social media

Integrating Social Media and Advocacy

Several months ago I attended a social media conference. One of the sessions focused on integrating social media into an organization’s advocacy strategy.

Dionna Humphrey, senior online strategist for Greenpeace USA, shared that social media can help push the message to a wider audience. “It has the power to take leg and take off,” she said.

Ken breaks up with Barbie because of her role with deforestation. (Photo by Cynthia Price)

Greenpeace created a campaign targeting Mattel because the packaging for toys was from Indonesia’s rainforests. Its campaign created greater visibility and additional pressure on Mattel.

In the campaign, which played on social media platforms, Ken breaks up with Barbie. @Ken_Talks: “Barbie, it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into #deforestation.”

Humphrey said that the hashtags start a buzz with followers and allows a company to track conversations. When possible, tell followers about hashtags ahead of time, which will make it easier to follow and engage in the conversation. To determine if the hashtags are relevant, you can check on search.twitter.com.

Not everyone in the audience, though, was a fan of how Greenpeace targeted Mattel. Tweeted Geoff Livingston of Zoetica: “Not sure I like the ethics of Greenpeace stalking Mattel Facebook fans with green messages.”

Wendy Harman of the Red Cross cautioned about such public tactics. “It’s just so easy for that tactic to strike right back.”

Such campaigns work when there is a “crisitunity,” or a situation that is both a crisis and an opportunity. Humphrey said it worked because all the members on the social media platforms can become ambassadors.

In part, because of the social media campaign, Mattel has instructed its suppliers to avoid wood fiber from controversial sources, including companies that are known to be involved in deforestation.

“This is really the kind of power that you have,” Humphrey said.

Pinterest Lets You Share the Things You Love

Do you remember having a bulletin board? It was a great way to post photos, reminders and mementos. But, unless someone was in the room with you, you couldn’t share your interests with your friends. Now you can, thanks to Pinterest, a virtual pinboard to organize and share the things you love.

Users must request an invitation to Pinterest, which usually takes a few days. Once you have a Pinterest account, you can create your own pinboards and repin from others. You download a toolbar that can be used to pin items from any website. The photo and information then appear on your Pinterest board, and users who follow you can see your collection of photos and even re-pin them if they like them.

The best part is that you can have multiple boards. One of my friends has a board that she uses to track books she wants to read. It’s helpful because others will share what they thought of the book. You can save your favorite recipes or restaurants. You can plan a wedding or restore your home.

At my company we’re using it as an interactive scrapbook to visually depict our mission. You may want to use it to share products. It’s also great for driving traffic to your blog.

Although Pinterest has been around for a year or two, it has become the social media network to watch after growing more than 4,000 percent in the last six months. It now ranks behind Facebook and Tumblr in terms of engagement.

What will you pin?

3 Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

The other evening I was approving members for the NFPW group on LinkedIn and deleting some individuals who are not members of NFPW. The NFPW LinkedIn group is a closed group, meaning it is open only to members of NFPW.

For a communications group that seems a bit odd, but we had to do it because we were receiving so many solicitations. Many of the conversations had nothing to do with communications and the mission of NFPW.

I realized as I was checking names that it would be helpful if members included a profile picture. I may not have had conversations with everyone I come in contact with at national conferences, but I do have a good memory for faces. Also, because it’s a professional site, I’m left wondering why a person doesn’t want their photo included.

That led me to think what else you can do to improve your profile.

Post at least once a month. Speaking of conversation, I often hear, “I don’t have time to be on LinkedIn every day. It’s hard enough being on Facebook.” No one is saying you have to update every day on LinkedIn. Providing an update every few weeks is good because when you update your profile, an update is shared with everyone in your network. It’s a good way to get yourself noticed. If you blog or tweet, use a widget to automatically pull in your posts or tweets so others can see what you are saying.

Explain what you do. When you share your career highlights, provide more than your job title. As with any resume, you want to describe your role and explain how you helped your organization. This will help set you apart with all the other members who have the job title of “reporter” or “communications specialist,” for example.

Grow your connections. Each time someone hands you a business card, update your LinkedIn connections by adding that person. It’s an easy way to keep up with your contacts. Once you have several connections, join LinkedIn groups, including NFPW. It’s a simple way to meet other relevant contacts.

Who are you going to link with today?

Trial by Tweet: Enhancing the Image of Virginia Wine

We all know social media is a viral, but if you are marketing a product you should not “discount the value of the tangibles in a virtual world.”

That’s according to Annette Boyd, director of the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office, who shared her experiences with enhancing the image of Virginia wine through social media to PR practitioners.

