Community Organizer 2.0

In early August, NP Tech launched Guidestar Israel. It took almost five years to make GuideStar Israel a reality, and it is an incredible resource for Israeli nonprofit organization. The GuideStar project was established as an unique cooperative venture by the Ministry of Justice, JDC-Israel, and Yad Hanadiv with the objective of developing civil society in Israel.

NP Tech (established by JDC-Israel and Yad Hanadiv) is the operating organization behind GuideStar Israel. It provides services and activities designed to help social organizations make information and communications technology (ICT) more accessible to social organizations to reach their goals. NP Tech wants to create a “socio-technological market” in which different providers offer their products for social activity advancement, internet sites encourage social action and social organizations use these products in accordance to their needs.

I had the opportunity to ask Royi Biller, CEO of NP Tech, about why it was so important to bring GuideStar to Israel, how it could change the Israeli third sector, and upcoming NP Tech initiatives.

The interview is below (my questions are in orange):

What services does NP Tech provide?
1.    GuideStar Israel
2.    Software Donation Program: NPTech collaborates with TechSoup Global and software vendors on establishing low cost distribution channels for nonprofit organizations to acquire state of the art ICT tools to enhance their capabilities.
3.    Way2Know: an online knowledge base including videos, articles and blog posts around utilizing ICT tools for social purposes.
4.    Consultation services: NPTech assists nonprofit organizations analyze their technological needs, acquire the appropriate solutions and integrate them into their activities.

What are the technology needs of Israeli nonprofit organizations?

Our analysis and market research indicates that nonprofit organizations (at large) make use of the relatively simple tools the IT industry offers, especially with regards to organizational information systems. However, most nonprofit managers reported that they lack knowledge about the opportunities available to them, as well as available funding sources for such purposes. The role of CIO or CTO usually does not exist in most nonprofits, and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is commonly not budgeted or planned ahead routinely.

Another phenomenon identified is typical to the Israeli market – the language barrier; there are far less tools and applications available in Hebrew then there are in English, and when it comes to specific applications for nonprofit needs there may be zero solutions available in Hebrew. Nonprofit managers have expressed a need for support from a trusted partner to help decision making and adoption processes of ICT tools in their organizations.

How do these needs compare with worldwide trends?

Most of the findings are quite similar to the common challenges nonprofits face when trying to adopt technologies into their organizations. The only unique pattern was the language barrier and market size that are the main reasons for the shortage of Hebrew software tailored for nonprofit needs.

What is GuideStar Israel?

GuideStar Israel is intended to be the main information website resource about nonprofit organizations in Israel. The website currently features mostly official information regarding all NPOs in Israel from the Registrar of NPOs. It is gradually being updated with additional richer and more “colorful” information provided by the NPOs themselves. This combination creates the most comprehensive and qualitative database of civil social organizations in Israel.

Why is it important to have a GuideStar Israel and offer this database of nonprofits?

The goal in building this database is foremost to create public transparency regarding the conduct of nonprofit organizations in Israel. Anyone who has any interest in nonprofit organizations – donors, volunteers, suppliers and customers – may surf and find official information reported to the Registrar of NPOs regarding the conduct of each non-profit organization operating in Israel.

GuideStar itself operates from within and for the benefit of the third sector, out of the belief that public transparency is an important means for the development of this sector. We see great importance in providing “as is” information, without any judgment. We focus on providing surfers with maximum updated information, in a digital, accessible and convenient format for searching information about all active nonprofit organizations in Israel.

Just as important is the internet exposure offered to all nonprofit organizations operating in Israel, even to the smallest NPOs which have, thus far, not been able to exploit this medium. This exposure will encourage donors and volunteers, as well as cooperation between non-profit organizations with a view to reinforcing the third sector in Israel and making it more accessible for everyone.

How do you think GuideStar Israel will change nonprofit operations, organizations, or the way that Israelis (and others) perceive Israeli nonprofit organizations?

We expect that the readily available information provided by GuideStar will help nonprofit organizations become more effective by making data-driven decisions, comparative analysis and sharing knowledge. We believe the public perception of the Israeli third sector will become more positive once each and every user will be able to easily determine whether an organization is being run properly, and that the “rotten apples” would be easier to distinguish from the legitimate majority. We expect to see more fact-based discussions taking place regarding nonprofit activities.

