raleigh workshop: selling social media 2 15 09

Selling Social Media toYour Board and Staff

February 19, 2009

© RLF Communications

Integrate your plan• Social media is one more channel, not a

separate strategy

• Mesh with your organization’s:– Mission– Goals– Objectives– Outreach


Know your target audience(s)• Who is your target?• Are they using social

media already?• How do you find out

where they are?


Dazzle your board with stats• Facebook15 million active global users

• Twitter 3 million+/day (March 2008)

• YouTube 84+ million active users


Show your board how it works• 2 million staying in

touch on inauguration day.

• CNN carried live coverage of Facebook updates from these users.


Use it for listening and learning• Who’s talking about you?

• Why do you need to know?

• How do you listen?– Google Alerts– Technorati– Twitter Search– Bloglines


Use it for listening and learning• What should you listen for?

– Organization name– CEO/Executive Director– Program/service names– URL– Your tagline– Other nonprofits in your space– Prominent figures in your field


Build relationships• Facebook Group

pages– Public or private– Bulk messages to

inboxes– Best for hosting a

quick discussion or cause/event.


Build relationships• Facebook Fan Pages• Indexed by search

engines• Long-term

relationships• Traffic monitoring


Build relationships• Brooklyn Museum

– Allowed community to create an exhibit

– 3,000 people– 400,000 votes– Collection is now

online too


Improve relationships• My Starbucks Idea• @Comcast on Twitter


Increase awareness• Obama: 2 Million• McCain 600,000

• @barackobama 112,000• @johnmccain2008 4,600

• Obama YouTube 18M visits

• McCain YouTube 2 M


Drive Traffic• Debt Diva went from

28 to 1500+ followers in one month

• Twitter giveaway for holidays

• Drive traffic to website• Launch conversations


Take Action• Fundraising• Event attendance


Take Action


Twestival.fm

Use what’s there or DIY• Incorporate existing

social media sites into your organization’s outreach

• Start your own social network (www.ning.com)


Some ideas• Social networking: Facebook/MySpace

• Donor research: LinkedIn

• Quick updates to members: Blog

• Even quicker updates: Twitter/Microblog


Resources• Beth Kanter @kanter

– www.beth.typepad.com

• Jeremiah Owyang @jowyang– www.web-strategist.com

• Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan– www.chrisbrogan.com


Resources• Universal McCann Power to the People:

Social Media Tracker– http://tinyurl.com/Universal-McCann


raleigh workshop: selling social media 2 15 09

Technology