I was struck by this article that the brand itself is the second-most trusted source for information about a brand on a social networking site. Wow. Does that strike you as wild?

It does…and it doesn’t. While we know that, foremost, consumers trust online peers’ recommendations about brands and products (second only to friends and family), what strikes me about these survey results is the proven value of social media. Social network activities by an organization – when implemented well – create trust, enthusiasm, and credibility. That can translate into moving fans to action. That’s ROI.

While most brands initially hopped onto the social media bandwagon to generate sales, enough companies are communicating effectively and passionately using social media that they are creating a credibility scale for others to meet. You know who I’m talking about – the brands that are genuine, real connectors with stakeholders, and are transparent. These are the brands at the top of the credibility scale, and the ones that are still in it for a quick customer are at the bottom.

A report by Lightspeed Research about what US consumers want from brands online states that the top demand is “to improve their knowledge.” Specifically, consumers want brands to offer relevant news and analysis, new ideas and thinking, useful applications that consumers can download, and to create a space where consumers can interact directly with the company or staff. This type of content moves a company way up on the credibility scale.

Brand consumers want real value from social media, and real conversation.

This is what puts a brand or organization at the top of the credibility scale.

I imagine the credibility scale to look something like this (comments and improvements welcome!):

Nonprofit organizations: social network users are definitely looking to you for credible information about your organization and the cause. And they want to connect with your staff in an online space, in a real way. How can you reach the top of the credibility scale?

Here are a few ideas for nonprofits reaching for the top of the scale:

• More transparency about the successes, failure/challenges, and realities of the organization. Fans are looking to you for the real deal. Give it to them.
• Integrate more stakeholder content into the website, and the social media. Is there a way to vote or “thumb up” content? How can you use social voting to show how popular a concept or campaign is? How can you better integrate your social fans’ thoughts into your online spaces?
• Stream into the website how social media fans are referencing your work: create a social bookmarking feed of stakeholder-tagged content about organization, create a scroll of your tweets, showcase a Q&A on the website that comes directly from fan interaction on the social sites.
• Double-up your efforts to connect online with your fans: spend more time chatting with them, listening to them, and offering value to them.
• Ensure that the content you offer has value to your stakeholders, as mentioned above. Don’t think “here’s an article about what we just did.” Think “here’s an article about what we did, but we want to know how to improve it to better serve you.”
• Offer added value in the online spaces that you don’t offer elsewhere. Great examples: Seafood Watch offers added value with its iPhone app, BullyingUK displays user-created posters on Flickr, and Epic Change highlights the Twitter Kids’ tweetstream.

If there is an argument for social media improving brand credibility, which is a great ROI, then these survey results seem to verify to be the argument. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the brand credibility scale, and social network brand credibility in general.

Have you ever received this Linkedin invitation?

I receive about three of these a week. I do not know the person requesting, I’ve never met him or her, and I’ve never had an interaction with him or her in a Linkedin Group. In short, I have no idea why this person wants to connect with me. This is truly a terrible way to approach me.

Social networking is about leveraging connections, and the stronger the connection, the higher the ability to leverage it.

This is especially true with Linkedin. If I want to connect, I’ll need more information from you.

Here is a typical response: (note: my responses are never rote; I often will personalize the response after looking at a profile.)

Then I wait. If this person fails to answer my questions, I don’t connect. Why?

• I want my Linkedin connections to count - I want to know what value they can offer me, and what value I can offer to them. I am not just a number, and and neither are my Linkedin connections to me.
• I can’t effectively leverage this connection. How can he or she possibly make an effective introduction for me? And vice versa?
• I don’t know why the individual wants to connect. Perhaps he has an ultimate reason for connection? (And wouldn’t it be helpful to know what that is?)

You can use social networks to connect to potential customers, donors, stakeholders, foundations, consultants and employees. But you have to do it right.