I know that NP Tech is a TechSoup Global partner. What does that mean for Israeli NPOs?

We are in final stages of preparations for the launch of the software donation program in collaboration with TechSoup Global, which will enable eligible nonprofits to acquire state of the art software for a fraction of the cost. We intend to launch the program during the last quarter of 2010.

Royi Biller is the CEO of NP Tech. Royi initiated the establishment of NPTech during his work as a Program Officer for Technology and Knowledge at Yad Hanadiv (the Rothschild Foundation). Royi is well versed in technology project management, relying on vast experience from his military service as an intelligence officer, his work as a Decision Support Systems engineer in Intel and his position in Yad Hanadiv.

Photo by 28 Dreams

Back in May, Oceana hired Inbound Zombie to develop an email acquisiiton strategy and increase their Facebook fan base. They had close to 10,000 fans but felt that they weren’t utilizing Facebook Page to its fullest potential.

Going With The Flow

Soon after we started working together, BP effed up the Gulf Coast with an oil spill. This meant responding to discussions their constituents were having, rather than having conversations about how cute Sea Turtles are.

Strategy

With email acquisition as a primary goal, the Oceana Facebook team developed a strategy to engage with their Facebook Page connections with the following expectations in mind:

• Increased engagement would lead to increased acquisition.
• Creating lively discussions on their wall would allow connections to share Oceana with their friends.
• An increase in Page activity would also impact fan growth.

A long-term vision of building a vibrant community was an important component of this strategy.

Tactics

We did not want to push an email acquisition strategy with current Facebook Page connections and risk alienating them for good. So we proceeded with consistency and sensitivity.

During the sixty day campaign period, a number of tactics were employed with this strategy in mind:

• Embedded Facebook sharing into the petition process. The Stop The Drill Facebook Tab was customized so that the user was prompted to share the petition with their friends right after they signed the petition.
• Conducted a live chat on June 3rd – during President Obama’s appearance on Larry King. The Facebook’s wall and Twitter were the primary places supporters commented on Obama’ appearance. The discussion for this event received 72 posts.
• Actively updated fans on the latest Oceana blog posts and news regarding the oil spill.
• Posted thought-provoking questions for fans to respond to. For example, “How has the BP oil spill personally affected you?”
• Tagged and praised related organizations. This created greater exposure for Oceana – particularly on Pages that have many more fans. One June 30th, the National Wildlife Federation was tagged on the Page. That update received one of the highest feedback scores. 90 new fans also joined the Page on that day.
• Pulled select tweets from Jackie Savitz and posted them on the Facebook Page wall.
• Set up a private group for fans interested in taking a lead role in promoting the petition.
• Praised and acknowledged fans.

Results

• 5,002 emails acquired from Facebook
• 4,277 new Facebook Page connections (from 9,824 – 14,101) during this period – a 56% increase. This was due in part by the increased engagement on the Page as shown in this chart:
• Traffic from Facebook to Oceana’s website increased 764%

Assets

One of the biggest assets an organization has is the supporters. Oceana now needs to strategize on how to continue to develop the relationships they fostered during this campaign.

How could we have improved our results with Oceana?

In early 2009, we asked all members of TuDiabetes.org, a social network for people touched by diabetes, to share their diabetes poems as part of a contest we ran. It was called No-Sugar Added Poetry. In July 2010 the Diabetes Hands Foundation (the nonprofit that runs TuDiabetes) published a compilation with 39 of those poems, offering profound insight into the challenges, hopes, and fears of those living with diabetes through the power of their poetry. The end result was the No-Sugar Added Poetry book.

The compilation showcases what can be accomplished through crowdsourcing, putting people’s stories together as they live with a chronic condition and describe their experiences with diabetes through poetry. As Dr. Bill Polonsky, CEO of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute, writes in the foreword, these poems “speak to the emotional effort of trying to figure out how to fit the uninvited guest of diabetes into life.”

I was humbled to read the submissions from the participants. It was very difficult to choose from so many beautiful poems. The ones that we included in the book describe fairly well the stages of life with diabetes – from diagnosis all the way to acceptance.

We learned a lot of valuable lessons in the process:
•    Publishing is a crazy world. We found a great self-publishing company called SelfPublishing.com that made the most sense for us, striking the best balance between quality and cost. But, regardless of the solution you choose, publishing is a book is a LOT of work.

