Last week we gave you our 2008 best posts. This week we’re wrapping up our 2009 best posts, determined by either most read posts or just stuff we like.
Engaging Alumni in Social Media – 25 August 2009 Each group of alumni is unique, each school has different goals, and each social media program should tie back to your institution’s communications and fundraising goals.
Legal Issues and Social Media Use in Organizations – 7 August 2009 Legal hurdles and red tape can be a sure-fire way to shut down any new media program. A few thoughts on how to best tackle the issue.
Keeping Social Media Social – 1 July 2009
One of the key strategies to a successful social media campaign is interacting personally and individually with your follower base. Here’s why we have to be vigilant in keeping that up.
We thought we’d scrounge up a list of past blog posts that have either been very popular, or that we think need scrounging up. The original plan was to give you everything from the start, but, since we slacked off in January and didn’t do a 2008 round-up, we’re giving you two installments. The first set are the best posts from 2008. Stay tuned for more!
8 Marketing Blunders of 2008 – 31 December 2008 This was a fun wrap-up of some of 2008’s greatest marketing mess-ups.
To Blog or Not to Blog – 30 September 2008 5 questions to ask yourself before you start blogging.
Best Practices in Social Media – 9 September 2008
Put new media concepts in terms the person will understand, based on standards and terms that are already used frequently in the communication and business community.
Measuring Success in New Media – 26 August 2008
The importance of goal setting and how it plays into the measurement possibilities for a social media program.
Has New Media Left Strategy in the Dust? – 30 July 2008
Strategy should be the most important thing – and the first thing – that companies should focus on when getting involved in social media. Here’s why.
If you’ve been wondering how social media can help your non-profit, now’s the time to act!
We’re offering a full social media report to the winning non-profit.* What you’ll be getting a strategic foundation for starting to use social media tools inside your organization, as well as prioritized tactics and techniques that we think would be most helpful. And we’ll tailor the whole thing specifically to your goals and vision.
Let us know about your organization and why you think a report would beneficial.
For more information and to submit your entry, visit our contest page.
Submissions will be accepted until 8 July.
If you’re not in an eligible organization yourself, feel free to submit on behalf of an organization of your interest, or pass along this information to someone you know.
* Non-profits are defined loosely for this contest. We’d like to see organizations that are working towards socially responsible goals in their organization, and that could fall under a variety of legal categories.
We’ve included a decent clip of the general discussion, followed by a full transcript.
Note: This transcript was recorded in real-time and is therefore an incomplete record of the panel discussion. Which is to say that this is the jist of what was said. Before attributing any quotes, please first seek permission from the speaker.
Q: Please introduce yourself and answer the question, “What is your definition of social media?”
Joe Waters: I’m the director of cause marketing of Boston Medical Center – and we do a lot of “between non- and for-profit” partnerships, like Project (RED). We partner with many for-profits (point of sale or percentage of sale programs, generally) — a lot of that to raise money for the medical center. One big event, Halloweentown, is put together with iParty, and has been a big fundraiser and very attractive to the what we call “the four-legged four-armed monster” — mothers with kids. I write a blog on cause marketing, as well.
Social media to me is (1) two-way communication (I like sites that talk back to you, like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs), and (2) user-generated work. We’re seeing the idea of someone sitting in an office and generating content going away.
Ken George: Public radio, online production manager for WBUR. Thank you for pledging to your local radio station. I recognize that pledging is a particular type of fundraising, and I’ve been working on pushing WBUR toward social media in the past year. What Obama did with social media to engage and mobilize was great, and I’d like to see public radio do that, too. We have monthly social media gatherings at the station. It’s important to break down the walls between the customers and us. I think a key part of the definition of social media is Creating Value.
Gradon Tripp: I’m in business development at Firstgiving. We use the tools of social media to raise money for non-profits. I think there’s a lot of nonsense out there about social media. I think it’s the just new tool of communication, like a telephone.
