Archive for the ‘Strategy’ Category

Jun

2011

14

Category:

Measurement, Research Studies, Strategy

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3 Comments

What is your nonprofit supporter’s decision journey in age of information overload?

 

Source: HBR = Branding in a Digital Age

Yesterday,  I blogged about the  ”Valid Metrics Framework” from the AMEC that provides a suggested guide post for selecting the right metrics to measure social media in the context of an integrated communications campaign.   The framework uses actions and results across a continuum that based on the marketing funnel or AIDA framework.   The stages include:  awareness, understanding, interest/consideration, support/preferences, and action.   In the discussion in the blog comments,  there was a question about whether a linear framework is the best choice and a reference to “The Consumer Decision Journey”

The traditional marketing metaphor for many years has been a Funnel.  It assumes that consumers start with a large number of products or brands in mind and methodically limit their choices until they’ve decided which one to purchase.    After purchase, their relationship is focused on using the product.

Scaffolding by depth of relationship is a familiar framework for many nonprofits – whether it is donors or activists using  the ”Ladder of Engagement.”   It has been applied to specific social media channels – for example Twitter Ladder or  Facebook Ladder or to describes different levels of engagement across channels.   Colleagues Sean Power and Alistair Croll have a funnel and analytics to measure online community engagement called “Communilytics. ”   These frameworks show the process for becoming an activist or donor as linear one – going from name recognition to advocate.

But we know the media landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade and now we’re faced with so many choices and too much information as Steve Rubel points out in this presentation.  What he is talking about is “transmedia storytelling” a term coined by Henry Jenkins.    There are others that have looked at this:  Gary Hayes Transmedia Storytelling model or Lini Srivastava’s Transmedia Activism model.  Rubel describes the new  the media landscape with four distinct areas:  traditional media,  “Tradigital” media (blogs),  Owned Media (brand website), and Social Media/Networks (Facebooks, Twitter which are increasing being consumed on the go), although consumers do not make a distinction.  

Is the marketing funnel the right metaphor in age of information overload and a cluttered media landscape?

Source: Branding in a Digital Age - HBR

I was intrigued to see this visual – showing the different loops.  In the Networked Nonprofit, we have a chapter called “Learning Loops” that attempted to illustrate a less linear process.   New research shows that rather than systematically narrowing their choices, consumers add and subtract brands from a group under consideration during an extended evaluation phase. After purchase, they often enter into an open-ended relationship with the brand, sharing their experience with it online.  

This may not change what you measure or using a grid - but it certainly has implications for your strategy and tactics – especially around engagement and content – but how nonprofits build and maintain relationships with donors.

Is your strategy and measurement for integrated communications campaigns based on the right metaphor?

Jun

2011

01

Category:

Strategy, Tips

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19 Comments

25 SMART Social Media Objectives

At Zoetica, we’ve been working on a peer learning project with arts organizations called “Leveraging Social Media” based on the social media lab.   There are two cohort groups, one working on strategic use of a single channel and a more advanced group working on an integrated  strategy.    With both, the process begins with setting SMART objectives and  Kami Huyse points out why this is important.

Using SMART objectives for nonprofit communications strategies is not new idea.   Spitfire’s useful  SMART chart planning tool has been used by many nonprofits and was adapted for social media for nonprofits by NTEN’s WeAreMedia project several years ago.

SMART Objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely objectives.      The Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Advocacy Campaign guide points out they come in three flavors:

Tactical: Tools and Techniques
Results: Money, time, or other tangible tesult that can be converted
Capacity: People, content, work flow, learning

The process includes beginning with identifying intent.  Next, make it specific by adding a number, percentage, increase/decrease and a date.   Some nonprofits find it hard to do because it takes hitting the pause button.  Also, there may be a feeling that one is getting “graded” if they don’t make the deadline or hit the target number.   SMART objectives can be revised along the way.

Some struggle to find an attainable number.    Benchmarking comparing your organization’s past performance to itself or doing a formal or informal analysis of peer organizations can help.  It also helps to break down your goal into monthly or quarterly benchmarks.

It is also important to think about what specific metrics are needed to measure along the way.   Often, there is too much data collected and not enough sense-making of it.    Many organizations think more data is better.  It is best to concentrate on the one or two data points that will help guide improvements and demonstrate results.   With social media as with communications strategies, the data points are those that will help measure:  awareness, attitudes, actions, or behavior change.