•    Once you print the book, the marketing and PR begins. We realized the message to different audiences would vary from people touched by diabetes to people who like poetry, for instance.

•    We’ve invited members on TuDiabetes to host book parties as a way to connect with others and raise diabetes awareness and get the book in the hands of people who may have not otherwise gotten it. We documented the first book party we did in Berkeley to show others how they could go about their own.

•    We held a daily giveaway of the book on Twitter, to get the word out about the book. People re-tweeting a message about the giveaway were entered for a chance to win a copy.

•    Getting your store set up and running may make the most sense financially: your organization retains the most money from the sale, compared to selling through Amazon.com, for instance. But don’t underestimate the costs associated with fulfillment.

•    E-Commerce… the “E” does not stand for “Easy.” From setting up the Diabetes Hands Foundation store through Volusion to getting a Virtual Merchant set up (they let you accept credit cards on your store and/or points of sale), it was a LOT of work. But we quickly saw more people paying with credit card than via PayPal.

The lessons continue to pour in and I hope to continue to share them so that other nonprofits may be able to learn from our successes and avoid our mistakes. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts about the book.

No-Sugar Added Poetry can be ordered at: www.bit.ly/askNSAP.

Manny Hernandez is a nonprofit executive, social media author and consultant and a diabetes advocate committed to connecting people touched by diabetes and raising diabetes awareness. He is the president of the Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF), a 501(c)3 nonprofit that runs two social networks for people touched by diabetes: TuDiabetes.org (in English, started in March 2007) and EsTuDiabetes.org (in Spanish, started in August 2007). He has had LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) since 2002 and has used an insulin pump since 2005. He has also been a columnist for dLife.com since 2007, he wrote “Ning for Dummies” (published in April 2009) and collaborated on “Twitter For Marketing for Dummies” (published in the Fall of 2009).

Diabetes Hands Foundation is a nonprofit that connects people touched by diabetes and raises diabetes awareness.

The Jewish Agency for Israel was founded in 1929 and was the pre-Israel government before there was a state. Following the founding of the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency was mandated with aliyah, or the immigration of Jews from around the world to Israel, as well as Jewish Zionist education. Today its mission is to:

Inspire Jews throughout the world to connect with their people, heritage and land, and empower them to build a thriving Jewish future and a strong Israel.

A little over a year ago the Jewish Agency for Israel launched its social media presence. At the time, the decision was to communicate our message aggressively and to reach out to a new audience by using the latest portals. When social media accounts were opened, it was a no-brainer to create a Facebook Page, YouTube channel, and a Flickr stream. Twitter was the wild card in the batch. How could anything important be communicated in 140 characters, essentially a tweet? It seemed a bit ridiculous.

Quickly I immersed myself in a new language of RTs, hashtags, URL shorteners, and the entire twitterverse! Originally, my name was not listed on the Twitter account but there was a disconnect. It seemed artificial for an entire organization to have one voice. There are just so many voices, personalities, and more. How could an organization have a voice? How could it engage an audience? How would we ever be able to keep up with all the different conversations going on? It seemed unnatural. Soon I updated the profile and attached my name to the account; I was finally able to project my professional self on behalf of the organization. It helped people to see that there was a voice behind the organization. Followers began addressing me by name and knew that I would respond to their questions about aliyah or anything else. I also took my virtual connection with the audience and made it real by attending Tweetups. It not only helped me put a face to the tweet, but strengthened our online relationship. Maya Norton’s New Jew blog about Jewish philanthropy has commented several times about our social media:

“I’ve been monitoring the Jewish Agency for Israel’s social media decisions for several years and am impressed with their strategic choices. Smart moves for a historic institution…[Their social media is] much better than most organizations. Even if there are some glitches, it’s certainly on the right track.”

Our Facebook Page has over 7000 fans and we have great traffic on YouTube and Flickr, but it is the Jewish Agency Twitter feed that has left its mark. It has successfully strengthened our brand, connected a younger demographic, and helped a broader audience better understand our mission. We have received this feedback from social media professionals, Jewish professionals, lay leaders, as well as from the “tweeple” themselves. In May 2009 the JTA named us the 7th most influential Jewish organization and a year later we are in 3rd and 4th on WeFollow.com for Israel-related and Jewish-related Twitter accounts respectively.

