A survey on social media use among Community & Voluntary organisations in Ireland

1. Social Media in the Community & Voluntary Sector A survey on social media use among Community & Voluntary organisations in Ireland Conducted By The Wheel

2. Table of Contents Conducted By The Wheel Research Methodology 3 Key Stats 6 Summary of Sections 18 Summary of Key Issues 23 Conclusions & Recommendations 25 Better Together Campaign 27

3. Research Methodology Conducted By The Wheel Survey Conducted: 3 August 2011 – 27 August 2011 Survey mode: Online (Survey Monkey) Sample: 986 community & voluntary organisations through the database and membership of The Wheel Respondents 178 (18.5%) Notes: Numbers may not total 100% due to rounding.

10. The majority of organisations 67.6% indicate that their target audiences are most likely to be online from 6pm – 12.00am although only 20.8% of organisations are likely to be online at the same time. Which of the following times are you and your target audience most likely to be on social networking sites? Organisation Vs Key Audience

11. Knowledge Vs Attitude How would you describe your organisation's overall knowledge of social media? (1 being basic and 5 being advanced) How would you describe your organisation's overall attitude towards social media? (1 being hostile and 5 being enthusiastic)

12. Importance of Social Media as a Marketing & Communications Tool How do you rate the importance of social media in a communications or marketing strategy?

13. Relationship with Social Media Which statement best describes your organisations relationship with social media?

14. Main reasons to use Social Media What do you use social media tools for?

15. Which ‘Types’ of Social Media tools does your organisation use? Social Media being used by ‘Type’

16. Which ‘Types’ of Social Media tools does your organisation use? Social Media being used by ‘Site’

17. Number of Connections How many connections (“Friends”) do you have for your social network profile(s)(on average)? Please indicate an overall total across all platforms combined.

18. Summary of Sections Attitude, Strategy & Policy This section of the survey indicated that there is general positive sentiment towards social media and there also generally positive sentiment in it being part of an organisations strategy to round out its communications mix and to attract new supporters. Worryingly a little shy of half of respondents in this section indicate they are struggling to implement social media within their organisations. Social Media Responsibilities, Time and Resources Again positive sentiment shown towards the use of social media. Issues to be highlighted: Firstly there seems to be a worrying lack of concern with the need for good governance and policing of social media within nonprofits, certainly internally. It doesn’t appear that there are sufficient resources available to organisations in order for them to develop their social media strategies and while this may be the common refrain for non-profits the world over it doesn’t make it any less real in this scenario. There is an opportunity for the sector to pool its resources more effectively and work collaboratively promoting cross sectoral causes and issues rather than devoting time within organisations on a piecemeal basis.

19. Summary of Sections Social Media Responsibilities, Time and Resources While overall sentiment towards Social Media is positive this has not had any major impact on traditional cultural work practices of operating within the normal working day. Non-profits could potentially be engaging online when their key public audiences are not there. Current investment of time and resources could be very poorly spent. Goals & Objectives Organisations overriding goal in using social media is to reach new and improve relationships with existing supporters through social media. Organisations are going to have to look at how they set themselves up operationally to engage online and in networks where and when they are being used by these potential supporters (after normal work hours). The concept of using Social Media for fundraising is not highly developed among organisations in Ireland and this reflects trends internationally. There is a need to begin debate within the sector on the potential of crowd sourcing as this is a concept that has shown no real sign of traction among organisation to date despite the literature indicating that it is a key trend for non-profit organisations to be considering.

20. Summary of Sections Social Media Activities Social media activities within community and voluntary organisations correlate with social media use more generally. In fact you could make the point that community and voluntary organisations are enthusiastic adopters and users of social media generally. However there is evidence to suggest from these findings that activities are not being put to best use. There is a willingness to use Social Media but organisations are perhaps struggling with how to do so effectively. Summary of Monitoring and measuring The vast majority of organisations are not monitoring or measuring the impact of their Social media activities. This is probably not surprising as it is often equally difficult to monitor the impact that PR can have for an organisation. It is difficult to measure exactly what impact the use of social media is having on the overall public profile of an organisation especially when many traditional media continue to be used in tandem with Social Media.

21. Summary of Sections Advocacy, Support & Engagement The jury is still out on whether social media can have an impact with critical decision makers in the Irish political and civic sphere. There is divided opinion too on what impact it can have towards developing donors or influencing the media but there seems to be positive sentiment that it can help build relationships with external audiences and potential supporters. If the community and voluntary sector can leverage social media to do that we may yet see social media having an influence on other key audiences over time. Overall the use and growth in use of Social media among civil society actors here in Ireland seems all but assured.

22. Summary of Sections Advocacy, Support & Engagement The jury is still out on whether social media can have an impact with critical decision makers in the Irish political and civic sphere. There is divided opinion too on what impact it can have towards developing donors or influencing the media but there seems to be positive sentiment that it can help build relationships with external audiences and potential supporters. If the community and voluntary sector can leverage social media to do that we may yet see social media having an influence on other key audiences over time. Overall the use and growth in use of Social media among civil society actors here in Ireland seems all but assured.

