Category: Online relationships

The Paradigm Has Shifted

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The Time is Now
The Time is Now

While most of us in the nonprofit world may still be debating the viability of direct mail (snail variety) versus online giving, statistics have been released indicating social media participation has now surpassed — even email. You cannot ignore the buzz about social media any longer — it’s here, and it’s powerful.

Last month, the New York Times reported that time spent engaged in online communities increased 883% between February 2003 and February 2009. Time spent viewing video online increased 1905% between February 2003 and February 2009. Combine this with NTEN’s 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study revealing that online gifts in 2008 increased 43% over 2007, with total dollars raised online increasing 26%–and you have a reason to pay attention.

Still, with this explosive growth in use of social networks, so many organizations are asking “How do you effectively deploy a social media strategy, and what is the return on investment (ROI)?” The trouble with social media to date has been that it’s difficult to measure results.

No doubt, many executive directors have been heard to proclaim, “We need to get on the Twitter!” But the important question to answer first is “Why?” It’s so easy to fall prey to the “Latest Big Thing” Syndrome, whether you are a nonprofit, political organization, or company. Diving headlong into the latest technology or social media tool without asking those basic questions—Who, What, What, Where, When, How, and Why?—can lead to frustration and failure. That old adage comes to mind, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you.”

Think ROI – Investment divided by return.

And, don’t forget expectation. The return may be only partially monetary. Objectives may include anything from building awareness, getting feedback on project relevance, expanding prospects/followers, or raising money. Here are some useful ways to think about effectiveness:
• Conduct awareness studies—prior to launch and at milestone intervals, such six months, year, etc.
• Track referral sites—identify the “web destinations” of people who respond to your message.
• Track traditional site metrics, such as unique visits, page views, and time spent on your site.
• Monitor your Net Promoter Score (customer loyalty scale of 0-10 that asks how likely you would be to refer an organization to a friend).
• Benchmark the number of friends/fans/followers on a particular social network or community.
• Measure the number of gifts made or dollars raised within a certain time frame or in response to a specific appeal.
• Measure brand visibility.
• And, of course, does it satisfy the boss?

This is not a comprehensive list, but it is a great place to start. The next step is to develop smart ways to integrate your social media combustion into your other marketing initiatives to turbo-charge your impact.

Finally, as you ponder your course, let me remind of the 2008 presidential campaign—not Barack Obama, but Ron Paul. It was a small scrappy campaign. And it all started with the infamous “money bombs,” the initial supporter-driven efforts to raise millions in a single day—Nov. 5th, 2007. Now, that’s a measurable result. This occurred without huge email lists, paid media, or even strategic campaign leadership. The result as $4.3 million raised in a single day. They repeated it later with $6 million raised in a single day. Anything is possible.

Do you have examples or thoughts? Comment below. Or, if you want to begin expanding your social media reach today, contact me — ellagantz(at)sbcglobal.net

Changing the World with Social Media

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Beth Kanter is always on the leading edge of social media adoption and integration. She is the ultimate nonprofit social media maven and was recently featured on Mashable. Here are some of her fundamental assessments of ways social media is shaping the nonprofit world: earth-day1

Giving the message intimacy and relevance.
A few weeks ago, the March of Dimes supporters came out in droves for a networked memorial service for a toddler named Maddie. The community raised tens of thousands of dollars for the March of Dimes in Maddie’s memory as well as covering the funeral costs for the family. The organization did little to stage this event. The March of Dimes has embraced openness and inspired their stakeholders to feel empowered enough to take action on their own.

Making birthdays matter.
Social media is enabling individuals to create, join, and grow groups around issues they care about. I love the way DonorsChoose providing a way to make birthdays a reason to give. And Stephen Colbert is setting the pace with “Birthday Give Back” . And as Beth says, keep an eye out for more social apps with a conscience that will offer even more creative ways for supporters to self-organize and take action around causes. As non-profits begin to engage their own communities in these online conversations, they are able to reach more people than ever before, and using less effort doing so. As Maddie Grant, a partner at SocialFish, observes, “We can all be change agents and that has to be good for the entire nonprofit industry, as long as organizations adapt to this new way of being part of a two-way conversation and groundswell of social responsibility.”