I have often been asked why I think the Twitter has feed been so successful? Frankly, I understood Twitter as a medium versus Facebook or another social media portal. Moreover, I understood that we had an audience who was just as invested in the Jewish Agency brand as we are. I listened to what they had to say and responded. Whether it was a question about aliyah or a Masa Israel program (the umbrella organization for long-term experience programs in Israel), I always ensure that followers receive the information they need in a timely matter and keep them in the loop about the status. Follow-up on Twitter is so critical because it is very much a customer service tool. True, it also is used for marketing, outreach, and other needs, but customer service is the number one reason that people remain our followers and have such a positive view about it. Charlie Kalech, one of our followers, turned to me about a year ago for assistance with aliyah cases. In his words:

“Florence has put a human face on the Jewish Agency. When I was helping potential immigrants who did not know where else to turn to get answers, I could send Florence a direct message on Twitter and get a direct response cutting through the bureaucracy which had previously rendered no satisfactory response. The Jewish agency’s presence on Twitter has given people like this someone to talk to.”

Now when people say, “Twitter? I don’t get it.” I laugh and respond, “Don’t underestimate the power of a tweet.” What a difference a year makes…

Florence Broder is the Social Media Manager for the Jewish Agency for Israel. In her position she has successfully launched a Facebook fan page for the Jewish Agency in February which now has over 4000 members and also launched a Twitter feed which today has over 2200 followers.

Israeli salad spread at my farewell lunch

In three days, my family and I will be moving across continents from Jerusalem to Boston. We moved here three years ago temporarily. We said it “would be fun, would be great for the kids to learn another language, would be for one to two years, max.” It has been so much more.

Before moving to Israel, I had been working at nonprofit organizations for almost 20 years. Most of that time was in and around Boston. I transitioned from community organizing to program development, to becoming an executive director of a start-up nonprofit entity. I transitioned from anti-poverty work to economic development to business development. In the end, I spent a lot of time dreaming about getting an MBA and using that to help others. Israel actually provided a great solution – the International MBA Program at Bar Ilan University.

I spent my first 14 months in Israel at Bar Ilan University, full-time, working towards an MBA. I wanted the technical skills and theoretical frameworks support community work. After graduating, I opened Community Organizer 2.0, a strategic social media consulting firm. For almost two years I have had the privilege of working with the incredible nonprofit and web professional sectors, both within Israel and outside of Israel.

Here are a few of the things that I’ve loved about working in Israel:

We geeks and social media types support each other. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, there are wonderful social and networking events to support the nonprofit tech and general technology sector. JGeeks (Jerusalem Geeks) is a Facebook Group, where a bunch of us “call” for meetings in real life in Jerusalem to discuss the latest tech issues when there is a need. One day, for example, a few of us met for two hours at a cafe to test and understand the new Facebook Like button. Part of the group description reads: “The goal of this group is to promote camaraderie among the more technically-inclined denizens of Jerusalem. Let’s get together to trade tips, host hackathons, coordinate competitions, meet masters, swap stories and promote projects.”

Additionally, I’ve really enjoyed attending the monthly Jerusaelem Web Professionals meetings. JWP is a group of Jerusalem-based professionals, working in a variety of web-related fields, that communicates online and also meets in-person once a month to share expertise on web trends, marketing and creative solutions.

Social media lovers have fun. Every month in Tel Aviv, Yael Beeri coordinates the Tel Aviv Beer Tweetup at a bar. It’s a blast, and I wish I had gone more often. In Jerusalem, J-Tweets holds tweetups about five times a year.

Networking in Israel is so much more. In Israel, it’s not six-degrees of separation but two-degrees. Everyone here knows each other or someone who knows someone or…you get the picture. The country runs on “protecsia,” which means that who you know is your credibility. Every networking event in Israel includes the “who you know” question but also includes the offer of “who I know that can help you,”

Amazing learning conferences. I attended some great events over the years, Jeff Pulver’s 140 conference, the Techonomy 2010 showcase of Israeli startups, SphinnCon Israel, and the uniquely Israeli Kishor social media conference for professional Jewish women, and the annual Amutot conference for all Israeli nonprofit organizations. We learned from each other and of course helped each other to connect.