Chris Brogan wrote a blog post about how to reach out to bloggers. His advice is just as relevant for any of the modern day “cold calling” requests to connect with strangers on social networks. I highly recommend reading it. I can summarize my thoughts: Tell me why. That’s all I ask. Why do you want to connect? How can we help each other? Where is the potential return? Why would we both benefit? Make it personal.

What do you think about “cold calling” on Linkedin, or any other social network? How do you respond?

Nonprofit organizations need to raise funds constantly. Fact. They also have programs, mission and special activities that must be funded. Fact. There’s all this trendy talk about leveraging social media to raise money – and the question I get asked most often is

When does social media lead to more money?

That’s not the right question. The right question is:

When does engagement lead to more money?

Annual reports do not create a relationship. Email updates do not create a relationship. Alerts do not create a relationship. These are all examples of one-way communication. Relationships are about two-way communication.

I’ve also seen a lot of nonprofit organizations using social media fail to create relationships using these tools. Automatically feeding blog posts through a twitter feed does not create a relationship. Using your organization’s official icon and not associating a person’s name (in either the description or title) to the twitter account cuts short the possibility of a relationship. Publishing a blog but not commenting on other blogs or responding to comments on your blog…does not create a relationship. Consistent Facebook wall posts that do not engage or ask questions…stop conversation.

These methods of using social media are, quite honestly, no better than the old newsletter and annual report. If you are going to commit time and energy to social media, pick one or two platforms that make sense for your organization and act as if you want to meet people and learn from them. They want to talk to you, and you should want to listen to them. That’s why your fans and followers online are following your organization, after all. So talk. Yes, publish your newsy updates, but ask questions and listen…learn…engage…and respond.

Engagement leads to donations – really, it does – but you have to put the time into creating the relationship first. Or re-creating the relationship with your stakeholders. Social media is a great tool for doing this, as social media tools are merely platforms for creating conversation.

When you are listening, responding, and engaging –

then asking for money to support this great relationship is a natural extension of the conversation.

What if organizations took the time to create meaningful, strategic taglines?  Taglines help your organization clearly communicate its strategic goals, and if used properly, should inform all communications. A tagline is the clear, distilled mission: of the organization, or of a position within the organization.

Are taglines a replacement for who you are and your company’s mission statement? No. But, in this day and age of Facebook status updates, “what are you doing” Twitter updates and social networks, a tagline is the quick informational message about your company. A tagline is the shout out for what your company can do for others. It’s the “micro-mission,” if you will.

Can you translate your company’s tagline into short, powerful status updates that move your organization closer to its goals?

Taking this a step forward, why shouldn’t we think of status updates on our social media sites as a version of the tagline, but related to the immediate matter at hand. For instance, if your organization’s tagline is “Addiction can be overcome, one person at a time,” then a status update on Facebook might say “another person has joined our campaign to eradicate additctions!” or tweet “Good link to study about causes of addiction.”

Status Updates are not just throwaways. They are your strategic messages, in 140 characters or less.

Nancy Schwartz, host of the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards writes: “a strong tagline does double-duty — working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base.” She invites nonprofit organizations to submit their organization’s taglines in a competition each year. The 2008 GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations do not have a tagline, or believe that their tagline performs badly.  Based on this information, she created the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Report to help nonprofits build their brand in “eight words or less.”

Why write “we do good things” or “our 25th anniversary year” on your website, name tag or blog headline? Does it move your strategy forward? Does it engage? Does it move people to act?

Taking this idea one step further, the personal tagline is also important.  It’s the “micro-mission” of each employee at your agency. When employees (or volunteers) attend an event, update social media sites or write a blog post, they should be thinking about their personal taglines – it focuses the conversation online and offline. At the Breakfast with Jeff Pulver that I attended yesterday in Tel Aviv, Jeff asked everyone to write their name on a name tag and add a personal tagline underneath it. Some taglines were great (“Everyone Needs an Editor”) and some were…not very compelling (“I Love Games.”) A tagline is more than a conversation starter; people will glance at a tagline and decide if they want to speak with you or not. Or possibly read your blog. Or interact with your organization. You have eight words to get your message across convincingly.

