Social Media Primer
Mike Dean
Tipping Point Strategies

Agenda for Today
Level Setting
• Social Media Tools
• Communicating Along Social Media Channels
• Why Social Media Matters
Discussion - How to Use Social Media
• Anatomy of an Advocacy Campaign
• Advocacy Case Studies Advocacy

Everything Changed

The Twitter Revolution
• A THOUSAND
WORDS Tweets
stop at 140
characters. A
tweeted picture can
have a fuller impact.

The Future is Now
• Americans spend more time on the Internet than
any other activity
Number of hours Americans spend on these media activities:
3.6 – Internet, 2.5 - TV, 1.3 – Radio, 1.3 - Telephone
OMD, a New York based media services company, November 2006
• An increasing number of people now believe that
the web can give them more political power
USC Annenberg School, December 2005

S O C IA L M E D IA T O O L S
• Social Networks
• News & Bookmarking
• Blogs
• Microblogging
• Video Sharing
• Photo Sharing
• Message boards
• Wikis
• Podcasts
• RSS Feeds

S O C IA L N E T W O R K IN G
• People and
organizations
connect and
interact with
friends,
colleagues and
fans.
• Facebook and
MySpace pages
provide a micro site
within the social
framework.

S O C IA L N E T W O R K IN G
• Schools and other public Examples:
institutions benefit from • Americans for the Arts has raised 4k+
immediate recognition, with their “cause”
pre-existing affinity • MA PTA posts updates, photos,
• Helps you humanize the encourages activism
organization
• Makes your professional
message seem personal
• People who don’t attend
meetings can still feel like
participants

S O C IA L N E T W O R K IN G

S O C IA L N E T W O R K IN G

S O C IA L N E W S &
B O O K M A R K IN G
• Social bookmarking
sites allow users to
save, share,
organize, comment
on and search
webpage bookmarks
• Community voting
helps you determine
the popularity of
certain info among
certain demographics

B L O G G IN G
– Blogs encourage
conversation, add
context and color to
data
– Blogs serve to establish
your organization as
transparent, relevant,
active, and expert
– Listen to the
conversation that’s going
on and join in

B L O G G IN G
WHY BLOG?
• Every demographic is
now turning to the
Internet for information
• Improve your search
engine visibility
• Promote initiatives
and events
Photo: magia3e on Flickr

Be sure to:
o Post on a regular
schedule
o Respond to questions
and concerns posted in
comments and on other
blogs
o Use keywords in your
titles (SEO)

o Microblogs are blogs
limited to a sentence or
two (about 140
characters)
o People use microblogging
to follow their friends
o Organizations use it to:
o Monitor and address
customer concerns
o Get the word out
o Alert Supporters of news

M IC R O B L O G G IN G
TIPS:
• Use a friendly voice
• Post relevant news &
information
• Seek out your audience
• Announce updates and
other news
• Don’t sound like a press
release

M IC R O B L O G G IN G

M IC R O B L O G G IN G

M IC R O B L O G G IN G
State Leaders on
Twitter
• @epmurphy -- DFL Rep. Erin Murphy • @PaulKohls -- Republican Rep. Paul Kohls
• @Gardner53A -- DFL Rep. Paul Gardner • @pawlenty -- Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty
• @johnlesch -- DFL Rep. John Lesch • @paulthissen -- DFL Rep. and 2010
• @JohnMarty -- DFL Minnesota Sen. and 2010 gubernatorial candidate Paul Thissen
gubernatorial candidate John Marty • @repmattdean -- Republican Rep. Matt Dean
• @karlabigham -- DFL Rep. Karla Bigham • @RepTerryMorrow -- DFL Representative Terry
• @kurtzellers -- Republican Rep. Kurt Zellers Morrow
• @LauraBrod -- Republican Rep. Laura Brod • @seifertmn -- House Minority Leader Marty
• @ljhosch -- DFL Rep. Larry Hosch Seifert, Republican
• @MAKMinnesota -- Minnesota House Speaker • @steve_gottwalt -- Republican Rep. Steve
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL Gottwalt (3 updates)
• @MattEntenza -- DFL 2010 gubenatorial • @swailsie -- DFL Rep. Marsha Swails
candidate Matt Entenza • @tinaliebling -- DFL Rep. Tina Liebling
• @mritchie -- DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie • @tarrylclark -- Asst. Senate Majority Leader
(locked) Tarryl Clark, DFL
• @PatGarofalo -- Republican Rep. Pat Garofalo • @tonysertich -- Minnesota House Majority
Leader Tony Sertich, DFL

o Video sharing web sites let
you upload videos and share
them with an audience.
o Repository for video blogs,
seminars, how-to’s and a
behind-the-scenes looks at
your organization.
o Videos can be cheap to
produce & turn-around quickly.