The worldview. Israel is a small country of just over seven million people. It may be in the Middle East, but the worldview is global. Most nonprofit organizations have “Friends of” organizations in different parts of the world that support the organization with fundraising, membership development and programming. Most nonprofits here raise the majority of their funds from North America and Europe. Necessarily, the online audience is worldwide. It is refreshing and challenging to work with nonprofit organizations that look beyond their borders to consider the worldwide stakeholders an important part of their ongoing viability.

What is next? More of the same, but stateside! I’ll be taking a few weeks off to do all those necessary household tasks, some traveling, and spending time with family. Then, I’ll be back to blogging, working with nonprofit organizations on engagement strategies, and talking with all of you in my other online spaces.

As it will be difficult to keep up the blog during this transition, I’ve asked friends and colleagues to submit guest posts for the blog. There are some really great ones coming up from Florence Broder, Manny Hernandez, Andy Stitt, John Haydon, and NP Tech Israel, so keep on reading!

I have so many people to thank for supporting me during this time in Israel that I honestly do not know where to begin. A group of my friends here who are in the professional web groups threw a wonderful goodbye lunch for me, captured in the photo below:

My professional colleagues take me out for a farewell lunch

Social media is ALL about engagement. However, it’s not so easy to create engagement. In fact, it’s darn challenging, as so many organizations and brands have discovered. Creating engagement is one-third natural confluence and two-thirds design. Thoughtfully designed social media programming generates the natural confluences of interest, participation, and content that ultimately…creates engagement. A comprehensive social media strategy should include designed participation opportunities on every platform that add value and creates deeper loyalty.

The key to designing engagement is understanding the value that you can add to each channel and conversation, and  programming for it.

No one wants to visit a Facebook Page that is a replica of the content offered on the website. No one wants to subscribe to a YouTube channel that is a placeholder for videotaped lectures. And I can guarantee you that feeding blog posts through Twitter will not engage your stakeholders if you are not also adding value through personal interaction. So how can you get creative and think about offering real value and content that encourages engagement?

To begin, consider these questions:

• Why are people interested in your organization?
• What content creates conversation?
• What content creates community?
• What content creates loyalty?
• What can the community create for your organization?
• What added value can you offer on that particular social media channel that isn’t offered elsewhere?
• What does the medium dictate?

Then consider the channel itself: create a list of features offered by each social media channel. Mash up features with your content to add value and create engagement. What about using Twitter’s hashtag feature to host a twitter chat? Can you create a Facebook application that enhances engagement and adds value? What can you do with the moderator function in YouTube? Or ask fans to upload photos to Facebook to express their beliefs?

Lastly, put it all together in a calendar. Similar to an editorial calendar, think about what features and actions you want to regularly offer on each social media channel and how you will implement them. Plan for engagement.

I recently offered a presentation as a webinar titled Understanding the Engagement Factor. The main ideas are summarized above. The presentation also includes theories of engagement, nonprofit examples, barriers to engagement, and an example of a program calendar for Facebook engagement. I’d love to know of other examples of nonprofits engaging successfully on social media. The full slide deck is embedded below. Enjoy!

Image courtesy of wharman

Why do people participate in Twitter chats? I’ve been thinking about that question a lot. I posed the question “what Twitter chats do you participate in and why?” on Twitter and Facebook. What came back was pretty consistent: people participate to get information, ideas, contribute to a community, and meet new people.

Gauri Salokhe participates in the #KMers (knowledge management) to network and learn, and it is well-organized:

Ed Nicholson participates in #agchat because the discussion and participants are diverse and contribute insights. Both Ed and Gauri noted great planning and moderation as a reason for continuing to join the chat.

Pamela Grow and Alison Rapping participate in the #NPCons chat for the people and insights:

Avi Kaplan loves the #4change chat because it is his community:

Leora Wenger participates in the #smallbizchat for the information and fellow contributors:

And me? I participate in the monthly #NPCons chat (nonprofit consultants). I keep coming back because it is thought-provoking, includes a very diverse group of smart people, introduces me to new tweeps, brings me into a community, and is incredibly well-moderated. I also consider it an important time for “professional development” every month – in other words, the content is strong.

I think people on twitter are craving community, not just individual engagement. Think about it: on Facebook you have Pages and Groups. On Linkedin there are Groups. On blogs, Buzz and YouTube we can follow conversations and watch them evolve. But on Twitter we are stuck with this clunky mechanism where we have to view conversations separately, and cannot even follow complete conversations. At 140 characters, most conversations die out after three exchanges -  maximum.

