FreshNetworks Blog

Social Media Week in London saw a great set of events, thinking and presentations for all things social media. One of my favourite presentations from the week came from an event I wasn’t able to attend: Steve Bridger‘s keynote from the Media140 Third Sector and the Real-time Web event.

Steve’s presentation is based on his experience of working with charities and not-for-profits and highlights the importance of the internal change that must take place in any organisation if they are to make the most of using social media:

1. Social media is disruptive to an organisation. It changes the way you do things, whether you intend it to or not. We see this a lot with organisations we work with at FreshNetworks. Marketing communities often produce customer service queries or ideas; research communities often result in word of mouth about the brand. Customers are not siloed in how they think about your brand or organisation and they way you interact with them in social media cannot be siloed either.
2. Social media is about relationships. It is not about technology but about what you do with it and how you interact with people online.

These observations are as true for corporates as they are for not-for-profits. Social media is not a silo because it is about relationships. It is about how you engage and interact with people on an ongoing basis.

Steve’s full presentation is below and is our Required Reading this week. You can also hear Steve talk at the FreshNetworks Breakfast Briefing on Thursday 18th February: Strengthen your membership strategy with social media.

I’m on my way to the International Word of Mouth Conference (see post here) and am reflecting on last night. I was back in Cambridge for a reunion organised by my College there. A great evening was had with most of my year up for a reception and dinner.

In the UK the culture of alumni giving is very different to that in the US; given money to your alma mater has traditionally been the exception and not the norm. With changes in funding, however, the need to increase the amounts raised has become critical. So I think we were all expecting to be asked to make a donation, to be given a form to fill in to give money annually or for some other explicit request for financial support to be made.

Which is why it was a surprise when it wasn’t. In fact it was made explicitly clear that we were not being asked for money. It turns out that my College has taken an engagement process to raising funds. In addition to dining rights six times a year and various other ‘privileges’, they also invite the whole year group back every five-ten years for a lavish dinner. The aim of these isn’t to raise money but to make sure that as high a proportion of people attend as possible. They want to engage with us and involve us in events for the rest of our lives, knowing that at some stage we may be in a better position to make a donation that really makes a difference.

So we had a great reception and dinner; nobody asked us for money but we all left feeling positive towards College, remembering the great times we had there and having the sense of inclusion. They involved us and will continue to, and as a long-term fund-raising mechanism it may just work.

I’m constantly impressed by the levels of innovation and adoption of new techniques that go on in the not-for-profit sector. A couple of weeks ago I met Jon Parsons from the Woodland Trust and was talking about what work his organisation does online at the moment. I often find that the best of the not-for-profit sector can be as good as if not better than the best of what larger brands are doing.

Some claim this is because the not-for-profit sector doesn’t have the same commercial risks that might be associated with over-innovating. I don’t buy this. Charities like the Woodland Trust rely on donations and need to generate donors in the same way that corporates generate customers. Others claim conversely that the not-for-profit sector seek out constant innovation as they seek out constant new sources of donors. Again, I just don’t think this is true.

I think that not-for-profits are innovative online because their brand naturally lends itself to something that people want to engage with. Rather than a product or service that people are buying, when they engage with not-for-profits they are buying into a cause, belief or campaign. They want to feel a part of something rather than buy a part of something.

Building an engagement strategy online is easier if you have something people already engage with. The Woodland Trust is a great example of this. They run an interactive Citizen Science programme called Nature’s Calendar which gets people to log when the first flowers of spring emerge or when frog-spawn appears in their pond. Participation in this is huge – in 2007 over 2,250 people contributed to data on when they first mowed their lawn! A second example of active online engagement from the Woodland Trust is their Ancient Tree Hunt, a community where people can log and record on a map where ancient trees are to be found. Almost 7,000 trees have been identified to date in the UK. These form the heart of the community with people encouraged to add more information about these trees and even to blog about their visits to the woods or trees.

The Woodland trust achieves admirable levels of engagement. It is solely concerned with a topic that people care about and engagement with them is integral to their involvement with the Trust in the first place. That’s why they show signs of getting things right online. They understand engagement; that’s what they do.