Download - K N C09 For Seizing The Moment
Case Study: Knight News Challenge 2008‐09
Using social media to drive awareness & engagement (while
being lean but not mean) Susan Mernit
Seizing the Moment conference August 2009
How to use social media tools—Facebook, TwiMer, Flickr & blogs—to create awareness for your project that will get you new audiences, deeper user engagement and more buzz—without a lot of cost: a case study.
Knight News Challenge (newschallenge.org): Annual compeQQon awarding $5MM in funds to projects that support local news and discussion in specific geographic communiQes (3 yrs) Open compeQQon, anyone can enter, products MUST be open source InternaQonal reach, proposals sought from wide range of communiQes
Goals for 2008‐09 challenge: Improve quality and diversity of applicaQons Improve peer support and peer mentoring experiences at start of program Strengthen internaQonal applicaQons, parQcularly in Asia What we had to work with:
Part Qme team of 3 people: 5 hours a week each for 2 months $2,500 events budget Free social media tools
Results we achieved: 47 % increase in traffic to newschallenge.org 50% increase in unique visitors 17,000 uniques at site last day of compeQQon, 100% increase 224 blog posts about program compared to 24 the previous year Vibrant community: 1,800 registrants for NC Garage
So how did we do that?
Made A Plan w/Measurable Goals Goals: Increase awareness in tech & social media communities Create viral buzz, blogosphere Diversify applications Build community
Tactics: Orchestrate program of blogging Local meet-ups Build Garage, peer review/mentoring Multiple Facebook groups & events Email blasts across the world Outreach to key influencers Multiple twitter accounts 2X day for 2 months
Executed plan, on a schedule
• Built 2 month, 3X a week schedule for blog posts; asked reviewers to blog
• Assigned main twiMerer; retweeted, thanks others for retweets
• AcQve flickr groups; • #hashtag, #knc09 • 2X week email blasts • 9 live meet ups across US over 2 months
• Video tesQmonials • Repeated contacts w/influencers, bloggers
Budgeted Qme & money
• Time – Assigned staffers, distributed Qme over week
– Minimized lingering, turned social media OFF
– Weekly call discussing roles, impact, goals for week
• Money – P/T social media community manager for 2 months, 15 hours week
– Free spaces for meet‐ups, soda & chips for snacks
– No hotel bills; planned with Knight travel
Results 2,323 entries submitted 60,000 mentions of “Knight News Challenge” on non-Knight sites in 2008; 110% increase from 2007 1,800 registrants, Garage; 50% applied 400 attendees, live meet-ups; 50% applied 700 links to mentions of the events indexed in Google, 30 photos on Flickr tagged Knight News Challenge meet up) Write ups NYT, Valleywag
Why did this work ?
Social Networks are growing VERY QUICKLY
Twitter Facebook FriendFeed Flickr YouTube
Adults have joined FB & TwiMer In the past year, Twitter traffic has grown 3,700%; minutes spent on Facebook have increased 700% in the same time frame
In the U.S, total minutes spent on social networking sites have increased 83 percent year‐over‐year. Visitors aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 49 were the highest indexing age groups on Facebook, represenQng 27 percent and 23 percent as more likely to visit the site than the average user, respecQvely.
And it’s on our phones. Yes, even those crappy cell phones…
Web resources for follow‐up Social media for social action, Susan Mernit, white paper documenting social media outreach by The Knight News Challenge & others http://susanmernit.com/services/
Beth Kanter’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media-http://beth.typepad.com
Deanna Zandt, forthcoming book, Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking! (Barrett-Koehler) &her blog: http://deannazandt.com
Rebecca Leaman, Wild Apricot’s Non Profit Tech Blog, http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog
SocialBrite, social tools for social change, http://socialbrite.org
Real Time Resources to learn more Public Media Collaborative, volunteer group dedicated to free and low cost training in social media—next training October 23, 2009, Oakland, CA (http://bit.ly/1UkVC)
Net Squared Net Tuesdays, monthly meet-ups at Tech Soup Global, San Francisco, next meeting, September 8, 2009, 6 PM,(http://www.netsquared.org)
Non profit boot camp, Craigslist Foundation http://craigslistfoundation.org/schedule.html
Thanks for listening! Susan Mernit [email protected] Twitter: susanmernit
Watch for Oakland Local, new community site coming in September, http://oaklandlocal.com News for the people