Leading on Social Platforms
Social Media Integrated Strategy, Networks, & Learning
for Foundation Leaders
Beth Kanter, Master Trainer, Author, and Blogger
May 2014, Knight Foundation Workshop
Photo by kla4067

Beth Kanter: Master Trainer, Author, and Blogger
@kanter
http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/knight-nj

http://teamcoco.com/video/linkedin-11-07-2013

Beth
236,861
Conan
147,345

Raise Your Hand If Your Digital Strategy Goal Is ….
 Improve relationships
 Increase awareness
 Increase traffic referral
 Increase engagement
 Change behavior
 Increase dollars
 Increase action

Is Your Foundation using …..

What’s your personal experience with social media?
• Oversee social
media strategy
• Implement social
media strategy
• Both

What social media platforms do you use
in service of your work?

What is your burning question?

• To leave the
room ready to
implement one
idea to improve
your practice
Topics
OUTCOMES
• Interactive
• Co-Learning
•Your organization might be in
the presentation!
FRAMING
Leading on Social Platforms
Introduction
Campfire Stories
Maturity of Practice
Networked Mindset and
Skills
Break
Scaling Social
Strategy and Measurement
Learning
Reflection/Q&A

Campfire Stories

The Philadelphia Foundation
Our Facebook presence (the only
social media we use) has been
deliberately designed to reflect the
full scope of our operations. Our
goals: donor cultivation, to share
news about grant opportunities and
to do shout outs to community
partners. We have experienced steady
growth and breadth in our likes, and
individual posts also get liked by a
range of individuals and pages. We're
always delighted when our peers
comment, and to be a "page to
watch."

Overlook Foundation
“Piloting a Junior Board program
through which high school juniors
learn about philanthropy and how
a foundation operates. They are
successfully using Facebook and
Twitter to communicate to the
community.”

Delaware Community Foundation
“We have used social
media to promote and
engage our NexGen
Initiatives and activities.”

Council of New Jersey Grantmakers
“We have simulcast a few
of our programs to a
national audience
(through similar regional
associations of
grantmakers). It helped us
raise our profile in that
community.”

Vision Statement
http://www.bethkanter.org/trust-control/

July, 2013

April, 2014

Networked Nonprofits
Simple, agile, and
transparent
nonprofits.
They are experts at
using networks and
social media tools to
make the world a
better place.

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t
run then walk, if you can’t walk then
crawl, but whatever you do you have
to keep moving forward.”
Maturity of Practice

CRAWL WALK RUN FLY
Where is your organization?
Linking Social with
Results and
Networks
Pilot: Focus one
program or channel
with measurement
Incremental Capacity
Ladder of
Engagement
Content Strategy
Best Practices
Measurement and
learning in all above
Communications
Strategy
Development
Culture Change
Network Building
Many Free Agents work for
you
Multi-Channel Engagement,
Content, and Measurement
Reflection and Continuous
Improvement

What’s Your Maturity of Practice?
Where is your organization now? What does that look
like? What do you need to get to the next level?
CRAWL Walk RUN FLY

Maturity of Practice: Crawl-Walk-Run-Fly
Categories Practices
CULTURE Networked Mindset
Institutional Support
CAPACITY Staffing
Strategy
MEASUREMENT Analysis
Tools
Adjustment
LISTENING Brand Monitoring
Influencer Research
ENGAGEMENT Ladder of Engagement
CONTENT Integration/Optimization
NETWORK Influencer Engagement
Relationship Mapping
1 2 3 4

Networked Mindset and Practical Skills

Networked Mindset: A Leadership Style
• Leadership through active social participation
• Listening and cultivating organizational and
professional networks to achieve the impact
• Sharing control of decision-making
• Communicating through a network model,
rather than a broadcast model
• Openness, transparency, decentralized decision-
making, and collective action.
• Being Data Informed, learning from failure

32
Networked Mindset: RWJF

33
Networked Mindset: RWJF

Professional and Organizational Networks

Authenticity
Open and accessible to the world and
building relationships
Making interests, hobbies, passions visible
creates authenticity

Personality

Tweets links related to organization’s mission
and work as a bipartisan advocacy organization
dedicated to making children and families a
priority in federal policy and budget decisions.
Blending Network Strategy With Communications Strategy
From
CEO
to
CNO

SEEK SENSE SHARE
Identified key blogs and
online sites in issue area
Scans and reads every
morning and picks out best
Summarizes article in a
tweet
Writes for Huffington Post
Engages with aligned
partners
Presentations
Networking Is Dynamic Learning

Feeding A Network of Networks

A Bridge Between Network of Networks

Are you thinking
this?
You want me to Tweet
too? Great idea but .. Who has time?

