Randi Zuckerberg at Facebook invited me and Stephanie McAuliffe from the Packard Foundation to lunch at Facebook today in their new offices in Palo Alto, a former Hewlett-Packard Building. As Randi explained, since it was Friday it was corporate dress up day and the cafeteria's menu was comfort food. So, lunch was delicious spoof on fast foods - including a double-cheese burger dubbed "The Big Mark." All the ingredients were sourced from local farmers and no disposable utensils or plates as the "chef culinary overload" explained. We had lunch in the cafeteria that was bursting with energy, perhaps because of the "Facebook Poke"option on the latte machine (a shot of expresso). We then moved upstairs to the roof top lunch deck where I asked Randi some questions that I crowd sourced from people via my Facebook Fan Page and took some photos.
I've been using my Facebook Fan Page as a focus group to generate ideas for content about using Facebook effectively for nonprofits. A few days ago, I posted a request for questions to ask Randi and she graciously answered:
1. Is there a statistical reference for total money raised in Facebook Causes? Is there an entity that publishes statistics on all money raised on Facebook? (Donald Peterson)
That's a great idea and something perhaps Causes might do. They recently announced they have raised $10 million over the past two years.
2. Will there be improvements in Facebook functionality/design of groups and communities so they can find one another - what I call "distributed social good."? (Eddie Harran)
The big barrier right now is privacy issues, but our product team is hard at work on improvements. I can't say thing more because of NDA, but keep an eye out for improvements in the next 6 months.
3. What is Facebook's burn rate? (Allan Benamer)
I am not sure what a burn rate is - if you can define, I'd be happy to see if I can share the information.
4. When can I create a FB event from a remote system? (James Young)
If you mean mobile phone by "remote system" - there are different apps that let you do that. Each phone app - blackberry,
Iphone
, etc - does its own thing. We don't have control over them. So, some allow creating events, but others don't
5. Can you comment on the value of using Facebook for community building, social networking, and true peope-to-people giving? Also can you mention the book. (Ted Hart)
I think that Facebook less about dollar raising than friend raising. In April, 2009, we celebrated reaching 200 million users and we designated 16 nonprofits to receive the proceeds from virtual gifts. The organizations said that the most valuable part for them was that it helped increased the number of Fans who joined their pages. Thanks for mentioning the upcoming book!
6. Is Facebook going help how nonprofits use Facebook to further their success? Have they documented good nonprofit success stories? (Kyle Reiss)
That's a great idea. Right now I've started the Nonprofits on Facebook Fan Page where we post case studies and useful articles.
7. When will they launch a program like Google Grants for nonprofits where theyd onate advertising? (Dennis Yu)?
We are headed in that direction and in the early early stages, but we want to make sure that whatever we do to do support nonprofits has impact and it is strategic.
8. I'd like to know what kind of research they have done on brand identification of Nonprofit Facebook pages and of Facebook power users/influencers?
It's hard to do research like that because there are so many different causes/organizations using Facebook. And each one has its unique influencers. The best thing you can do is do research/listening as you implement your Facebook presence.
9. I wonder about how much Facebook really knows about us? Well, not so much for individuals, but for social movements involved in sensitive subjects?
Privacy is the most serious issue here at Facebook. For example, employees do not have access to users personal information and if privacy is abused the employee is immediately fired. If we don't have the trust of our users, we don't have anything.
10. Will Facebook add a "dislike" button? What happens if someone shares bad news? I can't "like it" (Will Coley)
Write a comment and say you're sorry!
11. Will Facebook create a featurer where you can pass along someone else's status like retweet on Twitter?
There many, many more questions than I had time to ask and Randi had time to answer. A lot these questions were about feature requests. Randi suggests submitting your feature requests to the developer's forum. They read and respond and you can find out when it might be implemented.
I'm always looking for great stories about how nonprofits are using Facebook that I can share on this blog. Have one? The best way for me to hear about them is to join Facebook Fan Page Focus Gruop and post it there.
Allison Fine and I have been busy working on a book about how social media and connectedness is changing the way nonprofits are creating social change. Today, we had an amazing conversation and interview with Cecile Richards and Tom Subak to learn more about Planned Parenthood's Social Media Strategy and their movement building techniques.
Earlier this week, I gave a presentation to a group of Bay Area Foundation program officers and funders who work on population research issues. I spent sometime reviewing what Planned Parenthood was doing on social networks as well as their online presence - so it was good to get the inside story. Tom and Cecile shared a rich story about culture change, loosing control, building relationships, story telling, multi-channel strategies, engagement techniques, online/offline metrics, and more.
A couple of takeaways from the interview:
Leaders Lead Culture Change. Over the past three years, Planned Parenthood has built an impressive Internet presence and social media strategy. Cecile Richards, president, paved the way. Says Richards, "Confidentiality is a big part of Planned Parenthood’s culture. And, as you know being successful with social media is the opposite of that. Three years ago, not everyone was convinced that we needed to shift our investment into our online presence. However, given that we’re trying to reach young people – how could we ignore the place where most of them get their information?”
Tom Subak, Vice President of Online Services, adds "Looking back
over the three years, Cecile made it clear to everyone that the
Internet was a critical part of our future and that she was going to be
personally involved in the organization's transformation to embrace it."
Social media is described in terms of the mission, not the tools. While the board wasn’t against technology or social media, it was a little bit of a mystery. Says Tom, "We don't talk about Facebook or Twitter. We talk about how using the tools expands our mission." And, they don't just talk, it is backed up with reports and graphs about how the use of the tools supports their work -- the connection between the online efforts and people using services on land. But, as Cecile points out the storyline isn’t about technology or social media, it’s about movement building and the people they serve.
Giving Up Control and Relationship Building: As Cecile and Tom shared, their passionate activists are shaping the organization's campaign messaging and content. "That's less so on email, of course, but now with all the work we’ve done cultivating and building relationships on Facebook and Myspace – when something happens, the response is there. We help guide it." Activists are sharing their personal stories in their own words, images, and videos across social networks with little prodding from the organization.
So, how specifically do they build relationships on social networks? As Tom says, "There are many ways, but we do spend a great deal of time sending virtual birthday cards to
folks. (It’s a great job for summer interns once you’ve put together
your overall strategies and you can guide them)." Obviously this is working because when they need to ask their activists to mobilize to support them when their funding is in danger, the activists are there. Sometimes before they ask.
Platform for Self-Organizing: As Tom Subak recalls, in the beginning stages of their social networking strategies, they goal was to get as many people to join their fan page. They realized quickly it was the wrong approach. "We’ve stopped cramming calls to action down people’s throats because we understand that’s not the culture of MySpace or Facebook or the way social media can be successful. We created a platform for folks to have a dialogue in the way they want. We support it, guide it."
As Tom Subak adds, "On social
networks, we have a very light touch – we give people the opportunity
to respond. It often happens through the wall comments – we go through
the discussion areas, comments, photos and videos and we take those
stories to share with decision-makers."
The Power of Sharing Stories: Planned Parenthood has built the infrastructure to be successful. Their online services department is in charge of web site presence, email messaging, and social networking. They work in collaboration with the communications team. As Tom Subak mentions, "But something was missing: The intersection of content that we create with what our supporters create. It doesn’t matter whether it is on our web site or somewhere else. There are millions of stories inside of Planned Parenthood – the stories are incredible. We put a human face on our work and what we’re doing. With our stories, we try to figure out how to get more people engaged and change the public’s view. We now have a department called the New Media Content team. Their job is to create, edit, repurpose, identify content across all our channels. Where does this all come together – part of the organization that is thinking about content – in the way that content exists in now. It doesn’t matter where it is or who created. Another thing to is that it doesn’t matter where the content lives – we’ve been creating widgets that can placed anywhere – not just on our site"
I've been thinking about this interview for a good part of the day and especially this idea of the intersection of content that the organization creates with what their supporters create and share. And, yes the whole balancing act of how you facilitate that without controlling it. Perhaps it is a little more than a content creation strategy where your organization is doing all the heavy lifting, creating, editing, and production grids. It's how you use the conversation to generate, aggregate, and facilitate social content.
Engagement is not really created by being a nice, genuine, caring and
attentive sort of chap on twitter. It’s hard to create much momentum in
any kind of social network without some of those qualities, but true
engagement, engagement that leads to customers and partners, is created
with content. Or, perhaps more accurately, engagement is created with
engaging content.
The post goes onto discuss the balance between conversation and content. Others have a different take. For example, John Cass, in his post "Measuring Engagement in Social Media."
I often think this idea of engagement is lost in the shuffle when
thinking about how to use social media for marketing. Why is that? Well
marketers are comfortable with creating advertising to attract
customers, here the focus is on attracting customers and converting
them, if engagement occurs it is to sell the product, the concept of
engagement around the customer's content is something new, and the ROI
of that activity still has to be justified for many marketers.
This
is not to say that content marketing is not a good idea, or a wrong
step, it's just I think content marketing is a stepping stone in the
development of marketing to engagement. I also understand that many in
the industry would suggest engagement is part and parcel of content
marketing, but I think there's still some debate about the definition
of content marketing and differences in how content marketing and
inbound marketing practices are implemented.
How does your organization think about its content strategy in the context of social media engagement?
Last week I was in Michigan to do a training for Chapter Leaders of EPIP. We were are all leaving Detroit at different times and the taxi to the airport wasn't exactly cheap. So, EPIP provided a self-organizing platforn (a flip chart with a time line sign up.) This let everyone organize into small groups and get to the airport without having to spend a lot of money. And, it didn't involve as much time and effort if EPIP went around and asked her person what time their flight was and then organize the groups for people.
What do you need in your social media strategy to facilitate your supporters self-organizing around your goal?
Note from Beth: This week I'm researching and thinking
about the topic of creating movements. If you have written a mini-case study about nonprofit movement using social media and would like me to consider it as a guest post, please fill out this form or if you know of a good resource on the topic, add in the comments and I'll aggregate
Guest Post by Valeria Maltoni: Creating Movements
Content is no good - even that of the useful kind - if it doesn't move someone to do something.
1. the passion conversation, not the product conversation
- if you say this in a business setting people may not know who to
react. Try it, you'll see what I mean. In my usual collaborative,
expansive, and generous self I've often encountered tremendous
resistance to this kind of behavior. Did I mention I don't give up
fast? Watch for what lights people up.
2. begin with the first conversation
- that's why it's hard for organizations to deal with a movement. They
didn't see it coming. I remember the first time I heard the term
grassroots, it gave you the idea of what it meant.
3. have inspirational leadership -
this part is important, it delineates the difference between influence
and inspiration. Influence is still part of the persuasion language -
that's why I don't do posts that endorse products or projects in
isolation. I believe that breathing life into something is much more
powerful - and effective. Hence inserting ideas and projects in context.
4. there's a barrier to entry in movements -
skin in the game is where it's at. Rites of passage are a necessary
step in joining a community. In many respects, I think that removing
those in modern societies has really taken away the ability for people
to prove to themselves that they are part of it.
5. empower people with knowledge
- the famous expression "opening the kimono". It's such an important
step that changes the equation or balance of power and transforms the
people on both sides of the exchange. Yet, there is difficulty - we
have difficulty - managing that transfer.
6. shared ownership
- when I talk with groups about this point and people ask me what
happens if someone says you suck? I respond that I lean forward and ask
them to tell me in how many ways I suck. No feedback, no learning - and
probably talking to yourself. Only when there's engagement, there's
sharing and communicating. When you refuse to take this step, you are
the barrier.
7. powerful identities - make
something to believe in. Shared experiences provide a sense of
belonging, they make us fall in love with the experience as well. We're
social animals. This is also about raising the other by involvement.
8. live both online and off line
- people are tactile and face to face is still by far the best way to
engage. We learn to take cues from our environment early on by reading
body language. You can have the most sophisticated social media
program, sharing a physical space is still the best way to help word of
mouth travel.
9. make advocates feel like rock stars
- give people your attention. Period. That is what they crave and
appreciate the most. Being heard, counting, being recognized. Ordinary
people can and do have extraordinary stories and ideas to share.
10. get results - Fast Company
used to be a movement. Passionate people with a sense of belonging and
much to share. The magazine was a conduit, the stage where the
conversation took place. I know of no other company so ahead of its
time. The subscriptions practically sold themselves. The point is, as
the authors of the manifesto put it:
Movements
get results. Like waking up the zombies in the cubical farms of your
office and opening their eyes to the fact that what they do matters.
Like energizing your sales force. Like your fans putting out PR
nightmares before you even have time to react. Like your fans creating
their own marketing messages and gear. Coming to your defense. Helping
you through the hard times. Co-creating new products.
[...] Movements move people to action. Movements transform companies. Movements change lives.
If
you think about it, all the professionals you truly admire and follow
have gone beyond creating a profitable company, they've set out to
change the world. Profit was an outcome of that. It takes courage to
let yourself take these ten steps, especially when the world bounces
off you.
The first thing you need is that fire in your own
belly. Can you ignite that? Then an idea of your destination. Can you
envision that? These ten descriptors can help carry you there. Language
matters, being moved is much preferable to being the target of a
campaign...
Valeria Maltoni helps businesses understand how customers and
communities have changed marketing, public relations, and
communications - and how to build value in this new environment.
Note from Beth: This week I'm researching and thinking
about the topic of creating movements. If you have written a post on
this topic and would like me to consider it as a guest post, please fill out this form or if you know of a good resource on the topic, add in the comments and I'll aggregate
Since this week's thinking and resource gathering is on movement building, I thought it was appropriate to do a book giveaway. I'll be giving my copy away to someone who leaves a comment on this post (picked at random). Leave a comment about why you want the book and if you know of a good resource on movement building, please mention it in the comments.
Note from Beth: This week I'm researching and thinking
about the topic of creating movements. If you have written a post on
this topic and would like me to consider it as a guest post, please fill out this form or if you know of a good resource on the topic, add in the comments and I'll aggregate
ThinkSocial at the Paley Center for Media is dedicated to advancing the use of social media in the public interest. The site is a growing community of people who believe that social media
used by people and institutions in the public interest -- like print,
television and radio in the past -- can enable more effective responses
to the social, economic and environmental challenges of our time. For more information about ThinkSocial, please check out the About section of this site.
Building a Movement in an Interconnected World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz
While there is much to be gained by listening to and engaging with
the technologists, business leaders and media theorists at the white
hot center of social media innovation, there is also much to be gained
from engagement with leaders from other fields who are encountering and
leveraging social media in their work. The purpose of ThinkSocial
is in fact to connect leaders who might not otherwise be connected in
order to extend the benefits of these powerful new platforms and
applications for public purposes.