Brian Halligan: HubSpot is an inbound marketing company. The tried and true marketing techniques don’t change much across the for- to non-profit spectrum, and you and I are getting better and better at blocking out traditional, interruption-based marketing messages. The old rules are broken and getting more and more broken.
My co-student at MIT created a blog in the early days and was very smart about engaging others. And this helped develop my theory that marketing needs to move from outbound – interrupting you – to inbound. I think of social media as interactive, two-way, many-to-many. It’s great for marketers because you can really lower your marketing costs.
Q: Why did you start using social media, and what’s the process of bringing people onboard?
Brian: When we first started using social media, we initially researched for the idea of our company by checking on the social mediasphere. Blogs, emails, etc. are all important channels to be used, and social media is one of them. And we measure over time the conversation rate for each channel, including social media. Step 1 is creating remarkable content, such as a blog. You want to optimize the blog title, short and sweet, for both Google and concise sharing, such as on Twitter. You almost need to be a professional title writer for social media. Then step 2 is to market it through all the channels.
Joe: We have to be a proactive, progressive fundraising operation – our customers don’t make enough to be our main source of donations, so we have to widen our net. Getting into social media was the next step, and we always want to be ahead of what our partner companies are doing, and now that they’re getting into social media, we can help them with our expertise, helping with the audience, the tools, building a presence, and when they see us as an organization that’s helping add value, that makes a difference when of the many nonprofits they work with, one of them is helping them achieve their marketing goals. It helps us stand out, compared to a nonprofit they work with who they don’t hear from except for once a year when planning the annual fundraiser.
Ken: My eureka moment came when we got comments through some Flickr pictures. It has taken me a good 6 months to demystify social media, and it was scary at first given our prestigious brand, which we’re rather protective of. As a journalistic organization, WBUR is concerned with brand and appearance issues, like avoiding biases.
The goal is to demystify social media to the WBUR folks, and getting our listeners into the building has been a large part of that. Our progress has been in fits and starts, but I think we’re out in front of the comparable public radio stations out there.
Gradon: We have tweetups – take a word, at the letters T-W, and it’s a twitter word. But many of them are just having a beer. So I wrote a blog post, “Let’s have a social media fundraiser.” And this one event that was supposed to just raise a few thousand dollars turned into a $20K fundraiser. Our most recent event raised $30K — half cash and half in-kind donations.
Q: How do you convert followers into volunteers or funders? Followers into doers?
Gradon: You ply them with alcohol. Our fundraising events aren’t different – raffles, silent auctions, alcohol. We had a successful event, advertised as $45 for an open bar in NYC, where that’s a cheap night out. After 90 minutes of that, we bring out the raffle tickets. Things like that – raffle tickets, silent auctions – are the tried-and-true tools of fundraising, and it’s not like social media is going to replace that.
Everyone asks, “What’s in it for me?” We teamed up with content producers who thought we were doing good work and asked them to point back to us, in the channels we work in.
Joe: On twitter, you’re getting a lot of branding and marketing people as early and heavy adopters, and so as a non-profit guy you can have conversations with them about what they’re doing, what their clients are up to, and even looking at collaboration. And a nonprofit talking to a for-profit PR director — that’s an easy and productive connection to make.
Brian: There are several types of content we push out through twitter: blog articles, webinars, video
Joe: Is twitter the death of blogging? Or does blogging fade as Twitter grows?
Brian: Everyone wants to be a publisher. If you create interesting blog content, that works for both social media tools and Google.
Kate: And HubSpot has great video spots.
Ken: Some parts of fundraising, pitching for pledges, doesn’t work as well on social media, since public radio-style pledge drives tend to be very direct appeals, which doesn’t translate as well to social media. But the visits to the station are very powerful.
Gradon: Ken does something subtle — a week before a pledge drive, he’ll ask followers to respond, “Just say hi.” I.e., If you like WBUR, let us know.” Which helps prime the pump. Very clever.
Q: Local vs. National scale efforts in new media, what say you?
Brian: It’s about your product – can it be scaled nationally? If so, social media works, because it too scales nationally. But if you’re a local business with local services, it doesn’t quite work.