I’m not saying that every single status update, tweet and microblog update has to be strategic and goal-oriented. Remembering your company’s mission can and should inform your status updates – and help you get the most out of all of the 140 characters allotted. Remembering your personal tagline can and should make your networking more strategic and informative.

Thoughts?

Image by luc legay

I’m live blogging the Affilicon Israel 2009 session entitled “Social Media Strategies.”

The first speaker is Sam Goldfarb of TradiMax. His company specializes in Facebook marketing.

Facebook Facts: users upload 850 mil. photos/mo, over 200 million users, and FB spends $25 mil yearly on server space, 50% of users are over 30 years of age, big companies are using FB. The number one brand? Barack Obama. An older brand, Coca Cola, is #6.

Mentions that there will soon be a payment system on Facebook – it’s social, and not yet public. When you buy something on FB, your friends will be notified. He tentatively is calling is “social PayPal.” (My note: Can you turn off the social sharing part?)

Second speaker: Miriam Schwab, Illuminea, speaking about Five Things Social Media is NOT.

1. It is not a ticket to millions of leads. Example: Twitter has 32.1 million users now (up from 1 million a year ago). If you are on Twitter you do NOT have a “direct line” to everyone. Ashton Kutcher, the most popular user, has only 1.9 million users. You have to compete for interest on Twitter and you have to connect, and compete for attention.

2. It is not for everyone. For example, if you are trying to market to other Middle Eastern countries besides Israel, Internet penetration is very low. You have to know where people are online, and if they are online at all.

3. It is not free. Not really. Time is money and it takes a lot of time to create, promote and respond to content.

4. It is not the “end of the road.” Geocities used to the hottest thing. (Lycos used to be the hottest search engines!) Facebook just surpassed MySpace. The web is fleeting and changing.

5. It is not enough on its own. Example – Skittles has a website that is only embedded social media sites. Skittles video goes to YouTube. Skittles chatter goes directly to twitter comments. Does it help them achieve their goal.

Third speaker: Oren Todoros, HYPick. Video blogger. Speaking about the Social Marketing Arsenal.

Can a brand be social? Yes. Example: WD40 brand has its own Ning community at we40uses.com where people upload lots of photos and discuss the brand.

You should do what you love – anyone can use social media well talking about what they love.  Gary Vaynerchuck (wine review blog) speaks about wine on video daily. iJustine a.k.a. Justine Ezarik is a freelance graphic/web designer and video editor, who became the AT&T spokesperson. Locals that leverage new media: Kfir Pravda (Pravdam.com), Hillel Fuld (technmarketing.com), Ayelet Noff (blonde2dot0.com) and Ezra Butler (1938 media.com) – they all do what they love and do it on social media.

New Media Methods:

1. Guy Kawasaki Approach: accumulate as many followers as possible while being nice enough not to be a spammer.

2. Targeted Approach: follow who you want, targeted approach, become an industry leader.

If on Twitter:

Use Ping.com to simultaneously post to many site, use wefollow.com to find followers, tweetlater.com to time tweets later, or tubemogul.com to upload a video once and it broadcasts to all video tube sites.

How to track the conversation?

1. Use Friendfeed.com to build a customized content feed based on your friends

2. Google Blog Search/Google Alerts – search Blogosphere

3. Boardtracker.com – what people are talking about on message boards.

Social media is SOCIAL and NOT Sales. Learn from others, socialize with your base, get involved in other blogs and sites with comments, and don’t forget You Tube is a very large search engine.

Predicted (by Oren Todoros) Up and Coming Social Networks:

1. Multiply.com: focus on sharing media

2. Blip.fm – music sharing

3. Qik.com – life casting/video streaming

4. Seesmic.com – video based discussion

5. HYPick.com (Oren’s network)

Own your Brand- search on namechk and take it on all the sites.