Jacqueline Novogratz, the founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund,
is certainly one leader from the field of social innovation whom I find
incredibly inspiring and thought-provoking. And, we were lucky enough
to have her paired with Pat Mitchell at the Paley Center for Media recently for a conversation titled “Building a Movement in an Interconnected World.”
As you will observe from the video we’ve put together, Jacqueline
uses the power of examples and personal stories to make the case for
greater moral leadership and pragmatic, market-based approaches that
enable people to earn their way out of poverty and improve their
health. While Jacqueline and the Acumen Fund are the first to admit
that Acumen is still relatively small and has much to learn, without
question its measurable impact through investments in the developing
world is one of the real success stories of social enterprise and a
beacon light for future endeavors. But, Jacqueline and Acumen are
beacons for more than just social enterprise. Her stories also reveal
the importance of social media to development.
Her stories manifest the power of social media to bring about a new
global consensus for action on poverty and health — one story, one
conversation, one call to action at a time. People can now talk in
spite of geographic, economic and ethnic differences. And, with this
new capability people – particularly those dedicated to development —
are in fact finding tremendous insight and inspiration through their
social media interactions because of these differences.
The distance between a social enterprise investor, a program
officer, or a policy maker or citizen in the United States and a person
in the slums of Kenya or India participating in an economic development
or health social enterprise has never been smaller. We can now discuss,
highlight and organize around the initiatives that work. Acumen is one
such initiative and its use of social media is one such example for how
this new capability is radically expanding the circle of social concern
we all feel and the possibilities for acting on those concerns in
mutually beneficial ways.
Please watch the video (4 Parts) and let us know your thoughts. What
examples have you seen that further exemplify social media’s role in
helping to affect social change? Who else should we be highlighting
here at ThinkSocial? Which individuals, initiatives or organizations
are leading the way in their use of social media in the public interest?
We would love to hear from you!
Building a Movement in an Interconnected World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz (Part 1)
In the the first part of this talk Jacqueline discusses mainstream media’s coverage of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 and how it compared
to social media and Twitter’s role in connecting Iranian people with
the rest of the world following the recent controversial elections.
Building a Movement in an Interconnected World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz (Part 1)
In the the first part of this talk Jacqueline discusses mainstream media’s coverage of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 and how it compared to social media and Twitter’s role in connecting Iranian people with the rest of the world following the recent controversial elections.
Building a Movement in an Interconnected World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz (Part 2)
In Part 2 of this talk Jacqueline talks about Pakistan and the opportunities to create a global community around the people who are trying to create positive and lasting change in the country. She emphasizes how important journalists are in helping to tell stories, both internally and from the outside and how these stories have the potential to reach more people through social media channels.
Building a Movement in an Interconnected World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz (Part 3)
In Part 3, Pat Mitchell asks whether we need moral leadership in social media. Jacqueline discusses how leaders in fact have a moral obligation and need to recognize the responsibility that comes with being ‘connected’. Jacqueline also talks at length about the Rwanda Genocide and how it would have been significantly different had social media been as prevalent then as it is now.
Building a Movement in an Interconnected World: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz (Part 4)
In the final part of Jacqueline’s discussion with Pat Mitchell, she tells a moving story of an encounter in a Nairobi slum with Jane, a former prostitute, whose dreams of escaping poverty, of becoming a doctor and of getting married were fulfilled in an unexpected way. She first told this story at TED, however in this version she talks about the role of social media and how it has provided an incredible feedback mechanism, allowing individuals in the Nairobi slum to comment on and discuss her TED talk through sites such as Digg.com.
This post was published on the Think Social site here and is being republished with permission.
Note from Beth: This week I'm researching and thinking about the topic of creating movements. If you have written a post on this topic and would me to consider as a guest post, please fill out this form or if you know of a good resource on the topic, add in the comments and I'll aggregate
Those of us that communicate for nonprofits find ourselves at a
crossroads. The new social tools that we are here to discuss are not so
new anymore. We’ve seen successes like Barack Obama’s incredible rise
to the Presidency. Dynamic movements such as the Iraqi election. And
frustrating challenges like fighting off big oil’s influence on the
ever delayed climate change bill otherwise known as Waxman Markey.
There have the been the well discussed successes like DonorsChoose
and Lil Green Patch. There are the ongoing efforts to fight Swine Flu,
or new successes like LiveStrong. And the many, many hyper local and
niche causes that touch the lives of their online communities not by
the millions, but by the hundreds or thousands everyday.
If you are like me, you are asked all the time to use these media to create movements. BUT.
Yes, that difficult word, BUT.
We are asked to do it in controlled environments. We are asked to
ensure brand and message quality. We are asked to contain those people
and make sure they do what we want, and also ensure only the “good”
ideas are accepted. We are asked to deliver #s of hits or followers. We
are asked to master ever evolving technologies. And we are asked to do
it with little or no resources. Ironically, if we have time, the last
matter is the least difficult.
And that is the crossroads. Movements versus campaigning. Creating
open communities with old siloed corporate structures. And yes
nonprofits mimic their corporate brethren with siloed structures.
How can you tell the difference? It’s easy. If we are successful,
we’re being talked about, rather than talking. People are writing their
own stories and ideas about our cause rather than us publishing
content. Tweet conversations about you
happen instead of links from your Twitter account. Networks, groups,
applications, conversations, meet-ups, T-shirts, donations, volunteer
events and political actions receive community wide support and in many
cases are created by the community itself.
See, the mark of a great social media effort is when the community
itself owns it. We can light the match, we can use lighter fluid and
kindling, we can fan the flames, but only the community can make our
issue, our movement, burn with the full fire of an inferno.
Movements involve people, not Marketing, PR, Comms, Public Affairs,
etc., etc. Our job as organizational communicators lies in trying to
facilitate a larger conversation by providing the means for people to
share, perhaps initiate conversations, and highlight the great work and
thoughts of others. But we cannot use these tools to dictate the
movement. And that means we must lead our organizations into a new era
of communications.
The classic mistake of organizations is to apply the very old
publishing content and messages approach to the not so new social
media. Don’t make that mistake. And control? Please, why even bother?
If you want to control then you don’t understand people, and you are in
the wrong business. Get out now. My experience has informed me over and
over again that you will fail. Yet, our executives and managers, our
internal stakeholders cannot understand the open culture.
Listen before participating, and participate before publishing.
Publish shareable information instead of dictating messages. Create
relationships instead of transactions. This may as well be Sanskrit to
many organizational leaders. And so you are not just asked to change
the world, but also your organizations. Patience and consistent
efforts, showing results over projects, over periods of time, and most
importantly, with newly engaged stakeholders.
Never forget that this is about exciting and enabling people to
carry forth the most noble of charges, your cause. You want them to
tell their friends over dinner, buy that bumper sticker, make the logo
their screen saver, provide an unexpected donation, go out and take
pictures, and/or ask their CEO if they can send an email to the
company.
See, a movement compels someone to make your cause a part of their
life, not just their Facebook profile. It’s always better to have 500
people screaming your wares than 5,000 passive followers who don’t
care. Never forget that, either.
Going back to the climate change bill. I cannot help but think of
the green movement, and its failure to transcend the environmentalist
and conservation movements to the point that American households are
doing everything they can to become green. The great failure with
Waxman Markey is not how watered down it has become, that big oil is
winning, that the bill may never pass. It’s that our congressional
representatives can get away with this. The movement is not strong
enough.
I began our talk today with my personal nonprofit history. You know
I believe this is our generation’s greatest challenge, as great as the
fascist threat that faced our grandparents.
It is my hope, my prayer that I can use these god given
communication skills, our not so new world of participatory media, and
make green something so compelling that it cannot help but become an
all powerful movement. I envision a time when people will gladly pay
more for green technology, and they will consciously try to reduce
their carbon footprint everyday. When disgraces like the Waxman Markey
fiasco occur, they will be outraged with their political
representatives and demand change, again and again until the right
people are in office who will defend our world.
As you go into your sessions today, I ask you to think not about how
to get 1000 people into your Facebook groups. Instead, how can you use
your Facebook group to engage your fellows, change your work environment, and spark your movement.
Dubbed a “local blogging guru” by the Washington Post, Geoff’s award-winning book “Now is Gone” was released in 2007 and has been cited by the Wall Street Journal as a valuable resource for social media.
I love the Red Cross's approach to scaling its engagement strategy by involving the whole organization - it is spelled out in their strategy handbook and policy guidelines. The first steps are simple once you have policy/philosophy in place and the right mix of bottom up/top down adoption or acceptance of social media.
Here's how the Red Cross handbook states it:
Step 1: Get Social Media Savvy
Initiate personal social media use:
Explore the tools you’d like to adopt by using them in your personal life first. It’s easier to understand the culture behind tools like Facebook and Twitter when you spend some time posting your own pictures and experiences.
Using social media as part of getting your job done is easier to imagine and put into practice if you're in the communications, marketing, outreach, or fundraising departments. The listening as a first step is familiar - it's free market research, it's brand monitoring, it's an analysis of press mentions.
Using social media listening is somewhat more difficult to imagine, perhaps, if you're managing programs or at the policy/funding level.
One of the approaches I've been thinking about lately is how professional learning through social media channels can be put into practice by using listening (and engaging techniques) for program development. Before this can happen, there are a couple of culture shifts:
Professional learning is and should be a part of your job and honored by the culture. That you feel it is okay to spend some of your work day investing in your knowledge and you gather wisdom from your professional networks, including via social media channels.
The importance of carving out time for this type of learning. It is difficult because you have shift gears from your Outlook calendar, answering emails, getting tasks done mind shift. It's a shift from a getting things done sort of productivity to social productivity. Or rather it is finding your social productivity sweet spot.
Using social media is an enhancement to your offline professional networking and relationship building. That you may use it to extend relationships with people you've met at conferences. The shift is the comfort level in using these tools to develop or initiate new connections. For me, personally, I've found that social media has connected me with people who are thinking deeply about a lot of the same topics and that by connecting via social media it has enriched my learning. I think there are some generational differences as well as industry differences in comfort level of using social media tools to leverage your personal networks.
The concern about information overload and too much unstructured information. Attending to your professional learning using social media and networks requires making sense out of the leaves rather than being presented a knowledge tree. The initial dip into the leaves can be overwhelming and unpleasant at first.
Jeremiah Owyang wrote a great post two years ago called "Pay Yourself First." In a nutshell:
Every morning, for about 2 hours, I pay myself first by researching, reading, and writing blog posts...before I dive into email hell]
In the comment thread, there was a suggestion about putting a sticky note on your monitor. I needed to do that for myself!
Getting Started: You Don't Have To Be Joey Chestnut
The photo above is Joey Chestnut who won the Nathan's hot dog eating contest in 2008. His total for the day was 64 hot dogs. In 2009, he won again, beating his own record by consuming 68 hot dogs. The thought of consuming 68 hot dogs makes me feel a little uncomfortable. No downright sick in the stomach. It's the same sort of discomfort that some people feel about approaching the task of listening for learning using the social web.
Doesn't listening require plowing through mountains and mountains of unstructured information? Won't it make you dizzy and uncomfortable? Don't you have to be Joey Chestnut to be successful? NO!
To get started, think about just eating one small pig in a blanket!
Ask yourself how time you can allocate to listening for professional learning. Is it a half-hour a day, an hour a day, or is an hour or two a week? The point is to get started, block out that time, and start paying yourself.
Here are some steps to get started with listening for professional learning via social media. The bigger questions is - are you ready make the shift?
How do you carve out time for professional learning via social media? Has it been valuable? If you're a leader in your organization, how to encourage professional learning?
I feel really inspired! I just finished up the Social Media Strategy Game workshop with EPIP Chapter leaders. EPIP stands for Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy. The organization's goal is to strengthen the next generation of grantmakers, in order to advance effective social justice philanthropy. They provide professional networking, professional development, leadership development and advocacy.
What I enjoyed most was the creative spirit that comes from a comfort level with technology. The game uses a deck of cards to help a group to brainstorm a social media strategy. This prevents making tool-based decisions. An example of this creative spirit was when one group created a new card on a napkin.
I had a chance to listen in on other trainings, which included some techniques for creating a recruitment culture - where chapters can reach out to new members and draw them in - face-to-face networking. The techniques of face-to-face networking strategies are very much transferable to online tools. In fact, you need these skills to really reap the benefits of your professional online network.
I used the wiki a flip chart - so the leave behind is the slide deck, notes, and a few resources.
WOMM (word of mouth marketing) and earned media should be key components of any communications plan to market your nonprofit’s website. If your nonprofit is not taking advantage of free tools like Add This, a widget that encourages users to share your organizations articles or webpages on the most popular social networks or branded toolbars like FreeCause, then your nonprofit is missing out on some big marketing opportunities.
Check out these 10 tools and strategies to market your nonprofit on the web, connect with your members and reach new supporters. I have also ranked them from easy to moderate to time consuming.
1. RSS Feeds: Add an RSS feed to your blog and news sections so people visiting your site can subscribe to your feed and stay updated on your nonprofits latest news. I like Google Feedburner because it gives visitors a choice to subscribe via RSS or email. *Easy*
2. Add This: A widget that allows website visitors to share your content via 50 social networks and bookmark communities. *Easy* 3. Pick Two Social Networks: My two favorite social networks are Twitter and Facebook (Fanpages). Spend 15 minutes a day talking to the community and cross promoting your campaigns, news, etc. *Moderate* Note: This can be time consuming if you let it, so that’s why I encourage nonprofits to spend at least 15 minutes a day using two main online social networks.
4. URL Shorteners:Bit.ly, Tinyurl, and Pagetweet make links more manageable by turning them into short 20 character links. This is a great tool for sharing links and decreases the risk of links breaking after it’s been shared. Also bit.ly tracks data such as click-through rates, geographic locations, etc. Bonus points! *Easy* 5. Care2’s Petition Site: Start a free petition on the Petition Site to rally support around one of your latest campaigns. You can even list a signature goal and download signatures. *Easy*
7. YouTube Nonprofit Program: YouTube offers nonprofits some pretty cool benefits like branding, promotion on YouTube’s nonprofits channel and call to action overlays in your videos. *Easy*
8. Listservs: Participate in listservs that align with your nonprofit’s mission and where your organizations’ issues are being discussed. Listservs provide great opportunities to not only promote your organizations initiatives but to listen to what other people are saying about your issues. *Easy to Moderate*
9. Widgets: Create widgets to share content or actions. One of my favorites is the Rock the Vote/Credo widget that helps to register people to vote. *Moderate*
10. FreeCause Toolbar: A nifty toolbar that is customized with your nonprofits branding. Link to your social networks, post current news, stream video and audio clips, etc. Bonus – for every click generated, FreeCause will donate money to your nonprofit. *Easy*
Allyson Kapin is the editor of Frogloop, Care2's blog for nonprofit professionals in online marketing, fundraising and advocacy. Kapin is also the founding partner of Rad Campaign - , an online communications firm that provides web design, web development, online marketing and strategy to nonprofits. A master of multi-tasking - she organizes the Women Who Tech TeleSummit and writes Radical Tech, a blog column for FastCompany.com. She was recently named one of the top tech titans by Washingtonian Magazine.
