Tag Archive for 'beth kanter'

Creating Social Change with Social Media

Published in case studies, socialchange and storytelling. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

nten

Over the last week, technology has played an unprecedented role in bringing aid to and saving lives in Haiti. Over $22 million has been raised by the American Red Cross via text message (about a fifth of total Haiti-related giving to the organization so far). And then there’s the role that Facebook and Twitter are playing.

Those social media tools, along with dozens of others, have been used to help family and friends locate one another, to direct food, clothing and medical support to specific locations, and to help direct rescue workers to individuals alive and trapped under rubble.

That’s social media for social good, and that’s exactly what NTEN and NetSquared want to highlight with Beth Kanter this spring at SXSWi.

Of course, we don’t just want to talk about Haiti — we want to highlight some amazing work from around the sector, while also building a nice little library of case studies we can all learn from. So, we invite you to share your social media for social good story. We’ll choose three to highlight in our session, and we’ll share all the stories we can on our sites and at We Are Media.

Submit your Social Media for Social Good story today!

Published on January 21, 2010 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

Beth’s Surprise Party: A Case Study in Crowdsourced Action

Published in case studies and fundraising. 12 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Yesterday was a very exciting day: we threw a surprise party for Beth Kanter online!  It was a bit of fun mixed with experiment, and I think it was really successful.  Here are some reflections about how we used crowdsourcing techniques for a very fast-moving campaign and lessons learned that may apply to your work.

Lesson #1: Design an action and invitation that’s doable and interesting – while focused on your goal.

Stacey Monk and I exchanged messages last week, brainstorming the idea of pulling bloggers together to support Beth’s birthday campaign.  We wanted it to be something fun and interesting, so people would want to join – a surprise party!  And we wanted it to be easy to do – write a blog post!

First, we created an open Google Doc where we put in the introduction language, so anyone that clicked through from someone’s blog or Twitter post would have context about what was happening (and included a numbered list up to 53, so people could easily see where to add their name and blog address).

Next, I sent out an invitation that included a simple explanation and invitation to join with easy steps for those interested.  When sending out an invitation, it’s important to remember that the language you use needs to be appropriate for those you’re inviting, as well as to their audience as they could easily repurpose the language or calls to action you use to more quickly and easily share/spread the campaign.  Here’s a copy of the initial email as an example:

Subject: Help wish Beth Kanter a happy 53rd!

Hi friends-

As you probably know, Monday is Beth Kanter’s birthday.  Stacey Monk and I didn’t want the day to go by too quietly so are hoping you’ll join us in making a big splash to celebrate!

Her birthday wish is to raise money for the Sharing Foundation using Causes and we think we could help her crush her goal of sending 53 Cambodian children to school by raising $530.  We’re trying to throw her an online surprise party by assembling a blogsquad of 53 bloggers to publish a post on Monday that shares how Beth has impacted your work and shares her birthday wish with your blog audience.  Of course, I hope you’ll make a gift to make her wish come true too ;)

We’re just hoping to make her birthday super happy by making her wish come true and reminding her just how much good she does.
If you’re interested, just:
1) Write your name and blog address on the signup form here: http://bit.ly/bethbdayblogs
2) Publish your post first thing Monday morning. Include a link back to her birthday wish post at http://bit.ly/beth53
3) Pass this invite on to anyone you think might want to join us.

And don’t forget to wish her a Happy Birthday Monday on Twitter too with the tweet she’s asked us to pass along: “Happy birthday #beth53! Let’s send 53 Cambodian kids to school: http://bit.ly/beth53”

Thank you so much for your help, support and participation!

Amy (& Stacey)

To recap: our audience included bloggers in the nonprofit technology and social impact sector; our goals were to help reach Beth’s $530 fundraising goal and recruit 53 “happy birthday” blog posts reflecting on Beth’s work.  The campaign was focused on the goal and created with the audience in mind (how they behave, what they are interested in, what they could do on short notice, and how they would want to participate).

Lesson #2: Encourage participants to share, invite others and promote their own participation.

Part of using blog posts in the campaign is the strategy that in order to participate, people are promoting!  We also created and provided shortened URLs for the two links we wanted everyone to use (the link to the Google Doc where people were registering their participation: http://bit.ly/bethbdayblogs and the link to Beth’s birthday wish blog post: http://bit.ly/beth53).  Using these shortened URLs and sharing them in the invitation via email and posts on Twitter meant that others were likely to use them and easily share the campaign.

We also included the hashtag for Twitter that Beth promoted in her Birthday Wish blog post (#beth53 – review the Twitter stream for the hashtag), another way that people could find and share tweets about the surprise party easily.

To recap: we took advantage of popular techniques for sharing and networking conversations including URL shorteners and hashtags.

