Social Media for Social Good: Case Studies & Strategic Planning

Presented by Jeff Stern

September 13, 2011

Trinity Center, Salterpath, NC

2011 North Carolina Land Trust Assembly

Proposed Agenda

10:30-11:00 @lifeandscience case study

(my experience - 4 years in 30 minutes)

11:00-11:10 @scrapexchange counterpoint

(matching methods to audience & goals)

11:10-11:30 Q&A including questions from our pre-survey

11:30-12:00 Creating your strategy

(a strategic framework plus tools & tips)

My story starts January 16, 2007

• My position was newly created, residing in Department of Learning and Innovation, and I was asked to lead the Museum’s blogging efforts

• Morehead Planetarium held a Current Science Forum on Social Media, @ruby tells me “I get paid to play on Facebook, you should too!”

• Started with blogs, thoughts were to follow with flickr, youtube, and friendfeed. Then maybe Second Life, twitter and delicious...

We started slowly and deliberately…

Members demonstrated an emotional connection to our animals, so having keepers blog was natural (but scary)-“Poop Scoopers” not the traditional “curatorial voice” -Tightly scheduled department did not have “free” time

January-April 2007 spent planning. April began internal blogging. October blog went live to staff, then members.

Blogging Truthfully Can Be Hard

Blogging honestly led to great comments:

This was the emotional connection to regular visitors that we had been striving for. But it also showed that our experiment had several positive unintended consequences:

•These experiences helped us embrace transparency and tell our story

• The profile of animal keepers was elevated among staff & public: not just “poop scoopers” but experts who have a sense of humor too

• The success of the blog helped the department get additional resources for photos and videos that helped them do their “real” jobs

• Blogging provided professional development opportunities for keepers

• Other departments saw this success and wanted to participate as well

To get to this point we needed:

But this was all just prelude…Everything changed in July 2008 when we hired @10ch to help us expand our digital experiments.

•Strong support for Web 2.0 efforts from the top

•Training and support for those doing the blogging

•Additional equipment to shoot video

•Policies for other employees who wanted to blog

Suddenly, we were on flickr, twitter, delicious and friendfeed

Beck’s expertise helped everyone experiment more and feel safe doing

it.• Animal Department took greater control

over their blog & schedule• The Flickr Plant Project began• 3 more blogs launched• Cross-functional teams discuss Museum

2.0 and visitor co-creation• Weekly happy hours blurred professional

and personal boundaries and led to group blogging experiments

All in the first 6 months she was here!

Listening is the most important skill to cultivate

• Google alerts and other listening tools show us where our audience is and what they are saying

• RSS readers are invaluable• Feeds need to be monitored and

comments replied to• Grow big ears!

Don’t Panic!

They may be angry, but they like you!

•Embrace fan criticism

•Respond appropriately

•Don’t freak out or overreact – it’s okay to leave the trolls hungry

•Don’t just placate people – work to become better when criticism is justified.

•Give people the tools to tell your story for you

Members create things we couldn’t

Once we had some success, we planned for more. Dino-sized success,

in fact:

Our new Dino Trail was long-anticipated, and offered a chance to try new things:

-Blogger event

-New website with visitor &expert content

At left: Local bloggers @waynesutton and @gregoryng (a member too) enjoy the preview. See http://socialwayne.com/tag/museum-life-and-science/ for one awesome resulting post.

Our homepage got social t00…

Meanwhile, I’ve turned my attention to Facebook, where our members are

•I try to post 3-5 items per week, with at least one being a link to something that is *not us*

•I try to post what people “like” – often photos

•Increasingly, people are posting directly to our wall. This requires daily check-ins, because facebook does not send notification of posts, and you need to toggle to “+ others” to see them.

Digital engagement doesn’t replace old ways of connecting,

but it can enhance them…

It’s not all sweet:•We’ve stopped using Yammer (internal IM system).

•Some services will go away, or stop being free. Best not to invest too much time/effort in new platforms.

•Some good projects languish due to competing priorities (Munch Cam was great, but Brad has other work to do).

•Distributed efforts can be difficult to manage

•There’s always more that we’d like to do, but don’t have time and/or staff to accomplish, so we have to continually re-evaluate efforts. Metrics are both concrete and fuzzy.

•Even when staff are interested and motivated, there can be internal (fear/uncertainty) and external reasons that projects don’t take off. Revisiting is important.

•We’re trying to do projects that add to our ability to do our jobs, and take advantage of our expertise. Of course, they need to be of interest to our audience too.

So that’s the bite-sized

overview of what we’ve

done.

Questions?

