Dooley Online

#140Conf NYC- Day One

Live tweets from this conference - watch live on ustream.

 

Networked Nonprofits: "I've Found My Free Agent - Now What?" (#11NTCfa)

According to Beth Kanter, there are two different types of nonprofits:

• Fortressed Nonprofits. These type of organizations try to maintain total control of medium, message, spokespeople. They limit their audiences to a small of constituents identified by the organization. And they don't necessarily get social media.

Fortressed organizations. Source: Rob Cottingham.

• Networked Nonprofits. Consider everyone inside and outside of the organization resources for helping them to achieve their goals.

Beth believes nonprofits can unleash the power of social good by transitioning from stand-alone fortressed institutions to networks energized by abundant resources in their ecosystem. In order to do this, they need to work with free agents.

Free agents are individuals working outside of organizations to organize, mobilize, raise funds, and communicate with constituents. They are hyper-connected people passionate about social change without being an employee of the organization(s) they support.  Free agents use social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, and can create social movements in the palms of their hands.

Leading a session at the annual NonProfits and Technology Conference, Beth brought together organization representatives who had learned first-hand the opportunities and challenges of working with free agents.

The relationship between the organization and free agents is sort of like marriage. The partnership has to be mutually beneficial and not coercive. Important characteristics of this partnership includes:

• Trust. Free agents must be worth trusting and able to support in mutually beneficial ways.
• Transparency. Trust and honesty are important for organizations to have to make the relationship work. It is important to build a relationship that doesn’t change based on what free agents do.
• Empathy. Organizations and free agents need to understand each others’ motives.
• Enthusiasm. This helps to sell a concept.

In thinking about "economy" between organizations and free agents, both have to get value from relationship. What's valuable for your free agents?

Free agents like Shawn Ahmed (@uncultured) are promiscuous for good!
Free Agent. Source; Rob Cottingham.

To take this metaphor a bit further, Beth set up her panelists as “couples” in a newlywed game format

First couple - Kat Johnson (100KHomes) and Mark Horvath (Free agent and founder of @invisiblepeople.tv)

Kat and Mark were aware of each other’s existence via Twitter; they met in person when Mark interviewed the Executive Director of 100k homes. Mark describes free agents as "the marketing plan that the organization can’t afford. They want to help you tell your story, and they are connected with stakeholders you would otherwise not reach." When asked, "How do you resolve conflict?", they responded "You commit and work through it." Mark explained, “The worst thing you can do to me is censor me. Free agents share goals and won't intentionally hurt the organization." Based on their experience working together, Kat and Mark believe that organizations need to empower free agents. "Take a leap of faith. Encourage your staff...create Evangelists." said Mark. It helps if the organization is ready to reach out and embrace the free agent. Kat said, "I am lucky to work for a director of a campaign...that is willing to take risks."  Mark added that organizations are good at "navigating his passions" to focus his agenting.

The Newlywed Game! Beth Kanter with Kat Johnson (100KHomes) and Mark Horvath discuss the relationship between organizations and free agents. Source: Michael Dougherty

Second couple (triple?) – Ettore Rossetti (Save the Children) and Matt Morgan (Red Cross) and Shawn Ahmed (Free agent @uncultured)

Shawn describes himself as a "Former Notre Dame grad student who dropped everything to start an unplanned, unexpected, & 'uncultured' journey to help the poor." He heard good things about Save the Children, so he investigated and liked their work so much he sought out ways to promote the organization. "A free agent is a bridge maker for nonprofits," explained Shawn. "American people want to KNOW who they are giving money to." He added, "The last aspect of bridge making is bridging cultures." To demonstrate, he showed the following video about "The Boy Who Lived."

Free agents at work. VIDEO of community efforts – The Boy Who Lived.

Ettore added, "The moral of the story is the connection to Shawn  (a free agent) has opened the door to other supporters."  Save the Children considers some free agents "citizen journalists", thus precedent for paying for travel - so other organizations may want to consider free agents as citizen journalist, citizen or philanthropist to be able to afford to bring them to events/efforts. Shawn explained, "To move a volunteer to a Free Agent means to move them from single activity to multiple activities."  Ettore's suggested, “If you work for an nonprofit organization, discover the free agent experience by being one for your own organization.”