Finally, allocating time for a reflection about what worked, what didn’t based on an analysis of the data is critical.  Many nonprofits have not institutionalized this approach.    Unfortunately,  there is a goldmine of learning lost about lead to success or how to improve results next time around.

Here’s a summary of 25 SMART social media objectives from Leveraging Social Media project with arts organizations.

Results
Increase website traffic by 25% by adding social media content starting posting by November 1, 2012.
Acquire 100 new donors through Facebook Causes by June 30, 2012
Increase email list sign ups through social media channels by 500 names by June 30, 2012
Increase the number of gallery visitors who purchase (in person or online) by 20% by June 30, 2012
Increase online and print mentions by 25% by June 30, 2012
Increase enrollment in classes and workshops by 50% by June 30, 2012
Increase exhibition visitors by 15%  by June 30, 2012

Tactical
Increase audience connections through Facebook to 1000 by June 1, 2012.
Increase our month to month Post Feedback on Facebook by 25% on average.
Increase mentions by 20% on Twitter before, during, and after performances for 2011
Increase likes and comments with fans on Facebook to 3 comments per post by June 30, 2012
Increase views on YouTube Channel by 50% by January, 2012
Increase number of retweets and @replies on Twitter by 20% by September, 30, 2011
Recruit 40 organizations to join our LinkedIn organization page by June 30, 2012
Increase web site traffic from Facebook by 20% by September 30, 2012
Utilize Facebook to increase Festival attendance and online program views by 5% by September 2011
Identify top 25  influencers on Twitter to  build relationships to help blog, repost, and spread the word about online  program by September, 30, 2012
Increase the age/ethnicity/gender/income/geographic of Facebook fans by 20%  by June 30, 2012

Capacity
Create video trailers for all productions garnering an average of 100 views per trailer for the 2011-2012 programs.
Integrate social media across organization staff and departments to use it reach goals by 2012
Conduct an audience survey to determine where to expand, grow, and diversify social media presence for 2012
Create one video per month to tell stories about the impact of our organization by January, 2012.
Recruit 40 organization
Staff members in membership, fundraising, communications, and marketing departments will use social media tools to engage audiences on Facebook page 3 times per week.
Conduct surveys at the end of every class and workshop to gather important audience social media usage data and experience with program by June 2012
Enhance visual storytelling capacity and diversify type of content shared with a  goal increasing  videos by 10%, photos by 20% photographic and text that stimulates comments by 20%  by August 1, 2012
Create a presence and support active fans on social fundraisings Jumo,  Crowdrise, and Change.org by September 30, 2012
Create a system to collect, aggregate, and share user generated content on social media by audiences by September 30, 2012

What if we stepped away from the process of checking off items on our to do list, and spent a little bit of time charting impact of our nonprofit’s social media use?  What if we made sure the process for identifying  SMART objectives included capacity building, measurement, and reflection?

What is your organization’s SMART social media objectives?  How did you determine it?  How will you measure them along the way?

May

2011

18

Category:

Capacity, Strategy

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3 Comments

Are You Charting Impact of Your Social Media?

The BBB Wise Giving Alliance, GuideStar USA and Independent Sector launched “Charting Impact,” a standard framework to easily and clearly understand the objectives, benchmarks for progress, and impact of nonprofits and foundations.    Charting Impact uses five deceptively simple questions that require reflection and discussion about what really matters – results.

  • What is your organization aiming to accomplish?
  • What are your strategies for making this happen?
  • What are your organization’s capabilities for doing this?
  • How will your organization know if you are making progress?
  • What have and haven’t you accomplished so far?

What if organizations focused these simple questions on their social media strategy using common sense measurement as my colleague Kami Huyse describes it in Geoff Livingston‘s,  forthcoming book Welcome to the Fifth Estate.

What if we made sure the process for identifying  SMART objectives included capacity building, measurement, and reflection?   What if we stepped away from the process of checking off items on our to do list, and spent a little bit of time charting impact of our nonprofit’s social media use?