The following is a talk I gave about ROI for Social Media at the 2009 Social Tech Training in Toronto, ON. The audience was a group of 90 or so people from Canadian non-profits.
When I first started thinking about metrics for social media, I
wanted to start out reminding our group about some fundamentals of the
sphere. Oh, and with a flying lemur, because Sam Dorman had a flying
lemur in his presentation earlier that day.
Introduction
I've got a little exercise to get you warmed up. Are you ready? Take
a minute and jot down all of the breakthroughs in communications
history you can think of.
No, no, seriously. Write 'em down. Or type 'em out, if you're like me. I'll wait.
Did you think of smoke signals? That's one of my favorites. Yep.
Papyrus, printing press. Though, if we were playing Boggle, you'd have
to scratch that one off, because everyone says that one. Radio,
television. Morse code. The Internet.
Now tell me: In whose hands have those tools ended up over the last
few millennia? Who has been in charge of, and in control of, telling
our collective stories?
This is why history needs you. We need you to create and share your stories.
Social capital
Let's talk for a minute about social capital. What is it? Just like
monetary capital, social capital can be built up, spent, saved up,
invested. It's like a giant combination of influence and karma. The
tricky part is, of course, measuring it.
According to Tara Hunt, author of a fabulous social media marketing book called The Whuffie Factor, there are a few things that comprise your, or your organization's, social capital:
Connections: Who do you know? Not just important
or famous people, either. Are you connected to lots of different kinds
of people who can complete different tasks?
Reputation: What are you known for? What do people say about your expertise?
Influence: Can you move groups of people, small or large, to take some action?
Access to ideas, talent: Beyond your own skill set, do you have ways of reaching out to others with talent and knowledge?
Access to resources: You may not be able to fund a
particular project, but do you know people who can? Do you have ways of
generating physical support?
Potential access: Will your access to resources and talent stay static in the future, or will it continue to grow?
Saved up favors: Were not writing down every good
deed, but do people remember you for the ways that you help others?
This is incredibly important. Is your own generosity with your social
capital part of your reputation?
Accomplishments: What awards have you won? What concrete recognition papers or articles published, etc have you received for your work?
Authenticity
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to
dealing with your social capital. First of all, your organization,
based on its mission and staff, has a unique voice in the world. Even
if there are tons of people doing similar work to yours, you are still
the only group with your unique perspective. This works to your
advantage in social media, because your authentic voice is your most
respected and valued voice. Forget brochure-speak — this is a world of
conversations.
The other thing to remember is that a lot of social media culture is built on the "gift economy:"
the notion that it's a good idea to do things that are just good ideas.
There's no expected return when you do someone a favor, or when you
take time to share research for free. You realize that it's making the
whole environment richer with your unique participation — you don't
expect anything else from it.
Which leads me to the next point: one-way streets go nowhere in this
world. If you're constantly posting self-referential items and nothing
else, you're not going to win a lot of support for the work you're
doing. This isn't a broadcast medium; this is a place to engage with
your community. (A good rule of thumb, for those getting started, is to
post 30% of your own material, and 70%
relevant-but-nothing-to-do-with-you material.)
What people are up to now
On Facebook:
According to Non Profit Social Network Survey, 80% of respondents have a staff person dedicating 25% of their time to social media
40% have raised money, BUT: a good chunk have raised less than $500 in last year
Why? Don't forget this incredibly important quote, ever:
It's still all about building relationships, telling your story,
and taking potential donors through the process of cultivation,
stewardship and solicitation
Twitter's pretty useful for a lot of aspects. You can get the word out, sure, but you can also:
Get buy-in or advice on new projects
Share others' info relevant to your work
Find like-minded folk
Connect with media
It's up to you to go looking for the conversations you want to have.
You can easily set up searches for relevant names (of your staff
people, spokespersons, etc.), titles of publications you've produced or
articles that you're mentioned in, and topics that are relevant to your
work. You can then save those searches as RSS feeds, or in the
application you use for Twitter. Another tip: put in URLs that you want
to follow to BackTweets.com, and keep an eye out for who's tweeting.
But! That's not all! Then you'll take time to respond to those
people: you'll thank them for talking about you, or you'll direct them
to a relevant article (that most likely doesn't reference you
directly), or whatever the case is. It's gardening, in a way: you're
cultivating community by spending time with the people in it.
My friend Beka referred me to this fabulous 28-page Social Media ROI report from Peashoot
(scroll down, it's on the left — you have to give them your email
address to get it). All the info covered in the report applies to
commercial, for-profit enterprises, but there's a lot to be applied to
the non-profit world as well.
One of the biggest takeaways from the report is that it's important
in social media to not just consider traditional ways of measuring
success. This is not about dollars raised, for example, as a direct
measurement of the time you invest in having these conversations. There
are other, more interesting ways — more qualitative than quantitative ways — to keep track of how you're doing.
Here are some examples:
Satisfaction. Look at not just the number of
people talking about your work, but start documenting what they're
saying. Is it positive? Neutral? Negative?
Authority. Are they coming to your organization as a resource, looking to you for expertise?
Loyalty and trust. How about repeat performance — is this their first time dealing with you? How often are they dealing with you?
When working with these measurements, goal-setting becomes crucial.
It's important to keep your goals very tight, direct and focused,
especially when you're getting going. Choose timeframes that are small
— having x positive conversations about your work per week. Also, keep
your metrics, to start, within just a couple of services. Say that
you're going to work on your Twitter presence for the next two months
and then stick with it, rather than trying to spread yourself too thin
across multiple services.
What about blogger outreach?
Charlene Li has a great graphic on measuring blogging impact from
her 2007 report, and I can't say it any better than the Q&A that
concludes this blog post that announced the report:
Q: Is there a standard ROI for blogs? A: Nope – sorry,
it isn’t that easy! Just as there isn’t a standard ROI for a Web site,
there’s no standard for a blog. It depends on what the goal of the blog
is and also how much investment the company (and the blogger) puts into
it.
Q: What’s the best way to measure the effectiveness of a blog? A:
Again, it starts with the goal of the blog. I strongly suggest that
companies start with the goal, develop metrics that measure the
attainment of that goal, and find ways to assign value to those metrics.
Q: But aren't blogs risky? How do you take that into account? A: We
definitely take risk into account by generating scenarios that show the
impact of low-likelihood but high impact events — such as a lawsuit.
Q: Our CMO/CEO/CFO won't let us have a blog until we can show
him/her the definitive ROI of a blog. Help!! A: It's not an
unreasonable request — they don't really understand the value of a blog
and see just the potential cost and risk. By going through the exercise
of defining and quantifying the benefits, costs, and risks of a blog,
you'll be educating your C-level executives while also demonstrating
the discipline that they expect.
Q: But this is heresy – you can't put the benefits of a blog on a
spreadsheet! You've just got to believe that blogs are a good thing
because they develop conversations with customers. A: At the core of my
bleeding heart pumps the soul of a pragmatist. Sure, I buy into all of
the positive, feel good reasons to have a blog. But when your manager
asks why the company has a blog versus spending more time and resources
on XYZ initiatives, it sure would be helpful to be able to show a
spreadsheet of those blogging benefits in dollars and cents.
To explain. No, there is too much. Too sum up.
A few final thoughts to take away with you as you venture out into the wild world of social media ROI:
ROI isn’t always about dollars. It's about social capital, and the goodwill and influence you're able to work with.
The more specific you can get, the better. Make your goals and corresponding metrics direct and clear.
Audience, audience, audience. Remember, this isn't
a broadcast medium, this is a conversational medium. Find people that
want to have the conversation with you.
Ditch things that don’t work. The low cost of
these tools allows you to easily abandon tactics that don't work. Don't
think that this means you've failed– it just means that it's time to
try the next thing.
Deanna Zandt is a media technologist and consultant to key progressive media organizations including AlterNet and Jim Hightower's Hightower Lowdown, and hosts TechGrrl Tips on GRITtv with Laura Flanders.
This week's theme is social media ROI. That's what I've been thinking, speaking, and writing about and have also recruited guest posts on this topic.
I had an opportunity to lead a session on this topic at this years Bridge Conference. Over the past three years, I've been presenting on this topic, the thinking and practice has evolved from 'we can't measure social media or it doesn't yet provide a tangible return," to being able to have guidelines, metrics, and techniques for demonstrating the ROI.
My presentation use s*x metaphors to explain some of the points. For example, I used the quote above overheard and tweeted by Google Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik. It pretty much explains why so many people perceive that social media doesn't give a return on investment in the early stages. There is a learning piece that has to happen first. What David Armano has dubbed Listen, Learn, and Adapt. That's the secret sauce.
I also pointed to Charlene Li's new report on engaged brands and the connection to financial performance. She points out that deep engagement is what leads to these results, but also offers 3 different engagement strategies that can be scaled to capacity. So, for example, making it possible for smaller organizations with fewer resources to use social media and still results.
I still got heckled by skeptics (and on Twitter no less!).
Some in the audience are impatient. They shout: "Show me the money!" Given the pressures of the economy, the risk adversity to social media is not surprising. Some simply won't investment unless they know for sure it can show immediate results. It's hard for some to wait after 6-12 months of engagement to see dollars. Insight and engagement are not as valued by some.
I keep thinking of the advice offered by Charlene Li on whether investing in social media at some level is a yes or not question. It's an either/or.
Doing it all may not be for you — but you must do something. The
optimal social media marketing strategy will depend on a variety of
factors, including your industry. If your most valuable customers do
not depend on or trust social media as a communication medium, or if
your organization is resistant to engagement in some channels, you will
have to start smaller and slower. But start you must, or risk falling
far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your
customers’ general online experience.
There were a number of folks in the audience who have been implementing listening programs and spoke about the valuable insights and the early returns - like main stream press mentions, improved reputation, loyalty, etc.
The most interesting part of the session for me was the fact that it was being "simulcast." Perhaps not the right word. My laptop was logged onto a webinar session and there a phone line in the room - so remote participants to see and hear the presentation. What was cool was that one of the remote twitter users live tweeted the session, including my response to one of the skeptics.
juliepower#bridge09@kanter saying it is harder to get past skeptics than adapt program. So start by listening, dip toe in, try, revise ..
In reading the Twitter hashtag stream for the conference, it was interesting to see that someone else who wasn't in the room or on the webinar, was also able to follow on.
This makes me think about the creative opportunities for learning and facilitating learning at conference with people in the room and remotely.
Meanwhile across town in DC, there was another nonprofit social media gathering taking place at Google Headquarters, there were also presentations and discussion on social media ROI. Seems like a key theme there was: "we get importance of social media but how do we convince our boss/board?"
Yesterday I did one of the Chronicle's Live Chat
Discussions that was billed as "How Can Charities Figure out How Much
Time and Money To Invest in Social Media." The transcript is here. I got flooded with questions and wasn't able to answer them all in an hour. So, I wrote a post organizing all the questions and providing some short answers in a follow up post.
There were a number of questions related to tools and tactics that I couldn't answer off the top of my head - so I decided to crowdsource them on Twitter asking for answers in the comments. Kevin Gilnack came by and wrote terrific responses to those questions. I'm elevating them from the comments because they make a great post. This is an example of how you can use social media to crowdsource your professional development and learning. Thank you Kevin!
How often should an organization post to Twitter or send out updates
on Facebook? Is there a fine line between sending too much that's
irrelevant vs. useful information?
Quality is more important than quantity. Make sure you're sending
useful, relevant information, and do your best to spread it out. Also,
try not to tweet about your own org on an average of more than once
every seven or so tweets. You will also find your followers engage you
more if you engage them. Replies only appear in your intended
recipients stream and in those of people who follow both you and the
recipient, so don't be afraid to have conversations with your
supporters.
Talking about time, is there an application which would post an
update on all main Social Networking Sites at once? I know of some but
they would pick my Facebook personal profile instead of the
Organization's Page I am admin of.
While I would suggest using automated content thoughtfully and
customizing your message where you can, I realize that's not always
possible. Ping.fm allows you to publish to your Fan Pages as well as
many many other social networks.
Is the stigma of having fans or cause supporters with 'questionable'
Facebook profiles true? Does it make the organization look too lax or
less professional? We are a workforce development organization, and my
superiors think it could be misconstrued.
I tend to be of the feeling that if someone wants to support your
cause via social media, they should be able to. I'd argue it makes your
organization look open, inclusive, and accessible. Especially in
workforce development, as it's very possible that those with
questionable profiles could benefit from your work. However, one thing
you could do is include a disclaimer that acknowledges you accept
anyone who wants to support your cause but that by no means is intended
to endorse them or their content.
I would like us to get our organization on twitter, but i'm afraid
that if i only "tweet" about fundraising events, people will tire of it
quickly--any thoughts on this? other content i might want to tweet
about?
Yes, they will lose interest quickly. Look beyond what you need
people to do (whether it's giving money, volunteering, taking action,
etc.). Before you can effectively get people to respond to those
requests, and to build an audience in an opt-in system like Twitter,
you need to show you're there to add value to your followers as well as
advancing your mission. Talk about how your spending their money (e.g.
the goings-on and successes of your programs), news relevant to your
organization, RT posts from other orgs and individuals, and respond to
interesting/relevant tweets your followers are sending.
What are some best practices on Facebook to generate followers and
turn them into donors? Also everyone says that Twitter wont' raise any
money. Is that true?
I don't have the stats to back this up, but anecdotally, I believe
that Twitter can generate more giving than Facebook Causes. The gifts
will generally be smaller, but with the right cultivation, you can use
Twitter to raise funds. Here are some examples from Beth from November,
2008 - I'd be interested in hearing about more data and experiences
myself .
I haven't done a lot of work with Facebook, but integration (linking
from your website and enewsletter, writing about it in your newsletter,
and sharing it through your other marketing and fundraising presence
will help. You might start by importing your email list and suggesting
they become fans of your page / join your group. Once you have staff
and stakeholders on, ask them to invite their networks and share your
page in their minifeeds. You can also find potential supporters by
looking at the followings of aligned groups, though I'm not sure the
etiquette for cold-inviting people.
What is the best process through social media of finding new
organizations/individuals interested or working in your arena of social
issues and connecting with them? I usually do simple Twitter searches
and @replies, comment on blogs, but are there better ways or a general
hierarchy of effective strategies?
