Using social networks to create impact involves laying the groundwork by defining goals and metrics, creating production processes like an editorial calendar, capturing and sharing stories, and using your community to spread ideas. Integrating social media, email lists, events, and other efforts can help nonprofits build relationships and raise awareness for their causes in an aligned strategy. Key steps include listening to supporters, enabling conversations, finding influencers, and making participation easy through free tools and user-generated content.

1. Using your social networks
to create impact
Key steps to mobilize your supporters
JD Lasica
Founder, Socialbrite.org
jd@socialbrite.org

2. What we’ll cover today
Social media ecosystem
Lay the groundwork
Fun with metrics!
Production processes
Capture stories
Use your community
Integrate your efforts
Q&A
Summary, hugs, tearful goodbyes

3. Relax!
Flickr photo “relaxation,
the maldivian way” by
notsogoodphotography
http://socialbrite.org/fc
(all sites in this talk have been tagged for later retrieval)

4. Today’s hashtag
Creative Commons
photo on Flickr
by Prakhar
Tweet this preso! Hashtags:
#sffc #nonprofit

5. Christmas in July!
CHARITY HOW TO
10 FREE METRICS TOOLS
FOR ACTIONABLE ANALYTICS
SEMRush Woopra
Bet you haven’t heard of SEMRush. Plunk Woopra is a Web analytics tool that pro-
your blog or website url into the search field vides real-time data about how your users
atop the page and SEMRush will show you behave. You can see where a visitor came
the keywords you rank for, what your com- from, her location, the actions she per-
petitors rank for, what Google AdWords you forms and where she goes. We prefer
might want to buy and more. Bronze ($4.95/mo.) over the free version.
Klout Social Page Evaluator
Klout offers a daily summary of your organiza- The Social Page Evaluator by Vitrue
tion’s or team members’ social media influence, looks at your post quality and the number
with a ranking that factors in reach and impact of people who have liked your Facebook
on Twitter (metrics such as retweets, follower Pages. It shows your effectiveness on
counts, list memberships), Facebook and Facebook vs. your potential. What makes
LinkedIn. More than 750 partners use Klout this killer is that you can adjust your
data, including Hootsuite and CoTweet. earned media value using a slider.
EdgeRank Checker Google Analytics
EdgeRank Checker steps you through the Google Analytics should be the No. 1 metrics
process of determining how effective your tool in your arsenal. You get super-rich insights
Facebook Page is in reaching your followers. into your website traffic and marketing effec-
No download necessary. The higher your tiveness — for free. Create better-targeted ads,
EdgeRank score, the more likely it is to be track sales and conversions, measure your site
visible on a fan's Top News feed. engagement goals, track Web-enabled phones
and mobile apps and much more.
Feedburner Facebook Insights
Now owned by Google, Feedburner is the Facebook Insights resembles Google Analyt-
easiest way to roll your own feed. It’ll tell you ics in many ways. As a Page admin, your dash-
how many people have subscribed to your blog board gives you access to a trove of data: daily
or site. Dig deeper and you’ll find your Feed active users, monthly active users, daily new
Stats Dashboard, revealing average subscrib- likes, daily interactions such as comments,
ers, reach, popular feed items and more. Pro geographic location of your visitors, external
Plan at $9/month is geared to nonprofits. referrals, internal link traffic and more.
PostRank Twitalyzer
PostRank provides detailed information on There are a wealth of Twitter metrics tools, but
Tweets, stumbles, Diggs and FriendFeed all in the one we like best is Twitalyzer, which works
one place. It’s suited to blogs and websites for any Twitter account and gives you informa-
with a lot of content. Under its free plan, you tion about your impact score (percentile score)
can Track and compare your sites and your and the type of influencer you are, among other
competition — up to five sites in all — to get things.
the full picture of your social engagement.
Download this flyer: http://bit.ly/metricstools Created by Socialbrite.org
Share them at http://socialbrite.org/fc

6. Glossary for new terms
“ Social media:
Any online technology or practice that lets us share
(content, opinions, insights, experiences, media)
and have a conversation about the ideas we care about.
”
http://socialbrite.org/glossary

7. Socialbrite Sharing Center
http://socialbrite.org/sharing-center

8. THE ECOSYSTEM
Types of social media
• Blogs
• Social networks
• Microblogs (Twitter)
• Online video (YouTube,
Vimeo, Viddler)
• Widgets
• Photo sharing (Flickr,
Photobucket, etc.)
• Podcasts
• Virtual worlds
• Wikis
• Social bookmarking
• Forums
• Presentation sharing

