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take a different view

Do you have a nattering army?

28/4/2016

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This is the second of a 3 part post about whether social media really is worth investing time into or not.  In the last post, I explored how important having a clear purpose for social media accounts is to success.  Having a clear purpose not only allows you to set goals to see how your social media is supporting your strategy; it's also is a great way of engaging your people in a process they are perfectly placed to make a meaningful contribution to. 

In this post, I am going to share some of my experiences and observations of how people play such an important role in whether your social media strategy delivers results, or whether it becomes another burden for an overstretched team/person. Having worked with hundreds of organisations since social media became part of mainstream life I have seen a growing divide in how social media is used by people.

Grassroots lead the way

Individuals and grassroots causes across the globe have embraced all it's thought sharing, collaborative, organising capabilities. It is argued that the 'Arab Spring' back in 2010 would have struggled to mobilise quite so many people so quickly behind that cause 5 years earlier, without social media and access to it via the proliferation of affordable smartphones. 

On a less political note, I have worked with many community groups, young and old who are using Whatsapp, Facebook groups and even closed Twitter profiles to solve communication issues. On a personal note, I am part of a singing group called the Sunday Boys and our Facebook group is the hub of organising rehearsals, voting on gigs and outfits as well as requesting repertoire and coordinating social outings. 

From organising events, delegating tasks and building connections between isolated groups, these free-to-use tools have removed distance and to some degree cost as a barrier to making a difference. Add in the democratising effect of how accessible the people who can open doors for your community are now through those 'degrees of separation;' we must surely be entering an exciting new era of interconnection and cooperation. 

Medium & Large organisations: Transform your PR & Communications teams

PR & Communications teams role on social media should change from content managers to teachers and go on to be co-producers 
The great power of social media is how social and natural it is. Many organisations have embraced the range of networks there are to engage more people. However, the article that provoked these three blog posts proposes there is little return on investment from social media. When I look at how many organisations have configured their social media it often sits with a team who have a background in corporate communications and PR. 

It seems perfectly logical to place social media with these teams at first thought, after all, it's a fledgeling marketing tool, so let's get the people who have traditionally done our marketing do take on this mantle. These teams are great at crafting a brand identity and ensuring that these messages are shared across multiple channels consistently. 

​We live in a modern, topsy-turvey world where your brand is increasingly what people say about you, not what you want to be heard. Believing you can control your brand is fast becoming something of a fantasy.  This is not something to fear, merely a change in the landscape which you can thrive in. I propose that there is a great opportunity for your brand professionals to evolve from being managers of content to teachers and to go on to be co-producers, working whole armies of supporters and networks of people to make a bigger impact. 

Small Organisations: Have a social media leader, not a manager

Beware the social media lone ranger
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At the other end of the spectrum size-wise, many organisations recognise the value of social media but perhaps lack the skills internally so recruit a 'Social Media Person.' The social media lone ranger, isn't part of a team who can work together to create and share content; it often feels like that person is offering a service to their colleagues to share the stories as many colleagues don't have the confidence or perceived time to get involved.  I have seen many a social media person 'banging their head against the wall' as they miss out on sharing great stories time and time again because others in the organisation forget to tell the social media person about the news. 
I can understand why organisations appoint a single person to 'manage their 'on-line presence' its simple, tidy and focused. However as with medium and larger organisations, you aren't benefiting from the power of something which by its nature is messy - and risk over managing something which we like to think we can control. Let's instead recast this person as a social media leader. Their role is now to share what they know with colleagues, volunteers, customers and their results measured on the volume and quality of posts that those people produce. A raft of 10, 20, 50, 100, 300 people will create far more content that your poor 1 person ever could. 

That person's energy then gets put into communicating and working closely with those people to train them, build their confidence, give stimulus and campaigns to enable those people to be inspired and create their own content. This does require trust, however, I have seen it used incredibly successfully. Don't forget to link all those measurements back to your social media purpose. We will explore this in more detail in the final part of this post when we look at the process. 
​

How to get some grassroots magic

We all want our cake and to eat it and it can be done with some great leadership. The power of grassroots, natural use of social media with the expertise of brand planning and communications of your marketing/comms team or person.

Here are the top 3 things I have seen make a difference
  1. Doing this differently will require training to help more people within your organisation find a confident voice on-line. Take down the barriers that stop them from promoting what you do. From the CEO to the front-line worker, every should be able to share something interesting for your audiences to engage and learn from. This will help cement your organisation as a leader in its field. 
  2. Give your people freedom and trust - this actually is about the leadership within an organisation. Social media is by its very nature open and real. Being successful in the digital age isn't about the tools it's as much to do with how the leadership in an organisation embraces a change in culture that comes from the external world rather than one created internally.
  3. Conversation, conversation, conversation - reward conversation and not broadcast. It will be conversations that build relationships and enable audiences to think of you in a moment of need. 
Looking at that list and wondering how to get started? 
Perhaps you don't even have 1 social media person at the moment? 
​Do you feel that your team requires some development to help them shine in delivering your new strategy? ​
If you answered yes to any of those questions or similar questions, it sounds like we should have a conversation about how I can help. Take a look at what we could do together or simply get in touch using the link below. 
​Don't forget to sign up to for newsletter to get more tips on bridging gaps in your organisation straight to your inbox - including the 3rd part of this blog post. The link is just below. 
I love a discussion so feel free to leave your comments and thoughts below. 
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Does your Social Media have a purpose?