The Social CEO

It’s Making the Time, Not Finding It

Discussion Questions …..
• What does leadership spend time doing as now that could be
better done via social?
• How could social improve what they already know and value?
• What other foundation leaders are using social that you
respect, feel inspired by?
• How can you use social and your professional network to
leverage goals?

Practical Networked Leadership Skills

What: Social networks are
collections of people and
organizations who are connected to
each other in different ways through
common interests or affiliations. A
network map visualize these
connections. Online and offline.
Why: If we understand the basic
building blocks of social networks,
and visually map them, we can
leverage them for our work and
organizations can leverage them for
their campaigns. We bring in new
people and resources and save time.
A Quick Network Primer

Core
Ties Node
Cluster Periphery
Hubs or
Influencers
Cheat Sheet: Network Visualization

Network Maps
Two Lenses
1: Whole Network
2: Professional Network (Ego)

Whole Networks: Movements

Whole Networks: Organizational Network

Whole Networks: Twitter Hashtag: WEF 2030

Professional Networks for Social Change Goals
National Wildlife Federation
Brought together team that is
working on advocacy strategy to
support a law that encourages
children to play outside.
Team mapped their 5 “go to
people” about this issue
Look at connections and strategic
value of relationships, gaps

Professional Networks: On Social Media
“Visualizing my professional networks
on social media can be helpful as a
journalist and content curator to
identify potential sources online.”

Exercise: Analyze and Visualize Your Professional Network

Building Your Professional Network
Step 1. Reflect on the Diversity of Your Existing Network
Who are the people that you most frequently communicate with in order to get
your work done or learn something related to your professional work or career
goal?
Look at the people you put in your network
Do an analysis based on:
-Age
-Organizational Affiliation
-Gender
-Area of Expertise
-Geographic Location
-How You Connect: Face-to-Face, Social Media
Is your network diverse enough?
Diversity = innovation
Are you getting new ideas from your network?
Source: @hjarche

Building Your Professional Network
Step 2. Think about your current work
• Brainstorm a list of the content areas where you want
to increase your professional knowledge and
learning.
• What is it that you need to know or be able to do as
part of your job?
• What types of professionals do you need to connect
with to support your learning, work, or career goals?

Building Your Professional Network
Step 3: What are the gaps in your network?
• What are some ways you can make connections to support your
goals or learning?
• What is? What can be? What needs to change?

LinkedIn Network
• What patterns do you see?
• What surprises you?
• What might you do differently with your network to reach goals?
http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/network

A
C
B
Visualizing Is Noticing Your Network
Online Networking Tools Help You Visualize and Build

Building Your Professional Network
Step 4: Building Your Network with Social Media
• Use LinkedIn InMap to visualize your network (50 +
connections)
• Color code the clusters
• What are some of the patterns?
• Is there enough diversity?
• Can you fill any gaps?
http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/network
PAN
CAN
FAN

Draw Your Map
• Use sticky notes, markers and
poster paper to create your
professional network map.
• Think about your learning,
work, or career goals and
brainstorm a list of “go to”
people
• Decide on different colors to
distinguish between different
sub-groups, write the names
on the sticky notes
• Identify influencers, specific
ties and connections. Draw
the connections

Walk About, View Other Maps, Leave Notes
Visualize, develop, and weave relationships with others to help
support your learning goals.
What insights did you
learn from mapping your
network?
What did you learn from
looking at the other
network maps?

Report Out

Techniques and Tools: How To Visualize Your Network
http://www.bethkanter.org/catechfestla/
Practical Ways To Apply Networked Mindset Using Social Media
• Be A Bridge: Introduce people in your network to one another. You need to let
them know why you are making the introduction and this can be done online or
offline.
• Look for Islands: Those on the edge can lead to new groups and ideas
• Work Transparently: The more public you are, the easier you can be found, the
more opportunities you have.
• Engage New Perspectives: We tend to stay in our comfort zones and don’t engage
different perspectives — learning from adjacent practices can be useful.
• Ask Questions of the network and experts: Social network tools make it very
easy to ask questions to individuals and groups of individuals. You can also
identify experts in your network on specific topics and ask them questions to help
your learning or open the way to other sources. Other times you will follow the
community or network conversation on a topic.
• Share Learning: To share learning, you have to intentionally hit the pause button
and reflect. One way to incorporate this technique into your day is to set aside
five minutes at the end of the day for reflection.