Other panelist: Arik Czerniak, Entrepreneur, former CEO of Metacafe, who added value to the panel discussion.

The Future of Social Media Predictions: next stage is aggregating activity into one place.Google Wave is also considered to be the next stage – it is an email updating/embedding and conversation tool for sending/receiving email in real time. Google Wave is still in demo.

Facebook Causes is one of those conundrums in the nonprofit world – it seems like a perfectly wonderful tool for gaining attention for a cause, but there are significant barriers to adopting Causes as an online giving mechanism. It may appear to be a good solution for the nonprofit seeking new revenue streams: Give! Where you already spend time online! Easily! It’s viral! – but very few organizations have figured out how to translate this idea into any type of reliable or significant source of revenues. I attended two workshops at NTEN’s annual Nonprofit Technology Conference that addressed Facebook Causes and offered statistics, best practices and guidance. (I’ll save summaries from those sessions for another blog post.)

However, what arose out of those sessions was this concept:

Facebook users are not used to giving money on-site; in fact, it’s not how they use the site. Yet. Facebook users are going to a party, not a fundraisng house party.

Think about it: when you are visiting Facebook online, do you also think, “I’m on Facebook and I’m ready to also give some money while I’m here…socializing?” Not really. That’s what you do at a fundrasing house party, and not at a social event.

Here is how most people use social networks:

I don’t see “giving money” on the list. However, “organize with others for an event, issue or cause” is listed. Facebook seems ideal for communicating ideas.

Maybe donating money within a social network is closer in nature to clicking on an ad? The habits of social network users are one obstacle. According to emarketer, “In 2008, IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, a dramatic difference from the 80% of other Internet users who did so at least once a year. Further, 23% of nonusers who clicked on an ad then made a purchase; only 11% of social network users who clicked on ads did the same.”   When people click on ads, they are interested in making a purchase, or thinking about making a purchase. When people on social networks click on a Facebook Cause, they may be interested in supporting the cause (possibly the 43% cited in the Pew Internet study), but not making a donation (purchase) to the cause.

According to the session that I attended at NTEN, “Valuing Online Fundraising,” only two nonprofits have raised more than $100,000 through Causes.  Fewer than 50 nonprofits have raisde more than $10,000. However, from 2007 to 2008, the average average amount donated per cause has increased from $31.25 to $41. According to the Causes developer’s page, the average donation is now $45.52, and there are 155,000 Causes listed (for 32,000 unique non-profits). According to this article by Allison Fine, only about 8,000 of those Causes have also created a Network for Good fundraising dashboard to raises money for the Cause. If you take that into account, then the average donation per organization with a Network for Good dashboard is closer to $930.That shows some signs of improvement. Which organizations have raised the most? Both the Nature Conservancy and Students for a Free Tibet have raised over $100,000, and Save Darfur has raised about $80,000.

I don’t think any organization should give up on Causes, nor any other social network-based fundraising efforts. It’s just that people are socializing on social networks. They are meeting up with friends and chatting at virtual events or parties online. They are even making people aware of causes by organizing for a cause (see chart above). They aren’t, in large part, raising funds on social networks. Raising funds through social networking is the future – but the Causes application is in no way the “fundraising house party” widget that it needs be to raise awareness and funds.

And maybe that is the issue. Perhaps Causes should to divide itself into an awareness application and a fundraising application. The expectations are just too high on the part of the nonprofits -  that awareness passed along easily through social networks will translate into donations. This is the same translation challenge on every medium- from email fundraising to offline event organizing. The difference is that when a nonprofit supporter receives an email from a nonprofit, that person is now acculturated to expecting a donation request.