Integrating media.
An interesting example of crowd-sourcing by a nonprofit comes from Michael Tilson Thomas, artistic director of the San Francisco Symphony with the recent performance of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The performers were selected from thousands of video auditions from around the globe. The finalists were winnowed down by a jury of professional musicians, not unlike a traditional audition, but the winners were crowd-sourced by YouTube users via online voting. The resulting “mashed up” symphony orchestra, had more than 90 players representing over 30 countries.

Driving social change “in house.”
Danielle Brigidia, who is responsible for social media strategy for National Wild Life Federation , says “Internally, we have started to focus on cross-promoting our ideas and programs more thanks to social media tools like Yammer (internal Twitter).” Carrie Lewis, social networking strategist for the Humane Society of the US, observes how their Internet is now working differently. “We have daily 9 minute meetings. Short meetings have helped them be more efficient and effective with every aspect of social media campaigns.”

It’s going to be an exhilarating ride. Join us — and share your stories.

Social Savvy 101: Knowing When to Propose

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You’ve heard the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of Facebook and social media for fundraising. Maybe it is; maybe it isn’t. But perhaps, the greater question is one of expectations. We flirt before we date. We date before we propose. Likewise, maybe the accurate way to view social media is related more to courtship than to marriage. It’s the preamble to commitment.

We are still pretty captivated by the glitz and glamour of social media. However, even with its vast viral landscape of possibilities, it is not a panacea. It’s not replacing anything. It’s simply an additional tool—a way to enhance the impact, sophistication, and power of your organization’s communication plan. Since the beginning of time, nonprofits have recognized the importance of engagement and participation—the foundation of donor cultivation. Use Facebook and focused online social communities to update and turbo-charge those engagement efforts.

Latest Nonprofit Stats
Latest Nonprofit Stats

Think of it as the “new intimacy” of one-on-one constituent communication—a way to expand the reach and soften the touch of your development officers. Just remember to set reasonable expectations. Is money the only thing you’ll measure? Is there value in word-of-mouth, marketing or growing awareness of your mission? Because there’s no dispute over its popularity.

In a recent NTEN survey, almost 1,000 nonprofit professionals answered questions about their organizations’ use of social media. And they said loud and clear that they’re using it. Some highlights:
• 86% have a presence on commercial social media (74% are on Facebook).
• 81% said their primary purpose is marketing.
• 81% allocate at least one-quarter of a full time employee to social media management.
• The average Facebook community size is 1,369. (If you count the three big organizations the average skews to 5,391).
• The average Twitter following is 291; LinkedIn is 286, and YouTube is 268. And MySpace comes in at 1,905 members— though its popularity is waning.

Your constituents are on Facebook. Your competitors are on Facebook. And the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan said more than forty years ago. Only now, it’s the social medium. And Facebook, Twitter, and social activism sites like YourCause.com are not just about donations. They are very much about marketing your organization and engaging new supporters. It’s “interactive public relations.”

Thanks to this NTEN study, you can measure your organization against industry benchmarks. And, you can prove your success and relevance in social media in other quantifiable ways. Track the numbers of Facebook Fans and their demographics (via improved Insights reporting on Facebook Pages), the number of Followers and @ mentions on Twitter, and the click trends of short URLs in tweets. With donations dwindling in this tough economy, it’s important to keep supporters engaged, even with brief status updates of “what’s on your mind” and tweets about “what you’re doing.”

Ninety-five percent of nonprofits said they are either maintaining or increasing staffing resources given to social networks over the next year.
Everybody’s doing it. Make the commitment to building your community today.

Social Media Engagement: From Buzz to Benefit

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Just as you figure out what’s happening on Twitter, the next iteration of social media is dawning. It is no longer enough to stay in the loop—you need to be out in front of it. Check out the slide show above. It is a great review of where we have been and where we are going. Here is a summary of the Web’s hyper-speed trajectory to provide some context:

Web 1.0: The Information Source
• Creating your own message and your own content online.
• Categorizing the worldwide web in directories.
• You manage your own little corner of cyberspace—you Web brochure.
• Static and segmented.

Web 2.0: The Social Platform
• Building community, interactivity, and scalability.
• Validating and creating through the power of community.
• Integrating “hooks” for future integration – RSS feeds, APIs, etc.
• Chaotic and overwhelming.

