Not For Profit Summit '10: Technology For Good

On Monday I was lucky enough to be at an extraordinarily good conference on social media for social good.  Here are my notes from the conference.  They are rough but I thought they might be useful.  I'll add some of the relevant links as soon as I have time.

Please be aware that these are my notes and my interpretations - not quotes.




How Not for Profits can capitalise in the recommendation economy

James Poulter @jamespoulter  Digital Consultant and Social Comms Trainer



We now have a new kind of consumerism. We are renting large parts of our lives, e.g., LoveFilm, Street Car and Spotify. The problem with this is that traditionally we ‘are what we own’ and we don’t consume to ‘own’ as much anymore. Companies and organistions are working this out. We’re not defined by what we own anymore but by what we recommend publicly, e.g. on Facebook. Our Amazon Wish Lists are on Facebook. The new currency is recommendation.



The DNA of recommendation:


Direction – Facebook newsfeed, Twitter timeline, etc.

Narration – The story of the recommend: what’s the appeal ?

Association – We give [to and connect with] charities because we want to be associated with them – it says something about us as individuals



It’s all about identity. How do we add identity to what we do?



How to make the most of little or budget with social media
Gemma Went @GemmaWent  Founder and Director, Red Cube Marketing feat. Stuart Witts, Marie Curie

Social media enables us to build awareness, relationships, community and philanthropy. This is how to go about incorporating social media into your organisation:


• Show what SM can achieve with relevant case studies, how you’ll do it, how long it’ll take. Show investment vs expected return

• www.delicious.com/gemmawent/casestudies

• Talk in their language

• Social media strategies on her blog: http://redcubemarketing-blog.com/2010/01/16/top-30-social-media-marketing-pr-blogs/
• Use the staff member who are already familiar with social media (Facebook, blogs, etc.) and make the most of them

• If you’re worried about mixed messages coming out from within the organisation, start with Who the organisation is – what are the core message? More often than not, organisations do not keep their staff up-to-date on this

• Use your email database – share apps within the body of an email, ‘Join us on Twitter/Facebook’ link at the end of every email

• ‘Mail Chimp’ (social media monitoring tool)

• It’s about quality over quantity – focus on the platforms you use well, don’t try to sign up to everything

• Where are your advocates? Social Mention, Addictomatic, SM2, search.twitter


Stuart Witts demonstrated a Marie Curie online/virtual Twitter event called the ‘Twea party’:

• 1 hour long virtual tea party where people tweeted using a #hashtag and posted photos of themselves drinking tea using twitpic

• Spotify playlist so everyone could listen to the same music at the same time
• Other organisations picked up on it and suggested linking virtual events
• Used Tweet Reach to monitor the effectiveness of the event: 520 tweets, 127 guests, reached over 53,000 unique users
• Effect: decreased fear of Twitter among staff



How organisations can punch above their weight
Jon Waddingham @jon_bedford  Product Manager, Digital Strategist and Charity Blogger at JustGiving

How do you reach peple?
• Focus on telling your story – it’s about what you do (core messages)
• Involve supporters where you can because they will recommend you
• Focus on where your supporters are (Twitter, Facebook... etc.)
• Be bold – try new things – work out where the blacks, white and shades of grey are
• STAT: Half of 18-24 year olds give on JustGiving because they heard about the campaign on Facebook
• STAT: Remember average age on social media is 37 years old
• Tell your supporters what they have achieved by supporting
• The ‘Our Mission’ tab on your website is far more important than ‘About Us’
• www.slideshare.net/jwaddingham
• Make the process for your supporters as frictionless as possible, e.g., JustGiving has an iPhone app that allows people to give money easily and quickly even while they’re stood at a bus stop




Word of mouth for good: harnessing the power of peer-to-peer conversation for charities, causes and campaigns
Molly Flatt @mollyflatt  Word of Mouth Evangelist, 1000Heads and President of WOM UK

Social media is exciting because there’s a utopian, democratic aura to it so it feels good. In reality the technology isn’t good. People aren’t even good. Actions are good. In Clay Shirky’s book Cognitive Surplus he says behaviour is motivation filtered through opportunity.


Social media hasn’t changed the motivation, it has changed the opportunities. People’s motivations are still the same – they want to increase their attractiveness. Social media offers unprecedented opportunity to be seen being good. This is a real motivation to actually do something good.