“Wine is very personal,” Annette told the group. “You make the product come to life.” She said it’s about tasting it, seeing it and smelling it. (To reinforce that, wine was served during the talk.)

Twitter was chosen as the platform to communicate about the Virginia wine industry because it’s for “people you want to know” as opposed to Facebook, which Annette said is for “talking to people you already know.”

Her team had to get up to speed on using Twitter, but also had to initiate Virginia wineries into its use, including registering their handles even if they weren’t ready to embark on Twitter.

The first Twitter event was for media wine bloggers in 2009. It was used to kick off Virginia Wine Month in October. Bloggers were invited as well as consumers, but the only way a consumer was invited was to tweet to get an invitation. From that one event, 600 tweets went out about Virginia Wine Month with a potential of 48,000 impressions.

“It really got us engaged with Twitter for the first time,” Annette said.

The event also was successful in terms of sales. The Virginia Wine Board reported an increase of 11 percent in sales that month.

Virginia decided to vie to host the Wine Bloggers Conference in 2011. When it was announced in California that Virginia had won, there were groans, Annette said. But Virginia knew the conference would succeed because of the strong partnerships throughout the state, including with the Virginia Tourism Board and the state wineries.

To increase enthusiasm for the conference four virtual wine tastings were held via blogging and Twitter. The conference itself featured seven mystery tours giving bloggers a taste of Virginia wineries and a firsthand look at the region’s wineries. Forty-seven wineries participated.

The conference sold out and included attendees from around the U.S. Of the 335 participants 30 percent were from California and 23 percent from Virginia. Of the 129 blogs written 61 percent were positive and 4 percent were negative, mostly about the change in venue. There were more than 15,000 tweets leadings to 43.5 million potential impressions.

The Virginia Wine industry is a good example of embracing social media while not discounting the tangible. Do any of you have other examples of such success?

Blogs and Building Communities

Editor’s Note: I recently attended WordCamp Richmond, which was all about blogging using WordPress. I learned a lot, felt overwhelmed at times and was inspired to write several blogs. This is the final one. Part 1 focused on whether to start a blog and Part 2 focused on blog comments.

“We have a lot to talk about” was the refrain of several bloggers who write about their communities, whether it’s a neighborhood or a community built around the theater.

During the recent WordCamp Richmond several bloggers shared their experiences in keeping a community blog going.

Scott Berger writes about a small neighborhood in Richmond, Va., known as Oregon Hill. It’s near a major university, which has eroded some of the neighborhood’s character. He wanted to write about the community because “it’s such a great neighborhood.”

He also wanted to bring neighborhood concerns out in the open because “We weren’t getting through to the mainstream press. They weren’t really giving our viewpoint.”

John Murden also lives in a unique neighborhood in Richmond, known as Church Hill. “It’s a crazier neighborhood than I ever have lived in,” he told the audience. He cited the beautiful old houses and the hookers near his house. He started finding things that were important to the neighborhood such as historic preservation and the blog Church Hill People’s News was born.

Mike Clark and his wife created a blog around theater reviews, ShowBizRadio. “Our review was the two of us talking about the show and recording it and putting it up as a podcast,” he said. They added interviews with actors, producers and designers. Then they added a calendar with show times and audition dates. They started hiring writers. “Now we go to less shows, but have more content,” Mike said.

Scott says he tries to recognize the journalistic venture in his blog, but he also includes his opinions. And because he’s covering a small neighborhood, he has to be respectful of people’s privacy. He finds comments by listening, attending meetings and also checking out Craig’s List and foreclosures. A recent post highlighted a vintage 1950s blue vinyl chair and ottoman for sale. He then reminded the neighbors about an upcoming flea market.

John, too, pulls from wherever he can. “The best is when I do my own reporting,” he noted. One piece he was proud of was comparing crime data from the worst crime year to the present. It took a lot of time, and that, said the panelists was the difficult part. The blogs are not a full-time job for them and most don’t get paid. “It’s hard to find the time,” John said.

Added Scott, “ It’s a matter of time and energy.”

He’s had readers complain about his photography, but he has to laugh. He said he often takes the photos using his cell phone when he’s walking two dogs around the block. “They’re not going to be the best photos!”

They all agree that they need to find others to help with the blogs. Said Mike, “The site is not evergreen so if I don’t post something new within a few weeks, the site is dead.”

They keep doing it, though, because it helps their communities. Said Scott, “Sometimes people don’t always know what’s going on in the next block. Let’s get together and figure out what’s going on and how we can address it.”

John said letting neighbors know about meetings led to the formation of a dog park in his community. And he helped get the word out about neighborhood clean-ups. “Here’s how you can make a real difference in our neighborhood in a couple of hours.”