According to Facebook Causes, “a cause is an online campaign for collective action that can be started by any Facebook user. The creator of a cause can champion any issue…like ‘Support the Berkeley Y.M.C.A.’ The cause creator conveys the primary goal of the cause in the title they choose and the various fields they can fill out to describe the cause.” The offline equivalent would be asking people to take action, such as signing a petition or making a phone call. It’s different than asking people directly to give money.

I know the argument: engagement leads to donations. That is a true fact. What I’m arguing is: the expectation is that if one joins a Facebook Cause, the money will follow. This has more to do with how people want to use social networks than whether or not Causes can raise money. Engage with your supports on social networks – it will lead to donations. But right now, those donations are happening where donors are used to donating: from their checkbook, or when led to donate on a website.

adoption barriers, people have to first change their patterns of online behavior. If your organization isn’t currently trying to raise money through Causes or any other social network fundraising application, it is missing an opportunity. Two years from now, I predict that online behavior will again have shifted and that social network users will become accustomed to donating through social networks. Early adopters will be at an advantage in two years’ time. They will be the ones that understand best how to utilize Causes to create large fan bases and raise funds…by the time their fans are ready to give regularly online.

It’s just a waiting game now.

image by kopp0041

How do you drive traffic to your Facebook page, You Tube video, blog or other social network site? New February data released by Hitwise Intelligence, a web measurement company, reveals that Twitter drove one in five visitors from Twitter to social networks. That’s impressive.

However, if you compare that with how the search engines drive traffic to your social network site, the information is even more impressive:

Twitter drives more people directly to social networking sites than the search engines

Concretely, Twitter drives 20% of its visitors from its site to social networks. (This is called “downstream clicks.”)  The search engines drive less than 10% of downstream clicks to social networks. And to which social networks does Twitter drive the most traffic? Facebook, followed by MySpace, Twitter Search and You Tube.

But let’s not forget blogs, either. Twitter drove visitors to blogs and personal websites a little more than 7% of the time, which is not insignificant. Hitwise’s clickstream data shows that Twitter drives a much higher percentage of downstream clicks to blogs/personal websites than either search engines or email services. The chart below compares downstream visits from Twitter, Google, Social Networks and Email Services.

image from Hitwise Intelligence

What does that mean to you now?

• If you have a social network profile and activity (on Facebook, My Space, You Tube, Flickr, Twitter, Orkut, Slideshare, etc), you should be on Twitter. The Hitwise analysis shows that Twitter users are more likely to drive traffic to your social network sites than either Google or email services.

• Search engine optimization is important, but so is Twitter optimization. What is “Twitter optimization”? Making your Twitter profile and usage as interesting and relevant as possible to drive traffic back to you and your business or organization. This means a good Twitter background, a photo, an interesting and catchy bio, a good link to an appropriate landing page of your website, and open settings which allow anyone to follow and contact you.  However, it also means utilizing Twitter strategically to drive traffic back to your networks, website and blog. (And yes, I know, I’m looking for an interesting Twitter background now.)

• Make sure that your social network profiles and blog also include Twitter contact information. If you have a profile on a lifestreaming site such as Friendfeed or Brightkite, you should have a Twitter tweet stream there. If you have  blog or website, you should display your “follow me” Twitter button on the front page. Don’t forget all the others, too.

• Twitter users are very prone to look at another Twitterer’s post/profile/picture, so utilize Twitter self-referencing to achieve your goals. A lot of Twitter downstream clicks are to Twitter itself or the Twitter-related picture site, Twitpic.  (Twitpic was the third most popular downstream click, and Twitter Search was the fifth.) Take advantage of this knowledge:  create interest by posting your latest event photos on Twitpic and your blog, encourage your organization’s followers to search for and follow each other, refer to other Twitter users that have great info for your followers.  Don’t forget to tweet your blog posts periodically, too. These strategies will strengthen your brand and public awareness.

When I look at the incoming clicks to my blog, at least half are from Twitter. The Hitwise analysis rings true in my case, and is prompting me to reconsider how I use Twitter.

