Tag Archive for 'strategy'

5-Part Social Media Process

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on January 2, 2009
in strategy
. 18 Comments

There are a TON of lists out there that identify the top _# of things to do for really anything you want to explore (whether it’s building a model or building an organization).  I’ve been thinking about these lists in terms of adopting social media tools and think that most of the lists are hitting on the same exact things.  So, why recreate the wheel over and over when the core theory is the same?

Here’s my list that I think hits at the core of all the other lists for social media strategy.

5-Part Social Media Strategy Process

Audience

Identify the audience or community you want to engage. This includes thinking about who you are already communicating with and how, as well as what groups you want to start communicating with who you currently aren’t including.  Who you want to talk to, listen to, and create a community with is the foundation for everything else you do with social media tools because it is what ultimately decides the success or failure of your other decisions—if you base your timing, tools, and process around those you want to be a part of your work, then you’ll be a lot more successful than if you pick tools you like when it’s convenient for you without considering the community you want to use them.

Resources

Identify the resources currently available within your organization. Resources include staff knowledge and comfort with different tools, experience levels of staff working with supports, volunteers, and the public, staff with time available, staff with appropriate job duties to include social media, available budget for training or workshops, etc.  Often, we forget that because the actual application/software/tool may be free, really using it is not.  What we put into our social media engagement is what we get out of it, like everything else in life.  If you only have an hour a week to post to a blog, then it is unreasonable to expect a lively conversation and community emerging from it, at least not very quickly.  By evaluating what resources you already have on hand in the organization, you are much more prepared to fully examine your options.  And remember, sometimes you assumptions about social media use and your staff can be way off!  There is something out there for all of us, and more and more people around the world are engaging online, so don’t assume that it’s only your college intern who knows how to use these tools!

Success

Identify what success will look like. This is really helpful in order to evaluate the appropriate tools for your work.  If you want to create a space for volunteers and potential volunteers to share their knowledge and experiences with each other you are going to need very different tools than if you want to create a space for volunteers and potential volunteers to share that information with you.  It’s also important to remember that social media is a changing space, with tools and applications, even functionality, evolving every day.  So, your definition of success has to be flexible to the changing times and the changing needs of your audience.

Technology

Identify what technologies are most appropriate. Now that you know who you want to communicate with, who and what you have to work with in your organization, and where you want to go with the relationships, you can identify some tools to start exploring.  There are lots of blogs, directories, and lists available online to help you get started picking tools that match your goals.  One great way to help guide you in the process of identifying and selecting the most appropriate technologies is to ask your community!  What are they using now?  How would they like to engage with your organization?  Explain what success looks like to you and ask how they would go about getting there!

Evaluation

Identify what measures of success can be used.  You know who and what, and you identified where you want to go, but before you dive in you also need to establish how you can measure and monitor activity from day 1 onward.  This includes things you are probably looking at already like the number of visitors to your website and subscribers of your emails; but, it also includes metrics based on the funcationality of the tools you choose and how you identified success.  If you are using a forum, then measuring the number of replies to post (or, if your forum allows voting, then the positive feedback on posts) could be appropriate, as well as the ratio of people signed up vs posting vs replying, etc.  It’s incredibly important for the success of your work to evaluate how things are going throughout.  If something isn’t working to the degree you had hoped, it’s okay!  Identify that issue, and correct it with either an alteration to the current tool or set up, or by shifting the group to a different, more approriate tool.  Just be sure to openly communicate your evaluations, ask for feedback (”Do you see what we see?”), and explain any changes well ahead of time.

So, get going!

Of course, the hardest part isn’t getting to day 1, but all that comes after day 1.  Creating a successful startegy for using social media isn’t completely new - you are creating strategies for your communications, fundraising, outreach, volunteer recruitment, and more.  What’s great about so many social media tools is that all of those other areas can be integrated into your work/presence online!

What part of the 5-step process above was the hardest part for your organization to tackle? Which was the easiest?  Is the process missing anything - what would you add?

Twitter, twittering, tweets: How to make Quality Content on Twitter

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on December 10, 2008
in strategy and webtools
. 4 Comments

I might be on a Quality Control string here, judging by the title of this post and my recent SSIR post, but I think it’s valid.

More and more people and organizations are using Twitter, the micro-blogging tool that lets users answer the question, “what are you doing?” with short 140-character sized posts to the world.  Even more people and organizations are talking about Twitter.  I’m sure you’ve heard buzz, whether you meant to or not, and whether you are a Twitter-er or not.

