This presentation given at the the Grade Level Reading (http://www.gradelevelreading.net) conference in Denver Colorado, July 1st 2012.
Session description:
When it comes to championing and gaining support for modern causes and movements, integrating strategic social media is no longer an option. Integrating digital strategies effectively into an overall communications plan can amplify support and empower advocates. This session provides tools and techniques drawn from successful, real life movements.
3. Introductions
Melissa Thompson – Communications Manager, CAP
@melissathomps
A writer since she could punch the orange keys on her Little Tikes typewriter,
Melissa Thompson has always been a fan of communicating. She’s an even bigger
advocate of helping others discover the power of emerging digital media (you
know, the tools that are helping us connect, collaborate and “share good” faster
and farther than ever.)
Through her work with The Patterson Foundation, Melissa has advised voluntary
health organizations, community engagement entities, and others on strategic
social media practices. She recently earned a certificate in online community
management from WOMMA. When she is not doing her part to bridge the digital
engagement deficit, Melissa can be found training for her next race or getting lost
in baking blogs.
4. Introductions
Sam Stern – Partner, CAP
@mhealthmarketer
CAP is the communications partner of The Patterson Foundation, a thought
leader in the transformative role of strategic communications within the
philanthropy sector.
As chief strategist, Sam has integrated social media strategies and emerging
tools within the foundation’s DNA, resulting in relationship building with some
of the sector’s most influential leaders. Leading the CAP team, Sam uses social
communications strategies to build and encourage awareness and impact
through work with The Patterson Foundation’s partners.
14. Idea: Doing at least one nice thing per week makes the world a better place
Started: LA 2005
Spread: Do one nice thing emails reminding people to do nice things
Media Coverage – Radio, Oprah, Martha Stewart,
Kits for members to start their own local clubs
SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT (Twitter, Facebook, blog)
Today: Members in 92 countries
100 tons of school supplies sent for Iraqi and Afghan
10’s of 000’s of books for schools, libraries, and children’s hospitals
10’s of 000’s cans of food items to food banks
15.
16. ™
( RED )
• IDEA: Transform the collective power of consumers into a financial force to help fight AIDS
and other diseases in Africa
• STARTED: Bono of U2 and Bobby Shriver founded RED in 2006.
• HOW IT SPREAD: RED spread through its pacts with its partners, extensive media coverage
resulting from the high profile of the corporations involved and RED’s founders, social networking,
celebrity spokespeople, and brand exposure. In 2010, a full-length documentary called The Lazarus
Effect was executive produced by Spike Jonze and sponsored by (RED), HBO, and Anonymous
Content, on the heels of a public-service TV featuring high-profile celebrities in the United States.
• Today:
Generated more than $170 million
Reached more than 7.5 million people in Ghana, Lesotho, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland,
and Zambia
Programs have averted 6.5 million deaths worldwide
17. Modern movements are digitally connected
Members of movements are more likely
to have socially engaged friends who
belong to other movements
Friends of Friends = Amplifying messages
and expanding reach of influence
19. Take-away: Leverage the networks of key contacts
• Enlist ambassadors
• Define roles
• Timing strategy
20. i Survey: 2,252 Adults April & May ‘10
- Low income people among fastest adopters of mobile web devices (May ‘10)
- Low income people using mobile devices in place of higher-cost computers
- 46% of households earning less than $30K a year are wireless Internet users. (May ‘10)
- The lowest income group surveyed was the fastest growing
- Of those surveyed who use wireless mobile technology
- 64% African Americans
- 63% English-speaking Latinos
- 57% White Americans
- Minorities more likely to use social networking sites, watch videos, post videos and purchase products on
mobile devices
21. i Surveys: Adults using social media – 2,277 May 2011
Twitter Use 2012 – 2,253 adults;
- 65 % of Internet-using adults use social - Online adults who use Twitter in typical day
networking sites (only email and search doubled since May 2011 (still about 15% online
engines are used more frequently) adults)
- Positives outweigh negatives in words - Income
describing experience using social - 31% under $50K
networking sites - Of that,19% under $30K
- Among Internet users, social networking - Of those using Twitter
most popular with women, young adults - African American – 28%
under 30 and parents - Latino – 14%
- White – 12%
22. • Familiar with most social media
channels
• Using social media somewhat regularly
• See social media as somewhat to very
important to programs
• Majority see social media playing a
somewhat greater role
• Two Biggest challenge
– Time to plan and execute/cost
– Convincing others of value
23. Conveying value of social media
Social movements need people who are champions for strategic social media
Educate leadership by sharing the benefits of online
communications tools and online communities
- low barriers to entry
- segment of audience already using
- expansive reach
- two-way media
Address fears early on: What’s the worst that could
happen?