Twitter chats fills our craving for community. In a chat, we meet like-minded people and sharing knowledge in community. Twitter chats are the Groups of Twitter.

If I were to create a “recipe” for a Twitter chat, I’d start with the great information my colleagues offered:

• Organize it around a conversation, with endless topical ideas. For example: small business, being a great consultant, pitching to the media, working with volunteers, mommy blogging, etc.
• Create community. You could invite people personally to the chat (like Hildy Gottlieb does before every #NPCons chats – it works), retweet great comments during the chat, connect people together afterwards, etc.
• Think about what insights people want to gain and design conversations around that. Have great guests that can converse about the insights people want.
• Be consistent. “Same bat time, same bat hashtag” every month.
• Planning and good moderation are critical. How many moderators do you need? How will you moderate?
• Recruit diverse participants. Encourage a diverse participant base who will bring others into the community and who represent many different viewpoints.
  

I’ll leave the last word to Leora Wenger:

If you participate in a twitter chat, what keeps you coming back? If you host one, what makes it successful? What have been the challenges?

Resources:

The best compilation of Twitter chats is this Twitter chat schedule, compiled by Robert Swanwick.

How to Participate in a Twitter Chat, with tips and resources by Jeff Hurt.

image courtesy of Dunechaser

Social media strategy and practice is so much richer when ideas are shared and commented upon. Beth Kanter famously sets up wikis to share and gather knowledge for almost all of her projects, and uses her official Facebook Page to source ideas and get feedback. Linkedin groups emphasize knowledge-sharing. Brands have marketing and project management teams that collectively think about their social media. We are all trying out social media in new ways, while dealing with a geometrically increasing amount of data and information, and staying on top of ever-evolving platforms and new channels.

We all need a social media support team.

Last week, I had the privilege of working with a nonprofit team to brainstorm for two days about their social media. Not only was it fun, but what came out of the two days was so much better than I could have developed on my own! I developed a draft strategy to present to the team. Using the strategy as a starting point, we created a much better social strategy together that what we began with. Why? Group dynamics, internal organizational knowledge, individual capabilities and strengths, and group energy. We were able to access the resources and knowledge within the group members. We all think differently. Most importantly, we all respect each other.

Even if you are the only person at your organization working on social media, you can still create an external informal (or formal) social media advisory team.

I have an informal team that I call upon to help me think through ideas. My team is both long-distance and local. My “team” includes a web developer, a PR professional, a marketing VP of a brand, an SEO expert, a fundraising expert, and a local social media implementer. I call upon them individually, as I see the need for their individual expertise, to bounce ideas off of them. I skype and share documents with another nonprofit social media consultant for feedback. Most importantly, there’s a strong element of trust – I trust that my teammates are unselfishly providing their best advice, and I in turn am ready to offer it to each of them at all times.

I think the ideal team would include these knowledge proficiencies:

• social media strategy
• social media implementation
• website design and programming
• Facebook development
• SEO expertise
• fundraising expertise
• marketing experience (corporate or nonprofit)
• other tech capacities as needed: software development, database development, etc.

I use Linkedin Groups (especially the Nonprofit Professionals Forum and Social Media for Nonprofit Organizations) to ask for help, ideas, and feedback as necessary. Twitter is also a great place to ask for feedback and input, as well. I blog at Idealware, and we created a private blogger’s group to discuss blog post ideas. I also use the Community Organizer 2.0 blog as a channel for ideas and feedback.

Most importantly, my clients are also part of my team. I’m not a “guru” that goes off and works on the mountain. I start with a concept, pass it through the client for feedback, develop it further, pass it back through the client for feedback, and so forth. Ideally, I would facilitate a brainstorming session like the one described above, which greatly enhances any idea. In other words, clients are important members of any social media team.

I can’t create social media strategy in a vacuum and neither should you.

Social media is about connection. The core of it is about connecting ideas, people and places, and organizations to actions. There are so many ways to create your social media team, and so may different types of teams. When you develop social media in a vacuum, the ideas are just half-finished.

