3. Who uses social at the Red
Cross?
• 3 person national social engagement team
• Digital Disaster Volunteers
• Local chapter social engagement teams
• Local volunteer teams
• Other Red Crossers
• Social Basics-trained workers/volunteers
4. Our Social Engagement Goals
1. Carry out the organization’s mission online.
2. Grow our network of passionate supporters.
3. Make social part of our “operational DNA”.
5. • Training courses for all
Red Cross volunteers
and workers
• Working with leaders in
all lines of business to
empower units, build
strategies
Making social part of our
operational DNA
8. The first step: listening
• Making listening part of every person’s
routine
• Finding where “What the Red Cross
cares about” and “What our stakeholders
care about” intersect
• Connecting all Red Crossers together on
social platforms to build motivation
I'm here today to talk to you about culture shift within the Red Cross, as well as the changes we've had to make to embrace social media. This isn't to say that our organization has figured it all out- we're still working every day to teach people across our organization about social tools and platforms, and we are still working on building ways to use social information to its fullest potential with our operations. Change never comes easy, or quickly. But today, I hope that I can pull back the curtains and show you how our team's approach, and general acceptance of the spirit of social media within the Red Cross has led us through difficult times and opened us up to learn from the communities we serve.
So just a little background on our social engagement team first- we are a three person team that manages social strategy for the national American Red Cross. We are also a resource for hundreds of local chapters in the country on managing social media accounts and building communities online. We read and respond to thousands of Red Cross related mentions on social platforms every day. We create content for national social accounts and interact with online audiences and communities. Both our national team and local chapter teams have volunteer groups to help us do all of the work that I just mentioned when there is a surge in activity. One of the most important things we do as well is to teach people all across the organization about our strategy and then empower them to use social tools as part of their daily work with the reed cross.
So here are the top three goals of our social engagement strategy
So, on we marched as we took our lessons learned from my twitter faux pas and took a closer look at how we can improve Red Cross activities and services. We formalized and made widely available the trainings I mentioned earlier that would hopefully show everyone in the organization, from local volunteers to national employees, that they CAN use social media and feel empowered to represent themselves as part of the Red Cross movement online. We worked with leaders across the lines of business to figure out ways to go about setting social strategies for their business goals and create teams of savvy workers who were passionate about one particular topic. Most importantly, we wanted to show everyone that the more that individuals within the Red Cross are out there on the Internet, creating relationships and interacting with the people that we serve, the more dynamic and responsive our organization can become.
