Presentations slides from a presentation delivered to nonprofit organizations at an event hosted by the Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee. This presentation covers the results of a 2011 survey on social media use among nonprofit organizations, the benefits and challenges of social media, and tools to overcome the challenges of social media.
Thanks for coming. Important to remember that I’m not the only expert in the room. You are all experts in your own way too. We’ve all done things or tried things that we’ve learned from. Invite any agency or marketing people to chime in – glad they’re here to make presentation even more valuable for the others. And at the end, not just questions, but discussion with Wayne. First, a couple of housekeeping things.
Goal for today: you are a diverse crowd and I didn’t know who you were going to be (want to provide helpful information to appeal to this group/engage discussion at end). The jumping off point for today is: You are already participating in social media in some way (personally or professionally) – not going to review how to use specific platforms You have something to say (at least you think so) and think social media can work for your organization You recognize that social media is here to stay You want to execute social media as well as possible to benefit your org Can’t tell you exactly what to do – you’re a diverse crowd and we didn’t know who you were going to be. Main goal today is to get you to think.
Now that housekeeping is out of the way, let’s get started. Also took a survey in 2010 on social media use among accountants and attorneys. Had over 600 participants in that survey. Wanted to learn how nonprofits were using social media, what benefits are, challenges were after using it for 18 months or so. Honestly, the results were probably what you’d expect. They were what we expected. But now, instead of saying we THINK something about social media use, we can say we KNOW that thing about social media use.
Nonprofits have a lot of things they like about social media use. Many of these benefits are the same benefits other businesses identify about the benefits of social media. Some matter more to nonprofits – ex. Storytelling. Very important to nonprofits because you want to connect with people in their hearts and you want people to care so they get involved. Of course, there is also the cool factor. Let’s face it, sometimes our board will ask us to do things just so we can say we’re doing them. Low barriers to entry were particularly important a couple of years ago when the economy first tanked. You can get started on social media for free and that holds a lot of appeal. Remember two bucket theory. Social media falls into low cost – high effort, but it’s really easy to get started!
Something new – most common ideas included developing communities for volunteers, updating their web site, alumni groups, or Facebook contests. Important to remember with Facebook contents, there are a bunch of rules. Google Facebook Promotions Guidelines, you can read them all. Some of them go against what you’d intuitively want to do. Release and disclosure requirements Conditions including – you can’t use FB features or functionality as entry mechanism. So can’t “like” a page to enter, or comment on wall post to enter, or upload a photo to enter. Can’t notify winners via Facebook. To be safe, need to drive them to register somewhere else (like your website) and collect contact information from them there. There are contest apps you can work with thru facebook, or use a local web company that is familiar with Facebook to help. If you’re serious about this, I have a couple local firms I’d recommend talking to.
60% of orgs employed fewer than 25 employees 82% learned about social media on their own About half had attended a class or seminar Only 26% said their organization provided any social media training Interface keeps changing and new tools come out every day!
The low cost of SM makes it appealing, but the time commitment makes it hard to stick with. We all get wrapped up in the tactics we have to execute on a day to day basis. Hard to take time to plan. Most of the NFPs we meet with don’t have a marketing plan Free nature of SM makes you feel like you don’t need to, but… Who would go out and spend $20,000 without a media plan? Would you hire a receptionist and not tell her how you want her to answer the phone? Small staffs make it hard to have a team, but most NFPs have at least 2 people (esp. if you include volunteers) but still Mktg is doing it alone 52% of the time PR is doing it 35% of the time (and if those 2 are same people, which they probably are, that’s nearly 90%) 30% have fund development do it And then there’s another problem…
Nielsen study – heavy users of social media use email more than other people also Can use email to promote SM and SM to repurpose email (enewsletter) content – can’t stress email enough. According to the Pew Internet Report , email remains the number one online activity, with 94% of online people using email. o Radicati Research reports that corporate end users send and receive an average of 110 email messages per day. Still need website, annual report, brochures, direct mail, etc. Each thing has a different level of content it can present and interaction it can achieve. It all works together to build a movement for you. Now you just have more to do!
But the reason we’re all here and doing SM is because w know it’s worth it. Are a lot of advantages, need to find a way to overcome the disadvantages.
All this stuff sounds like, “duh” – you guys aren’t stupid, but it’s hard to do these things. I’m going to share some tools that will hopefully make this easier for you.