Who is on your team?

image courtesy of dsevilla

Last week, I received an absolutely incredible press release; a vivid, kinetic preview of an event, the ROI Summit, entitled “The Future is Here.” The ROI social media press release (SMPR) included photos, a twitter pitch, recent news, online resource links, featured Summit participants, videos, and of course…the pitch.  Toby Dershowitz, of The Dershowitz Group, was kind enough to talk about how the company crafted the SMPR, best practices, how to measure the success of a SMPR, and predictions about the future of the social media press release.

What did you want to feature in the ROI social media press release?

We wanted to highlight three things:

1.    The vision of Lynn Schusterman, who has made the ROI Community her signature philanthropic project.
2.    The members of the ROI network — their ideas, their energy and idealism, and their achievements.
3.    Links that give you access to various parts of ROI’s online network.

What are the best practices in creating a social media press release?

Social media press releases are a few years old, but I have yet to see anything I’d deem best practices. What works best — and what doesn’t work at all — is rather fuzzy. SMPRs are still a work in progress.

That said, the general rule of thumb is to serve up the information, stories, and resources in a variety of appetizing ways. The standard press release, filled with useful links, serves as the spine of the SMPR. (Or, if you think like a blogger, it’s the main post, with comments at the bottom.) Sidebar layouts vary as much as blogs do: embedded videos, factoids, a Twitter pitch, resource links, Facebook buttons, and more. Contact info should obviously be in there too — and PitchEngine does a nice job of tucking those details up top, where a click initiates an elegant reveal.

But it’s hard to nail down best practices for a platform that hasn’t yet proven itself. As Mark Evans says: “In theory, I love the idea of the social media press release but in practice it hasn’t been a home run.”

Do you use a template of any kind? Do you modify it?

We used Pitchengine.com to build our SMPRs, mostly because they offered the best mix of functionality, design, and cost (free).  We didn’t modify the PitchEngine template because that’s not an option. Placement of the elements is also fixed.

My guess is two things will happen soon: Platforms like PitchEngine will offer more flexibility in layout and design; and lots of people will awaken to the fact that an SMPR is just a web page, and they’ll design a template for their own websites. That provides more control — and enables you to host it on your own domain.

Is there any rule of thumb as to which elements work the best to get the attention of writers and journalists to cover a story?

Our rule of thumb for an SMPR is the same as for any press release — or, for that matter, any form of communication: have something worth saying that your audience wants to hear. To that end, I’d argue that the title and the first few lines of the release are still key. Give people a reason to keep reading… and viewing… and clicking.

The media mix also matters. Diversifying your media allows for more diversity in your media coverage,  more quickly. A newspaper can lift text from the body of your SMPR, the evening news (or increasingly popular online TV) can grab and embed a video clip, a radio station can play a sound bite straight from the website, and a blogger can retweet whatever piece of information strikes her fancy.

What service do you recommend for the press release distribution? Any particular reason why you chose Pitchengine?

We chose PitchEngine for a few reasons. First, we liked the template. It was user-friendly both for us and for those to whom we’ve sent it. It was easy to upload video and photos. Essentially, It provides users access to more of the newsroom, not just the release. We’ve received great feedback so far, though I imagine some of that is the novelty (for most people). PitchEngine is also free.

Our goal is to encourage clients to host their own SMPRs as extensions of their own sites. Because that’s all they really are — web pages. Self-hosting has several benefits:

-    The SMPR will carry your own URL, which is better for SEO.
-    The template will be consistent with the rest of your site, which is better for branding.
-    You don’t make users go from (for example) an email with a traditional press release… to the PitchEngine site to view an enhanced, media-rich version (the SMPR)… to your site to access more resources. Every click you require is another hurdle which may prompt readers to go somewhere else.

Is there a way to calculate click-throughs or views of the social media elements?

PitchEngine has a page view counter. Unfortunately, it does not have individual analytics for all the various elements. Of course, if you send out the SMPR, and the videos which you host elsewhere suddenly see a spike in traffic, then it’s a safe bet that the SMPR had something to do with it.

To measure click-throughs — you could use a URL shortener such as bit.ly to measure which links are most popular (although that adds extra steps to setting up the page). As for the Twitter pitch, you can always search to see who Tweeted it. And by substituting your own URL shortener for the one PitchEngine automatically inserts, you can also track how many people found your SMPR through the Twitter pitch.

How could one measure the success of a SMPR?