Share examples of success
24. Taking the plunge
The Patterson Foundation
• 13 people age 45+
• Limited knowledge of social media
• Apprehension and fear
34. Content Strategy
Content strategy is planning for the creation,
aggregation, governance and expiration of
content that is useful, usable and appropriate
to your movement.
35. What does “good” content do?
- Connect themes across platforms
- Easily shared (easy to retweet, share, like,
comment on, subscribe to)
-Stimulates discussions among people within
your online community
- Useful
- Entertaining
- Thinks of community members first
- Show (don’t tell) how community members
are making a difference
36. Connecting themes across platforms
Idea: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) #GoSilent campaign asking people
to go silent for one minute at 12:01 pm on Memorial Day 2012
Spread: Simple call to action. Easy to participate. Multi-platform.
40. Making it easy to participate
Samples of Facebook posts and Twitter
updates to share (included in e-blasts)
Ask people to donate their Facebook
profile photos to your cause for a week
43. Spotlight on blogs
1) Benefits
- Owned media
- Drive search
- Low cost to set up
- Thought leadership
44. Need ideas?
• Storify – Turn tweets into blog posts
• Video – Embed with an intro for a short post
• Lists – Top 5 most talked about Facebook posts
• Photos – Highlight community members
45. Grade-Level Reading Applications
• Robust blog=content hub
• Comment on other blogs
• Cross post
• Guest bloggers
• Repurpose posts for Twitter and Facebook
46. i
Facebook
+ “Super Platform”
+ Reach (900 million people on Facebook)
+ Flexible (connect publicly and privately)
+200 Million average daily visits on mobile devices
+ Average time on site per visit: 23 minutes
+ Connection point to others forms of social media
+ Geo targeting
47. i
Idea: NPR and KPLU (Seattle affiliate) experiment with
Facebook geo-targeting
Baseline: NPR’s Facebook page has 2.3 million people
worldwide
Content: Only posted content that was conversational with a splash of local Seattle
flavor
Pacing: Posted one Seattle-targeted story a day (mixed in with other NPR posts that
occur every hour)
Measurement: Facebook insights to track comments, shares etc.
Audience Growth: In 4 months posted 50 pieces of KPLU content increased traffic to
KPLU 12 percent
51. Partnership with Marguerite Casey Foundation and its grantees
Began by asking two questions:
What would a nationwide movement aimed at raising the voices of poor and working families
look like?
What would it take to spark and sustain a movement that ensured that those voices were heard,
not on a single issue but across all issues that affected their lives?
52. Idea: Raising the voices of poor and working-
class families
Started: 2007-2008 nationwide
Spread: Mobilized more than 30,000 families
with multiplatform strategy including
Facebook, Twitter, Video
65 town hall style meetings
Online convention to vote on national
platform issues
Today: Online newspaper Equal Voice
30 grassroots networks for community
engagement
53. Grade-Level Reading Applications
- Spotlight community member impact (photos from literacy fairs and
programs etc.)