How has this information changed the way you think about Twitter and traffic? I’d love to hear your thoughts (and tweets)!

photo courtesy of fooferkitten, Flickr

The kitchen is the social hub of the home, and the epicenter of important family decisions. When I was a community organizer, I would knock on doors and ask people if they had a minute to talk. I knew I caught their interest when they invited me into their kitchen. If they offered me something to drink, I was even happier, because that meant that they had time for a real discussion. My goals, in order, were to get invited in, get into the kitchen, get a cup of coffee, get them to engage meaningfully, get them to join the organization. Once I was in the kitchen, usually everything else followed.

The questions I’ve been asking myself lately is:

Where is the virtual kitchen? Where do online stakeholders hang out socially?

Time, I believe, is the key metric to use when seeking the “kitchen.”  Social networks, I believe are the kitchens: they are the social hub of the internet, and  where people get information they trust to make important decisions. Therefore, I think of the metric thus: time spent on social networks overlaid with demographic information about each network.

The chart below, compiled by Hitwise, offers fairly recent information on US trend. A good comparison to this would be the slide show offered here, using ComScore statistics, that analyzes time spent on the top ten social networks from July 2006 to July 2007.

If I were developing a communications strategy, I would cross-reference my target populations’ demographics with analysis of time spent on social networking sites.

For example, if my organization were running a youth group, we would be interested in MySpace, YouTube, PhotoBucket, and Facebook. However, if we were interested in asking Baby Boomers to advocate for legislation, then we would most likely connect with them through a friend-finding site like Classmates.com or a professional network like LinkedIn. This chart compiled by Rapleaf is a great resource for identifying the age and gender of social network users.

When you want to find your stakeholders, and really engage, you want to be in their kitchen, the virtual portal where they spend the most time. You want to be in the place where they are spending their time socially online, sipping their cups of coffee. Hopefully, this post helps your organization find your stakeholders’ kitchens. Enjoy the coffee!

Enjoy the Coffee! (photo by Jones G Gallery)

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Why do people go to parties? They are invited, of course!

A simple question, and one that has implications for organizing your online community.

Parties are places where you expect

• to meet up with friends and acquaintances
• to meet new people with whom you might have something in common
• to enjoy yourself
• to have a new experience

If you’re invited to a party by a friend, and you’re free, you might go. Same with online communities. Your organization has friends, and they might want to be at the party!  Everytime you meet someone, whether online or in person, invite them to your online party.  Wouldn’t you like to hear form your friends “I’m going to be out tonight at this great party. Want to come? “  That’s how you get your party started. It’s basic community organizing, and it works.

In the US, the leading social networking sites are (in order): MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.com, and LinkedIn. Together, these four sites are the major social sites on the web, according to a 2008 survey by Rubicon Consulting, Inc.  What do these sites have in common? They are large online parties with primarily social functions.

A community organizer’s job is to encourage friends to join. People join because their friends do, and they want to share expereinces. In the “old days” we called this “relationship organizing.” This meant that we organized communities based on finding leaders and their friends, and their friends, and so on. It worked in the community, and the growth of social sites proves that it works online. Relationship organizing is social networking.

Further, according to the study:

“most adults will approve someone as a friend on a social site only if they already know them. Many teens will approve someone as a friend as long as they have even a vague idea of who they are. This means the two groups use the friends list in different ways. To adults, the friends list confirms relationships that they already have elsewhere. To teens, the friends list is an entry point for a relationship.”

As a non-profit manager, it is important to be aware of how your members will view invitations to your party. The online student coalition at a local college, for example, will grow dramatically because its adopters tend to accept invitations casually. However, the online professional networking community in a US suburb will grow slowly until enough connected networkers invite others to join them. You have to know the community you are organizing, and decide your strategies based on how willing they are to join social sites and networks.

Now, time to get your party started…and let me know all about it!

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