I know that Beth has some great recommendations on paid listening
services that she mentioned in the forum, but Twitter search RSS feeds
to a Google Reader can provide some great insights. I'm not sure what
you mean by simple searches, but think of all of the names, things,
words that would help you find conversations of interest. You can also
consider using the localization feature of Twitter searches. Finally,
don't forget that Google Alerts have web and blog search features in
the comprehensive mode.
We have blogs and forums on our site, but have a hard time getting
people to comment or post anything in them. Although our members will
comment and post on our Facebook and Twitter... how do we get them to
jump from those sites, onto our site and start discussing there?
If it is a struggle to get people posting in your forums but are
finding Facebook and Twitter conducive to conversations, it may be
worth evaluating what the value of those forums are and if it might be
more worthwhile to drive traffic there for interaction. However, you
might find that posting something like "That's a great point, we
actually have a thread going on this topic here [link to forum]" and/or
asking key volunteers to do the same. You may get more comments on your
blog by using Twitter and Facebook to drive people there, as well as by
promoting posts in your e-newsletter and other outlets. Is the blog to
buried from your front page? Also, I'm not sure if this is true, but
one stat I saw said to expect 1 comment / 100 views (though I assume
they pick up significantly after the first comment is left).
What tips or suggestions can you offer for partnering with FaceBook
or LinkedIn to leverage their brand as a communication platform for
alums, and the private companies policies for not sharing alumni data
with the higher ed institution?
I've seen a lot of colleges creating groups on Twitter
(http://twitter.com/higheredu), Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I'm
not sure the value in highlighting their privacy settings, but if
someone is reluctant to share their new contact info, asking for an
email to invite them to a group, or providing them with a link to join,
might be a good second ask.
PS from Kevin:
These are just my two cents (most of it read here at some point - just
google around the site and I'd bet you'll find great answers to most of
these).
We're thinking about how human service agencies can use social media
to engage clients/consumers, their families, supporters/volunteers,
interested community members, donors, electeds, and other groups, so if
anyone has experiences or thoughts, I'd love to hear about them and
other thoughts on the interesting questions raised above.
Over the last year, I have had to explain how social media works to
diplomats, defense officials, and academics and students focused on
fields as diverse as international affairs, management and sociology.
I have found that first-timer find social media confusing because of two reasons.
The first reason is the excessive focus on specific social media
tools. Many first-timers are introduced to social media via specific
tools. Many ’social media experts’ who are practitioners rather than
thinkers also focus on specific tools. Since social media encompasses
many different types of tools, and each tool has specific
characteristics and a steep learning curve, a toolkit approach can
quickly become overwhelming. Blogging (Wordpress), microblogging
(Twitter), video-sharing (YouTube), photo-sharing (Flickr), podcasting
(Blog Talk Radio), mapping (Google Maps), social networking (Facebook),
social voting (Digg), social bookmarking (Delicious), lifestreaming
(Friendfeed), wikis (Wikipedia), and virtual worlds (Second Life) are
all quite different from each other and new and hybrid tools are being
introduced almost everyday. Mastering each tool individually seems like
a lot of work and a lot of people give up even before they begin.
The second reason is a clear definition of what social media is,
even within the social media community. Different thinkers and
practitioners use different terms to describe similar tools and
practices. Terms like social media, digital media, new media, citizen
media, participatory media, peer-to-peer media, social web,
participatory web, peer-to-peer web, read write web, social computing,
social software, web 2.0, and even crowdsourcing and wikinomics can
mean similar or slightly different things depending upon who is using
it. Journalists, marketers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists,
software vendors and academics approach the space from their own
perspectives and have their own preferred terms. Used precisely, these
terms can mean very different things. However, very few people use
these terms precisely and almost nobody agrees on the exact definition
of these terms.
The 4Cs Social Media Framework
My own approach to social media is both
tool-agnostic and terminology-agnostic. So, I use the term social media
to encompass all the tools and all the practices that are described by
the terms I mentioned above.
Instead of getting distracted by the tools and the terminologies, I
focus on the four underlying themes in social media, the 4Cs of social
media: Content, Collaboration, Community and Collective Intelligence.
Taken together, these four themes constitute the value system of social
media. I believe that the tools are transient, the buzzwords will
change, but the value system embedded in these 4Cs is here to stay. So,
let’s look at these 4Cs in some detail.
The First C: Content
The first C, Content, refers to the idea that social media tools
allow everyone to become a creator, by making the publishing and
distribution of multimedia content both free and easy, even for
amateurs.
User generated content, and the hope of monetizing it through
advertising, is at the core of the business model of almost all social
media platforms. User generated content is also at the core of citizen
journalism, the notion that amateur users can perform journalist-like
functions (accidentally or otherwise) by reporting and commenting on
news. Citizen journalists have repeatedly emerged as critical in crisis
reporting and several citizen journalist platforms have emerged to
harness their potential to report hyper-local news.
However, just because everyone can become a creator doesn’t mean
that everyone does. Most users prefer to consume user generated
content, by reading blog, watching videos, or browsing through photos.
Some user curate user generated content, by tagging it on social
bookmarking websites, voting for it on social voting websites,
commenting on it, or linking to it. Researcher have found support for
the 1:9:90 rule in many different contexts. The 1:9:90 rule says that
90% of all users are consumers, 9% of all users are curators and only
1% of the users are creators.
The Second C: Collaboration
The second C, Collaboration, refers to the idea that social media
facilitates the aggregation of small individual actions into meaningful
collective results.
Collaboration can happen at three levels: conversation, co-creation and collective action.
As consumers and curators engage with compelling content, the
content becomes the center of conversations. Conversations create buzz,
which is how ideas tip, become viral. Many social media practitioners
who are from a marketing or public relations background are focused on
creating conversations.
However, some of us recognize that conversations are a mere stepping
stone for co-creation. In co-creation, the value lies as much in the
curated aggregate as in the individual contributions. Wikis are a
perfect example of co-creation. Open group blogs, photo pools, video
collages and similar projects are also good examples of co-creation.
Collective action goes one step further and uses online engagement
to initiate meaningful action. Collective action can take the form of
signing online petitions, fundraising, tele-calling, or organizing an
offline protest or event.
Even though conversations, co-creation and collective action are
different forms of collaboration, the difficulty in collaborating
increases dramatically as we move from conversations to co-creation to
collective action. The key is to start with a big task, break it down
into individual actions (modularity) that are really small
(granularity), and then put them together into a whole without losing
value (aggregating mechanism). It is also important to bridge online
conversations into mainstream media buzz and online engagement into
offline action.
The Third C: Community
The third C, Community, refers to the idea that social media
facilitates sustained collaboration around a shared idea, over time and
often across space.
The notion of a community is really tricky because every web page is
a latent community, waiting to be activated. A vibrant community has
size and strength, and is built around a meaningful social object.
Most people understand that a community that has a large number of
members (size) who have strong relationships and frequent interactions
with each other (strength) is better than a community which doesn’t.
However, a community is more than the sum total of its members and
their relationships.
People don’t build relationships with each other in a vacuum. A
vibrant community is built around a social object that is meaningful
for its members. The social object can be a person, a place, a thing or
an idea. The Netroots community is built around progressive politics in
America. The My Barack Obama community was built around Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The Obama Girl
community was built around a series of videos Amber Lee Ettinger made
to support Obama’s campaign. Sometimes, choosing the right social
object can be crucial for building a vibrant community. HP can choose
to build a community around printers, printing, or corporate careers,
all of which will have very different characteristics.
The Fourth C: Collective Intelligence
The fourth C, Collective Intelligence, refers to the idea that the
social web enables us to not only aggregate individual actions, but
also run sophisticated algorithms on them and extract meaning from them.
Collective intelligence can be based on both implicit and explicit
actions and often takes the form of reputation and recommendation
systems. Google extracts the pagerank, a measure of how important a
page is, from our (implicit) linking and clicking behavior. Amazon and
Netflix are able to offer us recommendations based on our (implicit)
browsing, (implicit) buying and (explicit) rating behavior and
comparing it to the behavior of other people like us. eBay and Amazon
assign ratings to sellers and reviewers respectively, based on whether
other members in the community had a good experience with them. On the
day of the 2008 US elections, the Obama campaign was able to assign
trimmed down telecalling lists to volunteers by ticking off the names
of the people who had already voted.
The great thing about collective intelligence is that it becomes
easier to extract meaning from a community as the size and strength of
the community grow. If the collective intelligence is then shared back
with the community, the members find more value in the community, and
the community grows even more, leading to a virtuous cycle.
The4Cs Social Media Framework in Summary
So, the 4Cs form a hierarchy of what is possible with social media.
As we move from Content to Collaboration to Community to Collective
Intelligence, it becomes increasingly difficult to both observe these
layers and activate them. Also each layer is often, but not always, a
pre-requisite for the next layer. Compelling content is a pre-requisite
for meaningful collaboration, which is a pre-requisite for a vibrant
community, which, in turn, is a pre-requisite for collective
intelligence.
Although I designed the 4Cs framework to explain how I see social
media, I have also found it to be a useful tools to evaluate specific
social media initiatives. The best social media initiatives leverage
all these four layers, but I have seen that most initiatives get stuck
between the Collaboration and Community layers. Examples of social
media initiatives that leverage the Community or Collective
Intelligence layers are few and far between. It’s important to note,
however, that each layer is valuable in itself, and it’s OK to design
an initiative to only exploit the Content or Collaboration layers.
The 4Cs Social Media Framework Applied to Digital Activism
Let me explain what I just said my applying the 4Cs framework to digital activism initiatives.
Many digital activism initiatives like Social Documentary and Witness
primarily focus on using social media tools to create and share
compelling multimedia Content. Some of this Content generates
Conversations and becomes viral and some of it might even lead to
Collective Action. However, the focus is on Content.
Other initiatives, like Vote Report India or the Pink Chaddi Campaign, start off with a strong focus on Collaboration around a specific event. In its first iteration, Vote Report India leveraged Co-creation by creating a platform for collectively tracking irregularities in the 2009 Indian elections. The Pink Chaddi Campaign leveraged Collective Action
by asking its supporters to send pink panties to the Sri Ram Sena as
Valentine’s Day gifts. As these campaigns become successful, they try
to move to the next Community level, but don’t always succeed in
building a long-term community.
Very few digital activism initiatives are able to leverage the
Community or Collective Intelligence layers. The Netroots community in
the US, especially Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and MoveOn.org, have been able to build a strong Community around progressive politics in the US. My Barack Obama leverage some aspects of Collective Intelligence during the 2008 presidential campaign.
What About You?
If you are a social media practitioner or a digital activist focused
on the Content and Collaboration layers, I would urge you to think
about how you can move to the Community layer. If you already run a
vibrant community, I would urge you to think about introducing
reputation and recommendation systems in it and leverage the Collective
Intelligence layer.
If you are designing a new social media initiative, I would urge you
to use the 4Cs Framework in the design and strategy phase itself.
Perhaps, in phase one, you would want to start with a campaign built
around Content and focused on Collaboration, with elements of
co-creation and/ or collective action. You would do well to plan for a
phase two which is focused on Community, with a dash of Collective
Intelligence built in. The question you want to ask yourself, then, is:
how can I design a Collaboration based campaign so that it can be used
to build a long-term Community?
If you are a journalist, analyst or academic in the business of
understanding social media initiatives, you’ll find the 4Cs Framework
really useful. What are the boundary conditions needed to succeed at
each layer? What are the boundary conditions needed to move from
Content to Collaboration, from Collaboration to Community, and from
Community to Collective Intelligence? Can you think of other digital
activism or social media initiatives that leverage the Community or
Collective Intelligence layers?
Do share your thoughts.
Gaurav Mishra is the CEO of social media research & strategy company 20:20 WebTech (http://2020webtech.com) and co-founder of election monitoring platform Vote Report India (http://votereport.in).
This morning I participated in one of the Chronicle's Live Chat Discussions that was billed as "How Can Charities Figure out How Much Time and Money To Invest in Social Media." The transcript is here.
I logged in 30 minutes before the discussion began and there were already a dozen questions that required some thought in answering. I can type and think fast, but the discussion still ran over an hour. At times I was sorely missing the ability to ping someone in my network to answer the question. I love the Chronicle live discussions, but would love to see a design that integrates a networked approach versus Expert Q/A.
Despite consuming a lot of coffee, I wasn't able to answer all the questions. So, here's an analysis of the questions by topic. I've given a twitter like response and a few links in each section. These questions could generate at least two months were of blog posts! As you can see, there is a wide range - from those related to the topic of effective social media use as well as those more about tools and tactics.
Metrics, ROI
Are there any benchmarks as a result of social network giving?
How can we measure ROI on social networking sites?
Yes you can! In the early phases, you'll be looking to reap insights about to improve your strategy. Remember, goals drive metrics and metrics drive results. Results are the way you can determine if something provided value.
We read a lot of social media success stories and metrics from the corporate world, as well as from large and/or grassroots-oriented political nonprofits. How can we apply these stories to smaller nonprofits, or those that do not involve grassroots advocacy or widespread volunteer opportunities? How can we adjust their metrics of success to compare to our own?
Find other similar organizations and set up your own benchmarks. Make sure that you set realistic and tangible goals give your capacity to implement and audience. Recently, Case Foundation released a reflection paper on the America's Giving Challenge (I co-wrote it with Allison Fine) and many of the winners were smaller organizations.
What are the donation conversion rates for fans and followers acquired via social networking? Where can I find metrics to validate an increased investment in platforms like Facebook and Twitter?
I wish I had that information too. I don't think we're there yet, butKD Paine has just launched a benchmarking service which should get us closer.
Do we measure successes on each social network separateley? Do we count by followers/friends or by reposts or interactions?
If your goal is relationships, there are special formulas to measure relationships and engagement. See this post and be sure to read KD Paine's comment.
One of our goals for using Facebook/Twitter is to inform our members and the general public. How do we track an ROI for this type of goal? Or can we?
We dove head-first into the web 2.0 world and are now at the point of
measuring results and progress. We are considering focus groups as a
means of gathering constituent preferences and qualitative data to
figure out if these new channels are where we need to be focusing our
efforts. Especially as print publications are under more financial and
budgetary scrutiny. Do you have any insight into focus groups and how
best to utilize them for measuring alternative communication vehicles
like the social media sphere?
Should an organization require that its employees create individual
facebook (or like social media) pages as a way of spreading information
about the organization. It it blurring the lines between work and home.
I have read about asking volunteers to talk up the organization on
their sites, but we are conflicted about having paid staff do it.
How do organizations encourage staff (all staff, not just communications or development staff) to use these social networking tools? And if these program staff are using social networking tools for outreach, what are the costs and benefits? For instance, one perceived cost is the increased amount of time staff spend on facebook doing non-work related things. How do you measure the overall benefit of social networking tools?