Darren Rowse’s post today on TwiTip focused on the question, “What value are you creating for your followers on Twitter? What’s in it for them?” I think this is a great question for individuals AND organization to consider and here’s how…

Quality Twitter-ing from Organizations

No one wants to be friends with a building, a billboard, or a fundraising flier. They want to be friends with people.  Even though your Twitter account (or you Facebook group, or anything else for that matter) is representing the organization, people still expect real people to be behind the messages.

Keeping your organization’s Twitter feed from feeling too impersonal is easy:

  • Have a conversation (using the @ feature on Twitter to reply to others’ messages)
  • Show some personality (comment, don’t just advertise)
  • Show some emotion (don’t fear the emoticon :) or web laugh hahaha )
  • Be real (your organization probably doesn’t have an answer to everything, share links that aren’t just from your website)
  • Be helpful (use search tools like TweetScan or Twitter Search to find people talking about subjects you can help with and send them a link or info)

Recently, I looked at The Womens Museum’s Twitter feed for a slide I contributed at the NFPTweetup.  I examined the messages that appeared on the main page of The Womens Museum’s Twitter feed (the most recent 20 or so) at the time I visited - I was looking to see how balanced the messages were so created some categories and tallied the messages where they fit:

Self Promotion with Links: 6
Self Promotion without Links: 6

Questions with Links: 4
Questions without Links: 3

Fundraising with Links: 1
Fundraising without Links: 0

Affinity Promo with Links: 4
Affinity Promo without Links: 0

Information with Links: 0
Information without Links: 3

I think the numbers are pretty balanced!  The messages are true to mission/vision of the museum by including retweets (or forwarding on the messages of others), links to websites other than their own, compliments, transparency, and inclusion.
If you use Twitter for your organization, try measuring the messages with the above categories and see how balanced your messages are!  Or create new categories and see how the numbers work out.

Quality Twitter-ing from Individuals

Of course it’s always hard to lay yourself on the line by putting forth strategy, guidelines, or even tips.  Because, hey, look at me - oh wait, I’m not perfect either :)

Dan Bowsher, of Newbury, UK, nails the value of Twitter, I think, in his comment on The Evening Standard’s piece about Twitter (emphasis:

Twitter is not something you can gain any value from if you dip into it for a couple of hours. Twitter is about engaging with and building a community of people and allows you to tap into information, trends and opinions far quicker than traditional media. To that end, I find it invaluable. The fact that Twitter also enables developers to create applications that allow users to capitalise on its functionality, is also a major benefit.

Quality content on an individual user’s perspective is really rooted in engagement. Days when I feel like I’m disconnected, Twitter and email are too quiet, or I’m out of the loop with news and conversation, it’s becuase I haven’t connect with anyone.  Replies on Twitter are made using the @ and someone’s user name, like @amyrsward if you wanted to talk to me.  All I need to do is start listening, by browsing recent posts, and then responding to individuals using the @ to jump into the conversation, ask questions, or provide responses.  And as quickly as that, I’m back in.

It’s definitely a good idea to measure or gauge the balance of your individual Twitter stream as well, but it isn’t as easy as examining the organizational stream.  Here, because of the above point that conversation and engagement is key, it’s more important to measure between @ messages and standard messages.

Remember:

  • You are, every day, building that personal-brand, but that doesn’t mean you get to be blowhorn
  • Potential clients, bosses, friends, or significant others could be reading what you say
  • People are ultimately good and have come together on free community tools like Twitter to share information, you should too
  • You get out what you put in; don’t be disappointed with the tool if you don’t have the time to set it up or use it

Ultimately, the Golden Rule of Twitter: Provide the links, information, conversation and content that you would like to find in everyone else’s stream, too.

Happy Twitter-ing, all!

New Post at SSIR: Becoming a Hot Spot with Quality Content

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on December 9, 2008
in otherblogs
. 0 Comments

Originally posted at SSIR - why not leave a comment over there!

We are still working to get nonprofit organizations online and to move websites from ‘electronic brochures’ to a more modern presence, but the main bulk of organizations are there though struggling to get to the next level. They have a website that’s more than a carbon copy of an event handout, they have members who want to subscribe to something and funders who expect them to be resources to the sector. How do they meet those expectations?

Quality content drives traffic, increases value and in turn can increase the number or engagement of members, visitors, potential donors. So, how do they create the quality content, then?

