Taking First Steps With Social Media: California Child Care Resource & Referral Network

Today, I had the pleasure of doing a mini-workshop at the Director's Institute  for the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network in Sacramento.   My co-presenter was the talented Bryce Skolfield,  Director of Communications and Public Policy at the Children's Council of San Francisco.  Together we were able to share a combination of strategy and tactics.

A few insights to share:

I always start with an opportunity to learn a little bit about the audience.   I started with a variation of of the human spectra gram, a technique I learned from colleague Allen Gunn from Aspiration.  Colleague Kaliya Hamlin has this description.    I do agree/disagree to statements like "Social media is a waste of time" or I do a spectra gram based on personal comfort level and whether or not they feel social media is valuable for their agency.   I select what I do based on an online pre-survey. 

For this group, I felt it was important to ask about personal comfort/experience and whether or not they felt social media had any value for their agency.  We had an interesting discussion between those who had comfort and those who did not.   Since the morning keynote was a session on nonprofit leadership by two of the co-authors of Working Across Generations, Frances Kunreuther and Helen Kim, while they were lined up, I did a quick poll by generation.

Not surprising,  generations somewhat correlated with social media experience/comfort level with one exception.   A veterans in the room were in the middle because "we have grandchildren who have helped us understand Facebook."  We also had a conversation about - regardless of their personal comfort level, did they think social media was important for their agency to embrace.   The group, for the most part, was curious.

Next I covered some points about how social media might be valuable to an agency whose mission is referral and discussing points of pain.  For example, how many get excessive emails or phone calls requesting information and how could be reduced by adding a social channel? Next I covered some strategy points related to learning, capacity, and organizational culture.   

Bryce Skofield presented a case study about how their agency was using social media.   He shared some points about their internal use of social media - blogs - as a strategy to get people comfortable.  He then talked about how they were using the various social media channels.   He shared that they have decided to move forward with social strategy even though they also need a web site makeover - and that some of the listening on social channels will guide their redesign.   He shared some great nuggets about easy starter points - for example adding their social media channel addresses to every print publication, business card, and web site.

Bryce shared a great analogy about the importance of a social media policy.  "If you work for a YMCA, there might be a policy about not wearing your YMCA T-Shirt to local bar on a Saturday if you're going drinking off hours.   There could potentially be a bad reflection back to the institution ... "

He shared some great wisdom about the agency's YouTube Channel.   They have used the Flip Camera nonprofit pricing to purchase cameras for staff members, offered a little or not training, and encouraged them to make videos about the agency.  In fact, they did a competition on staff on the lead up to the annual meeting.  As part of his job, he's done staff training on video editing software for those that wanted it.

One of their policy initiatives is called "think families, think a brighter future for California." They've created a campaign for Gilbert for Governor, a puppet, who uses YouTube and Twitter to talk about the agency's policy initiative. 

What are your suggestions for some easy first steps with social media?

Comments

[Lanceleasure]

What a great way to get the audience involved without having to do an icebreaker (can't stand them personally), yet still accomplishing something pertinent for the workshop. Thanks for sharing your findings. I'm receiving similar generational feedback, and sharing similar case studies always sparks lively discussions about how our clients can apply similar strategies.

[Robin Mohr]

Thank you so much for coming! I think there was a lot of variety in the room, and people were all over the map in terms of social media usage.

I think the most important thing for the child care resource & referral agencies is to establish themselves as authorities in the new realms of social media. They already are the best source of information about licensed child care in every community in California, their services are already free to all families, but they are not well enough known in the wider world. Social media participation can also be a way of being available to new parents where they are - on Facebook at 2:00 am - in addition to traditional office hours, not instead of.

Plus I was so happy to meet you in person. Hope our paths will cross again.

[Johnhaydon]

Beth - I love the spectra gram idea. When I do webinars for Techsoup and Charityhowto, I often have a diverse audience who a bit shy. The spectra gram forces opinions and dialogue - and gives the presenter a good sense of where the group is at on topics. Thanks for pointing it out!

[Beth Kanter]

John,

For the first part of any training, I facilitate exercises that lets learn as much as possible at the audiences' skill level and their attitudes related to whatever the learning goals are. The spectra gram is very much a physical, face-to-face exercise, although you could adapt to a webinar by the use of a real time polling. However,because webinars are conducted online - and you can't see the body language - it would be difficult to facilitate a conversation that might enhance learning.