A CharityHowTo.org Master Class on social strategies for nonprofits.

1. 6 steps to create
a powerhouse social strategy
for your nonprofit
A Master Class for CharityHowTo
JD Lasica
Founder, Socialbrite.org
jd@socialbrite.org

2. What we’ll cover today
Social media ecosystem
1. Lay the groundwork
2. Fun with metrics!
3. Get proactive
4. Launch & tell stories
5. Use your community
6. Integrate your efforts
Bonus tools
Q&A, summary, hugs, tearful goodbyes

3. Relax!
Flickr photo “relaxation,
the maldivian way” by
notsogoodphotography
http://socialbrite.org/masterclass
(all sites in this talk have been tagged for later retrieval)

4. Today’s hashtag
Creative Commons
photo on Flickr
by Prakhar
Tweet this preso! Hashtags:
#strategy #charityhowto

5. 7 color handouts. Be happy!
Share them at http://socialbrite.org/masterclass

6. Glossary for new terms
“ Social media:
Any online technology or practice that lets us share
(content, opinions, insights, experiences, media)
and have a conversation about the ideas we care about.
”
http://socialbrite.org/glossary

7. Socialbrite Sharing Center
http://socialbrite.org/sharing-center

8. ECOSYSTEM
Types of social media
• Blogs
• Social networks
• Microblogs (Twitter)
• Online video (YouTube,
Vimeo, Viddler)
• Widgets
• Photo sharing (Flickr,
Photobucket, etc.)
• Podcasts
• Virtual worlds
• Wikis
• Social bookmarking
• Forums
• Presentation sharing

9. Dizzying growth
77% US adults are frequent social media users.*
141 million active blogs (vs. 12,000 in 2000); almost 1 million blog
posts created per day; over 346 million people globally read blogs
6 of top 10 websites in US are social sites (YouTube, Facebook,
Wikipedia, Blogger, Craigslist, Twitter)
Flickr: 35 million people, 4 billion-plus photos
Twitter: 300,000 new users per day
YouTube: 2 billion videos streamed per day
Text messages per day: 4.5 billion
(vs. 400,000 in 2000)
Whenever someone opens a computer, 60% of time it’s for social
reasons.
*source: Nielsen Online, spring 2010

10. Facebook: The social network
73% of US Internet users are on Facebook

11. 1 . L AY T H E G R O U N D W O R K
Big picture reality check
Before we talk tools, technology or campaigns, do a
self-assessment with your team.
Why are you doing this?
What core values drive your
organization?
What change would you like
to see in the world?
Is there clarity about what your
organization is trying to achieve?
Why should people care?
Do you have an idea worth spreading?

12. Before you plunge in ...
Do you have a social media policy or guidelines?
Do you have a Strategic Plan in place?
Have you researched your audience/community?
Have you identified your social media team members
and are they properly trained?
Do you have buy-in from top management
Do you know how to build evergreen programs before
campaigns?
http://socialbrite.org/masterclass
for policies, best practices

13. Have you defined a clear theme?
Boil down your cause to a strong, single sentence
Vittana:
Help anyone go to college
Alter Eco:
Support fair trade
ActBlue:
Elect progressive candidates
DonorsChoose:
Support public classrooms in need

14. Begin with a strategy document

15. Strategic Plan elements
360 assessment of social
media capabilities
Spell out goals
Identify online community
Proposed use of social tools
& platforms
Recommendations on
expanded capabilities
Lay out metrics program
Competitive/peer analysis

16. Create a listening post
Set up a listening post
(monitoring dashboard)
to track what’s being
said about your
organization or cause.
Listen before engaging.
Deputize folks to do this.
Supplement with a social
media dashboard.
Engage before the Ask
Deeper dive—monitoring: socialbrite.org/masterclass

17. Free & low-cost monitoring
Deeper dive—monitoring:
socialbrite.org/masterclass

18. 2. FUN WITH METRICS
Before you start, measure!

19. SMART objectives
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound

20. ‘Data is better than gut’
— George Weiner
Photos on Flickr by Emran Kassim, left, and Vee Dub (CC-BY)

21. Set goals, map metrics
Goals Metrics to measure
Grow email list of supporters # newsletter, RSS subscribers
Increase comments on blog avg. # comments/post
Increase website visibility increase in traffic or linkback #s
Increase positive mentions mentions in blogs & social
of organization or cause networks
Have visitors stick around stick rate, bounce rate
Make our content more viral # of shares
Get people to take action # of petition signatures
Get people to attend event # of registrants, year over year
Deeper dive—metrics: socialbrite.org/masterclass

22. Bread for World’s SM goals
bread.org
1. Expand and strengthen
Bread’s advocacy work for
poor and hungry people
2. Expand our membership
3. Better communicate with
existing members and target
audiences
4. Strengthen our relationships
with our members
5. Fulfill our mission to end
hunger here and abroad

23. Track your success
Track the benchmarks & goals you set down:
For ongoing social media efforts:
Web stats (Google Analytics)
Url click-throughs (Bit.ly)
Facebook fan growth & engagement
Twitter followers & engagement
Survey responses
Comments received
For integrated social media campaigns:
Monitor social media activity
Optimize content, try to make it viral
Interact with target audiences
Use customer feedback loop for
product research and development