Oct

2010

25

Category:

CSR, Research Studies, Strategy

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16 Comments

Corporate Altruism: The Blurring of the Lines Between CSR and Cause Marketing

Photo by Vardhana

Note from Beth: Kami Watson Huyse, who is also my business partner at Zoetica, and I are currently Fellows at  Society of New Communication Research.   Our research  started several months ago with a literature search,  is focused on best practices in incorporating a social media strategy into CSR and Cause Marketing programs.

Our focus is on campaigns that had a significant social media component, because we believe that this communication medium is an accelerator  since the failures are often much more spectacular and widely reported.

In our quest we have interviewed, and continue to interview, top brands engaged in social media for social good.  We have also looked at some  failures, and harvested learning about best practices and how they could have been better.

We will publish a number of these stories as  “Conversational” case studies over the next few weeks on both Kami’s blog Communication Overtones and here on Beth’s Blog.   We are sharing our research in the early stages to help identify other case studies we should profile and to get feedback on our working hypothesis.   We recognize that are many diverse opinions on best practices for incorporating social media into cause marketing and CSR, and that is okay.

We hope we can co-create this model with all of you and come out the other side of this research much smarter as a community, and much richer as a society.

Later this week,  we will introduce a framework that we have developed to make sense of what we have learned so far, then we will publish a number of case studies over the next few weeks.

As part of our research, we also presented at the PRSA International Conference in Washington, DC on October 18, 2010, and we will present at the 5th Annual SNCR Research Symposium & Awards Gala in Stanford, Calif. on November 5, 2010.

Corporate Altruism: The Blurring of the Lines Between CSR and Cause Marketing by Kami Watson Huyse and Beth Kanter

Aligning with a cause is a great way for a for-profit company to both raise its profile while doing something good for society at large.  For nonprofits and causes, having the right corporate partner can leverage the impact of the social change work.

Associating a product with a social or environmental cause people care about is a popular marketing tactic with consumers.  More than two in five consumers bought such a product in the past year, according to the “2010 Cone Cause Evolution Study.”   And according to that research 75% donate to a company identified nonprofit, ilustrating that corporate altruism is not only good for the bottom line, but also good for society.

Cause Marketing Gone Bad?

However, the ways that companies and causes have aligned in the marketplace have ranged from the sublime to plain old slimy.   Nonprofits need to consider, should we partner with companies?  If so, how?  And those that choose poorly are subject to being the conduits to green washing, pink washing, and any other kind of washing you can imagine. When the accusations start flying, it can get ugly fast.

Source: Fit Sugar Blog

Take for example, “Buckets for the Cure” fund-raising campaign where Susan G. Komen for the Cure teamed up with KFC (formerly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken).   For each $5 bucket (pink!) of fried chicken, KFC donated 50 cents to Susan G. Komen for the Cure and ultimately $4.2 million was donated (the largest ever breast cancer donation.)     Others wondered whether Komen had read their own educational literature about the connection between high fat diets and breast cancer.

The Differences Between Cause Marketing and CSR

In companies, corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments and corporate foundations have risen up as a substantial field of practice – the good ones come complete with a theory of change or goals to make social change the priority.   Many CSR programs subscribe to the ideas of the triple bottom-line: people, planet and profit.  Meaning that all three must figure in to what the company does to be an authentic and generous corporate citizen.

On the other side, cause marketing has risen up as a way to sell more products, widgets or even ideas, with a non-profit or altruistic element to drive the program.  The bottom line here usually rules the day; however there has been a move toward what we see as more CSR-like elements popping up in cause marketing programs.

The grand debate over CSR vs. cause marketing seems to be getting more blurry.   So much so that the two are often confused and interchanged by those not deeply in the community, and most certainly by public relations departments and marketing. Could it be that it is not a question of either-or, but rather a question of a continuum?  And if so, what are the different points on this continuum and what are the best practices for each?

These are real-world questions that go well beyond philosophy. The genie is out of the bag, companies and nonprofit causes will continue to co-exist.  So, can we put down the weapons and look at how to do it better?

What are some of the best examples of CSR or Cause Marketing programs that use social media?
What are some of the worst examples?

Jun

2010

18

Category:

Networked Nonprofit, Networks, Strategy, Tools and Tactics

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8 Comments

Can Social Network Analysis Improve Your Social Media Strategy?

