Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (17)
Similar to Practical Strategies to Social Media: Easy, Low Cost Actions
Similar to Practical Strategies to Social Media: Easy, Low Cost Actions (20)
More from Cindy Leonard
More from Cindy Leonard (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Practical Strategies to Social Media: Easy, Low Cost Actions
- 1. Practical Strategies to Social Media: Easy, Low Cost Actions Cindy Leonard Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging Regional Conference November 2015
- 2. Cindy Leonard Consulting Team Leader Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management leonard@rmu.edu @cindy_leonard
- 3. Getting to know you
- 4. Session agenda Tip #1: Develop your content strategy Tip #2: Get organized Tip #3: Measure results Tip #4: Optimize and improve Tip #5: Make it a habit
- 5. Goals Audience Tools Content Measure Social media strategy
- 6. Tip #1: Develop your content strategy
- 11. • What keeps them up at night? • What are they currently seeking? • What influences their decisions? • What influences their attitudes? • What’s important to them? • What makes them act? Audience interests and behavior
- 12. • Relevant and Timely • Original and Curated What content should we create? • Long and Short Form • Repurpose, Recycle, Remix
- 13. What content should we create?
- 14. What content should we create?
- 15. What content should we create?
- 17. Idea: using hashtags for events
- 20. Idea: provide tips and resources of interest
- 21. Idea: provide tips and resources of interest
- 22. Tip #2: Get organized
- 31. Tip #3: Measure results
- 37. Tip #4: Optimize and improve Op·ti·mize (verb): to make as perfect, effective or functional as possible
- 40. About 4 percent of the population as a whole shows hoarding behavior, but that percentage goes up to 6.2 in people over 55.
- 41. About 4 percent of the population as a whole shows hoarding behavior, but that percentage goes up to 6.2 in people over 55.
- 44. Lacks a way for people to take action Has a way for people to take action
- 45. Tip #5: Make it a habit
- 49. www.idealware.org Click on the Reports section
- 50. • What’s the most useful thing you learned? • What can you use immediately? • What is now clear? • What is still unclear? Final reflection
- 51. Cindy Leonard Consulting Team Leader Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management leonard@rmu.edu @cindy_leonard
Editor's Notes
- Here’s a little bit about me: Cindy Leonard, Consulting Team Leader at the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University. I manage the consulting program and the nonprofit technology program there. This is my 10th year at the Bayer Center and for about 8 of those years, I’ve been teaching the Bayer Center’s social media classes as well as giving breakout session, clinics and custom training on social media.
- I’d like so see where everyone stands on social media usage. By show of hands… If you have a Facebook page If you have a Twitter account If your agency has a Facebook Page If your agency has a Twitter account What other tools does your agency use right now? Google + LinkedIn Instagram Pinterest YouTube Other
- Today I want to talk to you about making your social media efforts more effective. Taking what you are already doing to the next level. There are five broad tips I’m going to cover, including: Develop your content strategy Get organized Measure results Optimize and improve Make it a habit
- This is the strategy model I teach in my classes. (Explain parts of the model briefly.) Today we’re going to assume that you have the first three parts, Goals / Audience / Tools, identified and will focus mainly on the latter two items, Content and Measuring.