Get more info:http://useum.tumblr.comhttp://lifeandscience.org

http://www.slideshare.net/btench twitter @lifeandscience

flickr user: ncmlsyoutube.com/user/ncmls

facebook.com/lifeandscience

Find us personally:@jeffreymstern and @10ch jeffrey.m.stern@gmail.com

THE SCRAP EXCHANGE

So that’s my overview of the Museum’s efforts. I could (and have) talked for hours about this. But instead, let me provide a counter-example of another Durham non-profit. One with a much smaller budget, much smaller staff and much smaller space. Let’s talk

They did it completely differently

• Started by a volunteer, with staff permission• Started on Craigslist, eventually added twitter• Focused explicitly on sales, not relationships• Started with a single voice, but quickly moved to

several voices in the same account• Saw enough immediate & measurable increases

in revenue that this became a paid position

THERE IS NO “CORRECT” WAY TO SUCCEED!

However, I really like Jeff Inscho’s 5 Guiding Principles for Mission-based Messages. The full post is at http://blog.staticmade.com/post/9335932838

1) Don’t serve it if you wouldn’t eat it. If you don’t believe the messages you’re putting out there, how can you expect your audience will?

2) Think like a storyteller. Show us the impact of your work on the human level…these stories are already within us. Unleash them.

3) Don’t tell me. Show me. The story is vital. But whenever possible, try to show the stories rather than tell them.

4) Forget the clock. Post messages relevant to your mission at the time they are relevant. It might be everyday. It might be once a week. Your audience will inherently find value and appreciate the fact you don’t clog their incoming stream with what they perceive as marketing.

5) Keep calm and carry on. Success will not happen overnight. Growing a community takes time and hard work. Stay true to your mission. Stay relevant. Rest assured. If you do all of these things, your audience will self-select around your purpose.

Two other “truths” I believe:

• As Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media wrote, Social Media is a Cocktail Party.Find interesting people, listen more than you talk, keep it light, and follow up offline. Don’t be a megaphone!

• As Beck Tench said, if you’re doing social media and not taking advantage of adults goofing off at work, you’re missing out on lots of opportunities. Have fun. Be fun!

Q & A Time!

I’ve put together some of your questions, but feel free to interrupt

me at anytime from now on.

Lecture time is done, let’s interact!

What should I write?

• Wrong question! Ask who you should be listening to? Where should you be engaging and commenting? What should you retweet?

• Figuring out where to spend your time and efforts, and who/where your audience is are the real questions. When it comes to content, let mission be your guide.

Who should do this?

There are no right answers, but I prefer:

•An identified person or group of people

•People who are already active on the platforms and understand the communities

•Paid staff, not volunteers (though volunteers may be better than staff from the marketing department)

Controversy *will* happen

Don’t worry so much about preparing for the catastrophe, because it’s more likely to be something entirely unplanned. It’s all about how you react. Some examples:

•Sherry’s post on water conservation

•Getting slizzered

Be honest. Don’t over-react. Don’t ignore it.

Is it worth it? What’s the ROI?

Beth @Kanter just said: A few weeks ago,  I suggested that nonprofits stop using the phrase “ROI” or questions like “What’s the Return?” and ask “What’s the Change?”   I had a quick chat with Claire about this idea and invited her write a guest post to celebrate the launch of her new book, Twitter for Good

Last week, I started a discussion on Social Edge entitled, Fundraising, It’s Not Always About the Money. I explained that while researching my new book, Twitter for Good (http://ht.ly/4RirJ), I took a long, hard look at fundraising on social media and came to a new, startling conclusion: it’s not about the money. As I asserted, the real ROI (return on investment) of fundraising on new media is the relationships.“

Social Edge discussion: http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/marketing-communication/fundraising-on-twitter

Original post at Beth’s Blog: http://www.bethkanter.org/ror/

What if the boss/board requires ROI? How do I measure it?

I recommend using familiar metrics, preferably ones that you’re already tracking:

•Dollars raised, contacts made, leads generated, new volunteers/subscribers

•Click through rates and other analytics

•Awareness metrics? Do you measure that? How? Number of impressions? Facebook & Twitter give easy stats.

Jeff’s 4 Step Framework

• Figure out what your goals are, and write them down. Make sure they are goals.

• Figure out who your audience is and where they are. Test your assumptions.

• Become a part of that community, or create it yourself. Experiment. Be your best self. Learn from your mistakes.

• Evaluate your efforts. Cut what isn’t working, and invest in what is.

Decision time: Creating a plan or more Q &A? You decide!

For some of you, it will be more useful to take the final 30 minutes, alone or in small groups, to create a plan for your org. Please feel free to do so in the back of the room.

Others will want to keep asking me questions. I’m here – ask away!