9. Dizzying growth
77% US adults are frequent social media users.*
141 million active blogs (vs. 12,000 in 2000); almost 1 million blog
posts created per day; over 346 million people globally read blogs
6 of top 10 websites in US are social sites (YouTube, Facebook,
Wikipedia, Blogger, Craigslist, Twitter)
Flickr: 35 million people, 5 billion-plus photos
Twitter: 300,000 new users per day
YouTube: 2 billion videos streamed per day
Text messages per day: 4.5 billion
(vs. 400,000 in 2000)
Whenever someone opens a computer, 60% of time it’s for social
reasons.
*source: Nielsen Online, spring 2010

10. Facebook: The social network
73% of US Internet users are on Facebook

11. L AY T H E G R O U N D W O R K
Big picture reality check
Before we talk tools, technology or campaigns, do a
self-assessment with your team.
Why are you doing this?
What core values drive your
organization?
What change would you like
to see in the world?
Is there clarity about what your
organization is trying to achieve?
Why should people care?
Do you have an idea worth spreading?

12. Before you plunge in ...
Do you have a social media policy or guidelines?
Do you have a Strategic Plan in place?
Have you researched your audience/community?
Have you identified your social media team members
and are they properly trained?
Do you have buy-in from top management
Do you know how to build evergreen programs before
campaigns?
http://socialbrite.org/fc
for policies, best practices

13. Have you defined a clear theme?
Boil down your cause to a strong, single sentence
Vittana:
Help anyone go to college
Alter Eco:
Support fair trade
ActBlue:
Elect progressive candidates
DonorsChoose:
Support public classrooms in need

14. Begin with a strategy document

15. Strategic Plan elements
360 assessment of social
media capabilities
Spell out goals
Identify online community
Proposed use of social tools
& platforms
Recommendations on
expanded capabilities
Lay out metrics program
Competitive/peer analysis

16. Create a listening post
Set up a listening post
(monitoring dashboard)
to track what’s being
said about your
organization or cause.
Listen before engaging.
Deputize folks to do this.
Supplement with a social
media dashboard.
Engage before the Ask
Deeper dive—monitoring: socialbrite.org/fc

17. Free & low-cost monitoring
Deeper dive—monitoring:
socialbrite.org/fc

18. FUN WITH METRICS
Before you start, measure!

19. ‘Data is better than gut’
Gather, analyze, act
Photos on Flickr by Emran Kassim, left, and Vee Dub (CC-BY)

20. Set goals, map metrics
Goals Metrics to measure
Grow email list of supporters # newsletter, RSS subscribers
Increase comments on blog avg. # comments/post
Increase website visibility increase in traffic or linkback #s
Increase positive mentions mentions in blogs & social
of organization or cause networks
Have visitors stick around stick rate, bounce rate
Make our content more viral # of shares
Get people to take action # of petition signatures
Get people to attend event # of registrants, year over year
Deeper dive—metrics: socialbrite.org/fc

21. Bread for World’s SM goals
bread.org
1. Expand and strengthen
Bread’s advocacy work for
poor and hungry people
2. Expand our membership
3. Better communicate with
existing members and target
audiences
4. Strengthen our relationships
with our members
5. Fulfill our mission to end
hunger here and abroad

22. Google Analytics
Who loves ya, baby? See which Twitter users drive most traffic

23. Facebook Insights

24. Google Keyword tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

25. C R E AT E P R O D U C T I O N P R O C E S S E S
Create an Events Calendar
Key off of events in your community

26. Facebook s live events

27. Create an Editorial Calendar
Map out a weekly or monthly game plan

28. Build community, not eyeballs
here’s an amazing
difference between building
an audience and building a
community. An audience
will watch you fall on a
sword. A community will fall
on a sword for you.
— Chris Brogan
Author, “Trust Agents”

29. LAUNCH & TELL STORIES
Use personal storytelling
Find emotional core, use videos or photos to make us feel
invisiblepeople.tv

30. Conversation follows content
Build up a following organically

31. Create lightweight media
Don’t look now but you’re a content creator!
Room to Read: Winner of TechSoup Storytelling Challenge
Deeper dive—media: socialbrite.org/fc

32. Open your blog to guest posts

33. Create a conversation hub
Where will you engage with supporters?
Your blog Community site (WiserEarth)
Facebook Social hub (Change.org)
Twitter Contest site
Deeper dive—community: socialbrite.org/fc

