social media pitfalls: how to avoid them

Social Media Pitfalls:Simple tricks to avoid them

Susan Tenby, DirectorOnline Community/Social Media Team TechSoup Globalsusan@techsoup.org@suzboopSusantenby.com

Marin N

onprofit Conference 2011 – Conspiring for the Comm

on Good#2011NPC

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Double-click to enter titleDouble-click to enter textCommunicating across social media channels for the TechSoup Global online networks

Online Community and Social Media Team

PITFALL NUMBER 1

Not knowing why you even want to do social media

•SET YOUR GOALS •PICK YOUR CHANNELS •OWN YOUR AUTHORITY•STAY FOCUSED

Marin N

onprofit Conference 2011 – Conspiring for the Comm

on Good#2011NPC

Cause, campaign or organizational plan &

presence?

Measurable Goals

Connected to Specific outcomes

Call to Action Request

What do you want to accomplish?

Effective Social Media Strategy and Powerful Tactics for Networked Nonprofits

Campaign or organizational plan?

Mission & Purpose?

What do you want to accomplish?

Measurable Goals

Call to Action Request

Organizational voice and brand

Authority Position?

Step One:CHART THE COURSE:

Determine whichChannels are right for you – and right for your audiences to receive you

What is your call to action?

What do you want by having & monitoring your social media presence? •Drive traffic to your website? •Increase your org’s thought leadership? •Generate partnerships? •Donations? •Buzz? •Volunteers?

Pick one or two goals: Stay Focused!Be Charming!

PITFALL NUMBER 2HAVING UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF OUTCOMES

•Expectation of raising funds is wrong motivation•Set realistic goals for stats: http://nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com/

Marin N

onprofit Conference 2011 – Conspiring for the Comm

on Good#2011NPC

Being Nonprofit Twitter Rockstar Doesn’t = Fundraising $$

INTEGRATION

PITFALL NUMBER 3• NOT PRIORITIZING TIME • Blogs: 1-4 hours per post

• Twitter: 5-30 minutes a day

• Facebook: 5-30 minutes a day

• LinkedIn: 15-30 minutes, weekly

• Listservs: 30 minutes weekly

• Other Groups: 30 minutes weekly

• Photo Uploads: 15 minutes weekly

• Videos: 2-4 hours a week

• Curation: 1 hour a week

Marin N

onprofit Conference 2011 – Conspiring for the Comm

on Good

#2011NPC

Total Average Social Media Time:

90 minutes per day

11 hours per week

3 minutes: Check for Twitter chatter about yr organization and sub-sector.2 minutes: Scan Google Alerts, Social Mention and Blogs Alerts for important articles and mentions.3 minutes: Filter and flag relevant sector-related LinkedIn group and Quora questions.2 minutes: Log in to Facebook to scan your wall and comments.

If you have 5 extra minutes, chime into a listserv to keep yr presence there!

MINIMUM Time it will take: 10 minutes a day

PITFALL NUMBER 4•BEING A BROADCASTER• NOT LISTENING • NOT JOINING IN CONVERSATION• NOT BENEFITTING FROM SERENDIPITOUS TAG SURFING• NOT ENGINEERING SHARING • NOT BEING REDUNDANT AND AMPLIFYING• NOT SPEAKING LOCAL LANGUAGE

Marin N

onprofit Conference 2011 – Conspiring for the Comm

on Good#2011NPC

USE HASHTAGS! #2011NPC • Research and find tags from many communities related

to your field• LISTEN & Participate in conversations that help you

engage new audiences and strengthen your authority positions

• Use tags to organize campaigns Information and grow diverse conversations

• #NPTECH• #TSDIGS http://tiny.cc/tsdigs• http://whatthetrend.com/• http://www.hashtag.org/

Amplify, but speak the right local language

• Don’t use other people’s pages as a platform for your spam

• Don’t Auto Feed your Status updates to Facebook

• Don’t use Selective Tweets• Do take a little time, show you

care• Do take advantage of features of

the channel such as crosstagging to groups, people and places at once with links

• Do find your niche community & stay focused on that topic

Don’t Tweet Like CHER.

• Don’t tweet like Cher• Don’t make up

#uselesshashtags• Don’t spam via DM• Don’t call yourself a rockstar

or guru• Don’t put an emoticon or

exclamation mark after every tweet

• Don’t be self-referential in all your tweets

• Track click-thru using Bit.ly & do what works

• If yr going to RT something, READ IT first

DO Tweet Like… 57% of Nonprofits are on twitterAvg follwer base up 2%, 1822 followers

A few good Dashboards:Use for listening,NOT Broadcasting

HootsuitePros:•Good for listening, include tags, common misspellings, lists/groups•Allows us to follow multiple streams across many social media sites, creating specialized campaign and search tabs for various projects, events and organizations•Paid version gives downloadable reports for ROI information

Cons:• Free version won’t allow for multiple accounts or multiple users

CoTweetPros: FREE•Schedule & assign Tweets ahead of time PR releases & allows teams to manage accounts•CoTweet & Hootsuire allow us to see who responded, when & so we can figure out how to follow up to each request

Cons: Not as easy to use as a listening interface

Who’s talking about you & what hashtags & FOLLOW!

PITFALL NUMBER 5• THINKING YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY:• Don’t ever be afraid of having nothing to say: you can always

Curate!• Use Delicious to save bookmarks and share them • Use Scoop.It to help you find topical, relevant, reusable

content• Share it and content from others• When in doubt, ReTweet and be generous with @replies

Marin N

onprofit Conference 2011 – Conspiring for the Comm

on Good#2011NPC

PITFALL NUMBER 6• OVERTHINKING THE STRATEGY AND WRITING DOCUMENTS• TRYING TO PROVE ROI TO YOUR E.D.• OVER-PLANNING SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT• FOLLOWING TOO MANY GUIDELINES FROM OTHERS

REVIEW: Social Media What to do & what NOT to do

• DO find a third party listening dashboard tool that you like such as NetVibes or Google Reader for RSS/alerts

• DO subscribe to Alerts about relevant topics• Don’t delete or Ignore negative feedback, address it• Don’t use your friends and followers for their networks• DO tag Strategically, redundantly across many channels• Don’t only broadcast about your org, share stories &

respond• Don’t be a control freak: guide conversations• Don’t just expect someone will run your SM channels,

designate someone!• DO track your progress using social analytics tools that

help you track success

Social Media Policy?

Don’t bother writing your own. There are TONS out there!See: http://npsocialmedia101.wikispaces.com/Facebook

http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-policies-in-the-work-place

Create your own special sauce

• Figure out what your needs are, use a combination of tools• Don’t forget about mobile tweeting (Tweetdeck for multiple

accounts, channels mobile interface)• Many mobile clients have pic uploader installed in the app

(Peep)• Figure out a workflow that isn’t confusing to avoid Freudian

tweets• When you don’t have anything to say: Curate, ReTweet, reply to

conversations using hashtags and Share widely• Think more about RETWEETS & amplification than followers

Contact Me.. Really!http://susantenby.com/@suzboop@techsoup@npsl

www.techsoup.orgsusan@techsoup.orghttp://www.slideshare.net/suzboophttp://www.delicious.com/suzboop

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