One of the concerns that many organizations worry about when opening themselves up to social media is negative publicity. Panelists recommended that if there is someone out there speaking against you, bring them on the team. Embrace them. Turn them from an enemy into an ally by listening and responding.

Finally, one untapped resource of free agents for many NGOs is the whole blogging community. What should you do with a potential blogger? Engage them to see if there is a fit because they are going to talk about you anyway.

Posterboard of discussion by Jonny Goldstein, envisualize. Source: Michael Dougherty.

#11NTC Raw - Mixing Business and Pleasure: Managing Your Personal and Professional Brand in Social Media (11NTCbrand)

DESCRIPTION:

Who are you and how do you represent yourself online? As our personal and professional lives blend together, how can you shape your own brand online and reconcile it with your organization's brand? As the communications landscape changes, every staff member serves as the organization's spokesperson, not just the executive director or board chair. How you and your colleagues use social media can greatly impact your organization's reputation with key stakeholders. In this workshop, a panel of nonprofit leaders will share how they manage their own brands online--including helpful tips and tools you can put in to practice immediately.

Session Takeaways:

1. Understanding how the online "you" may or may not differ from the offline/real "you" and your organization
2. Development of a personal positioning statement (or big idea)
3. Guidelines you might set for your organization to help set policies for everyone who works for (and therefore represents) you online

Personal+ Professional Brand in Social Media - Trompeter

View more presentations from Farra Trompeter, Big Duck

Tweets re House Energy & Commerce Hearing to Examine Climate Science, EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations

Press release from http://energycommerce.house.gov - The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, chaired by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), will hold a hearing on Tuesday, March 8, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing is entitled, “Climate Science and EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations.” Full Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Rep. Whitfield have joined Democratic leaders in the U.S. House in authoring the Energy Tax Prevention Act (H.R. 910), a bill to block EPA’s controversial backdoor climate change agenda that would further drive up the price of energy for American consumers and job creators at a time when gas prices are already spiking and job creation remains weak.

Following EPA Clean Air Act Hearing on Hill

(Updated: 5:34pm; Feb 9, 2011) I wanted to test what was involved in capturing a large conversation from a number of different twitter accounts on a broad issue. So, today I used Cover It Live to find out. View the results:

Watch Webcast of Hill Hearing LIVE

Mistletoe and Social Media

Ancient Greeks felt mistletoe bestowed fertility. Scandinavians believed it brought peace. The English believed kissing under the mistletoe indicated deep romance, friendship or goodwill. Social media provides all these benefits.

Norman Rockwell's Cousin Reginald Under the Mistletoe (1917) Copyright © 1917 The Country Gentleman and Curtis Publishing Company

When the holidays come, the threat of getting caught under the mistletoe is a reminder that not everyone is comfortable with all forms of social intercourse.

This may be a key reason it is often difficult to convince colleagues that they should get on social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

No matter how valuable you may find these networks you may have difficulty convincing skeptics of the value of sharing online and connecting with their colleagues, friends and acquaintances in public forums.

Often, it is not until people see the success of social media that they begin understanding the benefits of active participation in social media.

• Social media is a fertile place to create connections. By virtue of just being on social media you will grow a following of people and connect with those who are interested in the same things you are interested in. And you don’t require an email or street address to share resources with these connections. Metrics: Growth of followers, fans, friends.

• Social media deepens existing relationships. By sharing your professional and personal life via social media others learn more about your personality and what is important in your life. Ultimately, this shared information builds connections with others that cannot be created through formal settings. Metrics: Conversations, comments and feedback via social media.

• Social media helps you identify your audiences. While we often feel we know our target audiences, social media enables audiences to self identify. And we can identify people’s background and interests. Furthermore, you can identify the multiple connections others have with you to determine who is most strongly connected with you (and why!). Metrics: Short biosketches about key audience members that are connected to you.

So next time you have a conversation about social media with a skeptic, consider providing these tips and metrics about your social media experience. This might encourage them to “pucker-up”.

