Social Media Workshop – BVSC, 9th November 2010

Rob Weaver, Development Director,

Agenda

What is Social Media?

Best Known Social Media

Benefits of Social Media

Will Social Media be useful for

your organisation?

Aligning your use of social media

with the objectives of your organisation

Next Steps & Getting Started

What is Social Media?

https://docs.google.com/uc?id=0BwPnTrgU_lVVMjM2YzJhYTAtMGQ5YS00ZDEyLTlmYzMtMzUxZTcxMWI0MTRj&hl=en_GB

Social Media is...• An email with a cc to the world• Your radio phone-in programme• Your chance to be an author, film maker, interviewer and

archivist.• Brilliant if done well.• Marketing done badly.• The 21st Century equivalent of the gold rush• Accessible• A range of conversations• No replacement for ‘offline contact’ but it does extend

your reach.

Best Known Social Media

Best Practice: RSS

• Make it easy for people to subscribe to your new content. Set up an RSS feed!

• What is RSS? http://www.whatisrss.com/• Feedburner: http://www.feedburner.com/

Need an RSS feed?

Quick and Easy How-to: Set up a blog, which will enable your audience to follow updates and info from your organisation

Need an RSS feed?

Quick and Easy How-to: Set up a blog, which will enable your audience to follow updates and info from your organisation

Best Practice: Blogging

• Set up a blog at Wordpress.com http://wordpress.com/ or Blogger.com https://www.blogger.com/start

• Share the link to your blog on your website as well as affiliated websites

• Wordpress and Blogger will give you an RSS feed that can be used by your readers

• Keep stories short – and current

Best Practice: Sharing

• Set up a social sharing service for your social network site (i.e., your website, blog, Facebook, YouTube and more . . . )

• Provides a way for your audience to share your content with their own communities

• Social sharing services include:– Share This: http://sharethis.com/– AddThis: http://www.addthis.com/– FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/

Best Practice: Twitter

5 Easy Things To Do Daily:• Check most recent @replies • Review latest conversation thread• Join the conversation, for example:

– Share a link– Post an event – Respond to a comment

• Search for keyword-based conversations• Chat with (not at) people

Twitter Tips for Following:It’s easy to want to follow everyone and build up a large community, but quantity does not necessarily mean quality. Before you follow, review the user’s:

• Bio section. Is it complete?• Website link. Does their website/blog look reputable?• Following to follower ratio. Do they have roughly the same

number (or more) of followers in comparison to the number of people they follow? Or are they a celebrity?

• Tweets. Are they offer valuable information or dialogue? Would you want to be a part of their community or would you want them to be a part of yours?

• Red Flag: Users who follow a high number of people (in comparison to followers) are usually spammers

Tips for Creating Content• Promote and talk about the issue, and

– Listen to community concerns– Share and comment on their stories

• Share expertise and information• Establish reputation and expertise• Focus on a call to action, including:

– Announce events– Prose questions to the community– Options for volunteer involvement

• 70-20-10 Engagement Model:– 70% sharing other voices, opinions and tools– 20% responding, connecting, collaboration and co-creation– 10% promoting and/or chit-chatting

[70-20-10 Engagement Model courtesy of David Dombrosky’s presentation Social Media And Social Networks From Experiment To Strategy http://tinyurl.com/yzz6xre]

Tips for Having a Conversation• @ Reply: a comment or reply to a specific user. To do:

start with @username - and insert comment specific to that user

• Re-tweet (RT): a comment tweeted by another user, but you would like to share. To do: start with or include RT @username - and then the users comment that you'd like to share

• Direct Message (DM): a private message between two users, but you must be following one another for the functionality to be enabled

• @ Reply v. Direct Message: to many (public), to one (private)

