non-profits, the recession, & social media: turning lemons into lemonade

Linda Ziskind / Z2 Consulting

Non-Profits, The Recession, & Social Media:


Turning Lemons into Lemonade


But first, a little background


“A powerful global conversation has begun.

Through the Internet, people are discovering

and inventing new ways to share relevant

knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct

result, markets are getting smarter—and

getting smarter faster than most companies.” The Cluetrain Manifesto By Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger

Published 1999


The Cluetrain Manifesto: 95 Theses

(3 to remember)

1. Markets are conversations.

6. The Internet is enabling conversations among

human beings that were simply not possible in the

era of mass media.

9. These networked conversations are enabling

powerful new forms of social organization and

knowledge exchange to emerge.

www.cluetrain.com


From the invention of the printing

press in the mid-1400s to our

current digital landscape, media

channels have always flowed one-to-

one, or one-to-many.h

increase in expressive capability in

human history.”


UNTIL NOW


“The moment we’re living through is

the largest increase in expressive

capability in human history.”

Clay Shirky

Author, Consultant, Professor at NYU


ONE-TO-ONE HAS BECOME

MANY-TO-MANY


Anything that happens anywhere in the world where someone has access to the Internet and a computer, a digital camera, or a cell phone, can not only be instantaneously globally disseminated, it will grab attention, instigate conversation, and generate a community of interested participants.

John Dkar/AP Television

The Epoch Times


“Media is less and less about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals. It’s more and more often a way of creating an environment for convening and supporting groups.”

Clay Shirky


The Long Tail

“….In other words, the potential aggregate size of the many

small markets in goods that don't individually sell well

enough for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may

someday rival that of the existing large market in goods that

do cross that economic bar.”

Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine / Author, The Long Tail


Lemons to Lemonade

While the weak economy may have shrunk the number of first

tier donors, new technology tools have given non-profits

access to a potentially very large natural constituency and

community of lower tier supporters, unconstrained by

geography, time-zone, or traditional reach obstacles.

1st Tier Donors

2nd Tier Donors

Non-Profit Donor Impact


Four Useful Social Media Tools

Twitter micro-blogging

YouTube Video

Facebook Community

Flickr Photo-sharing


10 WAYS TO HELP YOU SUCCESSFULLY INCORPORATE TWITTER INTO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES


`

1. Build Community:

Look for people to follow and add to your community. Search relevant keywords. When you find appropriate people to follow, see who they’re following and follow those people as well.

*List included in presentation addendum


2. Listen:

Pay attention to what your followers Tweet. Follow their links and look for the hashtags* that they use. Search for what the Tittersphere is saying about your organization. Search for conversations about your market or business interests.

* Hashtag is a designated keyword that is preceded by a hash marke (#) which indicates a topic of discussion and makes it searchable. E.g. #socialmedia


2. Listen:


3. Be Transparent:

Don’t hide who you are. People want to know that they’re speak to real people in a human conversation. If you’re tweeting for an organization, be sure to identify yourself.


3. Be Transparent:


4. Don’t Advertise or Market:

Social media isn’t a broadcast medium and your followers aren’t your audience. Marketing happens on Twitter, but it happens as an organic outcome of open and honest conversation.


5. Develop Guidelines for Conversation:

Consistency in brand communication is critical, even in casual conversation. Create messaging guidelines so that when you, or anyone in your organization, Tweets about your brand, it will always be on-message.


6. On-line Criticism is an Opportunity:

When organizations are criticized privately, they don’t have the chance to respond, remedy, and retain loyalty. Social media takes your customers’ conversations public, giving you the opportunity to engage in that conversation and avert PR issues.


7. Engage:

It’s great to re-tweet and post interesting links and messages. But if you don’t converse with your followers, you’re not forming relationships.


7. Engage:


8. Create Community:

Your organization has a natural constituency of people who believe in your mission. Organize this support into a community where people can share thoughts and information with your organization and with each other. This gives them a stronger connection to you.