- Image source: http://handsonwp.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/content-strategy-word-cloud.png
- Let’s talk for a minute about the demographic for which you are generating content. Seniors have been largely overlooked on social media, but now that people are living longer and increasingly literate, they are one of the fastest growing demographics on social media right now. http://sproutsocial.com/insights/senior-citizens-social-media/ http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/files/2013/07/Infographic_seniors.png
- There are 39 million over the age of 65 using Facebook, Twitter and Skype alone. They are also surfing YouTube and other sites. 1/5 of seniors spend at least an hour per day logged into social media sites. http://sproutsocial.com/insights/senior-citizens-social-media/ http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/files/2013/07/Infographic_seniors.png
- Seniors are also starting to use Twitter more frequently – 13% of adults age 50 and up are on Twitter. They are looking for information – news, health information and literary publications. http://sproutsocial.com/insights/senior-citizens-social-media/ http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/files/2013/07/Infographic_seniors.png
- However, 75 appears to be the age where usage begins to decline. Some 68% of Americans in their early 70s go online, and 55% have broadband at home. By contrast, internet adoption falls to 47% and broadband adoption falls to 34% among 75-79 year olds. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/04/03/older-adults-and-technology-use/
- Before you start brainstorming content strategy, you want to spend a little time thinking about what seniors’ needs – not their online needs, but their real life needs. This is something that you are already deeply familiar with, it’s just a matter of finding ways to satisfy those needs using social media channels. Questions source: Beth Kanter Images source: http://guardianlv.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/seniors_computer.jpg and http://cf.ltkcdn.net/seniors/images/std/137497-424x283-Senior-Couple-Using-Computer.jpg
- Relevant and timely: news is a 24/7 business these days and spreads rapidly. To have relevant and timely social media content, you have to be paying attention to what’s going on in the world, in your nonprofit’s area of work and in seniors’ lives. Original and curated: Original content is content you create in-house, which takes more time and effort. Curated content is content that other people create and you share. Both are acceptable for your content mix on social media channels. Long and short form: Regardless of the source, you need to think about the various channels and what form will work best for each. Facebook and blogs will permit longer posts, for example, while Twitter and Instagram require shorter ones. You can spread the same content on different channels, you’ll just have to adjust the form. Repurpose, recycle, remix: Content can be reused, changed up, brought back out of storage, etc. If you have something good, you can freshen it up and use it in different ways on different channels more than once. Bullet point source: Beth Kanter Image source: http://cdn.patch.com/users/91377/2015/03/T800x600/20150354f8bc80f263a.jpg
- This chart shows the level of trust that people have in content created by brands (and by that I mean nonprofits and companies). I interpret this as, we don’t ignore the social media channels that have less trust, we work to give them more of an individual voice. For example, instead of an organizational blog, perhaps your executive director or another staff member is the sole blogger. Source: Beth Kanter
- Your content mix will also differ depending on the tool you are using. This shows the breakout of content mix for a typical blog. Notice that with a blog, you are creating much more and curating less. A blog is also not useful for community building. http://www.idealware.org/articles/mapping-your-mix-are-you-providing-right-mix-content
- On the other hand, Facebook for example, is much more about building community, curating other people’s content and promoting news, events and resources. Much less original content work is involved here. http://www.idealware.org/articles/mapping-your-mix-are-you-providing-right-mix-content
- So let’s talk a bit about some ideas for content. Highlighting events is an obvious content item. Here are some examples from Merrill Gardens senior center, who does a really nice job with its social media, by the way. One of the key points of doing this is to capture enough photos during the event to tell a story. Raise your hand if your organization is really good at being sure to thoroughly photograph its events. (Ask volunteer(s) to explain how they accomplish that.)
- You should be sure to use hashtags, which you can create specifically for each event. Hashtags permit for easy searching and can be used to crowdsource photos from your event audience. (At the start of the event, ask everyone to upload and tag photos taken during the event with your specific event hashtag.) Hashtags used to be unique to Twitter, but are now used on nearly every social media site.
- You can also use social media to highlight milestones in your constituents’ lives – anniversaries, birthdays, retirement, the birth of a new grandchild, etc. Here again, a nice photo is needed to tell the story and you’ll want to be sure to get permission from all people involved, preferably in written format. For this purpose it would be good to have a very brief photo waiver form that you can have people sign.
- You can also use social media to answer frequently asked questions. For example, in this post Merrill Gardens answers the question about whether pets are permitted in their community. If you create and keep a running list of frequently asked questions, you can draw from this when creating your social media content.
- I would guess that, in your work, you have tons of tips and resources that you share (or would like to share) with seniors. Create and keep a running list of those and incorporate them into your social media content mix.
- Though I’ve shown mainly Facebook and Twitter examples so far, you can certainly use other tools to provide the same content ideas. Merrill Gardens, for example, maintains a Pinterest account with pinboards containing items of interest to their seniors, including gardening, top 10 moments, holiday décor and supporting our troops.