o Posting to outposts
increases exposure
& push traffic to your
website
o Video connects
because it feels more
real
o LAUSD posts videos
of candidates for
school board to
YouTube

o Photo sharing provide a
place to upload and
organize photos
o People search for photos
using keywords or tags
that you use to describe
them
o Enables you to provide an
inside look at your work

o A webpage that anyone can
edit
o Think about wikipedia
o A great tool for collaboration

o A podcast is a series of audio
or video files, which is
distributed by syndicated
download to your computer, for
use on an MP3 player or
computer
o Podcasts can be simple
recordings of conversations,
presentations, or interviews
o They’re a chance to provide
build an audience around
your organization or message

RS S FEED S
• Provide RSS feeds
for your web site’s
blog, news, events,
and other frequently
updated media
• An effective way to
distribute your
content and lead
users back to your
web site

MORE TIPS
FOR COMMUNICATING ALONG
S O C IA L M E D IA
C H AN N E LS

o Find where your
audience is participating
and indentify the
influencers
o Read industry blogs
(including comments)
o Google your
organization name,
name of officials, &
related terms
o Find tools that can help
you listen

o Think like a contributor, o Be human – give people
not a PR person something they can relate
to.
o Consider what is relevant
to the community before o Build relationships with
contributing your audience
o Don’t promote your own
content all the time
o Enable and feed the
conversation

o You need buy in from o Develop metrics, but
everyone in the understand that some
organization benefits are qualitative.
o Convince your
colleagues and bosses
that social media is
relevant
o Get your communications
team together, discuss
the options, then divide
and conquer

S O C IA L M E D IA
M E T R IC S
Engagement &
Reach Influence
– Website visits / views – Sentiment of
– volume of reviews/comments
reviews/comments – Brand affinity
– Incoming links – Commenter
authority/influence
– Time spent
– Favorites/ Friends /
Fans
– Viral forwards
– Number of
downloads
Source: The Digital Influence Group, Measuring the Influence

HOW TO NAVIGATE
THIS CHANGING MEDIA LANDSCAPE

Reshaping Public Affairs
and Public Relations
• Increased speed and ability to spread
information
• More information to watch out for
• Anyone can be an evangelist or vigilante — no
longer a cost barrier
• Fragmentation of the media
• “The people formally known as the audience”
have become the media

Old vs. New Media

Mainstream Media
• Impact of online activity comes from crossing over to
mainstream media
• Groups will often focus on gaining media attention
• This is how they legitimize their issue and it forces decision-
makers to take notice
• Groups get the mainstream media to cover
their issue by:
• Demonstrate wide support for the issue
• Developing an interesting hook that will entertain the
audience
• No matter how little support a group has, the media they
will cover the issue if it is interesting

User Comments

Impact of the New
Alignment
• Individuals with very little resources
or credibility can get covered
overnight
• Force transparency upon all
organizations
• Going to have to give some power
up
• No such thing as privacy

Why Social Media
1. People go to the Internet to get information
2. Becoming harder to reach out to people through
traditional means
3. It is more interactive
4. Can get involved anytime and anyplace
5. It is proven to work
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

It’s where people go…

It’s where people go…

Everyone is active online

It’s the messenger…

Can’t Exist in a Silo
• Integrate social media with:
– Traditional grassroots
– Member communication
– Public Relations/Media outreach
– Fundraising
• This ensures that the message is reinforced
• Don’t compete against each other

Creating Buy-in
• Improves the speed and efficiency that you can
get information out
• Your messages can spread to a wider audience
• Save time and money
• Advocates expect it
• Can evaluate and target impact

Questions

HOW TO NAVIGATE
THIS CHANGING MEDIA LANDSCAPE

Key Principles of Success
• Be Interactive and Empowering
• Create Engagement Pathways
• Develop and Nurture Evangelists
• Integrate! Integrate! Integrate!
• Create Community
• Provide a Service