Lesson #3: Create compositions that allow for variations on a theme.

What was key to our approach was that we did not say where people had to post, or exactly what they had to say.  We even said that they could do something else entirely!  This meant more people were empowered to participate because they could make it their own.

Some people posted on their own blogs.  Some posted to community blogs like NetSquared.  Others posted on Facebook (using the Notes application).  Some tweeted.  And others came up with even more unique ways to get involved.  (See the Google Doc for links.)

To recap: we invited people to express themselves in the way they chose while still being part of reaching the goals.

Lesson #4: Create easy ways to track and follow the campaign.

Using the URL shorteners and hashtags made sharing tweets, blog posts and calls to action easy to post and share, but it also meant that everything was easy to follow!  We could follow the hashtag on Twitter using Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com/) and could use the tracking built into Bit.ly to track clicks on the links (http://bit.ly/) (or try doing a search using Tweetmeme).

The Google Doc that served as an information and context piece for people sharing and finding the campaign also served as the sign-up sheet for participants, so people could add their own name and blog information to the campaign details without Stacey or I having to track them down.  The email invitation also turned into a reporting mechanism as people would reply-all to share their link with others participating.

To recap: the methods for sharing and promoting the campaign were also designed to create easy ways of measuring participation and impact.

Lesson #5:  Say thanks!

What I found most rewarding in this campaign was that saying “thanks!” was part of it from the start: people’s blog posts and twitter messages were all saying thanks to Beth for ways her work had impacted their own.  It had a deep gratitude through and through.

Because of the tools mentioned above (the hashtag and URLs and Google Doc), it was easy to reply on Twitter or elsewhere to thank people for their support and participation.  As people replied to the invitation email, I could also email them directly to thank them for participating and sharing in the celebration.  Stacey and I both sent thank you emails to the full list of participants towards the end of the day, too.

To recap: saying thanks is important – we all know that.  But finding ways to say it where people are participating (if they are tweeting your campaign, thank them publicly in Twitter, for example) will only further spread and promote the campaign.

It’s been a very fun experiment and a great way to spend a Monday!

A huge thanks to my friend and colleague Stacey Monk, the woman behind Epic Change, without whom this surprise party wouldn’t have happened!  And one last thanks to Beth, for giving us a reason to come together in celebration!

NOTE:  Beth was able to smash her goal of raising $530 by getting $4,540 donated to help buy school uniforms and send Cambodian children to school via the Sharing Foundation.  We also smashed our goal of recruiting 53 bloggers, with 66 signed up and many more participating in other ways.  Thanks!

Published on January 12, 2010 by Amy Sample Ward. 12 Comments

Join the surprise party for Beth Kanter!

Published in community and fundraising. 14 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Happy Birthday!

Today we are throwing an online surprise birthday party for Beth Kanter, and you’re invited!

In her birthday wish post, Beth announces that she’s trying to send 53 Cambodian children to school by raising $530.  Last week, Stacy Monk and I were chatting and thought that our community could help smash that goal by raising much more funds as well as awareness for the work the Sharing Foundation does in Cambodia.

How does it work?

We’re hoping to inspire 53 bloggers to publish a post today that shares how Beth has impacted his/her work and shares Beth’s birthday wish with his/her blog audience.  (Of course, you’re invited to make a gift to make her wish come true as well!)

What’s the point?

We’re hoping to make her birthday a very happy one by:

  1. making her wish come true, and
  2. reminding her how much she’s contributed to the community.

You’re Invited!

If you’d like to join the surprise party for Beth, simply follow these steps:<

  • Add your name and blog address to the big list (Google Document).
  • Publish a blog post about how Beth has impacted your work (be sure to include a link back to her birthday wish post: http://bit.ly/beth53).
  • Wish her a Happy Birthday on Twitter, too.  Here’s a tweet you can use: “Happy birthday @kanter #beth53! Let’s send 53 Cambodian kids to school: http://bit.ly/beth53″

Thanks, Beth!

It’s hard for me to pick just one thing to talk about when it comes to the question of how Beth’s work has influenced mine, after all she is a terrific example, leader, and contributor to the nonprofit technology sector.  There’s one thing that does stand out to me and I’d like to highlight it today:

Beth is a terrific chronicler. She takes notes, constantly.  She shares those notes in real time (or as near as she can).  She’s always open to suggestions, feedback, and comments—and strategically uses those to help herself flesh out the notes as they develop into ideas and insights. When she comes up with a new thread, she finds ways of linking it to other ideas by including reference links to previous blog posts (including her own or by others) to keep track of how developments happened.