The Facebook search bar is one of the most used search engines, and I think it will grow to be a way to find local services. But slicing and dicing down to your neighborhood is still tough. Far more benefit taking something small and expanding nationally.
Gradon: We’re seeing charities raise money online where only a small portion of donors are in the state of the services rendered. The rest live elsewhere.
Q: What is value of using social media to get information, feedback, to avoid mistakes? Research value?
Gradon: I don’t think one should be afraid of making social media mistakes. Jump in.
Brian: It’s a great way to get Beta feedback quickly. Obama’s campaign was great at that market testing.
Joe: I was listening to Blue State Digital talking about social media – they’re the ones who did Obama’s web campaign – and they’re very nice about it, but said that email is the killer app because everyone still reads their email. It’s a better way to reach people, and it’s more actionable.
Gradon: Social media is a tool in the toolbox. Still, the largest response rate is from email.
Brian: At HupSpot, we track a metric called reach. The social media side of our marketing list is growing. I think when someone wants to communicate, you’ll need to tap email as WELL as twitter, facebook, etc.
Joe: Zappos is a great example of doing more of having a logo online, giving the logo purpose and personality. But it is labor-intensive.
Q: What are 1 or 2 really important things for the audience to take away about how to use social media?
Ken: At WBUR, it requires a bunch of people to believe in it and carry the torch. The other crucial thing is consistency. Someone in my organization wants a blog, I give them that, and they post perhaps once a month. It is a time investment, which is something that many don’t realize.
Brian: When my parents watched TV in the ‘70s, they watched the ads. A bit by bit, through TiVo, the remote, Internet content, that interruption-based marketing model has melted. We’re starting to see more and more Fortune 500 companies grow through expertise in the social media and Internet space. You can see it in the quick churn rate of Fortune 500 companies, how many new ones there are every year. My advice is to just get on with it.
Gradon: You get in, you do it, you don’t question yourself, and if you believe in yourself, you’re figure it out and thrive.
Joe: You need to be really into social media, or you need to find someone in your organization who is. You know the book, “He’s Just Not That Into You”? It’s like that.
Kate: A lot of companies try to restrict who can blog or communicate about the company’s activities.
Brian: I think it’s dead wrong to keep employees from blogging. If you were to rank all the marketing efforts of your organization, let’s say there are 15, and if you replace the worst one replace it with a blog, and I guarantee in 6 months, you’ll have a new bottom ROI marketing initiative that is not the blog.
Gradon: Sometimes it’s Steve the mail guy who IS one of the best faces of the company.
Kate: If you can draw parallels between problems like blogging on company time with how companies have dealt with other issues, like personal email, personal phone use, etc., it’s not really that different. To prevent employees from blogging when blocking personal email isn’t done seems misguided.
Q: Isn’t spam an issue? Having your audience feel like you’re selling to them?
Brian: Well, with Twitter you can choose who you follow.
Joe: The twittersphere really sniffs out sincerity quickly.
Gradon: Zappos doesn’t ask you to buy shoes. Instead, it’s a balance between demonstrating personality and providing value.
Joe: It’s about presenting yourself as a progressive, thought leader in the industry.
Kate: It’s about value. It’s not marketing. It’s linked to who you are, and it’s where people go to get information.
Julie: How do balance your personality on twitter vs. expertising yourself?
Gradon: Chris Brogan is a thought leader in social media. He writes more blog posts in a week than I write in a month, and a lot of the time it’s, “I had an idea, here it is.” You get a mix of “if you run a company, here’s what you should be doing” and “It’s Wednesday and that means spaghetti day.”
Ken: I’ve struggled with how to balance my personality Ken George with WBUR. It works best when it’s blurred, but it’s a challenge.
Brian: They’re real currency and social currency. And if you have 5 minutes with Chris Brogan, you shouldn’t ask him for money, you should ask him to link to you on his blog. You’ll get way more out of it.
