Post on 10-May-2015
description
18/02/2010
@stevebridger
#freshnetworks
Putting your people at the heart of your social media strategy
@stevebridger
I help charities unlearn stuff and trust more of their own
people to build relationships online that support collaboration,
transparency, advocacy & philanthropy
@stevebridger
This is the brief story of a fictional* not-for-profit in a time of accelerating turbulence
* any resemblance to your own organisation is purely coincidental
Our story begins as the boundaries of traditional charities were under assault by new patterns of communication and association...
from the 19th century
Until now our charity had control
events
website
aged 54.5
the BRAND
closed
...in the 20th century, donors remained donors
...and everyone knew their place in the hierarchy
@stevebridger
But it was becoming more difficult to reach people with a message that was not carried by their own networks
me
your website
family
plotting
@stevebridger
They had seen the water buffalo movie and participated in flashmobs. It had registered that the web did not like ‘middlemen’ that much, and that they were standing in the middle
beneficiary donorcharity
enabled by tech
@stevebridger
The web of ‘flow’ and ‘instant’ campaigns
The web of ‘pages’ and top-down campaigns
They decided to reach out to people in a way that wasn’t just marketing
@stevebridger
me
your website
family
plotting
They began to catch people ‘in motion’ - when they were ‘goal orientated’
50% more ‘user-generated’ events in 2009
compared to 2008
my cause
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulgi/280789933/
They grew bigger ears and listened to what communities were saying and doing
@stevebridger
Then some people realised that all the new stuff* was also disruptive and transformative inside the
organisation
* let’s call it ‘social media’
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not
understanding it”Upton Sinclair
@stevebridger
but some key people also resisted...
and even wanted to lock everything
down & increase brand control
@stevebridger
Leaders were persuaded that it was still all about relationships and they saw mass participation as an
opportunity to create value, rather than a threat to their own existence
...and if you ban Twitter or Facebook
you shut off the ability to make new
connections
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edublogger/715455592/
and that they wanted to sustain these
conversations
@stevebridger
...by thickening the texture of these relationships over time through letting go
texture
They heard about Zappos.com (among others) distributing trust
@stevebridger
...and how even accountants can tweet
@stevebridger
only 29% of companies have a social media policy
Still the legal people had mixed feelings about this...
...so they adopted some
guidelines
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkonig/385851325/
@stevebridger
...but by treating social media as just another channel, they created a
bottleneck as communication funnelled via a handful of staff
welcome to
the real time
web
beware unrequited love
@stevebridger
They had made social media just another silo
@stevebridger
trust the hiring
decision
“...eventually every member of staff [would] need to have some level of responding power and be empowered to use social media to communicate and build relationships
with the people around them”@willmcinnes
...so they became convinced that...who wanted to
v
NB: Reward staff for
being social
open
they recruited or grew staff into new
roles like community managers
adapted from a David Armano graphic | darmano.typepad.com
BRAND
brand as facilitator
influencers
friends
marketers’ roles changed from
broadcasters to aggregators
walls you can step
over
They showered praise on their advocates and amplified their voicesAnd finally...
“The project is not about creating a charity; it is about enabling & empowering a community to change a situation”
Thank you for listening
@stevebridger
“we build too many walls and not enough bridges” Isaac Newton