34. Give your content a social life
Conversation, not marketing

35. Your FB news feed? Bad news
Facebook rewards conversation, punishes ‘bullhorn updates’
http://bit.ly/edgerank-checker

36. JD’s 60-30-10 Twitter rule
60% retweets, pointing to
value, sharing other voices
30% responding, connecting
10% promoting, announcing

37. Enable friction-free conversations
Make sure your site is conversation-enabled!
Lower the barriers to people talking about your
cause by using third-party authentication
services.
Left: SpokenWord.org with multiple log-in
options.
Top: The new Facebook Comments on
HowStuffWorks.com.

38. Use hashtags to join conversations
Find relevant hashtags through
Twitter Search or tagdef.com
Join (but don’t spam)
conversation threads
Start your own hashtag
Some hashtags to latch on to:
#women #health #latino
#education #democracy #politics
#Obama #news #media
At left, widget found at:
http://journchat.info

39. CASE STUDY
Involve the community
350.org

40. CASE STUDY
Deep engagement
livestrong.org

41. USE YOUR COMMUNITY
Find your champions!
Find the big kahunas in your sector by using your listening
post. Then, influence the influencers.
Establish a rapport and only then reach out to try to convert
them into evangelists & ambassadors for your cause.
Scope out Twitter Lists that intersect with your organization
or social cause.
Connect with other social media influencers through their
blogs and other networks.
Deeper dive—monitoring & community: socialbrite.org/fc

42. Use social love handles!
Generate an Attention Wave to socialize your campaign

43. Meet up in the real world
Meetups, Tweet-ups, concerts, fund-raisers to deepen ties

44. Don’t do all the heavy lifting!
Creative Commons
photo on Flickr by
Jason Means
Don’t be like this guy!

45. The awesome power of free
Free content! Free resources!
Free photos Socialbrite.org/sharing-center
Free videos (eg, TED talks) Creativecommons.org
Free music & audio Techsoup
Free services! Free expertise!
Google Grants BarCamp
YouTube for Nonprofits PodCamp
Google Earth for Nonprofits WordCamp
Social Media
Free software & platforms! Club
WordPress & its plug-ins
Open Office, Google docs
Drupal, Joomla

46. flickr.com/creativecommons
Creativecommons.org
• Rich source of free
commercial & noncommercial
images
• Flickr: 160 million
Attribution, Noncommercial,
No Derivatives & ShareAlike
licenses
• Use them for your blog,
website, email or print
newsletter, presentations, etc.
• Don’t just take. Share!

47. I N T E G R AT E Y O U R E F F O R T S
Social media can feed your list
Be opportunistic: Take advantage of email signups on Facebook

48. Oxfam’s Welcome Page on FB

49. Is your strategy aligned?
thehopeinstitute.us
Moving from tactics to strategy: Direct mail, events marketing
& social media working as an integrated ecosystem

50. Social media dashboards
Hootsuite Cotweet
Tweetdeck Spredfast
Threadsy Netvibes
http://bit.ly/smdash

51. Collaboration tools
Google docs
Google groups
Private group on Facebook
Project management
(SharePoint, Huddle.net)
Skype
Others?
http://bit.ly/teamcollab

52. BONUS TOOLS
Causes now supports projects
exchanges.causes.com

53. Fundraising: Going social
give2gether.com

54. Metrics on network effect

55. Final thoughts
Begin with a plan, not with the tools.
Nice & easy does it. Be patient.
Get aligned & integrated, attack the silos.
Make email, events & social media work together.
Build internal & external relationships. Understand
& manage your organization’s capacity.
Go deep, not wide.
Make it super-easy for others to use your content.
Don’t forget to listen and to measure!
Evaluate, iterate, relaunch. Be flexible & nimble.
Don’t do all the heavy lifting. :~)

56. Resources & tools
What you’ll find at socialbrite.org/fc
Free tutorials on the best way to use
Facebook, Twitter & blogs
24 online fundraising sites
Top cause organizations
Free reports
Free photo, music, video directories
Collaboration tools
Geolocation tools
How to use mobile strategically
Tons more. All free & shareable.

57. Biggest resource: Your supporters

58. Thank you!
JD Lasica, founder
Socialbrite: Social tools for social change
email: jd@socialbrite.org
Twitter: @jdlasica
@socialbrite
http://socialbrite.org/fc