- Ask the community for tips related to GLR pillars (best practices to bridge
summer learning gap and share the top answers in a blog post)
- Highlight major advocacy milestones and ask the community to act
- Promote in-person, town-hall style sessions
- Highlight new members (ask them to share why they are involved and
committed))
- Use Facebook Insights to determine what content is most engaging
54. Twitter
+ Global and local community
+ Research & discovery platform
+ Real-time chat and conversation tool
+ Driver of direct traffic
+ 250 million tweets per day
55. Idea: 30-minute video to make
Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony
“famous”
Started: Kony2012 Initiative
launched in March by the
Invisible Children nonprofit
Spread: #stopkony on Twitter
and celebrity interest
57. #s
#stopkony celeb supporters
@rihanna – 15.3 million
@KimKardashian – 14.2 million
@NickiMinaj – 10.3 million
@RyanSeacrest – 6 million
@BillGates – 5.7 million
@iamdiddy – 5 million
58. Grade-Level Reading Applications
- Power in engaging local/regional/state/national influencers
- Participate in existing Twitter chats and/or start your own
with other GLR communities
- Be selective about what you share – share the useful stuff!
- Use free tools like HootSuite to track notable retweets and
mentions
- Drive traffic to blog or website
65. i
Grade-Level Reading Applications
Pinterest for your community – Is it right?
+ Demographic alignments
+ Content alignment (Literacy, Education)
+ Two-way content driver
Requires strong content strategy
- Ability to develop own graphics to share (original
work, high quality)
- Time to curate pins of others (Bandwidth check)
- Driving people to blogs or websites that house
the resources you want to share
Welcome – Roxanne (who is roxanne)If you’re tweeting mention hashtag
Intro by Roxanne. Thank Roxanne -
Intro by Roxanne
But what will it really take?It’s going to take a movement. Movements are not built on Facebook alone, or Twitter alone. It’s going to take cultural change to accomplish goals. Let’s take a look at our objectives this morning:We’ll take a closer look at movements – what are they? Why are they important for creating action and advocacy*Differences in the most popular social media platforms, including Facebook/Twitter/Blogging and how each can be applied to reaching your target audience within your communities * How social media can be integrated into an overall communications plan
So let’s talk a little bit about movements.
So Let’s talk about Movements. Seth Godin is an American entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing. Seth Godin – The purple Cow, Tribes – http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
Here’s some great reading on the subject of Movements: I highly recommend this book. We’ll be using examples from the book : Uprising – How to build a brand and change the world. It’s an excellent book by Scott Goodson, founder of Strawberry Frog and a thought leader on cultural movement. Scott Goodson is the founding partner of StrawberryFrog, He has worked for major brands such as PepsiCo, Google, Heineken, P&G, Starbucks, Smart Car, Scion, Emirates, Frito-Lay and Wal-Mart's Sam's ClubScottgoodson.typepad.com@scottfrog“Passion enables movements to grow and ultimately have a significant impact on culture” – Scott GoodsonThe takeaway is this; passion is the only prerequisite for a movementYou already have passion. So all of you are already there. You wouldn’t be in this room without a passion to make a difference. The power is your hands and you have to unleash and uncover that same power in others.
Through working with your team and looking around the room, I know you have passion!
(Sam) Passion has fueled many movements past and present- the revolution was a passion to govern selves. When passion turns into a movement and movements are fueled by social media they are explosive. For every passion, there’s a movement.What movement do we have here?What passion is behind this movement? Human Rights/Political Justice/Demonstrations throughout the Arab world and protests in 12 countries and 4 governments overthrown,
(Sam) Anyone recognize this movement? Occupy Wall Street. What was the passion behind this?Originally passion behind it was to combat corporate greed. Some may argue this movement in particular had trouble defining itself and sticking to its intended message. But Not all movements are politically motivated and turn into massive protests…. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a protest that began on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Wall Street financial district. The Canadian activist group Adbusters initiated the protest, which has led to Occupy protests and movements around the world. The main issues are social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, We are the 99%, addresses the growing income inequality and wealth distribution in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters act on consensus-based decision made in general assemblies which emphasize direct action overpetitioning authorities for redress.[6] Kalle Lasnand Micah White of Adbusters, a Canadian anti-consumerist publication, who conceived of a September 17 occupation in lower Manhattan. Lasn registered the OccupyWallStreet.org web address on June 9.[8] In June, Adbusters emailed its subscribers saying “America needs its own Tahrir”. White said the reception of the idea "snowballed from there".[9][8] In a blog post on July 13 of 2011,[10] Adbusters proposed a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest corporate influence on democracy, the lack of legal consequences for those who brought about the global crisis of monetary insolvency, and an increasing disparity in wealth.[9] The protest was promoted with an image featuring a dancer atop Wall Street's iconic Charging Bull statue [11][12][Slogan: We are the 99%162,451 followers protester's political affiliations were 25% Democrat, 2% Republican, 11% Socialist, 11% Green Party, 12% Other, and 39% independent.[81] Ideologically the Fordham survey found 80% self-identifying as slightly to extremely liberal, 15% as moderate, and 6% as slightly to extremely conservative.[
So let’s take a look at a passion that turned into a movementDo One Nice Thing – is a movement that started with a simple premise: doing nice things makes the world a better place, doing nice things can be habit forming, so why not encourage everyone to do more nice things? A simple message – easy to understand and is to spreadThis movement didn’t start out with a massive following. Started out with one woman named Debbie Tenzer who started looking for nice things to do that would counteract her Monday blues.