Q: I work for AIDS Action Committee. We’ve found it difficult to make the conversation two-way. How can we do this better?
Gradon: Before you ask a question to your audience, you have to answer them. Talking to people. If you are the thought leader in the Boston AIDS community, think about what you have to offer.
Joe: One of the things we’ve talked about at BMC is, “What are our issues to talk about?” Health insurance, because people worry about that. Emergency services, because people are fascinated with it – think about the success of ER. For the 2 or 3 things trending in your area, get talking about it if you’re not.
Q: Have you every used a controversial blog posting to spur discussion?
Gradon: My philosophy is to let others be negative, to be bigger and better than that. When I’m negative, it’ll be about a small thing about a site’s layout and then I’ll compliment the site for its content and mission. One time we had an item make it on Digg, and that brought a lot of negative trolls. Digg is full of those. And we let them have their way on the message boards and soon they left. It was easier not to engage.
Brian: I would suggest being polarizing. We did well on Digg at the beginning of HupSpot by posting polarizing articles about Google and Apple. … Or think of it this way: If someone makes a negative comment on your site, use it as a way to show what great customer service you have.
Ken: Occasionally people cross a line, and you do need to set standards about what will be censored. We moderate after comments are posted, and that works for us.
Firstly, thank you everyone for participating in our holiday charity drive. We really appreciate it!
We received a total of 70 comments. I’m going to up the donation by a little bit and consider it to be 100. So, in addition to $100 going to Kiva, we randomly picked from the comments to give another $100 to.
All of the suggestions were really great ones, but we had to choose just one.
Heifer envisions… A world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet.
Heifer’s mission is…
To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.
Heifer’s strategy is… To “pass on the gift.” As people share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.
Heifer’s History
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.
Part of the reason Heifer is the winner is basic math: it had a higher chance of winning since so many people find this organization a worthy one!
“My cause is Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org). There is something great about donating a live animal to someone that can change their lives. I am partial to pigs myself, but it is amazing how even a rabbit can make a difference.”
“I would also recommend Heifer International. The best thing about them is that they have a built in philosophy of paying it forward. Each recipient of a donation from Heifer International agrees to donate the first offspring to someone else in need.”
Laura W said:
“My second one is Heifer International. Instead of giving hungry and poor people food, Heifer provides opportunities for families to raise food and create a living for themselves. It helps people to help themselves, not too different from Kiva. So a family might obtain a trio of rabbits from Heifer and in return, the familty agrees to provide some of the baby rabbits to another family so that they too can start raising rabbits. It’s a win win situation.”
“The ability to reach those to whom the tiny amounts we can afford to donate mean so much is one of the things I love about the Internet. What you are doing here is really lovely and I hope it inspires many others. I would like to support Heifer International at http://www.heifer.org in common with some of your other respondents.
Thanks for thinking of this idea!”
Nancy said:
“This is an excellent effort and Kiva is a great choice. In 2009 we can all strive to do more to help others. I also support Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org) as I see it as a sustainable way to help people improve their own lives. Good luck Kate with all of Other Side’s endeavors!”
Below is the slideshow to a little talkAnya and I did on Tuesday.
The description for the talk is:
Have you ever wondered how you might be able to use Facebook to increase awareness levels of your company, product or service? Kate Brodock and Anya Woods of Other Side will lead a discussion on the ins and outs of the tool, examples of how other individuals and companies have used the tool for business purposes, and suggest ways you can get yourself started.
I’d like to announce that Anya Woods will be joining the Other Side Group full time. I’m really excited about having her here. She’s comes from a PR/communications background, with a focus in new media and has a desire to shift this expertise into the strategy space.
Anya blogs over at PRescience, although I’ll likely force her to do some guest blogs over here
I think she’ll make a great addition to OS and wil compliment our services quite nicely. And so, join me in welcoming Anya!
I’m exaggerating, but I do think the plunge that companies have taken into the new media space has largely ignored the importance of strategy in a way we haven’t quite seen before.
Why?
