Building A Social Media Plan

Building a
Social Media Plan
June 17, 2009

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Today’s presenter

• Kirstin Beardsley
Communications and Marketing Coordinator

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CanadaHelps.org
What is CanadaHelps?
A public charitable foundation that provides accessible and
affordable online technology to both donors and charities.

For Charities
A cost-effective means of raising funds online.

For Donors
A one-stop-shop for giving.

CanadaHelps is a charity helping charities.

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Webinar agenda
1. Overview of Social Media
2. Social Media Planning
3. Build Your Strategy
4. Tell Your Story
5. The Plan
6. Let’s Get Started
• Setup, Create, Confidence, Integration, Promote, Assess
7. Tips
8. Q & A
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OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 (Social media)

Few Many

Many Many

• Web 1.0 was about publishing and transactions.
• Web 2.0 is about networks and community.

Social media tools

WordPress Delicious
• Free blogging service • Social bookmarking service
• Expansion features with fee • Let’s you find similar websites

Facebook Twitter
• Micro blogging service,
• Social networking website
• 140 character limit
• Suite of features

Second Life YouTube
• Online virtual world • Video sharing website
• Explore using avatar • Free to upload and share

Flickr Digg
• Photo sharing website • Social news website
• Can comment on photos • People vote on news articles

SOCIAL MEDIA PLANNING

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What is social media planning?

• A plan to use social media appropriately to fulfill
a specific goal
• Integrating social media into your current
marketing, fundraising, and programming
initiatives
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Do I need one?

• Social media can be confusing and time
consuming without a plan
• Risk losing sight of your strategic goals and
objectives if you don’t plan
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Social media isn’t a strategy

• Social media is a tool for accomplishing your
goals
• Start with the question “what are my
goals?” NOT “I want to build a social media
presence”
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STEP 1: BUILD YOUR STRATEGY

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Define your goals and desired outcomes

• What are your current marketing, fundraising or
programming goals?
• What desired outcomes do you wish to achieve?
• Can social media tools be used to accomplish
these?
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Define your target audiences

• Who do you want to reach and engage?
• Be as specific as possible:
– Where do they live?
– What do they do?
– How are they currently using social media?

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Examples
• Goal: Attract young professionals as
volunteers and grow their engagement in our
organization.
– Social media tools are likely to help with this goal

• Goal: Build stronger, personal relationships
with our older annual donor base and talk to
them about estate planning
– Social media will likely not be helpful
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Understand your capacity

• Internal
– Do you have the internal skills, expertise and time
internally to use social media effectively
– Poll your staff and volunteers: you might have an expert
blogger in your midst!
• External
– Are there people out there already connecting around
your issues?
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Start your research

• Research the tools
• Listen to what is already being said about you
– Set up a Google Alert and use Twitter search
• Learn the language, customs and etiquette
• Get ideas about what works and what doesn’t
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STEP 2: TELL YOUR STORY

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Streamline your story

• Adapt your story to an online platform:
– Keep it simple
– Easy to remember
– Easy to retell
• Adapt your story to your desired audience
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Starting conversations

• Remember: social media is about engaging
and building community
• Don’t just talk at your supporters
• Think of the conversations you want to start
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Tips

• Don’t just write about your latest fundraising
campaign
– ask your donors to tell their story.
• Don’t just publish a news release about
government cutbacks hurting your cause
– give your supporters the tools and platform to
take action and share their passion with others

STEP 3: THE PLAN

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Choose your tool

• We recommend starting with one tool at a time
• Take a look at your goals, audience and
message: what’s the best tool for the job?

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Choose your tool
Tool Uses

Blogs • News outlet
• Blogger • Highlighting donors and partners
• WordPress

Media Sharing • Enhance visual storytelling
• YouTube
• flickr

News & Social Bookmarking • Sharing online resources
• digg • Finding like-minded people and organizations
• delicious

Social Networking • Expanding supporter base
• Facebook • Another channel for calls to action
• Twitter

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Still not sure? Try a blog!