Tip: Download TweetDeck• Download TweetDeck

http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/• It's easy to use• Helps you make Twitter more time efficient and

manageable• Customised columns make it easier to follow the

conversation and keep track of conversations• Saved searches helps you remain aware of

conversations that contain keywords specific to you• PC and Mac compatible, also iPhone/Blackberry

versions available for quick mobile use

TweetDeck:

Best Practice: LinkedIn• Join/start groups

– Strengthens expert status– Post relevant news, topics, articles and events– Ask (and answer!) questions– Start Conversations

• Create your own group

– Your staff, clients, funders as a group?– Professional expertise areas– Allow you to state group profile and appoint owner/manager as

well as track ‘members’ of the group– There is a distinction between ‘connections’ and ‘followers’ – You can control who joins and how requests to join are responded to

Best Practice: Facebook

• Set-up a Facebook Page:– Provides analytics– Enables Fans to share your content with their

Facebook friends• Allow fans/supporters to create Groups• Use Events to generate visibility• Use Causes for donations or visibility• Additional Tips:

– Profiles are for People– Use Groups for Controlled Membership– Use Events to Generate Attendance

Best Practice: YouTube

• Set-up a non-profit channel http://www.youtube.com/nonprofits

• Buy a Flip Mino video camera• Produce member video spotlights• Upload to YouTube and share on your website

or social network (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)• Make time to respond to comments• Tag your videos with keywords

Best Practice: Flickr• Start your own group and actively try and promote it. Search flickr

and see if there are users that might want to join your group.• Build up you flickr contacts, invite your clients to join you on

flickr.Make sure your portfolio page is filled in and provides links to your websites.

• Make sure your account photos are organized into sets.• Make sure your photos are optimized with correct title’, tags and

a descriptions• Do not try and sell a product or service using flickr otherwise your

account will be deleted.• When you find a flickr user that has great photos, go to their

profile page and write them a testimonial.• Your business name can be the username for the account

The Benefits of Social Media

Tailored for the Voluntary Sector (1)

• Spreading the word. Getting your organisation or campaign better known. It helps to build your ‘brand’, who you are, what you do and why.

• Create a following. It gives people the opportunity to identify with a cause and to feel involved.

• Developing a central networking place which in turn allows you to be more efficient and effective in your communication.

• Providing a personal face to your organisation. That personal connection gives a much better feel for your organisation than what can be a rather faceless brand.

Tailored for the Voluntary Sector (2)

• Gathering information. It isn’t just about you getting your message out there. Social networks are social. They are as much about listening as talking, receiving as giving.

• Building communities. Far from the internet breaking down community life, the effects (particularly of social networking) are the opposite with people coming together more both on and offline.

• Updated Information. Social networking is all about what is happening now. It helps you to keep up to date and to keep others up to date

Basic Metrics

Will Social Media be useful for your organisation?

Identify your Success Criteria

• Sales• Visits to Website• Awareness• Engagement• Profile

A Reality Check

A Reality Check

Part I: Create a Social Media Strategy

• Determine who will manage your online identity & accounts: – Executive staff– Marketing department– Younger staff members

• Determine time & resources available to spend on social media activities

• Establish internal policies and procedures around social media use that are agreed upon by the organization

• Develop user guidelines that state your expectations when others comment and what you as an organization

deem appropriate as well as inappropriate

Part II: Measure Success

• Set up analytics for your website as well as other types of analytics for your blog and other social media to measure traffic to your content

• Examples:– http://bit.ly/ that tracks link analytics– http://www.google.com/analytics/– http://www.socialmention.com

Time Management:

• Already swamped? Not sure how to fit social media into your already hectic day?

Here are three time-based options:• 15 – 30 min/day: respond and publish• 30 min – 1 hr/day: monitor, respond, and publish• 1 hr or more a day: lurk, monitor, respond, and

publish

Option 1: 15 – 30 mins per day

Respond and publish:• Respond to Facebook, Twitter and other social

media messages received and find ways to engage with your constituents

• Publish new content:– Post a link from your website to Facebook– Cross post on Twitter‐

• Share community links from members or organisational partners

Option 2: 30 min – 1 hr

Monitor, respond, and publish:• See Option #1 and the following:• Set up and monitor Google Alerts:

http://www.google.com/alerts• Set up RSS feeds in Google Reader:

http://www.google.com/reader• Google yourself and your organisation!