Your blog this morning featured an article on the Red Cross and had
a link to their social media handbook. Do you have any other examples
that might be good for a company to reference in order to develop their
own policy?
Do you know of any examples of social media policies that work well around an organization's use of facebook, twitter, etc.?
As a follow up to the staff policy question, do you feel that organizations are more willing to engage in social media if management feels the policies in place for staff will prevent them from public negative comments? Feel free to address that all in one question if you want. Thanks!
My question relates to liability issues and the posting of private
content or inflammatory material on a social networking site. Is the
institution that sponsors the page responsible for the content of the
posts?
I'm not a lawyer. Can't answer. Anyone want to take a crack at this?
Adoption
Are there any real life success stories where younger early adopters(geeks)connected with and taught older generation of non-techies?
Have a great story here. Some tips here. A book to read here.
Do you find that having good online policies for staff helps curve
negative feedback about your org, since employees should abide by
company policies, or do you feel it's a similar issue as with the
public?
YES! But don't take it from me, ask Wendy Harman from the Red Cross.
Capacity: Work Flow, Staffing
What is the best place to incorporate social networking into staffing positions in schools and youth organizations?
First, how do groups devote paid staff time to social networking tools, either through one paid staff person or spread out among different staff?
When considering creating a position within your organization for a person to manage your social media info, where might a person be able to obtain a sample job description?
We are increasing our social media presence by involving multiple members of our team. Each has their own voice/style. We want people to participate in a way that is authentic for them but also furthers our brand. And we definitely don't want to sound fake. Any thoughts on how to best do this?
One of the toughest things about social networking media is the number of services out there. Facebook and Twitter are the big deal now, but given how quickly things change in technology, how many outlets should we, as a university, truly have? We have students, prospective students, donors, alumni, faculty, administrators and other groups to consider. What's the best solution? Is there a best solution?
A couple of points here. If you have limited time and resources, don't have a presence everywhere. Be very selective. Engage deeply in a few places where your audience is and relates to your goals. See Tweeting 9 to 5 to get a sense of the job tasks in a social media job description. To find job descriptions, search for them on LinkedIn or other employement sites like Monster or the job listings that Jeremiah Owyang posts. BTW, there are many social media mavens from nonprofits on Twitter - let's ask them to share their job descriptions.Here's some advice about managing multiple twitter accounts.Some food for thought from Shannon Paul about social media job descriptions.
Strategy: Engagement/Relationships
Do we need to interact with followers/friends every day? Is that expected?
Yes, deep engagement requires daily feeding and tuning of your network. It doesn't mean that you engage with single supporter every day in great depth - but you need to cultivating and building relationships. It's open-ended work, so to make it less overwhelming - time box it.
I feel like it is better to let our social networks grow organically, rather than do a big "get us to 2,000 Twitter followers today" kind of campaign. I tend to see this as a quality over quantity issue. Do you think that is accurate? Does social media only work when you have a significant mass?
I agree. Quality over quantity. And, I also agree that it isn't about campaign, a flip that switch on or off. It's going relationship building.
Are social media connections becoming something that donors and advocates expect from a non-profit or are they still a nice frill, but not necessary in the same way that having a website has become necessary to appear credible? Has there been any research on this yet? Is there a risk that too much social media presence can turn donors or advocates off?
This is a great question and an area for more research.
We are a little different from a direct service nonprofit. We are made up of funds established by donors. Those funds distribute money to the nonprofit community. Our current campaign is to encourage donors to think about the future of their favorite charities and create a bequest through their will that will ensure those charities receive revenue in perpetuity. Do you think there is any room for this kind of message on Facebook?
Don't ask me. Test it out on Facebook. Although, I sort of skeptical that such a delicate conversation is appropriate to conduct on a social network. You may need to have this conversation face-to-face or in a private area.
I work in development for a university trying to specifically increase black alumni donors by engaging our black alumni mainly through facebook. The desire is to have major gifts (for programs) that would benefit black students versus just having donors give for scholarships?
Do some listening first and see what your stakeholders have to say.
What type of relationship building is needed to create long lasting relationships with donors via social networks?
One of the challenges of being part of a membership organization like YMCA's, which share the same mission but operate independently, is that using searches and keywords to listen to our communities in external sites doesn't necessarily yield accurate results. We are often known as "The Y" or "my YMCA", for example, and not the "Lake View YMCA" or "Buehler YMCA". So as we evaluate engaging in social networking, I don't have any good ideas on how to measure our success on sites we do not control (ie Twitter vs. Facebook groups). What advice do you have to streamline our listening strategy and tying it to measured our success so we are wisely investing our staff time in effective social networking, based on data for our Association and not as a tiny percent of the 2,800+ YMCA's across the country?
I answered this question first and in greater depth in the transcript. I hope it helped Judith! Ask this question of Alistair Croll or Amber Nashlund on Twitter. They're listening geeks.
Strategy: Audience Identification
Our organization that deals with both young people and older, well connected investors; however, we are concerned that these investors aren't necessarily interested in social networking programs such as Facebook and Twitter and that it would not be a good way to dedicate our time. Our facebook pages are mostly targeted at youth for the moment. How would we transform that page to reach out to an older, more sophisticated audience with different needs. As always, we're looking for financial support here... we're a fresh start-up in Seattle.
Here's a link that will take you a lot of freely available information on the demographics of social networks.
Getting Started
For an organization who is new to the idea of social networking where is the best place to start?
The small organization I work with is just venturing into the social marketing world. I would be interested to hear suggestions on how we evaluate the success of our efforts and any tips learned already on what to do and not do when using the online systems. Also, what realistically should we expect from our use of these systems? Thank you.
As part of an organization that is starting to venture into social media, what are some hurdles we need to watch out for?
How would you recommend we get started on Facebook?
Before we have any data how do we get started or if we are to guess where do we start? Facebook? Facebook and twitter? Others?
How can a small school,with little to no public relations budget, best utilize social networks? Also, how can we use Facebook to get in touch with Alumni with out seeming like a stalker?
I'm finding that nonprofit clients are nervous about diving into social media tools because they don't have the manpower to manage them. What is your advice on starting small? Should they start with a blog to create a voice for themself, make sure staff is on LinkedIn and updates it regularly, or create and mantain a facebook group?
1.) Listen before you talk
2.) Allocate enough time
3.) Set measurable objectives and how you'll track your success
4.) Be prepared to experiment and learn and adapt
5.) Quality over quantity - don't spread yourself too thin
6.) Read about what other nonprofits are doing in social media and what
they are learning - there are terrific nonprofit social media bloggers
out there - recently I hosted a guest bloggers program - over 40 - all
really smart and savvy
Case Studies
At my organization, we're discussing the benefits of expanding our website capability/content v. delving into offsite social media such as Facebook. How have you seen member organizations/affinity groups use social media technology most successfully?
Our non-profit is just starting to use a few social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, East Villagers, etc.). What successes can you point to in stimulating the growth or awareness around an organization or cause?
Can you provide some concrete examples or case studies of non-profits that have significantly improved their visibility as a result of online social networking?
I understand fully that social media is about engagement and relationship building. However, are there case studies about NPO's who have converted or leveraged relationships into tangible support?
Tons of case studies at WeAreMedia Wiki. Also, check out the case studies from various panels that I've moderated == many success stories. You'll find them here. I also pointed to a bunch of examples in the transcript.
Next Big Thing
It seems like we are always looking for the next big thing when it comes to social networking tools. Twitter is hot now, but what do you foresee being the "next big thing".
Is twitter just a passing fad? Is it worth investing time in expolring this avenue of communications?
The wisdom now seems to be that Facebook Causes are out, Facebook Fan Pages are in for nonprofits, because of the flexibility of the latter. What are best practices to move people from Causes to Fan Page or have the two interact for future fundraising?
With so many social networking sites like facebook, etc...many of whom are recently considered "past their prime", which social media sites are best for small non-profits looking to communicate with its participants?
My question is--beyond purchasing ads (which we've done)--do you you have any suggestions about how to interact in a way that will increase the likelihood we'll go viral? In other words, how can we use FB, Twitter, and YouTube to get outside of our bubble? What makes postings, pages, videos, etc...more likely to get spread virally, perhaps as part of the same campaign?
We are considering using Facebook to reach a wider audience. Two concern brought up during a recent meeting: 1-how to handle the potential for negative commentary by fans/friends; and 2- possibly embarrassing situation if we create a FB presence and show few fans/friends for a while. Do you have suggestions on ways to handle these two issues?
Here's some tips for FaceBook Fan Pages. Lots more here.
Several employees are using a personal/business Twitter account to
engage with supporters in a more authentic way. Do you have any
recommendations for how we can aggregate employee "connections" with
our stream to glean a more holistic view of our "results"?
That's why god created hashtags!
Can you offer suggestions re: how to best use social media to enhance fundraising events?
Is the stigma of having fans or cause supporters with 'questionable' Facebook profiles true? Does it make the organization look too lax or less professional? We are a workforce development organization, and my superiors think it could be misconstrued.
Talking about time, is there an application which would post an update on all main Social Networking Sites at once? I know of some but they would pick my Facebook personal profile instead of the Organization's Page I am admin of.
How often should an organization post to Twitter or send out updates on Facebook? Is there a fine line between sending too much that's irrelevant vs. useful information?
I would like us to get our organization on twitter, but i'm afraid that if i only "tweet" about fundraising events, people will tire of it quickly--any thoughts on this? other content i might want to tweet about?
What are some best practices on Facebook to generate followers and turn them into donors? Also everyone says that Twitter wont' raise any money. Is that true?
What is the best process through social media of finding new organizations/individuals interested or working in your arena of social issues and connecting with them? I usually do simple Twitter searches and @replies, comment on blogs, but are there better ways or a general hierarchy of effective strategies?
I just begun a new job and part of my responsibilities are social networks. In the past, the Facebook site, (a group not a page) has been run by lay leaders. What is the most effective way to make the switch to a page and get people to join us there instead?
We have blogs and forums on our site, but have a hard time getting people to comment or post anything in them. Although our members will comment and post on our Facebook and Twitter... how do we get them to jump from those sites, onto our site and start discussing there?
What tips or suggestions can you offer for partnering with FaceBook or LinkedIn to leverage their brand as a communication platform for alums, and the private companies policies for not sharing alumni data with the higher ed institution?
I'm crowd sourcing this last group of questions -- answer in the comments - thanks!
On June 25, 2009, I announced on my blog that I was five days away from a cross-country move and knew it would disrupt my routine, including my blogging routine. I didn't want the stress of writing posts or the stress of having a blog go dark and disappoint loyal readers. The solution? I turned to my colleagues and solicited guest blog posts.
I haven't taken this long of a break from blogging since I started in 2004. I've even lived blogged my vacations. For example, my encounter with an alligator on from an airboat on the St. John's River that I live streamed with my N95.
My goals for the guest blogging program were modest:
To keep my sanity during the move
To keep a consistent publishing schedule for readers
To hold steady with RSS subscribers and visitors
Many folks have asked how I implemented the program so let me share how I did it. I could have created guest author accounts, but I could not figure out a way where I could approve a post in draft and have it also include photos. So, here's what I did:
I used a google spreadsheet and form with fields for bio, headshot, post illustration url, and the url for a post. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and recruited pieces that were already published.
I went through my rolodex and invited people to submit their best post related to the theme of my blog - how nonprofits use social media effectively. In some cases, I asked for specific posts.
The google spreadsheet allowed me to easily grab the text and code for the original post, include a bio and photo, etc. It was also set up in a way that I could get help from someone else.
After about a week, I got requests from other people who wanted to participate who I had not asked. Not for any particular reason except that I was packing while I was doing this and probably just got distracted.
If I had more bandwidth and if I had more ambitious goals, I would have set up unique tracking URLs in bit.ly and tweeted these myself as well as ask the author to retweet with the unique URL. (See Allistair Croll's guest post on some tracking techniques). But, this conflicted with goal 1 - keeping my sanity during the move.
I used PostRank to evaluate the engagement of posts. The highest ranked posts (scoring higher than 7 out of 10) included:
Michael Hoffman, Guest Post: Viral Video for Nonprofits - A Rethinking
Katya Andresen, Guest Post: How to convince your skeptical boss social media has merit
Alexandra Rampy, Guest Post: The Cool Factor About Mobile
Frank Barry, Guest Post: Frank Barry, Guest Post: 4 Facebook Tips for Nonprofit Success – See What Others are Doing
Alistair Croll, Guest Post: Using Twitter for Fundraising - Lessons Learned from Beers for Canada
Beth Kanter, Red Cross Social Media Strategy/Policy Handbook
Brian Reich, Guest Post: The Challenge of Communicating In A Connected Society (and what that means to Facebook Causes)
Engagement on PostRank is calculated with a number of metrics including commenting, clicks, sharing on google reader, retweeting, and saving on social bookmarking services. The top ranked content was on strategy including metrics, adoption, and overall strategy. Facebook and video are also topics of interest to my audience.
Some guest authors did a great job of activating their networks and retweeting their guest posts - which, in turn, raised their postrank score. Also, guest bloggers did a great job monitoring and tracking the comments in the post and responding to comments. If I had more bandwidth, I would have done my usual ramble rousing in the comments but was only able to do it on a sproadic basis.
The feedback I've gotten from readers about the guest blogging program has been overwhelming positive! I'm taking it as a compliment. The best comment I got was from a long-time reader John Powers on Facebook that reading the posts was like watching me open presents at a birthday party.
During the guest blogging period, I did have a slight increase of unsubscriptions by email. I have a process where I do an "exit interview." I'm happy to report that no one said they unsubscribed because they didn't like the guest posts. A few unsubscribed via email because of the slightly increased volume, but said they were catching the blog in a reader.
One reader shared with me that he was looking for work and has a strong database / business intelligence / fund raising / CRM background and asked if I would share his LinkedIn profile.
I looked at the number of RSS subscribers from before the program started and afterwards - and there was a net gain 300 subscribers (see the green line). So, I surpased my "hold steady goal." The unique visitor patterns - the dips and peaks are typical for my blog, with drops happening when there isn't a post published or a holiday. (see July 4th nose dive).
I have no way to measure the guest blogging impact on other people's blogs accept by self-reporting. Peter Campbell mentioned he had bump in traffic - so glad that it was worked both ways.
So, if you submitted a guest post or you're a reader, what's your impression? What could I have done better with the guest blogging program? How could I have done a better job of measuring its success?
And, I'm going to continue the guest blogging program and do it based on theme. I'm looking for a few good posts on Social Media, ROI, and Nonprofits. Have a post? Fill out the guest blogging form and I might just publish it.