- Image source: http://www.gmnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-09-23-keep-calm-and-get-organized-610x330.png
- To use an everyday metaphor, let’s thinking about cooking a meal. Raise your hand if you cook at least one meal a day for yourself or your family. There’s some planning involved, right? Even if it’s habitual by now, meals like you see here don’t just happen by themselves. Image source: https://s.yimg.com/os/publish-images/finance/2015-01-02/6027ece0-9291-11e4-acf8-abc8822e5174_Home-cooking.jpg
- First you need cooking gear – pots, pan, utensils and the like. Next, you’ll probably have made a grocery store list of what you need. Next, you’ll have to go to the grocery store to buy supplies. Finally, you’ll have a pantry of some kind to keep the supplies in until needed. Social media requires similar planning. You need tools (social media channels, camera, computer, etc.) You need a list of content ideas. You have to go find the content somewhere, then you have to have somewhere to organize and keep it until you are ready to use it. Pantry idea source: Beth Kanter, et al.
- Let’s assume you’ve already got your gear. Where can you keep your content list and supplies? You need an editorial calendar, a monthly plan that looks at what content is being shared each day. You can do this on a spreadsheet or you can use free tools like Evernote, Asana or Trello to organize your content. (I particularly like Evernote because you it has a browser plugin called Evernote Clipping Tool that let’s you easy save content and links you find on the web and tag and file things right from your browser window. It is also important to keep a list or container for of ideas that don’t make it onto the monthly calendar, which can use when you don’t have a lot of ideas. Source: Beth Kanter
- This is what Evernote looks like (explain notebooks, notes and how can capture text, photos, PDFs, etc.)
- Explain Evernote clipping tool
- This is Asana – which is technically a project management system, so you can have tasks, sub-tasks, add comments and upload attachments.
- This is Trello, which involved boards and cards (a little like Pinterest).
- Or if you prefer the spreadsheet route, here’s an example of the editorial calendar I used this year to plan social media posts for our annual TechNow nonprofit technology conference. (explain the parts of the spreadsheet) Any one of these tools can serve as your organization’s social media “pantry.”
- Image source: http://smallchangelife.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/yardsticks.jpg
- For a Facebook page, there are three main areas on which to focus your tracking efforts—likes, comments on posts, and shares. Facebook has a built-in tool for pages called Insights that let you view analytics data. Each time someone “likes” your posts, you know they’re listening to you. When followers add comments to your posts, you’ve made the conversation two-way by engaging them. And when they share your posts with their Facebook friends, you’ve expanded your audience beyond your own circle. Gathering information about these three metrics can inform your efforts by showing what people are doing, why, and what you can do to better facilitate those actions. Tracking posts that draw comments and new followers can give you a better idea of what people want from your Facebook presence. You can also form an impression of how many posts feel like the right amount, and how many are too many. Measuring the sentiment of comments—positive vs. negative—can also add insight into the tone of your community, while tracking the frequency of comments left by core supporters vs. newcomers can shed light on the openness of your page. http://www.idealware.org/articles/tools-measuring-your-social-media-efforts
- Here’s what is available in Facebook Insights when you scroll down. Here you can obtain data about your individual posts.
- For Twitter, follower count is not an accurate measure of your influence—you may have thousands of followers who, in fact, aren’t paying any attention to you at all. Instead, look at whether they retweet your posts to their followers or share information of relevance to your organization and constituents. That kind of engagement means your followers are more likely to take action on behalf of your organization. For a better sense of the value you’re getting from Twitter, measure engagement against the time you spend on the site. Twitter Analytics has to be deliberately “turned on” which you can do by going to analytics.twitter.com and logging into your account. It will take a few days before analytics will show up. http://www.idealware.org/articles/tools-measuring-your-social-media-efforts
- If you visit Simplymeasured.com, which sells advanced analytics services, and click on Resources in the top menu, you can download three free guides to analytics for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. (Their paid analytics service starts at $500 a month, in case you are wondering. Fine for a large nonprofit, but probably not affordable for most.)
