Author Archive
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POSTED BY
Daniel Hartman
MAR 27, 2008 |
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NTEN Does Web 2.0
I went to several Web 2.0 sessions at NTEN, Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans last week. It was amazing how many there were, sometimes even two at the same time. They were all very good, and all the same. My one criticism of all of them is addressed at the end of this post. Also at the end, I have embedded the presentations of several of those folks I mention.
The first session I attended was specifically about social networking and led by Brian Reich of Echo Ditto, author of Media Rules!
Brian's big point was that there’s a lot of noise to cut through and to engage people you must deploy quality, focused, niche communications. Volume and frequency are not primary considerations. Most importantly, participate with authenticity. This is something anyone studying the space knows. You must be a credible member of the community sharing useful information and thoughtful comments before anyone will respond to your asks.
A good tip Brian mentioned was to deputize people to grow your network for you. This is something we have been working on at See3 – methods to build a network of influencers in the social networks who will carry your torch. Giving people certain authority to speak on your behalf, and rewarding them with praise or titles or special invitations to events, etc. In other words, to formalize that relationship is a great idea. Another point Brian made was that perhaps Facebook and Myspace are not for your organization. You may find better success participating in a niche social network like Changents or Gather. I suggest another one to explore, Rethos.
Brian provided an overview of many of the social networks out there. He talked about LinkedIn, but he did not address LinkedIn for Good. I asked him afterwards if he knew of any case studies or saw any potential for using LinkedIn for Good, which launched last year with much buzz but seems like nothing but tumbleweeds rolling by since. His thoughtful response: “I know a bunch of people have tried (and there has actually been some discussion within the NTEN blogs and community about it) to use LinkedIn as a fundraising platform. The LinkedIn platform isn't structured exactly to support direct fundraising, and I think people don't necessarily appreciate when you don't respect the medium. But I have seen groups use LinkedIn to form committees that do fundraising, to have people volunteer time from an in-kind standpoint, etc. So, if you use the right tools through LinkedIn, you can get that much closer to a donation--so I'd say that is a better path. All experiments still, but there is clearly potential.”
Brian emphasized that social networking is not for every organization, and that you must consider your goals, strategies, tactics, and resources, not assuming the use of any particular tool. This notion was echoed by the other presenters on this topic that I saw, but Brian said it the best and with the most authority: “If you leave this conference, go back to your team and say, ‘We need a Facebook strategy’ then I have failed…”
Beth Kanter led a mere four sessions. I attended two of them. The first was about ROI. Coming from a background in SEM and lead generation, I was so glad to see “Web 2.0 ROI” as the title of a session. Beth pointed out a great study on blogging ROI from Forrester. She asked the audience how many people use formal ROI evaluations with regard to social media efforts. I was glad my hand was up but sad it was one of only two.
The first panelist was Eve Smith from Easter Seals. They tried the Causes challenge – seeking donors on Facebook - and her biggest takeaway was that influencers are more valuable than donors. I assume what she means is that if you find the influencers, they will bring you more donors than you could find on your own. Makes sense.
Wendy Harman from the Red Cross gave her case study on Project Listen. She does an amazing job at communicating with and monitoring the blogosphere and reporting on coverage of her organization. Her take-aways from that activity are that internally, people love the feedback from bloggers, and externally, people love to know that you care.
Danielle Brigida from NWF presented a case study on Digg and StumbleUpon. It took her 7 months to establish relationships in the Digg community sufficiently to get good results (ie, popular stories). Just like anywhere else, you have to be a credible, authentic participant and contribute valuable information in order for others to reciprocate. In StumbleUpon, she saw results from being the source of quality, relevant info. I have embedded Danielle's PowerPoint below.
Carie Lewis, who does tremendous things on Myspace and in other social media channels, gave a case study on HSUS’s video contest after the Michael Vick dogfighting incident. HSUS only got 22 entries but from a marketing perspective it was a success in part because Hulk Hogan did the promo video for the contest. She learned from the experience to require email in the voting tool, target people likely to submit videos, and do more blogger outreach. See3 has run many successful video contests (a few examples here, here and here). Video contests can be a great way to give your community something tangible to do and create great content for your organization in the process.
Justin Perkins from Care2 presented his famous social media ROI calculator. The big take-away here is that if you assume one full-time staff member getting paid $52k/yr dedicated to social media can yield even 10,000 new email addresses for your organization in a year (which I agree would be a lot), then your CPA is $5.20/name. Justin says “there are cheaper ways to acquire email addresses.” He respectfully refrained from plugging Care2, which uses a brilliant petition process to find supporters for your cause among their network of 7 million activists at the cost of between $2-3/name.