Web 3.0: The Harmonic Convergence of Technology, Content, and Participation
• Networked applications and content repositories creating more seamless interoperability and integration between the complete range of devices.
• True data portability through open identity, APIs, and data formats
• Implementation of a consistent Web language
• Intelligent agents, natural language processing, and machine learning
• Making the Web more relevant and individually defined.

Social media tools are born from technological advances, but they are rooted in the most basic elements of human communication – conversation, curiosity, caring, and connection. I guess you could call them the four “Cs “of social media – a girl’s “second” best friend, I suspect.

In any case, we should all view social media as simply another tool in our communication and fundraising arsenals. So, approach with the same intentions. When you think about diving into Facebook, Twitter, or other online universes, you may be thinking, “Where do I begin?” The exciting thing is that we are staking the trail. It’s a brave new world, and it’s all about trial and error. Be willing to fail—and learn. You date before you pop the question, so think of social media relationships the same way. Get to know your “friends” before you ask them for anything. Here are some places to start:

• Comment on and reply to other people’s observations, posts, and ideas. Participate.
• Proved personal anecdotes about the impact of your cause or organization, and empower your volunteers and supporters to do the same.
• “Retweet” someone’s status message in Twitter.
• Initiate conversations around specific topics – in small groups or forums online. Build community around your organization or issue on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Ning.
• Share good information freely, such as pointing to great blog posts, ideas, or articles.
• Make virtual introductions when you see obvious like-minded people who could do to know each other.
• Create useful media like blog posts, ebooks, or videos that help people.
• Find mutual interest points and talk about them.
• Remember things about the other people, such as whether they have big meetings or if they are dealing with sick children.
• Help when someone is promoting a big event. Spread information for other people liberally.
• Reply to people and build conversations.
• Recognize those who are making a major impact—volunteers, donors, and angels.
• Thank people.
• Share.

Culivating Serious Online Relationships

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Target Analytics, a Blackbaud company, recently released the 2008 donorCentrics™ Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis. The findings confirmed that online giving is becoming an “increasingly significant source” of funds for nonprofit organizations. This is really no major revelation. The stats validate the results of the recent Presidential Campaign, as well as other research — including the 2008 AFP Survey, revealing that the only area of fundraising that tracked an increase over 2007 was online giving. Still, the challenge remains—how do you integrate online and offline fundraising channels to optimize long-term success for your organization? “With direct mail, the blueprints for success are well-known, but in this new multi-channel world everything is new and many strategies are still unproven.” said Rob Harris of Target Analytics.

Key findings from the 2008 Internet Giving Benchmarking Analysis:
• Online giving still represents a relatively small portion of donors and revenue at most organizations, but it is growing rapidly and is becoming an important source for new donor acquisition.
• Online donors are younger and have higher incomes than traditional direct mail donors.
• Online donors give larger gifts and, as a result, have a higher overall long-term value than donors to more traditional giving channels like direct mail, but they are less loyal in terms of repeat giving.
• The online giving channel must be an integrated part of an entire direct marketing program.
• Donors in the southwest and mountain regions of the United States are disproportionately more likely to give online.
• Differences in revenue per donor and retention rates between online and offline donors are consistent across geographical regions.

Interestingly, offline donors do not generally migrate to online giving, but online donors do migrate to offline channels in large numbers. Therefore, it’s important for your organization to have a donor “moves management” strategy in place to keep your online donors engaged and giving. It’s all about the relationship and potential donor value. One-time gifts are nice, but they will not do your organization any good in the long term, because online donors tend to downgrade—even disconnect when they move offline. Cultivation is key.

Other interesting findings:
• Even with its recent growth, online giving is still dwarfed by direct mail in aggregate.
• Online donors have a slightly lower retention rate than traditional donors. Perhaps it’s the difference in attention span?
• Online giving is not a strong renewal channel. Large numbers of online donors migrate away from online giving and to other channels, primarily direct mail.
• Direct mail donors rarely give online.
• Having an email address on file makes a positive difference in the giving behavior of offline donors.

Study background:
Over the past three years, Target Analytics held a series of annual meetings with twenty-four national nonprofit organizations on the subject of online fundraising. The primary purpose was to give each organization participating the information needed to benchmark its own online fundraising program performance against those of peer organizations—and to provide a forum for sharing best practices about online fundraising tactics and integrated marketing strategies.

How do you make the most of online giving?

elaine