23. Summary of Key Issues Create a Social Culture The findings of this research indicate overall positive sentiment towards social media use and a willingness for it to be used within organisations. Understanding Social Media Findings indicate that not enough organisations have either taken the time to research and understand the how, why and where of social media use and how best to focus their efforts at achieving results. Building Relationships While the overall positive sentiment to build relationships with audiences and to attract supporters to their causes exists there has not been a fundamental examination of how community and voluntary organisations can successfully do that given existing working norms. Transparency There does not seem to be any major concerns within organisations towards transparency and openness through social media and if anything there is a deficit in the understanding of the need for proper policy and control of the sharing of that information.

24. Summary of Key Issues Simplification Organisations are not setting out clear strategies to develop their social media capacity. A lot of effort going into social media across organisations without goal setting or anticipation of outcomes. Crowd Sourcing The concept not fully understood among organisations and more effort needs to go into develop awareness of this concept throughout the sector. Monitoring & Learning Very little evidence of monitoring and learning among organisations. Fundraising This potential has not been realised internationally and will not develop in Ireland until further successful social media fundraising examples can be learned and shared Governance Proper checks and balances to protect organisational reputation not fully in place both from staff making mistakes internally and also from external audiences who may be out to destroy reputation.

25. Conclusions & Recommendations Broad use and enthusiasm for social media The findings showed a broad use and enthusiasm for social media so the sector has already embarked well down the road of ‘forming’ cultures to use social media within their organisations. A need for more expertise While the findings showed that there are remarkably high levels of social media use in general it is less clear if organisations are aware of how to use social media effectively. Question 13 in the survey highlighted that 49% of organisations state they are struggling with how to implement social media within their organisations and there is a key conclusion that more needs to be done to address the lack of expertise in social media use within the sector to better improve effectiveness. Better use of Resources No more than the need for expertise above there is a lack of resources; financial, human and time being the most obvious, available to develop the medium to its full potential for the sector. In a climate where financial resources are harder to come by more collaboration and ingenuity will be required from organisations to address the resources deficit into the future.

26. Conclusions & Recommendations Strategy, Monitoring and Measurement There appeared to be a deficit in organisations ability to broadly develop strategies for the use of social media and for them to be able to monitor and measure the effectiveness of what they are doing. This is probably understandable given the lack of expertise and resources available as outlined above so more focus needs to go into developing these systems and strategies to ensure effective use of the limited resources and expertise available. Engagement and control Directly flowing from the points made above there needs to be clearer systems of engagement with key stakeholders; who, what, where, when, how and why. The solution may well lie in devolving more control to the stakeholders allowing supporters to become the key engagers and champions of causes and organisations and allowing the power of crowds to influence decision makers in a real life example of Westling’s belief in “ allowing the public to engage in political action both in conjunction with and independently of political campaigns” (Westling 2007, p.2)

27. Better Together A Social Media Campaign Using the power of the crowd to build support for hundreds of community, voluntary and charity organisations across Ireland Brought to you by The Wheel

29. HOW DO CHARITIES GET INVOLVED? MAKE A 3 MINUTE VIDEO SHOWING HOW YOUR ORGANISATION MAKES IRELAND BETTER TOGETHER AND WIN UP TO €3,000 FOR YOUR CHARITY NOMINATE A VOLUNTEER HERO FROM YOUR CHARITY AND THEIR INSPIRING STORY COULD HELP YOUR ORGANISATION WIN €1,000 MOBILISE YOUR SUPPORTERS TO DONATE TO YOR CAUSE. THE CAUSE THAT ATTRACTS TH MOST DONORS WINS €10,000

30. HOW DO CHARITIES GET INVOLVED? MAKE A 3 MINUTE VIDEO SHOWING HOW YOUR ORGANISATION MAKES US BETTER TOGETHER AND WIN UP TO €3,000 FOR YOUR CHARITY NOMINATE A VOLUNTEER HERO FROM YOUR CHARITY AND THEIR INSPIRING STORY COULD HELP YOUR ORGANISATION WIN €1,000 MOBILISE YOUR SUPPORTERS TO DONATE TO YOUR VIDEO AND THE MOST DONORS BY 25 NOVEMBER WINS €10,000 BOOST YOUR PROFILE, HAVE FUN AND WIN UP TO €14,000 FOR YOUR ORGANISATION!

31. HOW DO THE PUBLIC GET INVOLVED?

32. LAST YEAR… 210 CHARITIES FROM ACROSS IRELAND SUBMITTED THEIR VIDEOS AND SHARED THEIR STORIES ON WWW.BETTERTOGETHER.IE 40 AMAZING VOLUNTEERS WERE NOMINATED FOR THE UNBELIEVABLE WORK THEY DO 65,000 PEOPLE WATCHED THEIR FAVOURITE CHARITIES VIDEOS MORE THAN 132,000 TIMES

33. More Information www.wheel.ie | www.bettertogether.ie For more information about this survey contact: Hugh O’Reilly Business Development Executive The Wheel [email_address] The Wheel 48 Fleet St Dublin 2 Charity No. 13288 Company No. 302282 T: 01 454 8727 E: info@wheel.ie W: www.wheel.ie F: www.facebook.com/TheWheelIreland T: www.twitter.com/The_Wheel_IRL For more information about Better Together contact: Gert Ackermann Communications Officer The Wheel [email_address]