My understanding of Care2, based on comments from Care2 clients, is that the lists perform well, however the demographic is clearly progressive, and somewhat skewed to middle-aged women. So how much any organization should rely on Care2 for list-growth really depends on your mission, objectives, and your own community. There is a lot more to this discussion, such as all of the potential benefits to social media marketing beyond strictly list-growth, such as branding, fostering community, creating discussion, distributing media materials, participating in existing communities, and many other results more difficult to fit in a spreadsheet. Again, what are your goals.
Another Web 2.0 related session I attended was See3’s Michael Hoffman about online video, which he already summarized. My take-aways from his session: “viral to what end?” Michael made the point very well that everyone wants their video to go viral, but that is not a legitimate goal in itself. Views do not necessarily lead to donations and email addresses. You need a strategy for your video and your call to action. This relates to Michael’s other session on using microsites to convert views to action. He said it's important to start with stories and to have a strong call to action. Now here’s the part where I criticize my boss. He showed this as an example of a direct response piece, which is a great video and performed well in the email appeal for which it was created, but not nearly as well as this one, which has a much stronger call to action and is the better example.
The last session on Web 2.0 I attended was called "The Next Latest Thing: The Future of Technology in Nonprofits" led by John Kenyon with Beth. I have to say, the title of this session was misleading. Upon reflection, “the next latest thing” seems cheeky, but “the future of technology in nonprofits” seemed like a fun exploration into the unknown rather than a run-down of the most contemporary tools everyone else was talking about. Nevertheless, what I liked about this session was that John did a great job of getting comments from the crowd after each point, creating some discussion and incorporating feedback into his presentation. What I also liked about this session is that John echoed many things we advocate at See3: tell stories, get user-generated content as a great way to efficiently acquire marketing material and ignite your audience, use media to engage people.
Now here is my criticism of all Web 2.0 sessions, as promised at the beginning of this post: most, if not all, of the case studies are from large organizations with communications teams and resources that allow them to try things like video and daily engagement in social networks. But what about the small organizations that have one person responsible for marketing & communications, and that person is also the network administrator, web manager, and events coordinator? What can they do? We cannot solve their problem of limited resources, but we can find their successful case studies and present them to inspire other organizations like them, which is a majority of nonprofits. I’d be happy to moderate that panel next year in San Francisco.
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POSTED BY
Daniel Hartman
NOV 28, 2007 |
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A Vision of Your Target Market
Most nonprofits are thinking about how to reach younger audiences. Here is an insightful video about their behaviors. Many of you have already seen this video called A Vision of Students Today, added to YouTube over a month ago and now the 94th most discussed video of all time on YouTube with over 6,000 comments. For those who haven't, I recommend it (be patient through the first 90 seconds of premise).
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POSTED BY
Daniel Hartman
NOV 26, 2007 |
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Don’t Let the Video Tail Wag the Campaign Dog
The UN Foundation practices much of what See3 has been preaching for years. They understand that an organization, or a campaign, must tell a story to build an audience, and then activate that audience with a compelling call to action. They understand that video is a critical communications tool in creating that narrative, especially online, and they strategically incorporate video onto their web pages. Perhaps most importantly, they are committed to a culture of documentation: they record almost everything.
The Nothing But Nets campaign makes use of various styles of video with varying production values, and each well serves its purpose.
• They documented the efforts of their street teams, and made a fun and inspiring piece out of young people advocating their way onto the Today Show.
• One of their staff members recorded himself in the field helping save lives in Chad in one of the best on-location home videos I’ve seen.
• They use a professionally produced, light-hearted PSA to get the point across, which currently serves as their home page video.
The People Speak also demonstrates the UN Foundation’s dedication to online video, featuring video throughout the web site, running video contests, and inviting supporters to capture and submit their own stories.
Despite their sophisticated sense of the importance of video in nonprofit communications, the UN Foundation still struggles with their video strategy. Now that we have all this footage, what do we do with it? When, if ever, do we need a professional touch? How do we distribute video online to expand our constituency? Where and how should we focus our energies to get the most ROI from our video production resources?
Stay tuned for a future post on the distribution question. On the production side, See3 believes organizations must capture their own footage on an ongoing basis in order to create an archive of material from which to pull stories and show the impact of your work over time. That’s why See3 offers hands-on training on video documentation. And bravo to the UN Foundation and orgs like it who create terrific pieces that keep web site users engaged and inform supporters of your activities. But the most compelling content – the piece that your supporters will feel obligated to pass along, because it captures the essence of your work in a quick and powerful expression of creativity and experienced messaging – will often result from a strategic assessment of your material, understanding of the most visually engaging stories, and incorporation of high production values. These are the lasting pieces that should be used as the flagship media piece of your campaign, that most efficiently and effectively convey your crucial message, and that exemplify the importance and gravity of your work.