Playing with Paper(.li)

Recently, a colleague tweeted about a new app he was using to view twitter lists. I was intrigued, and while the tool was still in "alpha" at this posting, it looks like an app with a future.

  

SmallRivers (Switzerland) is the creator of http://paper.li which organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag. 

When you first come to the interface, you are encouraged to create your own newspaper and you don't need to create a new profile to do so - just login with your twitter or facebook account. 

Check out examples of the kinds of output, using the @worldresources and @lauraleedooley twitter lists!

• climate-energy
• ecosystem-services
• online-gurus

And here are some pages using twitter #hashtags:

• #climate
• #oilspill

And here are some pages focusing on twitter users -

• @lauraleedooley
• @TheCityFix

What I like about this tool is the way paper.li organizes your information and helps you see things you might have missed otherwise. It is definitely worth exploring, particularly since investors are starting to line up to support this online tool. 

For more information, see:

• blog.paper.li
• BusinessWeek: Paper.li: Making a Newspaper From a Twitter Stream
• ReadWriteWeb: Paper.li Gets Investment for Its "Twitter Newspapers"
• TechCrunch: Paper.li Lets You Read Twitter In Daily Newspaper Form, Raises More Funding

 

Email Open Rates: Maintaining Your Subscriber List

Can you improve your email open rates by better maintaining your subscriber list?

I do a lot of work in the area of social media - mainly twitter, facebook, linkedin and email.

Yes, I consider email to be the most basic form of social media. Anyone willing to share their email address with you wants to connect in a meaningful way. Whether a friend, colleague, jobseeker or salesperson, a shared email address is one way people confirm you as a valued connection worth building a relationship with.

There are many ways to improve open rates by improving your email content. But in relying on email software tools to manage our subscriber lists, have we added to the problems inherent in email open rate metrics?

Which brings me to my main point in this post. 

I manage a respectable subscriber list for my organization's monthly email digest - around 15,000 subscribers. As we are not a membership organization, this is a sizeable list which been growing for nearly a decade. The digest itself has taken many different forms and used many different email software systems - some more effective than others.

The open rate is one important - and foundational - measure of any email send. How do email software systems know if an email has been opened? A small 1 pixel x 1 pixel graphic (generally invisible to the average person) is inserted into the email that you send and when this image is loaded the email is registered as opened.

The problem is that sometimes the image isn't loaded - this is particularly true for subscribers viewing your email via smart phones. Comm100 has a helpful post on the woes of measuring email open rates. So already you have inaccuracies in open rate metrics. 

But I also think lack of proper management of email subscriber lists contributes to problems with open rate metrics. Sometimes we rely to heavily on the software to do the work for us. We need to think like gardeners tending our gardens. We need to seed, feed and weed our email lists.

Because subscriber lists are made up of individuals opting-in to your list, I felt it would be useful to get to know these folks better by seeing how well-connected they are with our organization. Basically, I've checked the subscriber list against institutional partner lists and our friends, fans, and followers via social media. The process and tools I've used to do this will be the subject of future posts.

As I've updated this list, I've noticed some issues which may impact my email open rate:

• duplicate email entries from different source lists (yes, there were several). The email system we use is supposed to cross-check email addresses and send only one email but, as we found out, not all email software systems actually do this effectively. So, if a email address gets duplicate emails but only opens one, is the open rate counted against all emails sent or just the email that was opened? 

• single individuals receiving copies of the newsletter at multiple addresses (work and home). I've been able to match up multiple email addresses with single individuals. Unfortunately, the email systems I've worked with require separate entries for each email. So if one person receives emails at multiple email addresses, but only opens one email at one address that open rate is counted for that one email address only. It makes sense, but wouldn't it be great if one individual could designate two or more email addresses for one recordset? I'm seeing more of this capability, but we've got a long way to go. And this might add further confusion to the metrics.

• bounced emails. Whether a hard or soft bounce, these subscribers are often kept on the send list so as the number of bounced email increases, the open rate may decrease. So when should you remove these individuals from the list? You should remove someone with has a hard bounce sooner than later. But when do you remove those subscribers who have soft bounces? Dundeemail has a helpful post about bounced emails.

