Summit.
We’ve realised how many people around the world care about these critical issues and how a clever croudsourcing campaign can help to create amazing content.
We’ve been shown the amazing reach that be achieved by engaging high-profile digital influencers, who can spread the word about a campaign or issue faster than any media outlet.
Throughout this week, we’ve seen the immense power of social media to reach people around the world and spark discussion around critical issues.
At Portland, we pride ourselves on being able to help our clients, from not-for-profit foundations and multilateral agencies, to governments and corporations, create strategies to use social media help reach their audiences around the world.
To find out more about the work we do every day, please get in touch.

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