24. Google Analytics
Who loves ya, baby? See which Twitter users drive most traffic

25. Facebook Insights

26. Google Keyword tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

27. 3. GET PROACTIVE
Create an Events Calendar
Key off of events in your community

28. Facebook s live events

29. Create an Editorial Calendar
Map out a weekly or monthly game plan

30. Build community, not eyeballs
here’s an amazing
difference between building
an audience and building a
community. An audience
will watch you fall on a
sword. A community will fall
on a sword for you.
— Chris Brogan
Author, “Trust Agents”

31. 4. LAUNCH & TELL STORIES
Use personal storytelling
Find emotional core, use videos or photos to make us feel
invisiblepeople.tv

32. Evolve your content strategy
Build up a following organically

33. Create lightweight media
Don’t look now but you’re a content creator!
Room to Read: Winner of TechSoup Storytelling Challenge
Deeper dive—media: socialbrite.org/masterclass

34. Open your blog to guest posts

35. Create a conversation hub
Where will you engage with supporters?
Your blog Community site (WiserEarth)
Facebook Social hub (Change.org)
Twitter Contest site
Deeper dive—community: socialbrite.org/masterclass

36. Give your content a social life
Conversation, not marketing

37. Your FB news feed? Bad news
Facebook rewards conversation, punishes inactivity
http://bit.ly/edgerank-checker

38. JD’s 60-30-10 Twitter rule
60% retweets, pointing to
value, sharing other voices
30% responding, connecting
10% promoting, announcing

39. Enable friction-free conversations
Make sure your site is conversation-enabled!
Lower the barriers to people talking about your
cause by using third-party authentication
services.
Left: SpokenWord.org with multiple log-in
options.
Top: The new Facebook Comments on
HowStuffWorks.com.

40. Use hashtags to join conversations
Find relevant hashtags through
Twitter Search or tagdef.com
Join (but don’t spam)
conversation threads
Start your own hashtag
Some hashtags to latch on to:
#women #health #latino
#education #democracy #politics
#Obama #news #media
At left, widget found at:
http://journchat.info

41. CASE STUDY
Involve the community
350.org

42. CASE STUDY
Deep engagement
livestrong.org

43. CASE STUDY
Deputize partners & supporters
FreeSpeechTV & One Nation March
Photo on Flickr by Jobs With Justice

44. 5. USE YOUR COMMUNITY
Find your champions!
Find the big kahunas in your sector by using your listening
post. Then, influence the influencers.
Establish a rapport and only then reach out to try to convert
them into evangelists & ambassadors for your cause.
Scope out Twitter Lists that intersect with your organization
or social cause.
Connect with other social media influencers through their
blogs and other networks.
Deeper dive—monitoring & community: socialbrite.org/masterclass

45. Use social love handles!
Generate an Attention Wave to socialize your campaign

46. Meet up in the real world
Meetups, Tweet-ups, concerts, fund-raisers to deepen ties

47. Tap into the sharing community
Creative Commons
photo on Flickr by
Jason Means
Don’t do all the heavy lifting!

48. The awesome power of free
Free content! Free resources!
Free photos Socialbrite.org/sharing-center
Free videos (eg, TED talks) Creativecommons.org
Free music & audio Techsoup
Free services! Free expertise!
Google Grants BarCamp
YouTube for Nonprofits PodCamp
Google Earth for Nonprofits WordCamp
Social Media
Free software & platforms! Club
WordPress & its plug-ins
Open Office, Google docs
Drupal, Joomla

49. flickr.com/creativecommons
Creativecommons.org
• Rich source of free
commercial & noncommercial
images
• Flickr: 160 million
Attribution, Noncommercial,
No Derivatives & ShareAlike
licenses
• Use them for your blog,
website, email or print
newsletter, presentations, etc.
• Don’t just take. Share!

50. 6 . I N T E G R AT E Y O U R E F F O R T S
Social media can feed your list
Be opportunistic: Take advantage of email signups on Facebook

51. Is your strategy aligned?
thehopeinstitute.us
Moving from tactics to strategy: Direct mail, events marketing
& social media working as an integrated ecosystem

52. Social media dashboards
Hootsuite Cotweet
Tweetdeck Spredfast
Threadsy Netvibes
http://bit.ly/smdash

53. BONUS TOOLS
Causes now supports projects
exchanges.causes.com

54. Fundraising: Going social
give2gether.com

55. Metrics on network effect

56. Final thoughts
Begin with a plan, not with the tools.
Nice & easy does it. Be patient.
Get aligned & integrated, attack the silos.
Make email, events & social media work together.
Build internal & external relationships. Understand
& manage your organization’s capacity.
Go deep, not wide.
Make it super-easy for others to use your content.
Don’t forget to listen and to measure!
Evaluate, iterate, relaunch. Be flexible & nimble.
Don’t do all the heavy lifting. :~)

57. Resources & tools
What you’ll find at socialbrite.org/masterclass
Free tutorials on the best way to use
Facebook, Twitter & blogs
24 online fundraising sites
Top cause organizations
Free reports
Free photo, music, video directories
Collaboration tools
Geolocation tools
How to use mobile strategically
Tons more. All free & shareable.

58. Biggest resource: Your supporters

59. Thank you!
JD Lasica, founder
Socialbrite: Social tools for social change
email: jd@socialbrite.org
Twitter: @jdlasica
@socialbrite