social media pitfalls: how to avoid them
DESCRIPTION
Presentation for : Conspiring for the Common Good: 2011 Marin Nonprofit Conference. http://www.cvnl.org/eventdetails.aspx?EventId=2351#session2TRANSCRIPT
Social Media Pitfalls:Simple tricks to avoid them
Susan Tenby, DirectorOnline Community/Social Media Team TechSoup [email protected]@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
[email protected]://www.slideshare.net/suzboophttp://www.delicious.com/suzboop
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