Target Gives, Facebook Votes

For about a year now, the blogosphere and online commentators have been grumbling about Facebook's inability to be a major fundraising platform. I have written here about this topic and my general feeling that to grumble about a platform's lack of fundraising prowess when it was not designed to optimize activism is like grumbling that a car isn't flying you to the moon.

Recently, I received an email from an organization I have supported in the past. This was the headline: "$3M on Facebook." Huh? Someone has managed to raise $3 million on Facebook? Last time I checked,the Causes Application combined has raised just over $2 million.

Clearly, I had to investigate. Organizations, take heed. What I found is an blueprint to how to use Facebook to promote your brand in a feel good kind of way.

Many of us have heard thru some way or other that the Target corporation gives away 5% of its income to various do-gooding, which, as it turns out, comes out to be about $3 million a week. On it's Facebook page, Target is letting people vote for one of ten organizations that should get the cash.

This GenYers first thought? "That's so cool. They wan my input on who to give the cash to."

This marketer's first thought? "How did they get these 10 organizations and what did one have to do to be part of the top 10?"

This is the time to pay attention people. This is what differentiates organizations with a targeted, engaged, and wholistic donor engagement strategy and those who don't.

I am either an email subscriber or online donor to 3 of the organizations featured on the Target Bullseye Gives page. But, only 1 has so far reached out to me via email to get my attention and ask for my vote. Fundraising/marketing peeps at the other two: what exactly are you thinking? In this economic environment, you don't need $3 million dollars, or even say 10% of that? Why aren't you working your toosh off to get me to vote for you? And who do I think I am most likely to vote for--the organization that took the time to tell me all about this campaign, devoted a page on their website to it, and asked for my vote, or you guys, who so far, have done nothing?

My point of the little tirade above is to make a point: if you expect platforms that are not designed for activism, that are not specifically pushing people to give and become involved, setting up a giving page, sitting back, and waiting for the cash to roll in is not enough. The same way you have to work your DM donors, you gotta do some legwork with social and online.

Anyway, I am off to vote for the organization that got my attention (even though they would not have been my top choice). And Target, very smart cause marketing--I am thinking I should start shopping with you guys more often, after all 5% of my dollars could end up in the pocket a do-gooder I care about.

Yep, this is another "Guide" to using Twitter, or as I think of it, the human librarian on steroids.

This week, I attended an event about, what else, social marketing. This even was targeted and women in technology, but not necessarily, in social media.

During the Q&A, hands shot up like hotcakes and the thing on almost every one's mind seemed to be: "HOW" can I use Twitter to further my goals and "WHY" does it matter?

Sitting in the back row as I usually do, I reflected on my own Twitter path, and decided it was time to share my "wisdom" with the world on the topic. When I first signed up for Twitter, it was supposed to be a one off as part of an RFP for a potential client--showing them how students abroad could communicate with their networks at home when pressed for time and when tariffs for making calls are high.

Other than that, I really did not see how I would personally ever use it, I didn't need to tell people that I had just come home from the grocery store.

Eventually, however, I found Twitter was very useful as a compliment and supplement to this blog. It allowed me to share info when I was strapped for time, share more info than I could ever in one blog, find information and people interested in the same topics I was, drive blog traffic, take notes during conference, and learn to speak in shorthand (OK, this may be a questionable benefit).

So how do you get started and figure out if Twitter is something you should be doing? Read on.

(A caveat here: my Twitter perspective is Twitter for professional use. You won't find anything below about how to best let your followers know what kind of cabbage your planning to use for the soup you cooking for dinner. )

Getting started: The Twittersphere is a huge place. There are LOADS of people on there. How do you figure out the crowd? While there are many Twitter tools out there that can help you find people you might find interesting, sort thru the people and topics you are following, and let the world know about yourself, there are some key things to keep in mind when first starting out that have nothing to do with the tools:

1. As in may life situations, the first thing to do once you get on Twitter is to listen. Find a few friends or colleagues you know are using Twitter, follow them, and see how they are communicating via Twitter. A key here is not to copy them, but to think about what you like/don't like, find useful/don't find useful about their Twitter approach. It's like learning how to drive--someone has to teach you the basics, we all have to follow the same rules of the road, but eventually you develop your own driving style.
   


2. Learn the Twitter text commands. You gotta know the language, to speak to the world.
   


3. Once you decide to branch out and follow some people, keep a lid on the following. There is no need to follow thousands of people. Pick Quality of Quantity. Does the person/organization seem like they would be a useful resource for you? Do they consistently post feeds you are interested in? If not, why are you following them? Remember: if you are following too many folks, you'll have a following seizure--too much information to process. Yes, there are tools that can help you sort, organize, and prioritize your network in all sorts of ways. But do you know what all of these do? They help you focus in on the feeds you really care about and that make a difference to you. So why follow ones that don't?
   

Spreading your wings: So now you've kind of gotten the hang of this Twitter thing, found some folks you're finding interesting, and you're thinking "but what about me and my organization? How can I use Twitter to my advantage?" Let's break this question down into 2 categories: individuals and organizations.

Individuals: As an individual user, Twitter can be a diverse tool, depending on what your goal is:

1. Information sharing and gathering: if you are looking to find a variety of resources on a topic or broad range of topics, share information, keep track of it, Twitter is like the ultimate real-time indexing tool. A human librarian on steroids. This is actually how I got into Twitter--I would find articles, sites, tools and resources that I felt would be interesting to my blog readers, but, not "big" enough for me to devote an entire blog to about. So, I point you all in the direction, and you choose whether you'd like to explore.


