The event organizers, in true Web 2.0 form, conducted a pre-event survey in which attendees posed questions that they hope are addressed. In preparation for the discussion, I took some time tonight to think through these questions.
Remember, I'm approaching social and new media from a marketing perspective only, specifically in how to increase the awareness of, connection to and attendance at the museum where I work. We have not begun to experiment with fundraising through social media tools.
And, now to the questions:
#1: Is social media marketing hype or ripe? While the attention around social media tends to rest on individual tools ('who will win? Facebook or Twitter??') that is not really what it is all about. Social media is an emerging and evolving way of connecting to and gathering information. Bottom line.
While there is always plenty of hype around the tools, they will change, evolve, disappear and new ones will appear. But this new way of searching for and sharing information won't go away. And it provides an unprecedented opportunity for non-profit organizations to put a human and timely face on our work and mission.
#2: Should my organization get started in social media? As practicioners, we have to sift through the "hype" vs. the "ripe". But the question is not "Should my organization be active in social media?", but rather:
- How should we be active?
- What tools are my audience using?
- How can my organization establish a meaningful presence within those key tools to meet our audience engagement objectives?
In a world in which information is talked about in terms of "on demand", "why wait?", and "crowd sourcing", I can't believe that ANY targeted investment of time and attention within some aspect of new media isn't worth it.
#4: What am I getting into? Because social media has grown out of both the technology sector and youth culture, it is very "buzz word" heavy. You can feel like Alice stepping through the looking glass with all the acronyms and fabricated words coming at you from every direction. Don't panic. What makes social media addictive is the social part, not the technology. Find your place. Find your voice. Focus on the people. Don't feel that you must understand it all.
And don't be afraid to ask, "What, exactly, is a widget?," or whatever buzz word is being flung around. You'll find most people know by doing or what they see, not so much having a deep technical grasp. You can build a social media presence long before you must really have to know much about the technology and application layers behind the media.
#5: Should we be active in social media if we can't do it right? The thing is, I don't thing you can "do social media right" until you are active in it. And I don't think an organization needs to do a lot of intensive evaluation and planning, then launch a multi-channel social media campaign hitting all cylinders in all channels at the same time. That is fine for corporations with significant resources. But the opportunity in social media for non-profits is to put a human face on what we do. And that tends to be organic. And organic can start small and see what "sticks".
You can't determine what "doing it right" is for your organization until you:
- are familiar with how the individual tools work, and have established a certain level of confidence in putting forth your message in a natural, human, social way
- have found out where your known and not previously known audience resides in social media. Not all the tools will work for your organization in equal ways.
- experiment with putting forth your content, messages, activities in different ways, and have gotten feedback or responses (or lack of it!) from your audience.
- number of "fans" or "followers"
- posting quality on your Facebook page
- web and blog traffic,
- analytics on your site, on online campaigns, etc.
- responses to invitations
- click through rates on email and ad campaigns
- attendance at events promoted through social media
- "mentions" or links to your site from others
Certainly, once you have built your confidence and are ready to be active in social media as an organization, you will want to strive to get to a critical mass of fans, followers, and/or traffic. But I don't think size, volume or quantitative analysis should take priority in (a) getting started or (b) determining if you have it "right".
You need to determine what "right" means to your organization based upon:
- how you see your audience present in the tools
- how you see your activities with the tools enabling you to meet your overall objectives
- how your audience is engaging with you via the tools
#7: How do we resource it? Mmmm, another good one, one we are working on all the time. I've seen some good charts that prioritize, "If you have one hour a week then spend it this way. If you have ten, then add these items." But since "right" starts with your objectives and your audience, I think you ultimately need to determine how much time you have to give it and what your priorities should be.
You need to figure out what social media replaces, what resources are going to one or two outdated forms of communication. Again, goes back to your audience, how you traditionally have reached them, how social media tools help you reach them more effectively and give them a voice back to your organization.
We used to communicate our programming primarily through a quarterly events calendar/brochure. It was published about 60 days before the first event. We didn't have any tools to send more targeted -- or more timely -- messages as we got closer to the events, as classes filled or were still available, or to respond to opportunities that arose after the brochure was printed. For us, investing in a suite of social and new media tools -- from our website and email program, to Facebook and Twitter -- has enabled us to promote and offer promotions in "real time".
We don't print very much anymore. And when we do, we print to catch attention but use our website to fill in the blanks. And by growing our email list and social media tools, we can add things, offer special promotions on classes that don't fill. So, to a large extent, we've resourced social media by behaving differently.
Social media also allows you to take communications out of the marketing department and create multiple points of access throughout the organization. Honestly, the first response to this vision has been, "What? You want me to do that too??" so I don't know that we've institutionalized social media in the way I envision. But we are working on it. I've found a couple of people who are catching the bug. And people have responded differently to different tools. Our curators are realizing that the blog is a great way to get a science message out. Our top-rated video on our YouTube channel was created by our education team on their own. And our PR specialist is becoming my Twitter-partner-in-crime.
My question: Are we having fun yet? Call me a geek, but social media at it's core is fun. To find how social media tools can put a human face on your organization, have fun with it. This is not your organizational website or a brochure. This is inviting people into what is happening, showing them the people or the subject matter or the concern or the human service need. This is emotional. This is social media.
For me the fun of social media is learning in public, along with the exchange with my audience and colleagues. There are many people who follow me because they want to watch me learn, experiment and fall flat on my face sometimes! And I learn from others. I follow some excellent blogs about using social media in non-profits and in museums (see the link on this site). And, I follow some great local social media practioners who are "doing it right" such as, in Twitter, Utah's Hogle Zoo, Girl Scouts CEO, Clark Planetarium, Visit Salt Lake (SLCVB) to name a few. In Facebook, Jerry Rapier from Plan-B Theater Company, SLC Councilman Carlton Christensen (when campaigning especially).
Any more questions?
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