How did it spread and what are the results? Interesting because this movement started in 2005 on the cusp of social media’s birth. You’ll see a marriage of traditional media and offline community building (kits for people to start own clubs) with digital tools that they now use.
How did it spread and what are the results? Interesting because this movement started in 2005 on the cusp of social media’s birth. You’ll see a marriage of traditional media and offline community building (kits for people to start own clubs) with digital tools that they now use.
So let’s take a look at a passion that turned into a movementDo One Nice Thing – is a movement that started with a simple premise: doing nice things makes the world a better place, doing nice things can be habit forming, so why not encourage everyone to do more nice things? A simple message – easy to understand and is to spreadThis movement didn’t start out with a massive following. Started out with one woman named Debbie Tenzer who started looking for nice things to do that would counteract her Monday blues.
SOCIAL IS ROCKET FUELToday’s most successful movements marry online engagement with offline action. Modern movement organizers realize the power of social networking and the ripple effects of enabling others to be your advocates and spread your messages online. If the pre-conference survey was any indication it looks like several of you are on this same page.
AN EXAMPLE OF SPREADING MESSAGES THROUGH INFLUENCERSStrategically selecting ambassadors to carry your message can do wonders to spread your message. December 2010 –We were working with the Arthritis Foundation in Florida on communications for their Jingle Bell Run/Walk event series. Goal was to help promote The Patterson Foundation’s dollar for dollar match (up to $250,000). In addition to the match, The Patterson Foundation was interested in building the Arthritis Foundation Florida Chapter’s Facebook following and promoted $10 for every follower up to $50K.His Tweet came about mid-way through the allotted time to get followers – providing an extra push. We leveraged a contact of one of the Arthritis Foundation Florida Chapter staff members – were able to get Glee actor Kevin McHale to tweet about the Facebook promotion to his 205,000 followers. Provided
Social media is the rocket fuel for modern movements? Why will social media be particularly important to grade level reading? Targeting low income people which may include – latinos and africanamericans. Research tells us social media becomes more imporant. Here’s some support.