That was my favorite line from the panel I moderated at SXSW last March called the "Nonprofit Social Media Poetry Slam" (notes here). KD Paine, the Queen of Social Media Measurement, said it. KD Paine was also kind enough to send me my newest sticker - "Yes We Can! Measure Social Media." (She recently announced a new fee-based service called the Social Media Nonprofit Measurement and BenchmarkingReport)
Last night, I stumbled upon a #blogchat on Twitter about How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media hosted by Mack Collier with special guest Wendy Harman, Social Media Strategist at the Red Cross. Here's the transcript. KDPaine was there along with a bunch of other smart people. Some of my favorite tweets:
What are the biggest hurdles in effective social media use by nonprofits?
i think the key is to listen and learn - find your niche. Look for people who care about issues you care about #blogchat i think the key is to listen and learn - find your niche. Look for people who care about issues you care about
2nd biggest hurdle is not giving in to the tendency to make your presence all about marketing instead of offering mission online
How do you address resistence?
Look for the unique value your org provides and share that value, help others. Focus on benefits and dispelling fears. First step was showing them the existing conversation, which both educates about benefits and dispels fears at same time.
How does the American Red Cross judge the effectiveness of its social media efforts?
our goal is to help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies using socmed tools, so look for anecdotes, engagement, some more traditional number crunching (like evaluating FB insights). As np we should concentrate on executing our mission. If offering unique value, others will support.
@kdpaine adds: give me enough data + I bet I could show "mission accomplished" fewer lives/homes/property lost :)
Do you engage your supporters around specific fundraising goals?
I'm not personally huge on fundraising outright - I think an np shouldempower supporters to fundraise for it. Build engagement first. Use keywords to find people who care about issues ur org cares abt. Offer value, talk 2 them, you'll build community. Content and to invite people in rather than yapping at em and asking for $$. Offering value keeps people around more than begging
@kdpaine: Isn't the role of comms to fulfill mission, $$ raised is development, no?
@sarahmarchetti: @kdpaine slightly diff perspective since I was Development Comm, but I think that the whole org is responsible for FR in some way
@kdpaine: I agree, but many non-profits have pretty firm silos keeping the two apart.
What has been your greatest challenge/success with the social media organizational use handbook? with your chapters and volunteers? http://bit.ly/HGkno
greatest success? it's pretty field-generated. They helped write it, they asked for it, so it reflects their needs.
greatest challenge? Getting some important groups to hop on board
Can you imagine at time in the future when your board will govern the organization using social media?
Yes, but there is a lot of work on my part before that will happen
This morning Charlene Li released a report looking at social media engagement. What they found in a nutshell: Deep brand engagement with social media correlates with financial performance.
But even more interesting is that we also looked at the financial performance of the brands, grouping the companies with the greatest depth and breadth into a group called “Social Media Mavens”. These Mavens on average grew 18% in revenues over the last 12 months, compared to the least engaged companies who on average saw a decline of 6% in revenue during the same period. The same holds true for two other financial metrics, gross margin and net profit.
Note that we are not claiming a causal relationship — but there is clearly a correlation and connection. For example, a company mindset that allows a company to be broadly engage with customers on the whole probably performs better because the company is more focused on companies than the competition.
The report also looks at the Best Practices for engagement which include:
Emphasize quality, not just quantity. Engagement is more than just setting up a blog and letting viewers post comments; it’s more than just having a Facebook profile and having others write on your wall. It’s also about keeping your blog content fresh and replying to comments; it’s building your friends network and updating your profile status. Don’t just check the box; engage with your customer audience.
To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. The best practice interviews have a common theme — social media is no longer the responsibility of a few people in the organization. Instead, it’s important for everyone across the organization to engage with customers in the channels that make sense — a few minutes each day spent by every employee adds up to a wealth of customer touch points.
Doing it all may not be for you — but you must do something. The optimal social media marketing strategy will depend on a variety of factors, including your industry. If your most valuable customers do not depend on or trust social media as a communication medium, or if your organization is resistant to engagement in some channels, you will have to start smaller and slower. But start you must, or risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.
Find your sweet spot. Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest. Thus, choose carefully and advocate strongly to acquire the resources and support you will need to succeed. If you are resource-constrained, it is better to be consistent and participate in fewer channels than to spread yourself too thin.
I particularly like the point 3. And to bring it back to poetry, here's a couplet:
Social media may not be for you, but start you must or you may get left in the dust.
And, I forgot to mention that I'm doing a chat for the Chronicle of Philanthropy on Social Media ROI Tuesday, July 21st at Noon EST/9 AM PST. Here's the information.
Last week I dropped in on the weekly NTEN Water Cooler chat hosted by Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer of SocialFish.
A few people in the chat were saying, “I tried Friendfeed. I didn’t get
it,” while a few others were committed fans. I really don’t think
Friendfeed is any different than Twitter in the sense that it is
difficult to see the value until you have the right amount and type of
followers and are following the right amount and type of people.
To
get the most out of Friendfeed you do have to put more into it than
just feeding your stuff in and reading others' stuff. Like the
blogosphere, it helps enormously if you actually comment on items.
I have been a huge fan of Friendfeed pretty much from the moment I joined and, as Robert Scoble often writes when posting a thought to Friendfeed, “here’s why”:
A pleasant, intelligent, helpful community
Many
community members are avid users of and students of social media – for
some it is an integral part of their profession, so this is a great
place to learn about social media
An incredible listening tool.
If you’ve created a listening strategy, whether it’s a vanity search on
yourself or your org, or topics that you monitor, you can bring ALL of
your listening into ONE place (see my slideshow for more tips on this).
Extremely
easy to build lists to separate out the types of people you follow.
This is very useful if you follow more than about 100 people
(especially if they are quite active online).
Real time. Every aspect of Friendfeed is realtime, including the powerful search.
Works
great for real time chat. As long as everyone participating has an
account (and it only takes about 30 seconds to set up an account),
Friendfeed is a great place for a lively real time chat. It’s free, ad
free, and typically spammer free (unlike Meebo Chat where someone
usually wanders in and suggests we check out some hot chicks). Here’s
how it works: the moderator starts a post. Users comment (often in
relation to what is being said on a livestreaming audio event, or in
reply to a question) and the comments show up in realtime, no refresh
required, no relying on pesky Twitter search. For convenience, users
can click on the timestamp of the post, then click on it again, and a
smaller window opens on the side of their browser, with the comment
field located at the bottom of the conversation. Another cool thing
about this is that the chat remains archived for posterity.
Real time. Did I mention real time? (Just kidding, and these are only seven of about 20 reasons I love Friendfeed).
I
know that there are many different venues where great conversations
about nonprofits using social media take place. One of those venues is
Twitter. Synchronous events there include the monthly #4change conversations. On NetSquared, nonprofit tech folks are invited to blog about one question each month in the Net2 Think Tank, and Amy Sample Ward summarizes these at the end of the month. NTEN holds numerous Office Hour chats, including the Water Cooler one.
There has been an nptech room on Friendfeed for quite some time. It has been through various different experiments and stages of piping feeds in automatically;
waiting for people to post natively, and now has settled to a
combination. If you post something to Twitter and add these two
hashtags, #ff and #nptech, it will show up in the nptech room on
Friendfeed. The room is becoming a nice repository of resources.
Beth,
Joe Solomon, Jonathan Colman, and myself are all admins in that room.
We’ve been pondering how to get more engagement there. We don’t want to
take away from other venues, nor, necessarily, add one more thing to
your already full “to do” list. But we’d love to have you drop by the
water cooler and add to the conversation. Resurrect this older thread
and introduce yourself. Or, contribute to the topic of the month below.
Laura Norvig manages the lending library, website taxonomy, and
social media presence for the Resouce Center of the Corporation for
National and Community Service.
We all know that having goals
are key to success. Without goals you have no idea if your efforts are
producing the desired result, no way to know if changes are needed, no
way to make the right adjustments and no way to know when to throw a
party!
Here are a few to get you started:
Build awareness
Generate buzz
Keep people informed
Educate general public, local leaders, supporters, donors and volunteers
Reach new supporters, donors and volunteers
Build loyalty
Provide more ways to engage or support
Raise more money
Tell and show donors how funds are used
Demonstrate progress and success of active projects
Before you get going you should think about a few things. You might
even consider creating an internal team (small one) that can think
through as much as possible up front. Answers to the below questions
(and others) will help you solidify your goals overall strategy and the
tactics you will use along the way.
What do you really want to accomplish?
Are your supporters, donors, volunteers online?
Are you ready to handle negativity?
Who will own the work internally?
How will you incorporate this into people’s daily jobs?
Can you hire or make it one person’s sole responsibility?
Do you have funds and time to invest in figuring it out?
How long are you willing to wait until you see results?
What’s your willingness to experiment, take risks, and adjust your plans?
What’s strategy you ask? A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.
For each of the goals above there can be many strategies that will help
you achieve them. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Build awareness and generate buzz
– Write posts that let people into the process you go through to get
everything ready for the new event or initiative gives benefits to the
early birds. Make it easy for people to share.
Educate general public, local leaders, supporters, donors and volunteers – Continuously write about what your nonprofit is doing, how it’s making an impact and how people can help.
Reach new supporters, donors and volunteers
– Push out quality content without fail and participate in social
channels. Use social tools to make it easy to find and learn about you.
Build loyalty – Spend time every month writing about and highlighting your donors.
Provide ways for people to engage and/or support
– Write content that guides people to your other web properties such as
a volunteer position sign up form, an even registration page, a forum
or your online giving form.
Raise more money – Write posts that
will guide and encourage people to give. Make it easy for people to
give online and offline while also showing people how you are using
their money.
Tell and show donors how funds are used – Post a monthly digest about current projects, successes, progress and new initiatives.
Demonstrate progress and success of projects – Publish posts that are specifically about the projects you have going on.
Organic Keyword Marketing (SEO/SEM)
– Ensure you are writing content weekly that will help you rank high
for keywords/phrases that mean something to you and to people
interested in what you do.
Educate general public, local leaders, supporters, donors and volunteers
– Create a weekly “spotlight” series that is written in such a way that
people leave understanding more about the work you do. Make sure to
categorize them together.
Reach new supporters, donors and volunteers – Respond to EVERY comment you get on your blog without fail. Set up “outposts” (hat tip Louis Gray)
on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Spend an hour a day
participating, talking, sharing, linking and engaging with others.
Check out Outposts by Chris Brogan as well.
Build loyalty
–Write a monthly “highlight” piece on volunteer work being done. Make
sure to identify specific people and show your appreciation
continually. The posts need to be about the work they are doing. Use
images of the people and if those you are spotlighting have a web
presence make sure to link generously.
Provide ways for people to engage and/or support
– As often as you have new projects, initiatives, activities or events
post about them. Make sure you tell people what you need and how they
can help in ever post.
Raise more money – Use a tool that
makes it simple for people to give online. Make sure it’s in a place
that everyone can see no matter where they are on your site. It’s back
to call to action 101.
Tell and show donors how funds are used
– Categorize and tag your posts by project name and type of work.
Incorporate these updates into a monthly newsletter that you send to
opt-in subscribers (Yes, your blog should also have an eNewsletter).
Demonstrate progress and success of projects – Use video. Post it on YouTube and use their nonprofit call to action. Then embed the YouTube video on your blog. Do this as often as possible. Video is a great way to show people what’s happening.
Organic Keyword Marketing (SEO/SEM)
– Determine what key words are important to you and spend time looking
at what other nonprofits in your niche are optimizing for.
Frank is a Consulting Manager at Blackbaud Internet Solutions. At work he helps nonprofits with technology, social media & online strategy. He also spends some time speaking at industry conferences. The rest of the time he enjoys family, learning, sports, food, friends & movies.
I was delighted to receive a text message the other day from David Neff letting me know that the American Marketing Association (AMA) and the American Marketing Association Foundation (AMAF) selected him for special recognition for social media. Eric Overman, Operation Smile, received the Nonprofit Marketer of the Year Award, and Anne Bergquist, YMCA of Metro Chicago received the Special Marketing Initiatives and subcategory award.
David J. Neff is the Director of Web, Film and Interactive Strategy for the American Cancer Society's High Plains division (www.cancer.org) and is also the Executive Director of Lights. Camera. Help (www.lightscamerahelp.com).
In his capacity at the American Cancer Society, David directs all Web and interactive strategies and online properties for six states in addition to managing the division's eRevenue strategy, social networking/media strategy, and online community strategy. As the executive director of Lights. Camera. Help, he is working to start the world's first nonprofit-focused film festival.
David is a two-time recipient of a Futuring and Innovations grant, which he used to create C-Tools and SharingHope.TV (www.sharinghope.tv). C-Tools was the first PDA software tool for the prevention of cancer developed by the American Cancer Society, and SharingHope.TV is the nonprofit world's first totally user-generated content Web site. In 2009, the Austin American Statesman recognized David as one of the top 25 Social Media People in the state of Texas.
David earned his BS in Public Relations from the University of Texas with a minor in Business from the McCombs School of Business. He currently lives in Austin, TX.
I don't know about you, but I am a big fan of open standards,
particularly when my bladder Direct Messages me with the hashtag
#urgent. Open standards (see picture above) guide me to a place where I
can @reply in a hurry.
In the non-profit technology community, open standards of a different
variety could help us all become more effective at what we urgently
need to do: raise money, recruit and coordinate volunteers, promote
events, create profiles on social networks, generate reports for
grant-makers, and the list goes on.
In response to a comment from David Wolff, I wrote:
"When a sector comes together to create a standard, anything from the
diameter of a bottle cap to protocols for mobile devices, businesses
and consumers in the sector benefit. Businesses reduce their costs
because manufacturers don't have to build custom factories / product
lines each time they sign a contract. Consumers also benefit. Anyone
who has fastened a Pepsi cap onto a Coco-Cola bottle and then ridden
their bike home knows what I'm talking about ... Sometimes
collaborating in one area raises the bar of competition in another.
Chris Messina recently made this point at the NetSquared conference as
it relates to open standards for managing one's identity online, '...
[Social networks] should compete on the quality of the service that
they're providing, as opposed to just their lock in.' Have a look at
this interview, Building a Ubiquitous Social Network - Interview With Chris Messina for more information."
Jo Davidson then replied:
"I agree with you Peter, a single universal standard would be the best
way to work collaboration into competition, setting everyone up on a
level playing field to bloom and grow."
I replied to Jo:
"The beauty of widespread adoption of universal standards in the social
sector is that they could be used to both compete better _and_
collaborate better, depending on one's personal preference. I envision
the adoption of open standards for nonprofits and philanthropy leading
to dramatic and meaningful collaborations that can form on the fly.