Don’t let the tail wag the dog. Video is not a strategy unto itself. Nonprofits need to make the best use of video by strategically incorporating various styles into your outreach, advocacy, and fundraising campaigns.
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POSTED BY
Daniel Hartman
OCT 22, 2007 |
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Oxfam America and HSUS: Not just Talking about Social Media, Using It
The last session at the Convio Summit in Austin was well attended, and a fun way to finish the event on Friday. Called “Web 2.0 – New Outreach and Fundraising Techniques,” the topic of this workshop is something every nonprofit marketing manager and online communications professional wants to talk about. The presenters were Carie Lewis of the Humane Society, and Tim Fullerton of Oxfam America, who both gave great insight on what’s happening in the trenches – actual day-to-day examples of how nonprofits can work online communities to gain new supporters, coming directly from the people writing the blog posts, friending people on MySpace, and testing new strategies.
Carie opened with an intro to social media. She says social networks are “not just a bunch of lonely teenage boys.” 84% of people comment, 82% message others, and 39% create content. She notes that people really rely on social networks for influence on decision-making. To me, this confirms as viable the strategy of finding those community leaders who will carry your torch for you, and then messaging them with content to distribute to their friends. She acknowledged it can be very time consuming, and reiterated a suggestion See3 often makes to our clients: get interns and volunteers!
Both HSUS and Oxfam’s primary efforts are on what Carie calls “the big four”: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. I agree based on sheer traffic volume, the first 3 are no-brainers for any nonprofit to start. However, neither Carie nor Tim discussed social bookmarking or social news strategies in any depth, and Digg, Stumble Upon, and del.icio.us certainly have enough traffic to warrant a deep approach.
On MySpace: Both Oxfam and HSUS prove what we already know from Greenpeace and others – MySpace is a great place to get new advocates. How did they get so many friends? One at a time. When she started the MySpace page, Carie literally requested friends one by one. Tim started by seeing who was already talking about Oxfam. They recommend spending an hour per day building your network. Oxfam now has a very nice custom page. They both use the MySpace blog, which reminds us again to speak to the community where they are, don’t try and drag them over to your main blog. HSUS is now getting 200 friend requests/day. Of the people that friend them, 29% found their page via search, and 13% came from their website. If you are a small organization, you won’t get that traffic. But 36% discovered them through a friend’s profile. This shows the viral potential of raising awareness in the social networks. Tim says MySpace is not good for fundraising, although we have seen some examples of orgs running successful fundraising campaigns, such as Dollars for Darfur.
On Facebook: I think everyone agrees it’s very early. So far, the only real strategy to analyze besides creating groups is the Causes application. Tim says it’s great to see thousands of people join the Oxfam cause, but he does not know who those people are and has no way to follow up with them. Carie says HSUS has raised $20k through the Causes app, though I’m not finding that in my search of Causes. Regardless, very few orgs (though some) have raised real cash via the Causes app. Developing custom Facebook apps may be the way to go, as already discussed on this blog.
On YouTube: everyone loves video. Oxfam ran a campaign against Starbucks with a video being crucial to the resulting success. HSUS ran a video contest during the outcry over the Michael Vick story that received 22 submissions, over 43,000 views of the contest intro video (featuring Hulk Hogan), and garnered 2,000 new list members. They ran their contest on YouTube, but See3 has a private label, fully customizable video contest hosting, management, and marketing solution.
On blogging and blogger outreach: They both moderate every single comment on the blog (they recommend not to allow auto-posting), and someone responds personally to each comment. They also suggest: make it personal, using your real voice; don’t reprint press releases or other web stories; be concise (advice I am not following here ;)). There was a question from the audience on blogger outreach, from someone who got no traffic from buying an ad on a relevant blog, and got no love from the blogger either. Carie and Tim say customize and personalize each message to bloggers, warm them up, and sell your story. Carie suggests offering exclusivity on a news story in return for promotion, and reminds us to always ask them to link back to your blog. Shana Glickfield of Issue Dynamics Inc., a blogger and consultant on blogger relations, added that your first contact with a blogger should not be an ask. You should touch base with them prior to your campaign, send them swag and information of interest on an ongoing basis.
On Second Life: Tim and Carie both say stay away. I say wait for the MacArthur Foundation’s year-long exploration of the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds, and for significantly increased daily activity on Second Life, and in the meantime focus on video and other live action social media opportunities.
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