Only 36% of those we surveyed had a social media policy We have a starter document on our website on the What we do page. There’s a copy of the document in your handouts, but if you want the original source word doc, go online and grab it. That’s what it’s for! This framework tells your people what to be, what to think about in terms of what they should be providing, thinking about to keep themselves out of trouble, and reminds them that they are representing the company. It doesn’t go into great detail, but for example in the protect section, we talk about protecting the privacy of your organization and its clients. We also talk about protecting the company and yourself. We also talk about disclosure and giving credit where its due. Our template is pretty informal and you may need something more specific for your organization. There are a lot of templates online. I found a blog on entry on social media today that listed 100 sample policies. I created a bit.ly for this link for you. Do what works for you!
Many organizations assign their youngest staff member to social media because that person knows the tool. But, those new to the professional world have a lot to learn about effective, professional communication and possibly the big picture of your organization’s goals. Either you’re going to take someone who knows the tool and make sure they understand what’s appropriate and what your goals are, or you’re going to take an experienced communicator and give them time to learn the tool. Want to make sure the people in charge of executing your sm strategy know enough to think through what they are doing so they don’t do something like, for example violate FB’s contest policy. Want to facilitate this. Provide them with messages. George Blomgren at MRA (human resource org) is a big believer in giving people messages. He suggests giving people a few messages to choose from and asking them to post one. This could work well with volunteers. Even providing examples will help guide them if they choose to write their own. Great example of this Meta House tweetathon – we lined up followers for the day and asked them to be ready to follow the hashtag. While a lot of activity was random, a lot was not! That’s why it worked. If that won’t work for you, at least make sure they know what’s going on in your organization. Have them talk with people from other parts of organization, sit in on meetings, see press releases. Many times, people think everyone at your organization knows what’s going on, but they don’t!
We know most people don’t have a plan, but most people are already involved in social media. Would be stupid for me to think that you’re all starting from scratch and that’s how most plan documents work. First, listen, blah, blah, blah… You can’t stop what you’re doing and start over just because you didn’t have a plan The goal isn’t to turn social media into some sort of process that’s overwhelming and makes it so you can’t get anything done Needs to make sense We came up with the ongoing strategy wheel, which shows how this process really never ends. Not a big thick binder. Internal circle – green – is the stuff you should be doing that your audience doesn’t see. This is the part most people forget. We’re going to assume that you’ve been at it for a while, but maybe haven’t stepped back to reflect. Research – take a break and look to see what other people are doing. Look both inside and outside your competition. (don’t copy, don’t get to a point where you’re basing decisions on what would so and so do?) Strategy – who’s on the team? What are our goals with social media? If people don’t know what they’re trying to achieve they’ll just do busywork. What are our social media policies – includes service policies – who, what, when? (once a day, are they supposed to post every day – blog once a week – what?) Listen – what are people asking for? Does this create opportunities? What are they talking about? Position – who are you going to be in the debate? Are you starting something new? Participating in someone else’s discussion, or trying to change opinions? That will totally change your approach to the conversation. Do you want to be seen as a fighter, or an authority, an advocate? For whom? Recalibrate – periodically ask yourself if you’ve learned something, is this working (or can it?), do we need to try something new. What has happened in the world since we last recalibrated? (new platform, change in the economy, scandal, Outer circle – what people see Participation – affected by your social media policy (and your reaction plan - the thing I’m going to discuss next) Creation – what are you going to create? What resources do you have and how much time do you have? Be realistic!!! Manage – implementing your reaction plan, people responsible execute, recognize and reward participation Integrate – social media doesn’t live in isolation. Have you updated your website? How does it affect your PR, events, annual reports, brochures, events, can you drive people to sites with QR codes?
We came up with this based on two sources, Air Force really great blog triage chart, and similar one developed by Altimeter Group – Brian Solis – social media experts. Both sources focused only on the right side of the chart and assumed that all problems originate from outside. But, we know that orgs we work with struggle with social media because they don’t have enough manpower to get the job done and are afraid of getting other people involved. So, advocate SM policy (covered) Training (covered) Plan (covered) Prepare for problems. Is the message confidential, defamatory, can we handle it offline? We know this process won’t solve everything, but when you’re freaked out, it’s good to have something to look at to help you organize your thoughts. If you work for a national organization, look – they may have branding and communications guidelines that can help. This doc, like all others is available on clearverve.com/what we do.
Review your plan, explore new options, remember you’re going to make mistakes but you won’t die. (Gloria Steinem) Don’t feel pressure to do something just because it exists (google +) Remember, you are driving the bus. You know your strategy. Need to listen, but don’t become confused.
Now, bring Wayne back up here and open up to questions. Questions don’t have to be for us – could ask the group something.