I’d measure the success of an SMPR in these ways:
1.    How many people read it (or at least loaded the page)?
2.    How many click-throughs?
3.    How many retweets?
4.    But most importantly: Did the SMPR help you reach whatever strategic goal you (hopefully) established at the outset? Did you recruit more members? Raise more money? Get more exposure for our advertisers? Did you engage more people in your project?
In the end, the point is not simply to play all the SMPR’s bells & whistles. The point is to communicate more effectively, and achieve your long-term goals.

Anything else you want to add?

I’d reiterate the point I made earlier: SMPRs are very much a work in progress. And since most media on line is already “social,”  they may not be called SMPRs for much longer. Companies like PitchEngine will have to evolve from their current form, mostly because their value-added — a nicely designed template hosted on their servers— will soon be easy for people to configure and host on their own.

Remember the movie called Spellbound? Not the Hitchcock film, but the 2002 documentary about the National Spelling Bee. What was impressive was the filmmaker, who used relatively inexpensive video equipment (a few cameras and a Mac workstation) to produce a feature film that went into theatrical release. And he financed it (mostly) by maxing out his credit cards.

What’s the connection to SMPRs? The tools at his — and our — disposal seem to be multiplying every day. Countless new ways to communicate… new platforms… new formats… it’s dizzying, really. But pretty cool, too.

It’s as if we’re all painters, and we’ve suddenly been given a whole new spectrum of colors. But the challenge remains the same: What are we trying to communicate? What’s worth sharing? What’s your story?

Toby Dershowitz is President of The Dershowitz Group. She is the author of two “how to” manuals dealing with the press entitled “Communicating with the Media” and “Making Your Mark on the Media” and has worked for more than 25 years in Washington on domestic and foreign policy issues.  The Dershowitz Group specializes in high-end strategic communications, imaginative media and public affairs consulting, legislative strategy, crisis preparedness, policy initiatives and diplomatic event management. They are located in Washington, D.C.

Yesterday Molly Livingstone of Hebrew University and myself presented at the 140 Conference in Tel Aviv. (Disclaimer: Hebrew University is a client of mine.) Currently, the university maintains two Twitter accounts, @HebrewU (English) and @HebrewU_heb (Hebrew) with over 2,000 followers. Additionally, they have a Facebook Page with over 7,500 fans, and an educational YouTube channel with 740 subscribers. We’ve all learned a lot in a year. At the conference, Molly and I discussed lessons learned, the challenges of working within an established institution, the importance of social media cheerleaders, and what has succeeded. I thought I’d share some of them with you:

1. Cross-departmental teams more than double the assets

Hebrew University put together a cross-departmental team to implement its social media that is able to access language, culture, and departments throughout the University. The team itself consists of two staff from the Media Relations and two from the Development department. Between them, there are two native English speakers, two native Hebrew speakers, two native-born Israelis, one native-born American, and one is a native-born British citizen.The team represents the largest majority of the university’s target audiences, as well as language and cultural diversity.

Most importantly, the their combined reach includes the Spokesperson’s office (and therefore the Office of the President), the alumni department, multimedia (who controls the YouTube channel), the development department, the Friends of Hebrew University associations (over a dozen worldwide), and media relations. Over the past year, the social media team has needed all of these resources at some point to support, amplify and assist in the social media efforts.

2. Social Media Cheerleaders are vital to success

When working with a large institution, it is fair to say that not everyone thought social media was a worthwhile effort in the beginning. Largely in part to a small group of social media cheerleaders within one of the departments, social media came into being. An initial “social media trial run” of three months expanded into six, then a year. Now social media is regarded as a worthwhile financial and resource investment. It would not have been possible without a few people within the institution pitching it and believing that social media is important to the university’s success.

3. Determine the communications theme and stay on message, on every platform

We determined early on that these are the primary messaging themes: put a personal face on the university, promote it as a world-class institution, and emphasize its strength in research and innovation breakthroughs. The team ran monthly twitter chats about an interesting facet of the campus to put that personal face on the institution. They still use Twitter to respond personally to people talking online about the university, engage, and talk about the scientific breakthroughs and research that come out of the university.

On Facebook, the university hosts a monthly “Expert on the Spot” video Q&A with a researcher or scientist. The Expert on the Spot features an expert talking about his/her research and inviting questions about it. This accomplishes two things: it is a means for the university to engage personally, and it highlights the innovation happening on campus.