We need to feed the motivations – inspire people to act. Look out for @tomsshoes – great use of social media.


It’s amazing how many charities and social enterprises have a social media presence but don’t use it to tell people what they do. Put links on everything – website, emails, etc.


Problem now is we have too many opportunities – it’s about disrupting people’s opportunities, arresting their attention – on and offline. Mobile does this really well. Charities need to feed our motivations as individuals.


WOM (word of mouth) is only worth the behaviour it drives.



How a big corporation’s staff can make a difference
Becky Hewlett  from BT on Volunteering Scheme

Companies can enable their staff to do voluntary work by introducing them to a voluntary scheme and giving them 3 paid work-days off a year.


Unlock individuals’ talent focusing on skills-based volunteering.



Which audience? Matching digital media strategies with non-profit audiences
Joanne Jacobs @joannejacobs  Social Media Expert Consultant, Adjunct Associate Professor Creative Industries


Donor and volunteers want to be publicly recognised for their efforts / support / contribution. This is the same for corporate partners / supporters / sponsors. Talk about your corporate partners on social media platforms – it is noticed and appreciated and it strengthens your relationships.


Beneficiaries want to be empowered; they want a platform to voice/broadcast the issues that are personal to them. And they want network interaction.



Humanising your campaign, turning supporters into advocates
Scott Gould @scottgould  Founder of Likeminds, Blogger and Church pastor

What social media means is a shift from Me to We.


Me is old media – it is broadcast, it is a one-way flow of information;
We is social – it is plural, a multi-way flow of information.


The most important part of any campaign is 'social proof'.


Robert Cialdino talks of the principle of social proof as a facilitator of influence: We determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct. This applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behaviour. We view a behaviour as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see other people behaving like that.


It doesn’t matter that the family all brushing their teeth together are animated – we still buy Aquafresh toothpaste because we’ve seen social proof that it’s correct behaviour.


Oxfam campaigns are very good at raising awareness. An Oxfam campaign that shows a child starving in Africa raises our awareness of conditions some people live with – but it does not show social proof. It’s emotive but we assume that everybody who has seen that campaign was moved to act so we don’t have to. We don’t want to raise awareness, we want to raise action. If it showed people acting on it, that would be social proof and would encourage us to do the same.

Place people and their faces – from your target demographic – in your campaign. Facebook plug-ins humanise the page and info on it because it shows a Facebook ‘Like’ button with faces of people who have ‘liked’ it.



Return on involvement: how NFPs even have an edge
Lee Smallwood @leesmallwood  Digital Marketing Director and Blogger

Every charity and organisation is terrified of social media because their terrified of letting their people (staff) speak. After all, they may all go in different directions. But using social media is just part of speaking and you can’t stop people speaking so you have to deal with it.

Guidelines are necessary.


When you’re an organisation and you have to respond to an uncomfortable post online, respond with authenticity, honesty and integrity – this is how you want to be (accurately) perceived.


You can’t manage what you don’t measure and when it comes to social media there are lots of measurement tools available – some you have to pay for but they’re valuable.

Free ones include: crazyegg.com enquisite.com woopra.com



Social Media, a cultural shift ‘inside’ your organisation
Steve Bridger @stevebridger  Builder of Bridges, Redesigning Charity for the Digital Age


Steve helps charities trust more of their own people to use social media and move from being an organisation that uses social media to a social organisatio. Social media is about long-term engagement; you won’t win by dipping in and out.


Cory Doctorow (The Guardian) said The real value of Twitter is to keep the invisible lines of connection alive.


Katia Anderson said The message is not about the charity; it’s about why the messenger cares.


Charities and organisations should encourage their staff to speak confidently in public about their work. The challenge is to empower staff without generating chaos – guidelines are necessary. But these guidelines should be about encouraging, enabling and releasing untapped potential, not about policing.


Isaac Newton said We build too many walls and not enough bridges.



Panel discussion and audience Q&A

• Stop trying to stick to criteria for success – learn some criteria for failure. Don’t be afraid of it - failure is a great learning tool!

• Social media is not about additional staff/work, it’s about incorporation.



Notes:

Other good round-ups for this conference:

http://charlotteclark.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/how-the-lessons-learnt-by-charitable-organisations-will-help-a-profitable-business/ by @CharlotteClark

The ongoing conversation can be followed #techforgood