AJLI - Implementing Social Networks

PRESENTED BY: HOWARD GREENSTEIN, PRESIDENT OF THE HARBROOKE GROUP New Media 202: Implementing Social Networks Entire presentation (CC) 2008 Attribute-Share-Alike- Non Commercial by The Harbrooke Group, Inc. Some Rights Reserved.

My Bio
Howard Greenstein
BS from Cornell, Masters at NYU ITP
On-air DJ in the ‘80s, during and after college
Started first Web users group in US 1994, on Board of NY New Media Association and NY Software Industry Association
First Internet Streaming station in NYC - Netcast - 1996
Microsoft Evangelist: Internet Explorer and Windows Media Team 1997-2000 - responsible for top media properties including Fox, MTV, Time Warner and ClearChannel
Other Media Startups, Ran 9-11 related charity
NYU Administration and Lecturer
Created Social Media Club 2006 - Social Media Consulting

Main Points
Define Your Goal for Using Social Networking
Have a place for members to find information, constantly updated
Recruit New Members
Retain currents
Enable Your Network to Tell Your Story
Find your network and activate it!
Make Connections Personal
Have an end game strategy

Social Media and Social Networks
Tech tools include:
YOUR WEBSITE!
Facebook and MySpace – Social networks
Flickr and YouTube – Photo and video sharing
Twitter – Microblogging and information sharing
Your Blog or a Blogging tool like Wordpress.org, Blogger.com, or Typepad.com
Boards, Forums, local newspaper sites and places where people are interested in your cause

Defining Your Goal(s)

Web 2.0 and Social Media Expression

Current, Updated Information
No one likes a web page that never changes
Social Media and Social Networks can provide you new content – created by your members as well as your volunteers and leaders

Recruiting New Members
Having a public place for your members to share information, comments, photos, events will help promote your League

Retaining Members
Social Networks can help facilitate connections among current members
By having a site with profiles showing their interests and connections, members can make connections where they didn’t previously exist.
A goal of Social Networking is to help online connections meet in person! This isn’t about staying home on the computer!

Key Elements of Social Media
Listening
Participating
Creating and Managing your own space
And of course, set up to measure what you’re doing
You need to be able to monitor what you’re doing –

Measurement
What will you measure?
How many women recruited?
League member satisfaction?
Views of your blog?
News mentions (on blogs, in traditional media)
General satisfaction?
It is up to you to define, but once defined, it is important to measure and judge

Listening
First, find out what’s going on out there
Is anyone talking about you? Positive or Negative, or Neutral?
Where are they talking?
What’s the community like?
Can you join it?

“ mmmm, I’m not listening!” (or not perceived to be listening)

What Can Happen when you listen?

Stormhoek Wine + Social Media

Stormhoek Results
From a $1MM to a $10MM business with Internet advertising and word-of-mouth, only.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/technokitten/47458362/

Participating
Create a strategy, based on your listening
What are people talking about?
What would be your answers? Do you need “official” answers? (Can you make them sound non-canned?)
Join in to be helpful or useful
If customers are having a problem, help them solve it
If people are talking in a negative way, ask about it
Don’t be defensive! And don’t sound like you’re towing the company line.
This is your opportunity to WIN customers over

Creating Your Own Space
Not every group or company has people talking about them in other communities
Sometimes you have to create the space for people to talk about you on your own website
If you build it, they may not come…
There are no guarantees
If people are treated poorly in a community they may leave
Monitoring, empowering discussion leaders can help build a community

Listening Tools
A number are listed in the ‘extra slides”
Google Alerts
www.Google.com/Alerts
A way to take a Google search, and have new results emailed to you when they’re indexed
If someone posts on “Junior” and “League” and “YourCity” you’d get an alert
If it is a blog or a forum, you could then decide whether or not to respond
06/05/09 CC 2007 Harbrooke Group, Inc. Some Rights Reserved.

Participation means
Joining forums where the discussion is happening
Answering questions
Blogging (always a combination of listening and talking)
Always listening to hear the response to your participation

Social Connector Personality
Organizational Culture Check in – the person who does this has to love the Online medium
Person has to be open to communication
Receptive to criticism
A little geeky – willing to try new tools

Creating Your own Space

Effective Blogging

What is your Blog For?
Some people use it to publish articles that make it into their newsletters
Blog is a place for fresh content on relevant topics for your league
Opportunities for both text content and audio/video embedded content

Public Blog Strategy
Intent to attract comments from interested parties – easy way to get involved. Polls and other widgets will also provide methods for involvement
Get quoted on other blogs, in news media, passed along to potential members or supporters

Private Blog
For topics that are only for members
Easy way to solicit feedback

Content & Tone
Use a Human Voice – blogs are a personal medium.
Think about blog posts as a conversation and use a conversational tone.
Read some of the other blogs in ‘your space’ and get a feel of the tone for the community – what works in one, may not work in another.
Keep it lively and FUN!
Be personal, be REAL, be TRUTHFUL, be a LEADER. Use the word “I”, instead of “we”. Don’t be corporate.

