A presentation to attendees from charities and nonprofits at LVSC's Cascade 'Engage and Connect with Social Media' Conference, on 13 Jan 10.
See also Laura Whitehead's presentation on 'Cultivating your online community':
http://www.slideshare.net/laurawhitehead/cascade-cultivating-your-online-community
And Leah William's presentation on the Women's Resource Centre's Journey into Social Media:
http://www.slideshare.net/leahmouse/womens-resource-centres-journey-into-social-media
Who uses social media, either personally or professionally? Most people use Facebook, but what about Twitter, blogs, Flickr, YouTube? Even sites like Amazon, Tripadvisor and Ebay heavily utilise user generated content, allowing us to share views and recommendations with others and connect with people all over the world. You can create a public profile on Amazon and Tripadvisor includes forums where members offer each other advice and tips. There is a social element to so many sites now â and this trend will surely continue to grow.
You may have a lot of questions... Including these Weâll try to answer them all today
Most of you probably agree it is, otherwise you probably wouldnât be here today! But there is a surprising number of people and organisations in the sector that are still burying their heads in the sand. Itâs silly, because this change wonât go away and it offers us such opportunities.
I did that deliberately to get your attention and, I admit, to shock you â but it is, never-the-less, true. At the very least, what print media does survive in the medium to long-term wonât be on anything like the scale of the past and present. There are simply too many other ways to get information and entertainment, and most of them are more convenient and lower cost.
If you need more proof, or help to make the case to your director or board, just look at what newspaper circulations in the UK did over the past year. Itâs worth bearing in mind, where there isnât such steep decline â e.g. Independent and Guardian â that the circulations are really very low in the first place. These are niche audiences â with very specific profiles â which probably accounts for their relative stability. The disposable income of their readership may also be a factor. However, the fact remains that the newspaper industry is in continual decline, year on year, and struggling to survive: Daily national newspaper market monthly year-on-year drop comparing December 2008 to December 2007 was 4.5%. That compares with 2% (2007-6), 3.2% (2006-5), 1.7% (2005-4), 3.2% (2004-3) and 3.8% (2003-2). Clearly, the downward trend is accelerating.â Source: Guardian Jan 2009
Response rates to direct mail are in continual decline and have been for some years. The postal service is in crisis. Will it survive? Perhaps only at the moment because online shopping has been keeping it afloat but many of those companies have moved to other suppliers after the recent strike action. We will eventually see the death of the huge volume direct mail industry we all know and love. Well, maybe love isnât quite the right word, but direct mail has always been a huge source of fundraising income for charities, so this presents the sector with quite a challenge.
Kindle sales are soaring. This surely means the demise of printed books? Perhaps not for a while, but It will happen.
The world has moved on. We have a proliferation of social media available to us. These just a few of them â and for each one shown on here, there are several more alternatives and more in development(!). They allow us to create our own content, share information, resources, photos, videos and points of view, collaborate on documents and projects â with anyone, anywhere in the world. This is not just with people we know, but complete strangers too (or, rather, people we didnât know, and wouldnât have had the opportunity to connect with, before!). The degree with which we are able to connect with others is unprecedented in history - and we are much more empowered as a result.
The mobile revolution means we can surf the web on our phones, whenever and wherever we are.
⊠using a range of applications created to make using social media really easy. Everything is on demand now â and itâs making us more demanding as consumers â so you and your organisation need to be where your audiences are, when they are , delivering to that demand.
They are simply tools to communicate with â or channels to communicate through. We shouldnât get too hung up about the technology. We should just remember this is all about people and communication â and theyâre things we all understand.
Newspapers are an example of this
This is not just you talking to many, but the many talking to many more â with you, about you, or otherwise
We can see Macmillan creating, and taking part in, these dialogues and conversations really well in this example â look at all of the engagement with other Twitter users
An enormous range of things⊠These are just some examples â not an exhaustive list
And much more
This just goes to show the potential that Facebook has for fundraising
If you really need more proof, look how highly social sites rank in UK and global visits
Peopleâs behaviour is changing â their expectations are different, they have more choice, they consume messages and media in a different way â when and how they want to. They are more empowered and can get information from so many sources now. If you donât provide what they need, or someone is providing better, they will go elsewhere.
⊠and huge amount of opportunity to tailor our information sources and experiences our own needs. This is evidenced by the way business cards are starting to lookâŠ
⊠and weâre starting to host them online now, too â to help people connect with us there. Charities need to be in all of the places that we are, for us to be able to find, and choose to have engagement with, them.
To change
And, best of all , unlike most forms of media that help us reach large numbers of people, theyâre FREE! That should be really interesting to charities.
Online communities of support
Communities of activists and supporters
Providing support and information â and reaching out to those that need them where they are online (e.g. Bebo, Facebook)
Outreach for awareness and supporter acquisition
Campaigning WWF Australiaâs Save The Coral Sea campaign Check out their Fish-o-matic application, that encourages people to sign the petitionâŠ
And they have a dedicated Twitter profile, called fishomatic that tweets a unique URL for your fish, to drive traffic to the site. This is very cute, but the Twitter account is next to useless if theyâre not going to invest a little bit of time on outreach â there are so few followers and theyâre not following anyone, and all of the tweets are automated, so thereâs nothing to engage with here once youâve signed the petition and itâs tweeted your fish. Still, you can begin to see how Twitter can be used in all sorts of different ways.
They are great users of, and experimenters with, social media. Do a great job of integrating between platforms, including their website. Their CEO even blogs! Hereâs an example on Twitter â note the conversations, the friendly, engaging tone, the number of followers and people they are following.
And YouTubeâŠ
Look at all of those positive, supportive comments on YouTube
And Facebook⊠Again, look at the number of fans and the messages on the wall â lots of positive engagement
They have had so much press coverage and have supporters worldwide, despite not being a known brand Have achieved almost all of this through social media: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/03/eamasai103.xml
Many charities in the UK doubt whether social media can be used for fundraising, but Mara Triangle were one of the first to prove it can!
This is not going to go away, so: Stop procrastinating, stop finding excuses Start seizing the opportunities!