The field of new media “gained” on us very quickly, it changes every day, new tools pop up while others disappear, and one thing will work for one company while it’ll wreak havoc on another. The focus on tools lends itself to a focus on tactics. A company that “gets it” and becomes successful either gets those tools, or they’re lucky, but the success alone makes more people want to jump in and get a piece of the action.
One of the big factors in this field is exactly the speed at which it’s developing: It’s so hot right now that people feel like they should be in it or they’ll die, but at the same time, it’s a different field almost every day.
Coupled with that is the fact that the field is open and can be used by anyone. It’s not industry specific. It’s not like a few car companies with a new technology (which can certainly cause failures for some and huge successes for others). EVERYONE wants to be in the new media space and it can theoretically be used by ANY company or individual with access to the internet. Successes and failures start adding up a lot more at that level, and it becomes harder to identify best- or worse-practices.
The Problem
What I’m seeing more and more, however, is companies that both jump-in-blind and shoot-from-the-hip. Not only do they not really get some of the technologies or platforms, but they more often than not don’t think about an overall strategy for their entry, let alone incorporating their moves into overall company strategy.
I’ve seen the following trends (some of these are very general and not meant to be all-encompassing):
Companies are going to PR agencies first, because PR agencies are the ones that tend to implement the tools. Companies aren’t consulting marketers or strategists, and often times they aren’t even consulting the marketing department inside their own companies as much as they should. Somehow they’ve decided that the two are separate functions.
PR agencies tend to use tactics over strategy. They gather up the new media tools and develop a process behind one or a few, and focus on the implementation. Strategy is downplayed, if brought into the equation at all, and the campaign ends up being sporadic or misaligned with company strategy because it’s separated and made to be simply a process.
Companies sometimes try and take new media involvement on themselves, and again, lose sight of strategy, and develop a very ad hoc system to play around with in the new media space, tool-by-tool.
What this leads to is a colossal waste of resources on a program that isn’t cohesive and doesn’t get the results one hopes for.
Fixing the Problem
Using a military example, any successful military commander that has ever lived will tell you that tactics are useless without a good strategy (or without a strategy period). You can’t patch things together into a successful fort seizure unless you have the entire plan laid out and the objective made clear.
Any great marketer or any basic Marketing 101 book will tell you the exact same thing. This was pulled from one such book, which stresses both the importance of top-level strategy to any strong marketing plan as well as the need to develop tactics and programs to support that strategy.
A few things companies can do when thinking about diving into this space:
Internally align yourself with your own marketing department and make sure that everyone is clear on how this works into overall company strategy. There have to be reasons why you think it would benefit the company and clear ways in which it can remain cohesive. As Zach said last night in his talk on Corporate Blogging: “if you want to set up a corporate blog just to set up a corporate blog, you’re not doing it for the right reasons.” [disclaimer: his talk was far more interesting than that simple statement, for more check out his blog].
If you choose to do the process internally, do not go tool by tool and use them separately. Develop a plan, do research on what others have found beneficial or detrimental, know how to use the tools and how they can work together. Then make sure that transfers into a clear strategy. Make the strategy detailed and focused, too general will lead to the shooting-from-the-belt syndrome.
If you go to an external firm for help, I would suggest going with one that highlights strategy in their process. If they’re not asking you for overall goals, what you hope to gain, they may not know themselves.
Obviously I’m a little biased, since I work for a marketing strategy firm that deals in the new media space, but I would suggest going with a marketing firm first. Most of them have relationships with PR agencies that will then help you with the tactics and programs (although, for the record, we can help on the tactical level as well). For instance, we have a relationship with Spotlight Communications for some of our PR needs: we can develop the strategy and then pass it to the communications folks. Usually, since the project is split, the cost doesn’t end up being that much more, but you get a heck of a lot more in terms of taking the process from strategy straight through to program (which is what you should be doing anyway!).
You can also easily go with just a PR agency, but choose ones that are asking the right questions and identifying the right things concerning your strategy before they start talking about all the great tools out there that you can use.
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