While many email software systems say they can maintain your subscriber base, there is nothing quite as valuable as personally reviewing and updating the list.

Though any open rate will not provide truly accurate numbers (you need to look at trends over time), I'm hoping that by better personally maintaining my subscriber list, I get a improve the open rate by:

• Removing multiple bounced emails for individuals who are not well-connected with our organization.

• Removing undeliverable/invalid emails or double-check that they are correct. In several cases I've noticed a error in the email address which I've been able to repair.

• Build up a social CRM (and perhaps a survey) methodology to identify those subscribers who are heavily active with us in the social media to determine if they are more likely or less likely to open our email digest.

I'm particularly interested in the social CRM side of things - the further down the social media rabbit hole I travel, the more I realize that we need better tools to help us understand our audiences and connections. I'm starting to see and use some of the free (and useful) tools available in the cloud, but I would like to hear from others.

Back to Basics: Identify Your Voice, Listen, Understand, Call to Action

Social media is the buzzword these days. But it shouldn't be. Just as the computer and the phone are an integral part of the way we communicate, so too are social media tools. 

Taking it a step further, your social networks are not only available via the computer, they are available via the phone, television and (sometime soon) your car.

Social media provides a way of connecting, sharing, and building relationship with people who contribute to your goals - whether they are personal, professional or just for fun. 

More than anything, social media tools teach us to focus on the basics of communication:

• Identify Your Voice - What is it that you are passionate about? On what can issues can you contribute ideas? What kind of information do you seek out online? What will make you stand out in the social media crowd? What will make you fit in? On what issues do you think you can make a difference? What is your goal for being online? Having a clear message and purpose is important for creating and supporting a community over the long-term.

• Listen - Always take time to listen to the online conversation - what people are saying about you, your interests, your culture. Active listening (and responding) gives you credibility. Use social media tools to connect with your target audience members and use these tools for audience research. Aggregate RSS feeds from sites and searches related to your target issues. Remember that listening is a two-way street - what you say can benefit (or hinder) those who are listening to you. If you want to someone to listen to you, you better make sure you have something worth listening to.

• Understand - Know the people you are trying to engage with and who can help you meet your goals. Also recognize that people get an understanding of who you are by who you do (and don't) connect with. Follow, fan, friend folks relevant to your online purpose and learn more about what they are interested in. Share messages and information that helps them meet their goals (think WIIFM) and recognize contributions that influence your work. Social media provides awesome tools to perform audience research. Create a social CRM (Salesforce Group + SocialCRMTools + Google Email = Inexpensive SocialCRM) and conduct online surveys and polls to engage more with your community. Combine your social media and website statistics to get an idea of what content draws the most interest and where you connect most with your audiences.

• Call to Action - It is easy to click on a link. But it is huge to actually make a change in the world. Make sure you generate community and supply them with concrete ways to help you meet your goal. And make sure you measure the success of actions taken and communicate that to your community. Nothing makes people want to take action more than seeing others taking that same action - see Derek Sivers: How to Make a Movement TED talk, below. 

As you move forward in your social media push, I encourage you to make sure you are constantly being true to your voice, listening to your community, understand community needs, and call your friends, followers, and fans to concrete and measurable action.

Social Media Metrics: Some Thoughts

Social analytics is a blossoming field. New ways to measure and identify success in social media are developed on a regular basis.

Yet, those developing a social media strategy will often find the metrics of success evolve over time. 

To help the analyst adjust their metrics for online growth, there are some characteristics I'd like to see in all social media metrics - 

• Social metrics need to be social - they can't be locked behind a tool.  They need to be able to mix and mingle with your whole suite of social media metrics. It also helps social media strategists show colleagues the value of working in the social media space.

• Social metrics need to be real time -  social media is real time, so your metrics should be too.

• Social metrics need to be captured and stored for longer-term analysis. You need to show reach and impact over time.

• Social metrics need to capture social CRM - a way to keep track of those friends, followers, fans and connections that serve as true customer evangelists so you can better support them. The ultimate goal would be to identify connections to these supporters across social networks.

• Social metrics need to go beyond numbers to measure the quality of conversation vs. quantity of followers, friends, fans, etc.

What do you think?