31/3/2016

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The web is all about story telling. From Facebook to Wikipedia, and even through to sites like Amazon with its endless warehouse of described products - everyone's got a story to tell you about
something.
Why is it then that I hear so often from charities that they feel they struggle to access the vast benefits the web has to offer? The tumbling price of smart phones are putting the opportunity to find something in a moment in to millions of new hands every day.
Charities, with their missions to improve the lives of others are brimming with more inspirational stories than the features of a new electric toothbrush. The web also offers the world access to the valuable support charities can offer people 24 hours a day at no extra cost. So what is happening?

I read an interesting article the other day which seemed to suggest that charities investing in social media is often a waste of resource for attracting donors. The article instead advises charities to invest in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Google Adwords (Google's advertising mechanism). For me, Social Media and SEO are part of the same bigger picture of attracting and engaging people with your cause - from recruiting to your mission and everything in between. This blog is just as relevant for anyone wanting to improve their confidence and results from social media.

From my own experience of being Interim CEO of a charity who was well known for its innovative use of social media to engage with its membership, the donor argument is a little narrow for me. There are three things which are often overlooked before you even get to the kinds of results a charity might expect from investing in social media. In this article we will explore Purpose. In the next posts I'll share about how to upskill your fabulous people and how to fix the leaks in process / funnel that can haemorrhage visitors to your online.

Purpose:
  1. Define your purpose. What is your story? What do you want people to come away from your organisation believing? How is the information you can give them useful? These are good starting points to help you decide what your social media is for
  2. Think outside fundraising. As recent as 2005 social media just wasn't a thing. Today people use social media to find answers, as a trusted source for recommendations from others and a place to define your identity and express yourself. People aren't there to be sold to, so don't bother. As some trends with the next generation of donors suggest, charities need to start moving away from a dependence on individual donations and instead look at the following they attract in order to gain philanthropic funding in future
  3. Set measurable goals. Articulate a purpose for your online presence and define some clear goals of what you want your online presence to do for your organisation and the rest will follow. This will help you in understanding the process too (we will cover this in more detail in a later post.) Use tools such as Hoot Suite and Google Analytics to set goals and measure how successful your content is at turning visitors and browsers in to something meaningful to your organisation. (newsletter sign ups, service user contacts etc)
  4. Create content your potential audience wants to learn about. The one mistake I have made working in a charity is believing that our message is so important that if we should loud enough people will
    listen. Take that philosophy to a party and you are unpopular pretty quick, people need to go on a journey to get to know you. It's the same with an important cause. A person may need multiple routes into engage with your story. All those routes start with a 'moment' where they are looking for something you could be delivering to them, whether it's a service, a funny story or something inspirational. That moment is your opportunity to make a connection.
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Less broadcast, more conversation
Once you have a clear purpose and great content you are ready to start a conversation with your intended audience. Simply broadcasting what you are doing is a bit like walking in to a party with a megaphone and being surprised why nobody responds. 

Some examples & starting points:

Enhance your Service

If your online presence is about offering a service, my first port of call is find out from a group of those customers or beneficiaries what service they expect or would like to see from you online. You will need to listen carefully to the words they use and how they describe their needs to you and what is important to them - it will be different to how you describe your services (we all fall in to the jargon trap eventually). They may tell you they want a newsletter with information or be able to access help, so all your goals and activity can be about taking them on that journey to those steps as quickly as possible. When we cover process we will look at how to tune up that process from learning how people use your site from data you can easily collect . 

Build a movement

​Another goal might be to gain an engaged following who can influence others to re-share your stories. We are able to infinitely monitor the web and this access to data gives charities great accountability to make better decisions. This information is increasingly becoming of interest to philanthropists they want to see what kind social reach and impact your work has. It's not about how many but what that following can do - surveys and research to help gather evidence of need for the next project for example. This fits with the transformation that the charity sector has led with a focus on shifting to outcomes not just counting outputs. Attitude to social media is heading the same way - and getting donations, for me, is another output. Think wider.

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In the meantime if you would like to have a chat about making the most of online and what it can offer your organisation, including strategy workshops, an impartial view of your current strategy, staff training and hands on help to get you tuned up, just start a project with an enquiry today 
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    Live on a boat. Worked in public, charity and private sectors for over 10 years improving the way organisations work with people to make stuff work better

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