- You can also use Google Analytics to see traffic coming from social media to your website. (There’s a lot more tracking available to measure social media in this tool, but it’s a very sophisticated bit of software and it takes more time to learn than we have here today.) Google offers a free Analytics Academy for learning online. Analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com
- We hear the word optimize thrown around a lot, especially in the technology world, but what does that really mean? According to the dictionary, to optimize something is to make it as perfect, effective or functional as possible. In other words, you want to keep improving your social media so it is the best it can be. Source: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=definition%20optimize
- Take every opportunity to let people know about your social media channels. If you do a Google search on social media icons, you can find hundreds of free icon sets. Use them on your website, in your newsletters and other communications. Publicize your social media channels at events too. Another thing you can do is spend time responding to posts by other people or nonprofits on relevant topics, to show that you are there and listening. Source: http://www.idealware.org/articles/10-things-youre-doing-wrong-social-media
- One thing that can almost always be improved is writing better headlines. For a blog post, that would be an actual headline. For social media posts, it’s going to the be the hook sentence – the part that catches the readers attention. If you’re like me, this is a constant struggle. I am an excellent technical writer, but I lack that marketing brain to write punchy, witty headlines. If you are like that too, it just means you may have to work a little harder to get your headlines written. The key is to draft and re-draft. There’s a really fun tool by Portent.com that can help you brainstorm. https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker
- You also want to focus on improving your visual content – your photos and videos. As an example of this, read the sole post on the screen right now. Does this post generate an emotional response?
- What about this same post with a photo? Any emotional response with this? Never underestimate the power of images in social media.
- As I mentioned earlier, using hashtags is important because it makes your posts searchable. Too many hashtags, on the other hand, can make your posts nearly unreadable.
- Posting too much or too little is not the only mistake you can make. You can also post unpredictably or inconsistently. Instead of waking up and posting six items first thing in the morning and nothing else the rest of the day, spread them out. It’s better to post twice a week over three weeks than six times the first week and then disappearing. People need to be reminded that you’re there. TopNonprofits has a downloadable social media posting guide with some tips on frequency. (I’ve clipped only a portion of the guide here.) Source: http://www.idealware.org/articles/10-things-youre-doing-wrong-social-media
- It’s important to make your call to action as clear as possible. If you want them to download something, contact you, subscribe, donate, like, share, visit your website, or take any other action – you need to state that explicitly. Then you need to give them a way to take action, a link an appropriate page on your website or to your email sign up form or online donation form – or whatever. It’s okay to put a phone number in there too, if you lack an online way for people to take action of a particular type.
- Finally, tip 5 is making social media a habit.
- I recently was talking with someone about forming good time management habits, which could easily have been about good social media habits. She was bemoaning how hard it was to form new habits. I knew she had years of experience at practicing yoga, so I asked her “do you remember when you first started doing yoga? How good at it were you?” She replied “I was completely awful, no flexibility, awkward, not good.” “It’s the same with this habit,” I told her – you aren’t instantly good at something, you have to practice and have the discipline to make yourself do so. You improve through time and practice. Doing social media well works the same way – you have to make it a regular disciplined habit if you want to see good results. Image credit: http://www.bombayroomyoga.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/pretty-asana-by-water1.jpeg
- When forming a new habit, you want to set small goals, which are more attainable and less overwhelming. You have to create triggers for yourself, and rituals. For example, your trigger for social media posting might be “get my morning cup of coffee and do social media posts while drinking it.” Or you can put the triggers on your calendar as tasks, which works well for me. You have to take action on the triggers though. If you routinely ignore them or put them off, you won’t form a habit. Finally, you need to reward yourself somehow. Though there’s some reward in getting results from your social media efforts, you can also reward yourself in other ways, just like you might do when dieting. Image source: http://blog.sqwiggle.com/form-habit-scientific-approach/
- Additional resources for learning about social media (most of these people/sites have blogs you can read for free and books you can buy): Beth Kanter Allison Fine Mashable TechCrunch
- Another good resource is Idealware’s social media decision guide. Go to idealware.org, click on Reports in the main menu. You’ll have to give them your email to download the report.
- Ask them to share out loud for each item (volunteers) (this is final Q&A)
- Thank you for attending this session! Please get in touch if you have any questions.