Gopher Football Stadium – Challenge
• Gopher Stadium last on priority list at the
Legislature
• Strong opposition to public funding of
stadiums
• Concern that the request would pull money
from academic requests
• Frustration from Memorial Stadium decision

Gopher Football Stadium – Strategy
• Build grassroots organization to educate
legislators about U’s proposal
– Use passion of alumni and boosters to build
support.
– Created contests to encourage people to
spread the message – free things.
• Spoke to them in their language
• Empowered them to become political

Gopher Football Stadium
Step 1
• Recruitment
Campaign
• Develop a theme
• Make it fun
• Give away free things

Gopher Football Stadium
Step 2
• Contact Legislators
• Create urgency
• Make it easy
• Give them the tools

Gopher Football Stadium
• Victory
• After 2 ½ years
• We sent out over 40
e-mails to
supporters

Gopher Football Stadium – Results
• Quickly built a list of 15,000 advocates in six
months
• Sent thousands of letters to legislators
• Moved from last to first in legislators’ and the
public’s mind
• Passed the stadium legislation
• Excited big and small donors

Gopher Football Stadium – Results
• "I guess grass-roots advocacy really works.
This is something so close to our hearts,
bringing Gopher football back to campus."
- Margaret Sughrue Carlson,
Chief Executive Officer
University of Minnesota Alumni Association
Star Tribune Newspaper

Personalize and Customize
• Send your message
from an individual, not
from an organization
• Address the person by
name
• Include personal data
and legislator contact
information in the
body of the email
• Sign the message with
your name and
organization

Create a Theme
UMN’s Successful
“Bring Gopher
Football Back to
Campus” Victory!!
Campaign
Sample
emails from
their 3 year
campaign

Integrate Online and Offline

Anatomy of an social media
campaign
1. Website
2. E-mail
3. Testing 1.2.3
4. Use Multiple Mediums
5. Segmentation
6. Develop Evangelists
7. Micro-Organzing

Step 1 - Website

Step 2 – E-mail

Step 3 – Advocacy Activities

Step 4 – Testing 1…2…3…
3. Test

Step 5 – Segmentation
• Targeted messages
• Create manageable chunks

Step 6 – Multiple Mediums

YouTube
• Obama 14,548,809.05 hours
• McCain 488,093.01 hours

Online Advertising

Tools
• Give supporters the tools to organize
themselves – “In some primary and caucus
states, volunteers used the Internet to start
organizing themselves months before the
campaign staff arrived.”
• Use Social Networks to create conversations

Training

Tools – Tax Calculator

Tools – Text Messaging
• Use different mediums to reach different
audiences
• Text messaging is a very democratic medium
because of the low cost of cell phones

Step 7 – Develop Evangelists
• A new online political elite is emerging as 23% of
campaign internet users, or 14 million people,
became online political activists.
• 8% of campaign internet users posted their own
political commentary to a newsgroup, website or
blog.
• 13% of them forwarded or posted someone else’s
political commentary.
• 1% of them created political audio or video
recordings.
• 8% of them forwarded or posted someone else’s
political audio or video recordings.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Step 7 – Develop Evangelists

Step 7 – Develop Evangelists
• Recruit them
• Split them apart from you regular list
• Communicate on a regular basis
• Engage them – survey them, ask for feedback
• Develop tools for them to use
– Include key messages
– Tips on organizing
– List of potential activities
• Elevate them
• Develop a relationship

Step 7 – Develop Evangelists
• Ask for feedback regularly
• Incorporate their feedback
• Make it easy to participate
• Be able to act quickly and jump on issues as they
develop
• Integrate, integrate, integrate
• Give up the control and empower supporters
• Personalize and customize communication

Step 8 – Micro-Organizing

Fight the Smear

Lessons Learned
• Have a balanced approach
• Technology makes it much easier
• Quality vs. Quantity
• Use a theme to build excitement and support
• Provide “inside information”
• Engage supporters year-round
• The more you put in the more you will get out

Things to Think About
• What sort of an impression are you making on
the Internet?
• How well are you leveraging your web site to
engage visitors vs simply giving information
about you?
• How can you create and empower your
evangelists?

Things to Think About
• How can you integrate this into your work?
• Where do we go from here?

More Information
Visit – www.TippingPointStrategies.org
Mike@TippingPointStrategies.org