Rather than bringing the boards of multiple organizations together to
have conversations about sharing data and knowledge, the data would
already be exposed and already be interchangeable. The collaboration
question becomes when and how, instead of if. Coming up with the
standard, to ensure that it reflects as much nuances in the form of the
data and knowledge is difficult. But the process absolutely can and
should be done, across the social sector and in business as well. ...
Open data is a powerful force that can drive both collaboration and
innovation. But a collaborative and innovative mindset is critical to
ensuring that the open data that emerges is rich and reflects the best
interests of everyone involved."
Where to go from here
The nonprofit technology community is filled with many bright minds and
innovative thinkers. For better or worse, this passion often gets
channeled toward one-off projects that benefit a single organization or
a coalition of organizations.
I would like to see the brightest minds and most innovative thinkers in
the social sector come together to create open standards that lift all
organizations making use of the social web. The open standards that I'd
like to see developed and adopted would help social benefit
organizations seamlessly publish rich information about their donation
opportunities in a structured format, helping major grant-makers and
citizen philanthropists make smarter choices about their giving. I'd
also like to see open standards developed and adopted that help
organizations publish rich information about their volunteer
opportunities and the events they are hosting, helping individuals
connect with service opportunities and events effortlessly. Finally,
I'd like to see open standards developed and adopted that help
nonprofits fill out their social media profile once and have it
syndicated everywhere and anywhere on the fly.
From a technological perspective, these are modest goals. Where they
become difficult to achieve is at the level of organizational culture,
grant-making priorities, and leadership. I understand fully that this
conversation has been launched on many occasions over the years. I'm
hoping that in 2009, we can overcome cultural, funding, and leadership
barriers to create a non-profit sector that charts its own course
toward open standards, open data and collaborative innovation.
If you are interested in participating in the open standards and open
data conversation, please leave a comment on this blog post.
The next time your nonprofit's stakeholders collectively Direct Message
you with the hashtag #urgent, you'll be able to @reply with a simple
message: Open standards and open data are helping you respond quickly
and effectively.
Peter is a blogger, social media consultant, and the founder of Social Actions -- a website that helps people find and share opportunities to make a difference.
Without fail, we get a call at See3 every week asking us to produce a “viral” video. “You know”, they say, “a video that will get a lot of views when we put it on YouTube.”
And every week, without fail, there is a sigh and a deep breath among the staff at See3 as we explain that maybe a viral video isn’t what you really need. Maybe, we say, what you really need is a video strategy.
The Siren Song of Viral
Nonprofit organizations work very hard to get their messages in front of new audiences. They work to get people to join their emails lists, to show up to events and to eventually become donors. Unlike other marketing efforts that take the actual hard work of building relationships, viral video seems like a short-cut to organizational riches.
The viral video story goes like this: A video will be uploaded to YouTube and it will (magically) catch fire. People will send it to each other and it will get so many views that it ends up in the “Most Viewed” rotation at YouTube, which will only bring in more views and next thing you know 1 MILLION PEOPLE have watched our video!
At this point in the story I ask, “And so what does that get you?” Well, they say, when 1 MILLION PEOPLE know about us, many will go to our website, sign up and be compelled to donate because our video was so good [funny] [sad] [moving] [powerful].
It’s a nice story, but unfortunately, it rarely works out that way.
Facts about Viral Video
You cannot predict which videos will be viral hits
We never promise viral hits because very few organizations are interested in being edgy enough, or off-message enough, to make their video a must-see. YouTube is littered with videos that the makers had hoped would be hits. The real viral video hits – the ones that get in everyone’s email — are, with some notable exceptions, videos with cute pets, people saying stupid things, sex appeal, and other qualities that rarely have anything to do with a nonprofit mission. (All of us should envy the animal welfare groups, because they have the unfair advantage of cute furry creatures.)
YouTube views do not translate into website traffic.
The average video length on YouTube is about 1.5 minutes while the average session time on YouTube is about 30 minutes. What this means is that the most likely thing to happen after someone watches a YouTube video is that they will watch another YouTube video, not enter in your URL to check out your website.
You need long-term supporters, not 1-minute sympathizers
A consumer product, such as Blendtec, gets a benefit from having lots of videos watched on YouTube because it helps their branding, which in a retail setting, translates into purchases. Nonprofits, on the other hand, are not sitting on store shelves. Organizations need to have online strategies that follow-up initial interest with real engagement over the long term. One successful YouTube video, even if it moves people while they are watching it, does not facilitate this engagement. It can be part of a strategy toward engagement, but it cannot be an end in and of itself.
You don’t want to be a one-hit wonder.
The people who are most successful on YouTube aren’t focused on making a single viral video. They are making a series of videos with a character or a set-up that is interesting and brings people back for more. In other words, they are building an audience through regular production of videos that tell stories. That’s what you should be thinking about. By investing in many videos over a long period of time, you are also much more likely to hit on one that attracts others to join your long-term audience.
People who like to watch kittens in paper bags may actually not be good donor prospects
The first question we ask about viral is, “Viral to whom?” The unspoken viral video assumption is that random people on YouTube are potential donor prospects. Some of them may be, of course. But it is likely that the people who spend a lot of time watching the viral video hits are teenagers, for example. You are better off identifying and speaking more directly to the audience who is most likely to already care about your core issues.
One of our biggest viral video hits was this video for the Maryland State Teachers Association. It only has about 2000 views. How can it be considered a viral hit? Because the goal of the video was to influence a debate about education funding and the state-level policy-makers and journalists that matter in that debate all heard about it, passed it on, and watched it. It worked.
Towards a Video Strategy
Viral is just another way of saying “word of mouth” and at its core it means that people pass the content on to one-another without the need for much intervention from the organization. In this sense, having viral marketing work for your organization is important. If you have really important, interesting things to share – and you share them in creative and interesting ways – then people will pass them on to their friends and increase your marketing effectiveness.
Where you should start with online video is to make a commitment to using this new medium to connect people to your work. You need to think about what the important and interesting things are and ask yourself, “How do we document this work?” You need to ask yourself why do you think what you do is important, and ask your staff as well. You need to then capture – on a regular basis – those important and interesting things. If you can find the funny stories, the creative metaphors, and turn your issue on its head once in a while, so much the better. But please, stop focusing on making a viral video and start focusing on making a viral cause.
Michael Hoffman is the CEO of See3 Communications and an expert in online video for nonprofits.
This month's Net2 Think Tank question is: How do real-world (offline) events fit into social media conversations and campaigns?
My thinking: Social media conversations and online campaigns create whole new models for bringing together & powering the progressive movement. Although at core: People coming together in the real-world are key to fueling how we organize for change. We need real world events to be a central part of our online organizing. We need offline events to meet each other, bond eye-to-eye, and forge the collaborations that will make our social networks stronger, better connected, and ultimately transformative.
So - a major question is: How can your online community also support events in the real world? What kind of offline events are the best fit for your community? And what real world event models can you learn from or partner with? Well, let's look at five different event types and see if one or more of 'em sparks some ideas for your community!
1. Is your community all about the socializing? Then check out...
"Every month people who work in the environmental field meet up at informal sessions known as Green Drinks. We have a lively mixture of people from NGOs, academia, government and business...These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity."
I've attended Green Drinks in Vancouver & Seattle and think this event format is wonderful for socializing - if that's your cup of tea (or rather glass of wine!) Creating a space for socializing and networking is key for those "moments of serendipity" - and this model is great for those who are outgoing and excel at meeting new people.
Whatever your cause -- How would you help your online community socialize in the real world? Would Change.org's community benefit from "Change Drinks?" What about Care2 - "Care Drinks?" DonorsChoose.org - "EduDrinks"?
2. Is your community focused on accomplishing a shared agenda? Then check out ...
"We're coordinating a distributed day of events for 24 October 2009, uniting the world around a common call to action--and we're asking you to help. You don't need to have ever done anything like this before--you'll have lots of support through 350.org. And if you're stuck for action ideas, just click here. We'll soon be unveiling a full set of tools to let you manage your local event and build a strong local climate group in the lead-up to 24 October."
The 350.org model enables any individual or organization around the world to create and promote events ("actions") - with a call to action for a fair global climate treaty. The framework is super flexible - as just about any kind of action can be proposed and organized. Since all actions are focused on a shared agenda, and will occur on the same day, their cumulative affect is well-positioned to have a much bigger impact in gaining attention and raising awareness.
"Every month, the NetSquared community comes together offline at Net Tuesday events to mix, swap stories and ideas, build new relationships, and collaborate. These gatherings provide a chance for all those interested in the intersection of social technologies and social change, whether you're part of a nonprofit organization or a for-profit organization, a funder or a consultant, a developer or an entrepreneur."
I am a proud member of the NetSquared community and have helped organize Net Tuesday events in Vancouver & Seattle. Events can take various shapes and sizes: usually with a socializing/networking element + presentations, group discussions, strategy sessions, or sometimes even games - whatever is a good fit for the community. By meeting in the real world - Net Tuesdays bring the frequent online "social media for change" conversations together for a more intimate, interactive, and hands-on experience.
In addition to helping communities come together around social technologies and social change, Net Tuesdays also represent a flexible way to marry network weaving with community learning and sharing. Online communities which focus on learning & sharing and social networking (like BloggersUnite, Knowmore, & WiserEarth) might benefit from learning more about how Net Tuesdays work.
4. Does your community address local issues?Then check out...
"ChangeCamp is an event format, an open community and a set of tools and ideas designed to give citizens and governments the ability to work collaboratively in new ways to make change and to better address real-world challenges in our communities."
ChangeCamps are currently a Canadian phenomenon started by Mark Kuznicki and others. In theory, though, ChangeCamps could be organized anywhere. So far, ChangeCamps are full-day events with a focus on bringing together communities to address local issues. There's also a strong technology element although the last Vancouver Change Camp proved that you could have sessions on "social networking" co-exist with sessions on "social housing." By using the open-space/BarCamp model - participants are invited to create the agenda together to share their experiences & expertise, build solutions together, and explore ways to collaborate.
Does your community focus on collaboration and/or on collaborative projects? Then check out...
Climate Change Collaboration Initiative "Our vision is to connect the Not-for-Profit (NFP) sector organizations that have similar mandates, in order to enable them to gain the critical mass that is necessary to bring about the desired social change objectives. To this end there are three primary objectives; to identify a single project around which a group of NFP's with similar missions can collaborate, support the initiative with an appropriate technology platform or set of tools, provide sufficient funding to hire a full time Collaboration Facilitator for the group. This model can be deployed amongst subsets of NFP's that should have overlap in their missions; fighting climate change, alleviating poverty in the developing world, etc."
This model is quite new and is being spearheaded by Suresh Fernando in Vancouver BC, Canada. While it remains untested - it has the potential to create a space for collaboration, foster alliances, and allow for sharing knowledge and resources. It also seems designed to work with any issue-focused community (not just climate change). The Collaboration Initiative could also give birth to projects that take advantage of new tools and technologies which in turn could draw on the Net Tuesday & ChangeCamp models to help your community identify and create relevant solutions.
Online communities focused on collaborative projects (like Amazee) might benefit the most from this event model. Meta-social networks (like WiserEarth) and online coalitions (like Science Commons) might benefit a lot too!
What event model is the best fit for your online community?
Since every online community is different - you'll likely have the best sense of what kind of real world events are a most-good fit. It could be a re-mix or mashup of the palette of event models above - or entirely new kinds of events! Please share your ideas in the comments!
Here are some additional questions to consider for your organization's offline event strategy:
How would you blend the best elements of the event models described above with your ideas for creating a framework for bringing together your community in the real world?
How do you frame events so various organization representatives within your sector feel welcome to attend and participant?
What role does a support team and/or a Community Builder share in ensuring the success of local events and helping local communities connect to be bigger than the sum-of-their-parts?
How do you use social media and web tools to connect different events together for shared resources, learning, and experiences?
Also: This post was adopted from research done for WiserEarth.org - reviewing real wold events for their global web-connected community of environmental and social change makers. Join the WiserEarth convo on the WiserEarth Blog!
Joe Solomon (@EngageJoe) starts & participates in conversations, events, and projects at the intersection of collaboration, the web, and social change.
(This post was based on a post developed by Rob Paterson three weeks ago, as we seek to design a pilot project in support of an important multi-constituent project Rob is helping to guide. His post was aimed at not-for-profit public media; I have genericized it somewhat).
Outlined in the brief article below is a new way of using the Web and web services to gather peoples’ stories – anecdotes, video clips, podcasts, blog posts and all sorts of other snippets – and help not-for-profit organizations move into action planning based on the “raw material” of what people are saying and talking about.
Their stories contain the issues that matter. The system we have designed addresses how to capture, analyze and assess what matters.
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“Leaders strive to change the way that other people think, feel and act”.
Why should we measure story in a new way? Because using story well is our great chance in public media to be the leaders of our time. To help Americans take back their power to control their lives and their communities.
How do we do this?
Deep change is all about a change in the collective story. It is a change in the way that people, think, feel and act.
First of of all, there is the the appearance of a new and way-out idea that violates the status quo – such as say Local Food – the 100 mile diet. The idea itself is tested by the immune system of the wider community. Often a breakthrough is accelerated by a good book – for Food: The Omnivore’s Dilemma. For the Environment: An Inconvenient Truth. I This is how all new paradigm stories start.
Then comes isolated action. People take the ideas and start to do things with the idea – this phase is crucial in a new paradigm. Others have to see that the idea can work and that they too can be part of it.
Then comes collective action. With enough individual stories, the system “tips” and the Mainstream accept the Story.
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In these times of great upheaval, as it is becoming more and more clear that these tories we’ve used for the past century or so are less and less viable, we need new and compelling stories. We have to get behind the trajectory of story described above, and use peoples’ stories to effect more and better change.
To do this we have to be able to measure story in a new way.
Summary: Followed by a more detailed explanation.
Situation: We are living in a time of a major shift in culture. The world is so connected, and hence now so complex, that our simple Industrial Institutions can no longer help people. (Katrina – Mortgage Crisis, Healthcare etc)
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As our Industrial Institutions fail to cope and to help people, we are seeing a new model for coping where people are connecting to each other to find networked and personal solutions to problems.
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This new model is the antithesis of the model that it may replace. Clear signs of what this new model are all over the place.
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But for now, it is only the Innovators and the Early Adopters who accept it. We see the Local Food Movement, Slow Money, Local Resiliency all growing. But while these new stories are now visible they are not yet mainstream.
If the new story could be aggregated and given momentum, the shift will take place sooner.
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Mission: To do this a new ‘Way-Out” story of self help, of community power and of networks has to become accepted as THE story.
This is a Paradigm Shift. The shift from Institution to Community is as big a change as the Copernican Shift. History reminds us that paradigm shifts of this nature are not accepted by simply telling the facts. Vis many in newspapers today!