To make this of value to you.We sent out an informal survey in the weeks leading up to this session, so we could get a feel for your familiarity with social media and to zero in on what would be most relevant to you:Here are the themes: Somewhat familiar with social media but there’s room to grow and learn about how it can best add to campaign communications and outreach Using social media somewhat but there may be room to grow use as well The most prevalent tools being used are email marketingWe’ve geared this presentation to cover the basics and take it into an intermediate level
BE THE CHAMPIONThe biggest challenge you’ve said is having others embrace social media; Someone has to be the championEducate – social media can be mysterious to others, especially those outside of the communications space. Address the worst that can happen up front Know their learning styleEmphasize value in connections and conversations. Ask “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” and then take steps to prepare for that. Have an internal roadshow that talks about working with an open and networked mindset (don’t even get into minutia of tools)Share success stories of othersDocument – especially early on in a social media program, you’re not necessarily going to be able to demonstrate ROI on a weekly basis. Building a community and a movement takes time. Set quarterly reporting check-ins and share screen shots of RT’s, mentions, shares, likes and comments Identify social media advocates already on your team Bottom line – remember that movements are meant to engage people social media is a piece of a larger communications plan to do that
Part of overall communications planStrategy is to build thought leadership in initiative work area Do this through blogging
Emphasize “Clarity in…” before reading each of these. Educate- this is especially important for leadership. Know your audience and make the case. Give examples. Speak to business sensibility (reach more people online) Provide training- help people become comfortable with tools. Dissecting anatomy of a blog post. Remove mystery – You may make a mistake but it will be Ok. Encourage point of view Take baby steps Provide praise and share with others
What makes this example at The Patterson Foundation work? Leadership values communications and understands it is integral to telling the story about outcomes and lessons learned Social media is a piece of the communications plan but always goes back to primary goals: educating others that TPF is a “different’ kind of foundation (doesn’t have grants) connecting with others innovators in the sector and outside of the sector.We assume you all will be developing a communications strategy Key messages – what are the ideas worth spreading? 30,000 foot level Target audience – You may be targeting low-income parents – what do they care about? Have you asked them? Messages are tailored to each group. Building your strategy means identifying insights and motivations around the campaignMake you declaration – are the GLR organizers in communities across the country all on the same page about the goal and core message?Unite those close ambassadors. They are your most important group and will carry your message without fail. Do you know who these people are?Social media can be a great tool to scale the messages and build community around this campaignSustain and build momentumBecause … social media needs to come after that has been doneWe framed how important social media is and we’ll now take the second portion of the session to give you an overview of some of the ways this can be applied to your work. We’ll talk about some social media platforms, we’ll give you some examples of those platforms and we’ll talk about how this could realte to the work you’re doing with this campaign.
Used together under communications plan
Used together under communications plan
Thank you Sam – I’m really excited to get to talk to you about social media. I’m going to give you some tools to use social media right now. You’ll be able to walk out of here with at least one thing can do. Whether you have already begun a social media program or are still thinking through the strategic elements, there is a way you can use social media to your advantage right now. The most important thing I can tell you right now is to listen.Social media can and should be used as much for listening as conversing. Twitter, for example, is a great listening and research tool. You can tap into people who are already share the PASSION you do for early education, literacy and othersWhat we’ve shared here are some hashtags that may be of interest – remember that hashtags mark keywords or topics in a tweet-Where are other conversations happening about complimentary or similar issues?- http://novemberlearning.com/resources/handouts/popular-education-hashtags-on-twitter/
By listening I mean finding conversations that are already happening. To showcase this,here’s a quick demo.This is what you’ll find at search.twitter.com
You can use the advanced search function to enter key words, exact phrases, hash tags – as you see here we entered in #
We entered in Washington DC within 50 miles
Here are the results, we have people talking about programs to give new parents books for their children, someone promoting an earlyed webinar, another organization sharing research.Doing a quick search or scan every morning can help you identify trends and topics that could inform your own social strategies.
So we’ve just talked about using social media for listening – which is an essential part of your social media planning and execution. But what about planning what you have to say?You need content.You need to be able to have information to share with your community.Content is key to driving participation – examples of content include blogs, video, photos, polls, live chats, infographics, newsletters What organizes all of these pieces is your content strategy. The content stragegy is your plan to create, aggregate content that advances your movement and gets people talking.An easy place to start is to think about developing content around the Grade-Level Reading pillars – reinforce those messages
These are some of the things you need to think about in terms of your content.Go through the list.
Movements with simple calls to action are really easy to spread and share. Platforms mean Facebook, Twitter,Makes it easy for your movement to scale. It takes people who may be lurkers and moves them to take a baby step in participation (100% of your followers will never be your super users…)
Set up a branded microsite (subsection of their existing website) including a pledge counter to show other people joining the movement. Prompts you to sign up for the movement (providing simple info like name, zipcode, email, veteran status)The thank you page immediately encourages sharing
Concentrating efforts on Facebook and Twitter (as you saw on the Thank you page). Because of the simple call to action the Twitter stream showcases people doing more than sharing the same update – they are personalizing their experience.