Networked Mindset
in practice
All staff will
connect with our
community via
social!
Social integrated
across departments
or job functions
Yes! CEO is on
social and likes
it!

Social Media Policy – All Staff Participate
http://www.bethkanter.org/staff-guidelines/

Share Pair: What’s needed to integrate a
networked mindset into your daily work?

Strategy and Measurement

PEOPLE: Artists and people in their community
OBJECTIVES:
Increase engagement by 2 comments per post by FY 2013
Content analysis of conversations: Does it make the
organization more accessible?
Increase enrollment in classes and attendance at events by
5% by FY 2013
10% students /attenders say they heard about us through
Facebook
STRATEGY
Show the human face of artists, remove the mystique, get
audience to share their favorites, connect with other
organizations.
TOOLS
Focused on one social channel (Facebook) to use best
practices and align engagement/content with other channels
which includes flyers, emails, and web site.
Kearny Street Arts Workshop: Small Org

Centre Foundation: Small Foundation

Centre Foundation: Small Foundation

Centre Foundation: Small Foundation
PEOPLE: Nonprofits and Donors in Community
OBJECTIVES:
Increase awareness of Centre Foundation brand in community:
survey % heard of Centre Foundation
Raise $500,000 for Giving Day on May 6th
Inspire first-time donations from x new donors
Improve capacity of local nonprofits to do online fundraising
STRATEGY
Provide training to 96 local nonprofits to plan and implement
online giving strategy and social media during Giving Day
Use social media as part of integrated outreach campaign for
Giving Day
Ongoing content and engagement through multiple channels with
donors and nonprofits
Activate staff and board as champions online.
TOOLS
Focused on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

Centre Foundation: Giving Day

Centre Foundation: Giving Day

How Board Members Can Help
Invite Your Facebook
Friends to Like
Centre Foundation’s
Facebook Page
Be an Online Super Champions!
Centre Foundation: Staff and Board Champions

Centre Gives & a Social Media Strategy
Increase Website Traffic and Donors
Before the 2013 Centre Gives, monthly website traffic hovered around 400 visitors per month. The May and
August spikes in traffic are focused around Centre Gives and inviting Facebook friends of staff/board. A
media strategy supported by social media has significantly increased our monthly website visits.
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2013
Jan
Feb March April May Jun July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec 2014
Jan
Feb March
All Traffic
On average,
65% are
NEW
visitors.
2013
Centre Gives
Invited
Friends

SMARTER SOCIAL MEDIA: POST FRAMEWORK

Data-Informed Culture: It starts from the top!
Do Something.org

Tear down those silos and walls around data …
More time to think about that the data, then collect it

Video

How To Become Data-Informed
• Integrated strategy
• Pick the right success
metrics
• Identify small pilots,
place little bets, learn,
pivot, and iterate

Goals KPI Tools
Increase traffic 50% increase in monthly
unique visitors
Google Analytics
Increase subscribers 30% increase in monthly
average subscribers
Feedburner
Increase engagement 50% increase in total comments
per month
Website
Small Pilots for Learning: Blog

KPI: 50% increase
in referral traffic
KPI: 30% increase in blog
subscribers
KPI: 50% increase
engagement

Discussion Questions …..
• Where is your organization in terms of social media
strategy? Measurement practice?
• What do you need to move forward?

Growth Mindset VS Fixed Mindset

Document As You Go

Methods for Organizational Learning
Asking Powerful Questions

Methods for Organizational Learning
DoSomething: Fail Fest Momsrising: Joyful Funeral
Global Giving: Biggest Looser

Summary
• Success happens by taking the right incremental step to
get to the next level, but keep moving forward
• Use social media a strategy leverage organizational
AND personal networks
• Scale your organization’s social culture with a living
social media policy
• Allow staff to leverage their personal passion in service
if your strategy
• Strategy with the right success metric
• Place little bets, but learn from failure and pivot

Think and Write: What is your take away – one
thing that you can put into practice?

Thank you!
www.bethkanter.org
www.facebook.com/beth.kanter.blog
@kanter on Twitter