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To connect, we have to design an approach to story that can get through the natural resistance. Only a particular kind of story can do this. This style of story is the antithesis of how media tells stories today.
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To help make the shift, we have to return to a personal POV. The story has to be designed to reach into the heart of people and has then got to motivate them to act.
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But the stories on their own are not powerful enough. A million stories about local food or Home schooling on YouTube or on blogs are still fringe.
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It is essential to put power behind the story. To get beyond the Innovators and Early Adopters to the Early Majority, these stories have to have an institutional sponsor (community-or-purpose-based or community-related) that the Early Majority can trust.
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Execution: To bridge the “Chasm” from Innovators and Early Adopters to Early Majority we have to create a critical mass of story from our stations. To do this we have to add our trust and our power to aggregate the right kind of stories.
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These stories have to obey the rules of those that can cross a Paradigm. We know what these rules are:
There has to be an overarching context – why is the current system not working and why the new will work and have utility
The story has to be told from a personal POV by someone I can personally relate to who uses an authentic voice
The story has to lead me to help that I can use
The story has to have a trusted source
The story has to lead to taking action that is in my power
The assumed context is that the answers are in the hands of the institutions and not in the hands of people
That the POV is from a “detached” observer who is above the situation and outside the story who speaks in an institutional voice
The solution is always to get more money or resources for the institution in question or to apply power - none of which is in the power of the person
The Source is owned by commercial or political interests who increasingly use spin
The person is left helpless and alienated - This feels like Tiananmen. They fight for democracy, we watch, they die, we change the channel. A Tweet this week on Iran and on the conventional news coverage there.
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We have all been raised in the latter model and know no other. Some intuitively know and use the new model. But making the shift to using the new model as a default, demands constant assistance.
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We have to make the implicit knowledge of how to do this explicit so that the knowledge can spread more quickly.
The tool that we are working on provides this support.
It presents to the programmer an ideal checklist/template that enables those in production to design an offering that has the best chance of breaking through the natural resistance
It enables the people reacting to the offering to learn how to “see” in this new way too
It enables an prganization to see the landscape of how their constituency is reacting – they can see shifts in support and resistance by mindset, by place and through time. They can make adjustments and react appropriately. The organization can track holistic progress
More than looking at any one story, it shows how the collective story is progressing. The Tipping Point comes from the collective.
It enables organization to show their constituents that the organization is engaged – the organization measures its impact based upon the content of stories.
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In short, the beta tool (described in more detail below) shapes the DNA of the right kind of story. This enables us to design how to use story effectively, and helps the broader work to be powerfully engaging. It enables us to test how well we are doing individually as an organization and as a system.
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It offers us a “Map” of how each story affects people and communities. It shows movement in beliefs and acceptance. True change.
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It maps out our plans, our design, our work, the response, our redesign, our work, the response and the overall progress to crossing the Chasm
Demonstrating the capabilities
The beta tool is ready for testing so that we can see how the inputs work and how the outputs work
Identify Early Adopter organizations and use a sample of employees and volunteers contribute and test a variety of stories. This will demonstrate to such Early Adopter organizations. These organizations will get back the analytic output plus a discussion about what it all means. These organizations will have seen how the beta works
Resolve further unknowns and any issues with the design team – determine with the design team the pricing and terms for a wider use. Collectively come up with a strategy for adoptionl
More Details
This system, known as StoryGarden, is currently involved in several pilot projects with not-for-profit organization in Canada and the USA. Interest is spreading rapidly, especially as all sorts of not-for-profit organizations and various communities are coming to realize that their future is likely to be more and more different from their past, or what they expected as “normal”.
Taken as a whole, they represent the emergence of networked society that is intensely connected locally. The New America(or any other country) may be the Old America (or any other country) Redux:
An America that is a network of networked and resilient communities.
As more and more stories like this are promoted properly there will be a Tipping Point. Americans will start to take back decisions about what is important for them – Healthcare, Education, Employment, Credit, Food – into their own hands.
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So how does this work?
Much of what we know now is the new model, but our knowledge is Implicit. We don’t even know what we know so it is hard to spread.
We also don’t know how to show funders the real progress that we are make. Without being able to tell our own story well we will not get the financial support we need.
Each story enters a Sense Making System (a web service and software provided by Cognitive Edge, a global network of practitioners dedicated to helping create meaning and sense in complex situations).
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Then what it means is extracted. ”Filtering” is done through respondents answering a short set of quetions specifically designed to turn the respondents’ interpretations into data that is organized and stored in a database.
The story can then be plotted collectively and dynamically – we can see who, where and progress.
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We can see the larger regional or national view.
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We can see our progress to the Tipping Point!
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Whose Tool is this and Where does it come from?
StoryGarden is a web-based system for gathering and analyzing qualitative information about values and attitudes held by a community of people. Contributors are asked to submit anecdotes to a website, then answer a short set of questions that indicate the significance of the anecdotes to help identify emergent themes and sort them into meaningful collections.
This process is particularly valuable for the development of action plans.
Collaboration Among Leading Initiatives
The StoryGarden system stems from a collaboration of designers of software processes and analysts from social development organizations who are interested in community wellness.
Cognitive Edge Sensemaker Suite (TM)
CE Sensemaker provides the underlying theory, rigorous methodology and computer-based tools for the gathering and analysis of anecdotes and survey questions.
The processes being used by StoryGarden are based on methods and processes conceived by Dave Snowdenm co-founding director of the IBM Center for Organizational Complexity. The processes and tools have been furthered developed by Snowden and colleagues in his Singapore-based company Cognitive Edge, which is providing software and consulting services to StoryGarden.
Social Development Organizations
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
IISD is an internationally recognized not-for-profit policy research institute dedicated to implementation of effective policies by governments and business that are simultaneously beneficial to the human and social well-being and to the global economy and environment.
Other Organizations and Individuals
StoryGarden is in discussion with a number of other organizations interested in the development and well-being of communities. StoryGarden is receiving valuable input from:
Community Well-Being Index (CWI) – a pan-Canadian initiative led by Roy Romanow focused on the measurement and assessment of community development and sustainability.
Several United Way organizations in Canada
Several professors (computational linguistics, human-computer interaction) at Simon Fraser University, UBC and British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)
Development Team
Deepak Sahasrabudhe, Project lead
well-experienced in developing complex projects involving creative anmd technical personnel and processes, including 22 broadcast TV series, several advanced web sites, books, videos and multi-media learning systems
4 TV series have been presented on PBS through APT
honoured with over 60 international awards for various TV programs he has produced
knowledgeable about semantic computing processes
certified Cognitive Edge practitioner
founder or co-founder of 5 successful media business initiatives
Jon Husband – Consultant, social networking, software design, learning and development theory and practice practitioner focused on the impacts of social media and computing on knowledge-based organizations and large-scale organizational and societal change
authored “Making Knowledge Work – the arrival of Web 2.0″, published by ARK Group (UK)
created the concept of “wirearchy”, and writes for several professional blogs about Web 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0
an active speaker in Canada and internationally about the Web’s impact on the structure and dynamics of organizations and their changing role(s) in society.
Senior Principal in the Hay Group’s London (UK) office in the ’90’s, now an independent consultant located in Vancouver, BC
I'm slowly finding my way back into a blogging routine among other routines that have been disrupted by the move. The hardest part about moving isn't the packing, the actual move, or even the unpacking and subsequent disorganization. It's the everything is new, different, and not familiar. Your brain can't go on automatic pilot for mundane tasks because it has had to rewire neurons. It's like trying to get back into physical shape after you haven't been exercising for a while.
So, as part of getting back into my blogging routine or rather establishing a new one, I'd like to reflect a little on TWT20 interview experience. Jay Baer is a blogger and social media consultant who has been doing Twitter 20 interview series with social media. I first discovered him when he was interviewing David Armano.
Here's how it works:
In real time, @jaybaer sends out a series of 20 interview questions as tweets. The questions are 140-characters long and he uses a hashtag #twt20.
You respond with answer that is 140 characters.
Other people who are monitoring the hashtag or watching the stream can add their thoughts or questions or retweet.
The mechanics of participating were fairly easy for me. I use a couple of different Twitter clients and decided to use cotweet for this interview. I opened up a search on the tag in one tab and in another tab the replies to me.
Jay asked some terrific questions. The responding required thinking and writing succintly or in headlines. I had to sum up an answer in 140 characters. It uses a different part of the brain.
I actually cheated a little bit ... I tweeted a 140 character answer, but I included a link to a post or resource that explained the answer in more detail. The most time consuming part was finding the particular post on my blog, but a number of the questions were answered by some of the recent guest posts on this blog. I tried to point to other people's blogs/examples as much as I could - and that was mostly me trying to remember and find the example!
While the interview was unfolding, Jay was doing a transcript as a blog post. It looks like he did a cut and paste of the questions and answers - nothing fancy in terms of software tools. You can find that here.
I was skeptical at first. How could you really engage in a conversation/interview with only being able to respond in 140 characters? Would it be totally distracting? Would it give the important topics we were discussing any justice? And more importantly, could those who were listening or participating learn from this 20-question 140-character rapid fire Q&A? And, would there be a resulting "product" or blog post that could document the conversations for others who not on Twitter during the interview in real time?
I'm not a skeptic any longer. I read the transcripts from two previous interviews on Social Media Listening - one with David Alston and Amber Naslund which are filled with some useful pointers on one of my favorite topics - listening.
Jason asked really good questions and added his two-cents. There were a couple of questions I've never been asked.
NPOs have a lot of interactions w/donors & customers. It’s not perfect. Should NPOs have a social media crisis plan?
Similar to what’s happening w/ Social CRM, do you encourage NPOs to add social media interactions to their database? How?
So, I'm curious about what your take is on those questions? And even more importantly, what's your take on this model as an engagement strategy? Looks like the work would take approximately 3-6 hours (figure out interview questions, conduct the interview, post the transcript) depending on your twitter literacy skills.
How often should an organization post to Twitter or send out updates on Facebook? Is there a fine line between sending too much that's irrelevant vs. useful information?
Quality is more important than quantity. Make sure you're sending useful, relevant information, and do your best to spread it out. Also, try not to tweet about your own org on an average of more than once every seven or so tweets. You will also find your followers engage you more if you engage them. Replies only appear in your intended recipients stream and in those of people who follow both you and the recipient, so don't be afraid to have conversations with your supporters.
Talking about time, is there an application which would post an update on all main Social Networking Sites at once? I know of some but they would pick my Facebook personal profile instead of the Organization's Page I am admin of.
While I would suggest using automated content thoughtfully and customizing your message where you can, I realize that's not always possible. Ping.fm allows you to publish to your Fan Pages as well as many many other social networks.
Is the stigma of having fans or cause supporters with 'questionable' Facebook profiles true? Does it make the organization look too lax or less professional? We are a workforce development organization, and my superiors think it could be misconstrued.
I tend to be of the feeling that if someone wants to support your cause via social media, they should be able to. I'd argue it makes your organization look open, inclusive, and accessible. Especially in workforce development, as it's very possible that those with questionable profiles could benefit from your work. However, one thing you could do is include a disclaimer that acknowledges you accept anyone who wants to support your cause but that by no means is intended to endorse them or their content.
I would like us to get our organization on twitter, but i'm afraid that if i only "tweet" about fundraising events, people will tire of it quickly--any thoughts on this? other content i might want to tweet about?
Yes, they will lose interest quickly. Look beyond what you need people to do (whether it's giving money, volunteering, taking action, etc.). Before you can effectively get people to respond to those requests, and to build an audience in an opt-in system like Twitter, you need to show you're there to add value to your followers as well as advancing your mission. Talk about how your spending their money (e.g. the goings-on and successes of your programs), news relevant to your organization, RT posts from other orgs and individuals, and respond to interesting/relevant tweets your followers are sending.
What are some best practices on Facebook to generate followers and turn them into donors? Also everyone says that Twitter wont' raise any money. Is that true?
I don't have the stats to back this up, but anecdotally, I believe that Twitter can generate more giving than Facebook Causes. The gifts will generally be smaller, but with the right cultivation, you can use Twitter to raise funds. Here are some examples from Beth from November, 2008 - I'd be interested in hearing about more data and experiences myself .
I haven't done a lot of work with Facebook, but integration (linking from your website and enewsletter, writing about it in your newsletter, and sharing it through your other marketing and fundraising presence will help. You might start by importing your email list and suggesting they become fans of your page / join your group. Once you have staff and stakeholders on, ask them to invite their networks and share your page in their minifeeds. You can also find potential supporters by looking at the followings of aligned groups, though I'm not sure the etiquette for cold-inviting people.
What is the best process through social media of finding new organizations/individuals interested or working in your arena of social issues and connecting with them? I usually do simple Twitter searches and @replies, comment on blogs, but are there better ways or a general hierarchy of effective strategies?
I know that Beth has some great recommendations on paid listening services that she mentioned in the forum, but Twitter search RSS feeds to a Google Reader can provide some great insights. I'm not sure what you mean by simple searches, but think of all of the names, things, words that would help you find conversations of interest. You can also consider using the localization feature of Twitter searches. Finally, don't forget that Google Alerts have web and blog search features in the comprehensive mode.
We have blogs and forums on our site, but have a hard time getting people to comment or post anything in them. Although our members will comment and post on our Facebook and Twitter... how do we get them to jump from those sites, onto our site and start discussing there?
If it is a struggle to get people posting in your forums but are finding Facebook and Twitter conducive to conversations, it may be worth evaluating what the value of those forums are and if it might be more worthwhile to drive traffic there for interaction. However, you might find that posting something like "That's a great point, we actually have a thread going on this topic here [link to forum]" and/or asking key volunteers to do the same. You may get more comments on your blog by using Twitter and Facebook to drive people there, as well as by promoting posts in your e-newsletter and other outlets. Is the blog to buried from your front page? Also, I'm not sure if this is true, but one stat I saw said to expect 1 comment / 100 views (though I assume they pick up significantly after the first comment is left).
What tips or suggestions can you offer for partnering with FaceBook or LinkedIn to leverage their brand as a communication platform for alums, and the private companies policies for not sharing alumni data with the higher ed institution?
I've seen a lot of colleges creating groups on Twitter (http://twitter.com/higheredu), Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I'm not sure the value in highlighting their privacy settings, but if someone is reluctant to share their new contact info, asking for an email to invite them to a group, or providing them with a link to join, might be a good second ask.
PS from Kevin: These are just my two cents (most of it read here at some point - just google around the site and I'd bet you'll find great answers to most of these).
We're thinking about how human service agencies can use social media to engage clients/consumers, their families, supporters/volunteers, interested community members, donors, electeds, and other groups, so if anyone has experiences or thoughts, I'd love to hear about them and other thoughts on the interesting questions raised above.