• A good first step into social media:
– Use existing content
– Start conversations
– Get used to comments
– Integrate other tools into your blog
• Caution: Blogs do take time to create content
and engage readers
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Adapt your story to the tool

• Use the tool to its fullest
• Show what you do with pictures and videos
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Sample plan
Goal Audience Tool(s) Message(s) Timeline Resources
Example
Engage a University 1. Facebook Make an Sept – April University
young students in 2. YouTube impact, volunteers to
generation in our town 3. Flickr share your create
fundraising success, content and
campaign build a engage in
movement conversation

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STEP 4: GET STARTED!

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Get Started (finally!)
Setup

Assess Create

Promote Confidence

Integrate

What do I need?

• The tool
– Signing up, learning the
ropes
• The people
– Assigning responsibility
• The timelines
– Planning updates

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Turn your story into compelling content
• Example: Fundraising event
– Blog: interview an attendee and ask
others to share their experience in
comments
– YouTube: bring your video camera and
ask people to tell you why they came
– Facebook: ask everyone who attended
to share images/stories

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Turn your story into compelling content

• Example: Capital campaign
– Flickr: show people the direct impact they
can have through images
– Twitter: Tweet regular updates on success
and how much support is still needed
– Blog: weekly blog post during campaign
about the impact of your organization
(get various perspectives: Board,
community, volunteer etc…)
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• Get used to the tool and the conversations
happening
• Be trustworthy & consistent
• Create distinctive content that fits with your
organization’s identity and mission
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Integration Into Your Workflow

• Allocate appropriate time and funds
• Make it part of your work routine
– Creating content
– Responding & engaging
• Create guidelines
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Integration With Other Initiatives

f t
• Tie into other marketing, fundraising and
social media initiatives
• Be distinctive but cohesive with your story
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Promote In Your Network

• Use other outlets to promote a new initiative
• Leverage your following and promote to
whoever you can
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• Is this tool helping to fulfill your goals?
• Determine the return on investment
• Think about the project’s sustainability

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Listen, Learn and Adapt

• Get feedback! Ask:
– What is working, what isn’t?
– What else would you like to see?
• Implement changes and keep trying

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Start again with tool #2!
Setup

Assess Create

Promote Confidence

Integrate

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CANADAHELPS

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@CanadaHelps on Twitter

• Every step implementation step is visible
– Set up, creating content, gaining confidence,
integration, promotion and assessment

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Lessons

• Archive your content
• Go at your own pace
• Try your best to respond to everyone
• People like to talk to people
• Most of the content is shared!
• Take it offline – remember to build face-to-
face connections as well
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Things to Keep In Mind

TIPS

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Have a great website

• Good usability
• Easy to find information
• Relevant content
• Clear calls to action
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Learn from others

Flickr + Facebook

• See how other organizations started and see
what they have done
• Recreate their success

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Start With One Tool at a Time

• Important if you’re starting out
• You can integrate tools later

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Enlist help from interns/volunteers

• To help with creating content or managing
the tools

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Keep expectations realistic

• Success takes time and effort
• Starting up is easy, maintenance is the real work

Make it part of your routine

• Making your social media plan part of your
routine helps spread the work out

Remember: It’s a conversation

• Listening is as important as talking
• Don’t talk at your supporters, engage them
and listen to what they have to say

Have fun!

• Interact with different people
• Make it personal
• These are fun tools!

ABOUT MYCHARITYCONNECTS

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www.mycharityconnects.org

• Free online resources
• Information about Next Webinar
technology
“All About
• Demos
TechSoup Canada”
• More webinars!
• Conference materials July 15, 2009
2PM – 3PM (ET)

Question and Answer
You can hear us, but
we can’t hear you

Ask questions in
Questions Log

Ask away!

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Thank you for attending!

Slides will be up on: www.slideshare.net/MyCharityConnects

Check out www.mycharityconnects.org for resources!

Questions, feedback, comments? Email Amy at: amyh@canadahelps.org

Thanks to:

Building A Social Media Plan

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