  1. Hear It: There are a lot of ways to listen to your members and your field. Subscribe to RSS feeds from organizations working in the same field, funders, members’ blogs, etc. Listen for topics of interest, questions that come up and conversations that are ongoing for tips as to what people are looking for more information about. You can use Twitter to listen to your community as well and pinpoint conversations that are important to focus on. Don’t feel bad about asking, either, because your community is probably waiting for an opportunity to tell you what they want/need.
  2. Write It:  Blogs are expected to be updated often but everyone has experienced the strain of either too much work to do or nothing to write about. If you are listening to your community, your list of topics should be more than you have time to cover. If you have too much other work pulling at your time, enlist another team member or two to share the blogging responsibilities. The best thing to do, especially when starting out, is to create a blog schedule so you can work it into your larger work schedule and not push it down the list.  But, blogs aren’t the only things that should stay fresh—your website should stay up-to-date and pertinent as well!
  3. Aggregate It: An easy way of ensuring that your website has new information is to create a page, or parts of pages that are fed by content from an RSS feed. This could be a feed from a Del.icio.us tag that you and your organization uses, or it could be from a news website, a funder’s site, or a sector-specific site. Pulling information in from other places on the web means there is more information available for your website visitors and with less work by you or strain on your time.
  4. Share It: Be sure that you are allowing people to subscribe to your information, on your website and your blog, with RSS. Just because your website is the (if you’re doing everything right) go-to spot for news, information, and resources in your field, doesn’t mean people want to visit your URL to get that information. More and more people are using RSS and will expect to be able to use it with your website, too. Be sure to include your information in other outlets as well, so people who may not know it’s there can find out: include links and highlights in your e-newsletter, alert people to new content via any social media outlets you use (such as Twitter, Facebook, other blogs, etc.).

Read the rest of the post at Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Opinion Blog here.

Net2ThinkTank: Key Questions about Social Media Training

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on October 21, 2008
in roundup
. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

This month’s Net2ThinkTank Question was: What are the key questions nonprofit organizations should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?

Below is a roundup of your answers!

Beth Kanter reminds us to choose a social media strategy before selecting or committing to specific training. She also explains

If your technology plan will have long-term sustainability, you must include many strategies for technology professional development.

  • What is the best way to deliver this social media training so that we build our organizational capacity?
  • Does the delivery match our organization’s culture for learning?
  • Who will be hands-on?  Who needs the overview?
  • How will you take into account different learning styles for individuals and generational differences?
  • How will staff make the time to put what they’ve learned into practice?  Time to experiment?

Beth also includes some tips for social media training.  Read more…

Britt Bravo provides 9 great questions nonprofits can ask to help identify organizational goals, internal resources, level of interest, and measurement mechanisms.  Read more…

d1st4nc3 posted four key questions for nonprofits, including “What are the key factors that determine whether someone will become involved in our cause?  Do they vary according to the social networking site/group page/amount of advertising and promotion/etc.”  Read more…

Emily’s World provide three areas of questions: those nonprofits should ask before adopting social media tools, when putting social media into action, and when evaluating social media usage.  Read more…

Gregory Heller of the CivicActions blog focuses on the main questions nonprofits can ask to identify if social media tools are a good fit.  He reminds us: “It is important to remember that the social media landscape is continually evolving. When developing a social media strategy or deciding whether to train staff on the use of social media remember that the tools are different than the techniques.  Training should focus far more on the techniques of using social media, not the specific tools (websites and services) because they will always be changing.”  Read more…

lnorvig lays out a couple questions for nonprofits, the first of which asks to identify staff already using social media tools.  “Getting involved in social media as an organization should not feel like a chore. Let staff who already have a passion for this take the leadership in ways that work for them.”  Read more…

JYStewart emphasizes the importance of identifying staff members already using social media tools, as well as the inherent opportunity with social media to let your staff ‘play’ and engage in the game of it all.  Read more…

Nancy White brings up a great point to consider:

Why are you doing social media training? I rarely recommend that organizations do pure social media training, but instead weave it into preparation and execution of real work. If you are planning a social action, ask how social media can contribute and build the training into the campaign training. In isolation, this stuff takes up time and attention without the crucial element of context and purpose.

As to experimentation, this is a very different and important activity. Again, it can be woven into existing activities (15 minutes play with Twitter at a staff meeting) and/or it can be something a smaller group takes on. This “scanning the social media” landscape can be informal — the key is the communication of what is learned back to the other members of the team and the organization.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Net2ThinkTank! If you want to participate in the next round, stayed tuned to the Net2 blog for the next Net2ThinkTank question, or join the Facebook group.

What do you think?  Has your organization included social media in technology training?  What worked best?

Flickr photo: Siebuhr

Twebinar, twhat?

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on June 26, 2008
in events and socialmedia
. 2 Comments

This morning I participated in the first Twebinar from Radian6.  A Twebinar is a webinar as you may have experienced before with a shared screen for slide show or video, a common question box, a video feed for the presenter, etc. + a live back channel on Twitter.  It was the first in a series from the social media team; this one focusing on game changing uses of social media by companies.

The speakers focused on large for-profit companies’ examples but that doesn’t mean the lessons aren’t applicable to nonprofits as well.  Here are some take-aways and thoughts I jotted down while listening in to both the videos and Twitter chatter.