Blogging Voice
Here’s a nice paragraph from an excellent SEO blogger (search engine optimization):
Charisma is a valuable quality, both online and off. Through a blog, it's most often judged by the voice you present to your users. People like empathy, compassion, authority and honesty.
Keep these in the forefront of your mind when writing and you'll be in a good position to succeed.
It's also critical that you maintain a level of humility in your blogging and stick to your roots.

Link intelligently
Linking is part of what makes blogging so viral.
Link to other blogs discussing the same topic as you, link to related stories on other sites you write for, and most importantly link to other network bloggers who are blogging on the same topic as you.
You find them by listening for them!

Enable Your Network (for Recruiting)

Since Ancient times, people have told stories

Example of someone enabling Storytelling:
“ My ” Barack Obama” = Personal page

Tell Stories?
Probably the oldest form of learning/sharing of information
Effective way to pass along information
The original “Word of Mouth” marketing
Storytelling is Personal

Enabling your network means
Letting your story go
Empowering people to tell it for you
Content that can be shared
Messages you want passed on
Rules or Guidelines about how to share
Listening for people talking about your story
And talking back to them

Using Facebook and other SN sites effectively

What does your FB page look like?
Facebook
What’s the strategy here?
Easy sharing
Easy to take action

Enable your supporters to tell a good story about your cause
You’re looking to get people to take actions –
To connect with each other
To reach out to potential new members
To pass on your story to others who will (insert YOUR action here)
What things do you need on your site, your blog, your FB group, to ENABLE your supporters to tell your story for you?

What, you don’t have one?
Free or cheap blog or page creation sites
Google Pages
Blogger
Wordpress.org
TypePad.com
Video Hosting
YouTube
Magnify.net
Blip.Tv
Inexpensive Email Campaign software
iContact.com
Constant Contact
Photo Hosting
Flickr.com
PhotoBucket.com
Social Networks
Facebook, MySpace
Make your own: Ning.com, Kickapps.com

AJLI’s New Web Efforts
Open AJLI presentation

Don’t run out of gas…you need a team
Who will blog?
Who will edit?
Who has the final say?
Who’s watching the comments?
When do you escalate?
Who monitors the social network?
Jobs include: Welcoming new people, teaching, reminding people of rules of etiquette
Who creates the content and uploads it?
Who approves it?
Are there pre-arranged answers PR/Management wants to create for questions people ask on the site?

REMINDER: Your goal isn’t to get people to join your Facebook group
YOU ARE NOT TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO JOIN YOUR FB GROUP, your Email list or your blog
Your goal is Recruiting, or Retention, or Promoting your League in the community, Or Fundraising, or…
However, if they DO join your list, read your blog, become your friend, this is good for your overall cause

Make your connections Personal

Discover your network
If you haven’t been cultivating a network, no time like the present!
EVERYONE in your organization is now a networker. No exceptions from janitor to once-a-month volunteer to board member.
Everyone has a network of their own
WOW Gamers
PTA
Moose Lodge
Church/Temple/
Neighborhood watch/toastmasters
Mom/Dad and their friends too (card members!)

Start with a Personal invite
Which appeal will you make?
Logo vs. formal vs. informal?
Whichever you do, make it PERSONAL.

Connect personally
So, you must make sure your network knows that they must reach a lot of people , Personally.

DON’T SPAM
Don’t sent out stuff to inappropriate lists
Don’t subscribe people to lists they don’t want to be on
Ask permission for this not forgiveness
Remind your supporters to do the same!

The best appeals come from
Someone we know
Who has a passionate interest in the cause
Who has given a specific action that’s easy to take without leaving the computer

Identify who is good at tapping networks
And make sure they’re active till the last day
Run through the finish line
Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/rkeohane/2429206174/

Public vs. Private Sites
Some Leagues, and some people, won’t be comfortable with using public sites like Facebook or MySpace, or with sharing using a photo or video sharing site
Some social networking sites have a perception that they’re ‘just for the kids’
Some information is best shared privately within your League, members-only

End Game Strategy

Final thoughts

Howard Greenstein
[email_address]
HowardGreenstein.com
Thank You!

Resources
Beth Kanter’s description of how she won the Parade Magazine challenge:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/02/americas-giving.html
50 Steps to a Social Media Practice
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-steps-to-establishing-a-consistent-social-media-practice/
All items tagged “NPTech” on Delicious.com
http://delicious.com/tag/nptech

Sample Blog Search Engines:
Google - http://blogsearch.google.com/
Google news alerts – to subscribe via email to terms, URLs
Google Reader – for specific feeds
A Free Service you can use to track other blogs, or see how your own comes across as a feed

Feed Readers
Some people like to subscribe to feeds offline or in a separate application. Here are two great applications.
NewsGator - http://www.newsgator.com - makes two great applications to track feeds offline;
NetNewsWire – for Mac
Feedemon – for Windows

AJLI - Implementing Social Networks

by Howard Greenstein on Oct 31, 2008

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AJLI - Implementing Social Networks — Presentation Transcript