9. Follow Technical Developments:

Twitter third party apps that improve the efficiency and functionality of Twitter are being launched all the time. From collecting online donations, to graphing your Twitter stats, these apps can help you manage your account and become a more effective Tweeter.*

*List included in presentation addendum


10. Have Fun:

They don’t call it “Social” Media for nothing. Unlike the conference or board room, Twitter is a place to reveal a bit of who you are and show a human side. It will help your followers form a relationship with you, and it will make your Twitter experience that much more enjoyable.


Example: Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston


Example: 92nd Street Y in New York City


Example: Achilles International in New York City


How Social Media is Different from Traditional Marketing


  Social Media is not a spectator sport. It is designed around participation.

  Participation leads to conversation.

  Conversation leads to community.

  Communities lead to collaboration.

  Collaboration leads to collective intelligence.

  Collective intelligence shapes and changes social media.

Social Media is different from all other business and organization communication models. It requires a dramatic shift in thinking.


How Social Media is The Same as Traditional Marketing


  Clearly define your organization’s brand

•   Identify and understand your communication objectives

  Identify your target audience and craft messaging guidelines

  Ensure that all staff are trained and knowledgeable about social media as well as about your organizations communication goals

Social Media requires the same strategic objectives discovery and branding identity work as traditional media.


Addendum 3rd Party Twitter Tools:

Desktop Twitter Platforms: Helps organize your Twitter experience by allowing you to segment the people you follow into groups. They also allow you manage multiple Twitter accounts (e.g., personal & business) without having to log-in and out, or use two browsers. Depending on the platform, you can also perform other tasks, such as pre-write Tweets and schedule them to be delivered at a later time, see the long version of shortened URLs •   www.cotweet.com •   www.brizzly.com •   www.hootsuite.com

Share photos or files on Twitter: Photo apps allow you to upload photos from your phone-camera to Twitter, as well as from your desktop. File-sharing apps allow you to upload and share files on Twitter, either privately to one person or publicly. •   www.twitpic.com •   www.flick.to.twit.com •   www.filetwt.com •   www.filesocial.com


Addendum 3rd Party Twitter Tools: Note: to shorten URLs for use in Tweets, try www.bitly.com, www.budurl.com, or www.is.gd There are others as well. Try to use one that will also give you stats on who clicked on the link.

Monitor and Track keywords and brands: These tools track keywords and mentions across the entire “Twitterverse”. Some even allow you to track mentions acorss RSS feeds. •   www.monitter.com •   http://search.twitter.com •   www.twazzup.com •   www.convomonitor.com •   http://hastags.org

Measurement & ROI: There are many tools that measure various things, such as influence, social capital, reach, ranking, etc. These are a few to try out: •   www.twitteranalyzer.com (comprehensive daily stats for your reach, subjects, hashtags, mentions, follwers, and much more. ) •   www.twollow.com (tracks keywords/company mentions in tweets) •   www.tweetsentiments.com (sentiment analysis for users or keywords)


Addendum Additional links and reading recommendations: Links: www.smartbrief.com/socialmedia (free daily briefing newsletter on social media) http://bit.ly/7AzD9u (Case study on how Avaya used social media to land a $250,000 sale.) http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/ (a great resource for all of the basics on Twitter as well as advice on growing your influence.) http://bit.ly/91JGeS (Tips on setting up a non-profit Facebook page)

Books: Here Comes Everyone - Clay Shirky (an absolute must-read, bible of a book. If you only read one book about social marketing/community, this is the one) The Cluetrain Manifesto – 10th Anniversary Edition – Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger (10 years ago very few people paid attention to the amazingly prescient observations of these five men. Today, everything they posited has become the defacto way of business. And the hardcover version is currently only $6.60 on Amazon.) Socialnomics – Erik Qualman (How social media platforms like Facebook & Twitter are fundamentally changing the way both consumers and businesses behave and restructuring the traditional rules of influence and economics.) Trust Agents – Chris Brogan & Julien Smith (How people use online tools to build networks of influence)

non-profits, the recession, & social media: turning lemons into lemonade

Business

comlinda ziskind z2

social media isnt

human conversation

media channels

incasual conversation

people aswell

real people

appropriate people