Learning from the Best

Damian O’BroinAsk Direct

Examples of great use of the internet & social media by environmental organisations

4 September 2010#euenv

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Who’s heard of Charlie Simpson?

Charlie Simpson

Fundraising God and Social Media GeniusAge 7

What can we learn from Charlie?

‣ It helps if the world is already paying attention

‣ You don’t need to be big to deploy social media techniques

‣ Traditional media still have a big role to play

‣ Have a good story & make it emotional

‣ This was about Charlie, not UNICEF

What I’m going to talk about

‣ 5 great examples of social media & online activism by environmental NGOs

‣ 1 bonus campaign that has nothing to do with the environment

‣ What we can learn from each of these

Social Media Basics

•YOU build the community

•YOU provide the stories, the tools and the inspiration

•And then you get out of the way

1Defenders of Wildlife& Sarah Palin

•$1.3m in 3 months•24,500 donors•60% new to DoW

EyeOnPalin.org

•55,000 votes•$130,000 raised•2,000 new donors

Thurs, 9.19am: Coast Guard notified of fire on Mariner Energy PlatformThurs, 8.20pm: Defenders of Wildlife email action received

Lessons from The Defenders of Wildlife‣ Look at your name, brand and positioning

‣ Enemies are good

‣ Timeliness

‣ Follow through and feedback

‣ Find ways to involve your supporters

‣ Invest in your data

2Amnesty International & Shell

£10 to buy a square centimetre of the ad

£30 to have your name at the bottom of the ad

Target of £20,000

Lessons from Amnesty’s Shell Campaign‣ Give supporters something tangible

‣ Multiple emails in single campaign (optimum is 3 -6) with updates, progress and feedback

‣ Thank supporters and demonstrate how their support made a difference

3Earthjustice& Foursquare

Lessons from the EarthJustice Foursquare Campaign

•Social Media can add interactivity & responsiveness to media campaigns

•Some tools (i.e. Foursquare) are still niche - this is not mass market stuff

•Know your audience and the local landscape

4Environmental Defence Fund & Deepwater Horizon

Lessons from EDF

•Consistent messaging across campaigns

•Apply tried and tested direct marketing practices to your emails

•Dedicated landing pages

5Greenpeace & Nestlé:The Kit Kat / Palm Oil Campaign

On 17 March, Greenpeace launched the latest phase of their campaign against

Nestlé and their use of palm oil....

This is what happened next...

Wednesday 17 March•Greenpeace launch report, start campaign and

post video to You Tube

•Moderate amount of criticism on Nestlé facebook page

•Nestlé demand that the video is removed... You Tube comply

•Greenpeace post video to Vimeo instead and within hours has 78,500 views

“There’s nothing like the threat of censorship to

get the social media masses mobilised”

Thurs 18 – Fri 19 March

•Volume of attacks on facebook page has ramped up and supporters start adopting the Kit Kat Killer logo as an avatar

•Nestlé start deleting comments

Nestlé:! ! ! Oh please...it's like we're censoring everything to allow only positive comments"

Paul Griffin:! not sure you're going to win friends in the social media space with this sort of dogmatic ! ! ! ! approach. I understand that you're on your back-foot due to various issues not ! ! ! ! excluding palm oil but social media is about embracing your market, engaging and ! ! ! ! having a conversation rather than preaching!"

Nestlé:! ! ! Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it's our page, we ! ! ! ! set the rules, it was ever thus."

The media take notice...

Saturday 20 March

•Over 4,370 blog posts have been written about Nestlé and Greenpeace

•1,500 tweets in the previous 24 hours have been seen by an estimated 540,000 people

•...and Greenpeace aren’t finished yet....

“Download the video and put it on your favourite

video sharing site”

Sunday 22 March

And then, on 17 May

Lessons from Greenpeace’s KitKat Campaign

•Social media is now a very powerful, global organising tool

•There’s nothing like a good fight to motivate your supporters

•You can start, facilitate and guide a campaign - but you can’t control it

•You could also be on the receiving end

6Child’s I FoundationJoey’s Appeal

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