Last Thursday on the For Immediate Release podcast by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson they looked in to how the Writers Guild is using social media tools in their strike.

• Information Tactics
  
• Writers Guild of America, West WGAW Web Site: lists official updates from the guild, new coverage of the strike and background information about the Guild and the contracts they are striking.
• WGAW Strike blog: United Hollywood. The blog serves as central point for all the projects the WGAW is working on as well as providing viewpoints and debate on the issues of the strike.
• On a side note, one of the more interesting posts to PR people is this anti-troll post railing supposed paid commenters who integrate the community and only try to discount the blogs' message on behalf on their clients. This brings up the constant ethical issues of advocacy in the blogosphere and the importance of self-disclosure.
• Speechless video site. Launched Novemeber 22, featurea video of actors who are speechless because they do not have writers and scripts. One of the more humorous videos features Holly Hunter who is dealing with a Hollywood that as outsourced its writing to India. The videos do a great job of hammering in the idea that actors need writers to work to and shows the presumed support of the acting community.
  
• These videos can be watched either on Brightcove or You Tube. Since the speechless channel on You Tube a mere 20 hours ago each of the 12 videos has been viewed around 150 times and channel has 27 subscribers.
  
• Wgaamerica You Tube channel This channel was started November 1 and currently has 105, 000 views and 2,000 subscribers. The channel has news posts and interviews. One of the best videos is the Why We fight:
  

• Action Tactics
  
• In order to get people involved WGAW has offered several ways to show your support.
  
• Sending pencils - an idea taken from the fans of the show Jerico, who sent the production company peanuts in order stop the show from being cancelled. For a dollar you can send the Media Moguls a box of Pencils. So far 300,000 pencils have been sent. In addition you can get a widget for your blog so that everyone can see how many pencils have been sent.
  
• Sign an online petition, I was signature 59,685.
  
• Facebook groups - although there are many unofficial groups in support of the guild, the official group Holtz mentions is Fans 4 Writers. After looking on Facebook, myself, I couldn't find it. If anyone does find it please comment about it.
  
• Get a support badge for your Web site or Blog.
  

This case has so many facets of information and good uses of social media. It will be interesting to watch what impact these tactics have the media corporations and the success of WGAW. But for now we will have to satisfied with getting into the debate and enjoying the forums that are available to us.