Option 3: 1 hr or more

Lurk, monitor, respond and publish:• See Option 1 & 2 and the following:• Check your Twitter feed throughout the day:

– Twitter tools: TweetDeck– More Twitter tools on Mashable.com

• Spend time online where conversations are happening

• Spend time with content produced by your members and future constituents and respond to them

Aligning your use of social media with the objectives of

your organisation

Before you Start

• Listen to your audience and learn how they communicate before you engage with them

• Know which kind of tools your clients, and desired audience, are using

• Understand that not all clients maybe using the same kind of tools

• Identify the communication preferences and expectations of your audience (i.e., do they prefer weekly email updates or do they want to know that there will be something new on your blog each day).

• Don’t use tools they’re not using!

Before you Start (2)

It’s tempting to jump right into social media and set up a myriad of accounts, but before you begin be sure to:

• Determine your organisation’s goals• Develop a communications plan• Know how to reach your audience

Sample Social Media Workflow:• Step 1: Publish an editorial, personal story or research

piece to website or blog• Step 2: Shorten the link to the published piece using Bit.ly

http://bit.ly/• Step 3: Share the shorten link on Twitter• Step 4: Share the link on Facebook• Step 5: Measure success using Bit.ly, Google Analytics or

www.socialmention.com • Step 6: Note any lessons learned (i.e., was it viewed more

on Twitter or on Facebook? Was the topic interesting to your online community? Was it re-tweeted or shared by others on Facebook or blogged about)

Next Steps & Getting Started

Next Steps

Options:• Create a Social Media Strategy • Learn How to Measure Success• Develop Policy and Procedures• Play! Setup a Personal Account • Connect to Friends, Family & Colleagues• Take Time to Become Familiar with Tools

What Are Your Next Steps?

• Please take 5-10 minutes to think about 1-3 solid next steps that you will take.

• Share your next steps with someone sitting close by and be prepared to share them with the group.

Conclusion

Remember that blogs, social networks and other social media platforms are just tools – and tools are only as good as their users:– Take your time learning how to use the tools

effectively– Identify which tools work for you and the needs of

your organization– Respect your capacity and the resource/time capacity

of your organisation– Be flexible and adapt to the tools that are the most

valuable to your community members and intended audience(s)

Resources (U.S. but good)

• [Twitter] Step-by-Step: How to Set Up A Nonprofit Listening Post - http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/12/stepbystep-how-to-set-up-a-nonprofit-listening-post-twitter-part-1-.html

• [ROI] Is It Worth It? An ROI Calculator for Social Network Campaigns - http://www.frogloop.com/social-network-calculator

• [ROI] The ROI of Social Media - http://nten.org/blog/2008/01/11/the-roi-of-social-media

• [Facebook] Using Facebook for Your Nonprofit - http://www.techsoup.org/community/facebook/

• www.mashable.com• www.socialmediaexaminer.com

More of this?

• We work with key decision makers on FIVE questions in order that a social media strategy can be formulated: – What are you business trying to achieve?– What specific goals can social media help you with?– How do your clients use social media? – How do you make the time to manage your social media presence?– What infrastructure do you need to have in place?

• If your organisation has 5-249 employees you may be eligible for a DDP discretionary grant of up to £1,000 towards the cost of our services.

Rob WeaverDevelopment DirectorC3 Connected Consultingwww.c3consulting.org.uk rob.weaver@c3consulting.org.uk0121 422 5300/07792 244614

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/robweaver70

http://twitter.com/robweaverregen

http://robweaverregen.wordpress.com