Facebook, Open Social, Networked Relationship Building, and Leveraging Social Capital
A couple of disparate ideas in this post from different perspectives -- I'm trying to make connections and this will probably make no sense to anyone but me.
I caught this slideshow when it was first posted last month by Tara Hunt and just recently watched the video of the keynote. (In addition the content, I learned a lot about the delivery - in terms of a visual approach to powerpoint) . She also just signed a book deal with the tentative title: How to be a Social Capitalist: winning with the currency of online communities.
My question: Network for Good's recent Wired Fundraiser report talks about "superactivists" or the nonprofit equal of Seth Godin's Evangelists. Superactivists are individuals who raise money for a cause and have a large network that can be leveraged.
So this leads me to a recent discussion thread on the NTEN discuss list the other day.
Ben Greenberg from Physicians for Human Rights asked a couple of really great questions
- What are you doing to capture email addresses of your Facebook friends/cause joiners/group members?
- Do you have a significant contingent of people networked via Facebook who are not joining your email list but are receiving messages, feeds, events, etc from you via Facebook?
- I am curious about how the network activity becomes part of (or relates to) the organizational activity. Are people just letting things evolve organically w/the presumption that the FB network activity will lead people to other involvement with their organization? Or are people developing more overt strategies for drawing network members into other activity (and getting them on their lists, turning them into donors, getting them to take action, attend events, etc.)?
- Can anyone recommend good reading on best practices for organizational uses of Facebook (not just for fundraising but also list for building and mobilizing)?
I think the key is to go beyond "friend collecting" and to leveraging social capital through building relationships one-to-one. This is where the line between "organizational" and "personal" gets blurry and uncomfortable for nonprofits, but maybe I'm wrong.
I am wondering about the role of an evangelist or what Networked for Good report calls super activist, an individual who acts on behalf of an org, business, or other entity. They build and cultivate a personal network (on their personal FB profile) and leverage this for an organization. This happens by building personal relationships, getting to know the people beyond names on your list. There are many ways to interact with people in your network and further engage them in your organization's activities in Facebook:
1) Get the user to specifically give you their email address in a private message, you can share the url of your sign up page
2) Message the user through Facebook messaging
3) Write on their wall
4) Comment on their photos
5) Use the Ask A Question Application
I've been experimenting with this as volunteer for an organization where I serve on the board to raise money for Cambodian college scholarships. Through relationship building have gotten them to sign up for the list, contribute again, come to events, and turn them into evangelists for my cause. It happens one person at a time. Of course, the above activities take time to care and feed the network. You are building loyalty and love for your cause or organization! The issue is how to make it efficient?
There was a question as to whether the Facebook causes application allows you get email addresses of the donors. David Geilhufe noted that Facebook API prevents you from getting the email addresses and pointed to the announcement by Google for OpenSocial.
Because if you had an email address, you could then form a relationship with the constituent outside of Facebook. Then Facebook couldn't sell ads based on that person's affiliation with your organization and then the company wouldn't be worth $15B. Watch out for Google's Facebook killing strategy, OpenSocial. The technology here will better allow nonprofits to form relationships with constituents, independent of the social network on which the initial relationship is created.
Andrew Cohen added that Facebook recently held a political summit where they announced they would life the limit of <1.000 people for group mass messaging within Facebook. The summary is available on TechPresident here and backstory is here.
I can't add much to David and Susan's smart comments. As many folks probably already know, until recently, there were many barriers on mass messaging within Facebook. You could only message to <1,000 people. Facebook recently held a political summit where they announced that they would lift this limit. TechPresident had a nice summary of this announcement.
More coverage on Google's Open API
Checkmate? Myspace, Bebo, and Six Apart Join Google Open Social from TechCrunch
Will Google's Open APIs Threaten Facebook?
Details revealed from TechCrunch
Ning founder Marc Andresen notes "Open Social is an open way for everyone to do what Facebook has done..."
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