2. Finding experts and getting answers: Twitter is similar to Wikipedia in that you put a question out there, and the Twittersphere answers, they just have to limit the answer to 140 characters or take the convo offline. This is a great way to conduct poles, get answers, and again, find people who may be able to provide you answers in the future.


3. Personal brand building and reputation. Yep, establish yourself as a resource, guide, or posted of generally useful info, and people will want to find out more about you. They'll follow you, and then read your profile, and if you've got a website visit it. They'll reTweet you and let their networks know about you, and before you know it, you've got a following the size of a smallish band fan base and you're feeling like a minor league rock star.


4. Point 3 above leads into what is key to many people on Twitter, especially those who work for themselves or are looking for gigs: Twitter is a great way to find leads, build relationships, and by establishing yourself as a trusted "resource", potentially leading to job leads, ins on RFPs, speaking engagements, and who knows what else.

Organizations: Most of what I wrote above applies to organizations, but there are additional advantages that Twitter offers:

1. Building site traffic. Give the Twittersphere small snippets of how you all are out there saving the world, and, someone might want to read more about it. They'll come to your site and get to know you.


2. Talk to your audience-donors, volunteers, activists. Twitter is a great way to ask them what they care about, don't care about, "fish" for reactions to programs you are thinking about launching but aren't sure of. It's also a way to let program staff connect directly with donors, in a quick, easy, and non time-consuming way. Getting someone to send a text message that's 140 characters or less once a day is a heck of a lot less time consuming then getting them to write up a 'field report.'


3. Sharing information, resources, and tools, with other nonprofits. One organization I follow on Twitter does just that--posts useful info for nonprofits, features nonprofits that are doing neat stuff, and shares cool new tools.


4. Fundraise. Yep. You can and should use Twitter to raise cash. Tell people about your ongoing campaigns. Tell them how much more you need to raise. Ask them to help. Remind them of your mobile key word if you have one. If you find a viral fundraising campaign spreading on Twitter, don't get upset bc this not part of your "official" marketing plan, get with it, encourage it, and reTweet it.


5. Don't get in your own way. If you've put someone in charge of Twitter at your organization, try not to get them bogged down in legal, bureaucracy, and the food chain. We all like to control the message, but develop some basic guidelines and put a person you trust at the helm-if they can't be trusted to put 140 characters together, you have a much bigger issue.


6. Finally, as always, let Twitter be another vehicle to make the compelling case for why folks need to give to you, why your mission is important, why we should care now, and why we should keep caring. For a great example of how to do this, check out John Lepp's post about Twitter and the War Child case study.

Lessons from Mobile Tech For Social Change on using Mobile for Fundraising

As promised, below is a summary of some key takeaways and lessons from Mobile Tech for Social Change.

A fundamental emphasized by many at the meeting, and something that many of us in the nonprofit world already know innately--mission first, tactics later: first, focus on your mission--who are the people you are trying to reach out to/help and how are you trying to help them? Where are they and how will you reach them? Remember, that just like phone, email, paper, mobile is just a tool, so figure out whether it fits into your toolset.

For those at the meeting who were more focused on the actual social change than fundraising to help people achieve that change, mobile raises questions like fees with local carriers, barriers and bad guys trying to block texting, and amazing applications like turning laptops into little SMS stations that spread messages in remote areas with no cell phone receptions: "refugee camp out of band aids. Need more."

For those of us in the business of raising the dollars, one big barrier stands in the way. In order to get cash and other info from people using mobile, and engage with them in a long-term relationship, you need to get the word out there about your mobile program and build your lists.

So how to do this? I attended a session on this led by Jeff Lee, president of Distributive Networks, one of the service providers that helps nonprofits get into the mobile game. Distributive Networks was used by the Obama campaign for their texting needs, and Jeff shared some key lessons and tactics learned on building Mobile lists.

1) First, once you've acquired a shortcode, put it on every other piece of marketing collateral and call to action you have. Get the word out there, including DM. One great way to engage people in texting via DM may be to ask them to text answers to survey questions.

2) Incentives go a long way to getting people to text in a response. If I text you, will I be part of a special VIP group? (like say on a list to find out a VP pick). Something donors see as of value works great as well--in another session someone gave the example of an animal welfare nonprofit encouraging people to text a shortcode to get tips on pet care.

3) The more "actionable" a call to action is, the better. I.E. give people some reason to text you, not just the goodness of their hearts, and they are more likely to do so, even if it just to let you know their thoughts on a topic. This allows you to start building a relationship with them.

4) Remember that mobile is a tool to learn about donors just as any other method is so don't make it one shortcode fits all. Create separate keywords for donors to text depending on a topic they are most interested in. Let's say you are a human welfare organization. Ask donors to tell you which issues most concern them--food, shelter, education, and this then lets you tailor your future communications to these donors. The learning is invaluable.

So how are people using mobile SMS successfully? Here is a great example of how one human right organization is using mobile, in combination with other DR efforts, to increase donors engagement and giving:

• One organization matched it's mobile list to it's email list. For those donors that matched both, they did an A/B split--some donors only received an email, while others received an email and a text about the email, encouraging donors to open, read it, and take action. The impact? An over 70% increase in response for those donors that received the text and email combination vs. those who just got the email.

There were loads of other great ideas and examples--the guys at Mobile Commons are doing some neat stuff with encouraging social action viral through texting and connecting texting with actual phone calls. This is great for those of you trying to do things like getting your donors and activists to call their congresspeople.

Thanks again to the organizers!