Source: Monitor Institute

Yesterday,    Allison Fine and I, along with colleagues Danielle Bridiga and Marc Sirkin gave a Care 2 Webinar on the Networked Nonprofit.   Here’s a link to a summary and the recording over at the Care 2 Frogloop blog.

One of the topics was “How to understand social networks through social network analysis and mapping techniques.”   I thought I’d expand on it here.

Networked Nonprofit: Care2 Webinar

View more presentations from womenwhotech.

As someone who loves to play with analytics, visuals, maps, and other geekery, I explored some of the tools and techniques to apply some of the big ideas about understanding social networks that are our book, The Networked Nonprofit.     My notes follow below, but let’s begin with some of the big picture ideas about what it is and why you’d even use it.

The above visual is a social network.  Each dot represents a person or in network jargon, a node.  A connection between people is called link.  The definition of links or how you’re connected is defined however you want in social network analysis.   Some examples:

  • A follower on Twitter or someone you’re following
  • Someone on your mailing list or rolodex
  • Someone you know well enough to call
  • Family members
  • Organizational reporting
  • Communications flows
  • Information flows

As you can see there are many different ways to apply social networking analysis to understanding networks.  It is really a technique to understand relationships.    One of the first social networking analysis map was created by Jacob Moreno. It looked at the relationships between players on a football team. Who liked each other, who didn’t.  Apparently this team chemistry is important to winning.

In the book, we talk about the using low tech tools like crayons or post-it notes to map out your network.  Marty Kearns has a diagnostic tool over in his Advocacy 2.0 wiki that gives you a good set of questions to ask after you’ve created a descriptive drawing.   Net-Map Tool Kit is an interview-based low-tech mapping tool that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes in a community or network.   It includes a step-by-step guided approach.

What I’m most interested is how to use social network analysis and the various tools to better understand your network on Twitter or Facebook or elsewhere.   You need software to do it.   Without social networking analysis, it’s like a weatherman trying to predict a snowstorm without seeing a whole weather map.   Social network analysis gives you a 10,000 view of your ecosystem.   Without this visualization, it’s like three blind men touching the elephant.  There’s too much unstructured data (comments, replies, likes, etc) – you need to see a picture or map.

When you map your network, it tells you a story.  Who is connected to whom?  How are they interacting?  Where are the clusters?   Who are the influencers? Who are the bridge builders between clusters? Who is in the edges?  Who isn’t connected? Who should I spend my time responding to and cultivating?   The analysis looks at frequency of interaction, relationship structure (two-way, one-way), and helps reveal structural similarities.

Using this information to shape and refine your social media strategy can make it more effective.

There are some free tools that can help you visualize your Twitter network or do quasi social network analysis on Twitter.   Here’s a few that I’ve used.

Use Friend or Follow to download a spreadsheet of followers. Sort the information to find influencers and people to get to know.  This works best if you have small network.

Mr. Tweet finds influencers in your network you should follow (use this after you have built up your following list).

Mailana can help you identify people who are influencers.   I wrote about an experiment I did last year using this tool.  One problem is that it doesn’t analyze your network in real time.  You submit the userid and then have to come back a few days later unless it is already in the database.

Twitalyzer is a terrific analytics tool that gives you some good benchmarking metrics for Twitter. Run the  impact report to help you identify influencers.

Twiangulate lets you analyze cross over between your Twitter network and another Twitter user.  This can be useful to find potential collaborators.

Mention Map helps you visualize who is interacting with you around which hashtags.  It shows nodes on your network.   There is not information about what exactly how the drawings are created though.

NodeXL Created by a  Marc Smith, a self-described “Internet Sociologist,” this FREE software works as an add-on template in Excel, allows you import data from Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Email and create social network analysis maps.  It doesn’t require that you know a programming language, although you need to understand the basic vocabularly of social network analysis and how to translate this to your social media strategy.

There’s are more Twitter tools to explore here.

I also learned about a tool from Care 2 called “Social Network Tracker.”  It  matches your list of supporters against all of the major social networks.  It will tell you which of your donors/activists are on social networks, what social networks they are on and how many friends they have in aggregate.

How are you using social network analysis techniques and tools to analyze your network?  How has this helped your strategy become more effective?

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