  • Social media has an equalizing effect:  It can make large organizations seem small (personal) while making small organizations seem big (participating in the conversation).
  • Often, with certain social media tools like podcasts especially, you are able to put your information and messages in front of those who are looking for it/want it, without having to know where they are—opposed to a bulk mailing, for instance, where much of the cost is wasted in sending to many people who aren’t interested.
  • Simply adopting a social media tool or a social media strategy isn’t game changing, but the community around your organization or service can be.  If the constituency is already talking, interested, or its desires for connectivity are met with your tools then it can more easily be a successful switch.
  • Many organizations hear talk about using social media tools and think, “why?” The reason is simple: The conversation about your organization, your geographic area, your issue or project arena or policy effecting any of those things IS taking place, and it would only benefit you and your community to be part of that conversation.
  • It’s okay to give away your knowledge—actually, the more knowledge, lessons learned, and ideas you give away to your community, the more you establish your organization as a leader and an expert in the field (thus gaining more supporters, more donors, and more people engaged around your issue).

(You can read the responses from participants using the hashtag (#tweb) or title by look at this summmize.com page.)

I hope to expand on some of my thoughts from the Twebinar soon as well.  If you want to check it out and register for an upcoming Twebinar, check out the Radian6 Twebinar website.

What kind of questions arise for your organization when considering social media options?

31-Day Comment Challenge (catching up!)

Published
by
Amy Sample Ward
on May 28, 2008
in blogging and community
. 5 Comments

I’ve been a horrible challenge participant and fallen behind. Here’s a stab at catching up and keeping you all up to speed on both my thoughts and the ideas shared in this challenge about evaluating and improving blog commenting.

Day 23: What Makes a Great Comment?

Describe the feature and characteristics of a great comment: Personally, one thing I think makes a blog post interesting, inviting, and better is the questions it asks and not necessarily the questions it answers. So, this carries over to comments. When I leave a comment on someone else’s blog, I like to take a stab at answering or responding to the main question asked but also like to include another question. This keeps the conversation going and what are blogs and comments for but enabling conversation!

Day 24: Comment on a Blog Written in a Foreign Language

There are growing numbers of translating services available online to help you find and read blog posts and websites that are generated in other languages. Although this isn’t a blog, for this challenge I started following and sent messages to a few Twitter users from Madrid. I was actually feeling nervous when I sent the first message in Spanish, but received kind replies and have enjoyed following the new connections.

Day 25: Take a Break!

I have obviously taken a break from some blogging/commenting but it is all due to heavy work load of a project about to launch that I will blog about in a few minutes!

Day 26: Exploring Other Ways to Comment

Explore how you might use multimedia for a richer commenting experience. Consider whether or not you think multimedia is a better option and how it might impact learning.

I am excited by enriching conversations by multimedia commenting and look forward to incorporating more into my own blog. I often find that I begin to leave a comment on another blog and realize I’ve written a few paragraphs and still have more to say. So, I will just turn that comment into a blog post here and link back to the post as a more interesting and fleshed out comment. This is the same for linking back to posts that spur you to get out thoughts using Seesmic, Utterz or something similar. I’m curious if any of you have enjoyed exploring new options for commenting/posting/sharing.

Day 27: What Do You Communicate About Your Personal Brand Through Comments

To me, this goes back to the “What makes a great comment” question. I think that much of what I try to do both on this blog and in the many events/trainings I coordinate and help with is to ask more questions than answer more questions. I love sharing the ideas, thoughts, experiences and opinions I have about nonprofits and social media. But, I think that there is a great deal of value in the questions we can ask to help guide strategies, adoption, decisions, and work. So, in a face-to-face meeting, email, blog or comments, I’m always trying to stir up, consider and provoke questions. How am I doing?

Day 28: What’s Your Blog Commenting Strategy?

Commenting wasn’t something I really looked at strategically prior to this 31 day challenge. Something that I have taken from all of these wonderful opportunities for self reflection and evaluation is that commenting, just like blogging and other social media practices, needs to be done strategically if it is going to be successful and at the same time not drive you mad. There are so many insightful and interesting blogs out there that I could read and comment all day long, every day. That wouldn’t be very strategic, though. I have decided to try to have ‘blogging’ days and ‘commenting’ days where I do one or the other with the amount of time I would otherwise try to spend on both together. So far, I am really finding it a good balance and much less stressful as I’m not worried about commenting too long and not getting to the blog, or vice versa. Do you have a strategy for your commenting? Or commenting rules you use when leaving comments?

There are lots of questions embedded in the different topics above, but, one thing I’d also like to hear from you is a suggestion for a blog you read but have never commented on and what keeps you from taking that next step in the conversation.