On Facebook they used the timeline feature to brand their campaign. Made their profile photo of the hashtag to work around Facebook rules saying you can’t include a website URL in your branded timeline real estateWhile they concentrated on Facebook and Twitter, they included other platforms that would feed their primary social networks.Instagram and Foursquare – the hashtag is being used throughout. Photos from instagram being shared on Facebook and Twitter
Make it as easy as possible for your community to connect. For example, Charter for Compassion calls for the global family to once again embrace compassion in our daily lives instead of turning to violence, hatred etc.76,000 followers on Facebook This is probably the easiest call to action – but as you saw with #gosilent – it’s even more impactful when people personalize Another easy way for people to participate is for your to ask them to donate their timeline coverphoto to your cause at a certain point in time. Make sure you outline how they can do this (switching to timeline if they haven’t already, downloading the cover photo from your website etc. ask them to share with others to do the same)
With an excellent content strategy you can begin to think about tools as vehicles to drive those messages to your communities. We’ll focus on quality over quantity of tools. We’ll look at three or four that you can really excel at and spend quality time on cultivating communitiesFor each vehicle, we’ll talk about cases where they were used really well and ways you can apply it to your work
The first platform can really become the hub of your social media efforts if you take special care to create really good content. Your blog has the potential to feed Twitter and Facebook and showcase great photo or video content. Blogs bring the passion of your community to life and gives you a platform to share stories.Think about what keeps you interested – visuals? Video? Short posts? All of the above? Interesting blogs diversify.
Have a blog policy – For example, we created a social media specific to how we work.Provide training or templates – we had a really rigourous training program for consultants who were scared about social media when we first started working with them, so the training was a huge part of our success.
Have a blog policyProvide training or templatesExamplesIf you spend time creating great content for the blog it can become your central hub and feed your other social media channelsInteresting way to focus content would be to focus on those pillarsYou not only build thought leadership by
The first tool we’re highlighting is Facebook for its reach, flexibility and
During that time KPLU achieved record traffic for a day, second highest traffic for a single month October) and the highest traffic for a single month.
Can go statewide with content or stick to your city or certain cities in your region
This gives you the opportunity to get instant feedback. If you float an idea that’s not well receievd you’ll find out immediately. You can tweak messaging. Facebook insights can tell you what content is considered most engaging with your audience and what content isn’t really moving people
Here’s an example where a movement was driven in part by Facebook Equal voice for America’s families began with support from the Marguerite Casey Foundation – a foundation that supports movements. 2007 Equal voices for American families two questions
Strengths and weaknesses
Here’s how we see it unfolding for you
These are some of the benefitsTPF Twitter conversations have global reachMap out growth
This is an interesting example. This movement started with a video. Think about how we talked about creating content as the driver. This started with a video.
If you take a celebrity and take twitter this is how powerful it can be
Not only did Oprah tweet, but because Oprah tweeted it – look at the celebrity support that followed
- Access to global thought leaders
YouTUbe – they are familiar
Just wanted to take a look at some secondary sites that could feed your main networks. One is Pinterest. If we’re talking about harnassing passion, Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets people share images and links to beautiful things. People use Pinterest to share info about things they care about. Home Décor. Crafts. Food. Their Kids.In January 2012, people were spending about 89 minutes on Pinterest18.7 million unique visitors in April 2012 (launched in September 2011)
Demographics are heavily women, including moms. Moms are using it for crafts, home décor ideas but a lot of what they share are kid-centric. Teachers are using it to share ideas.I did a quick search for “education” and more than 200 boards showed up
I did a quick search for “education” and more than 200 boards showed up
Did a quick search for literacy and found more than 300 boards (collections of pins with tips ideas)
http://www.teachercertificationdegrees.com/top-blogs/early-childhood-education/ (50 early education blogs)http://cfed.org/assets/pdfs/alc/2010/precon/unstill_waters.pdf (White Paper: Unstill waters: The fluid role of networks in social movements) – Robin KatcherUprising – Scott Goodson