She’s a great inspiration and reminder for me in this area.  I often end up with thoughts jotted in a note on my phone, ideas to explore written in my notebook and then 5 different links bookmarked that reference the same thought – but don’t take the time to pull them all together!  I’m working on it :)

Thank you, Beth, for all that you do to keep the community involved in every step of your work – know it is appreciated tremendously!  And happy birthday!

Published on January 11, 2010 by Amy Sample Ward. 14 Comments

Live Blogging: 09NTC Mapping Your Social Media Strategy

Published in events and liveblogging. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I’m here at NTEN’s 09NTC and am going to live blog Beth Kanter’s session on mapping your social media strategy to metrics.  Below is the live blog or the archive of the live blog.  Can’t wait!

The internet connection here is such that I don’t think a live blog portal will sustain itself.  So, I’m going to trouble shoot and just take some live notes here and post them as soon as possible.

Here goes…

Take aways:

  • How to use listening
  • The right metrics
  • Analytics tools

Panelists:

  • Wendy Harmon: social media manager, philosophy is to use social media to execute mission
  • Danielle Brigida: using social media to increase, reach, engagement and revenue
  • Qui Diaz:Livingston, recently did research for the Philanthropy 2.0 report
  • Sarah Granger: advise nonprofits on using social media for advocating and communicating

Themes that people want to learn:

  • new metrics structures can bubble up
  • funders of a 20th century mindset – what metrics speak to them
  • what things need to be measured
  • obama reach vs local reach
  • industry benchmarks
  • how to integrate tools without reinventing the wheel
  • success stories

List, Learn, Adapt – concept from David Armano: “Insight must before investment when implementing a social media project.”

Visualizing: number of months along the bottom, insight, return and dollars up the left

  • Listening: hearing what people are talking about your issue or sector
  • Learning: evaluating what is being said and what information is needed
  • Adapting: using the listening and learning to inform how you change

Listening

  • use monitoring tools
  • know your keywords
  • use your RSS reader
  • engage and monitor responses
  • engage internally

Discussion:

How/why does listening provide value?

  • at ARC, listening has been the core value of our last three year’s of social media (mentioned online over 400 times a day), learn what people want and expect from us
  • at NWF, listening has been the foundation of our social media movement, we are nothing unless someone thinks we are something
  • everything before lays the foundation, everything during and after helps you improve and change your strategy
  • listening has been to the community and to the quantitative results

How do you use a RSS feed like a rockstar?

  • pull in hashtags from Twitter into the RSS reader (pull in the RSS of a search.twitter.com result)
  • skim a lot, mark all as read liberally, don’t feel like i have to ingest everything

Listening based on location?

  • ARC does for blood drives, etc.

How do you share your data?

  • ARC – gather data every morning and share with organization via email; issues that seem sensitive or are newsworthy will contact subject matter experts to follow up
  • ARC – social media team evaluate/watch everything and then send summary and highlights to team
  • NWF – tag mentions in delicious with which programs or projects are mentioned, can share link to that tag on delicious with staff to see their section
  • Sarah – use google alerts and a page that we update with mentions
  • Qui – for clients that are larger, we set up media citation reports (like a word doc with titles and links and relevant info about the mentions and how they should respond)

How much time is spent listening?

  • ARC – 33,000 employees, budget is over a billion $, 2-3 hours of concentrated listening every morning and then ambient listening all day
  • NWF – 363 employees, budget is around 90 million, one hour every morning and then throughout the day (google alerts and rss every morning, then if there is something that happens throughout the day)
  • Livingston – encourage small nonprofits to have at least a half time person doing listening and response (10 hours a week)
  • Sarah – budget is 100,000s, 50% of the time we are listening, 15-20 hours a week personally listening

Listening tools:

  • Netvibes
  • Feed digest

Learning

  • Think like a rocket scientist, document or journal your learnings
  • Observe and sift through qualitative data like a primatologist or anthropologist

Beth’s learning process:

  • document on the fly
  • test and teweak
  • pick the right metrics
  • harvest insights
  • look at what other nonprofits are doing in the space
  • pause for reflection time before next reiteration: how to improve results?

Engagement metrics:

  • create
  • comment
  • click
  • collect
  • critic

Think about which things you really need to track and measure those, not everything you could possibly track.

Discussion:

What is your learning process from social media? How do you involve the org?

  • NWF – ad hoc, if you look at programs individually it is based on qualitative over quantitative, we adapt when we hear people saying i wish it was like this or i could do this
  • Livingston – listening is everyone’s job, might start with social media person or dept but eventually want to make sure everyone is out there and closing the feedback loop
  • Sarah – share by email because we are an online organization, can have a spreadsheet with stats and how they are growing, organization wide as well as campaigns, etc.

Examples:

  • Yammer for internal sharing, it’s a Twitter for groups
  • Delicious

What are some specific stories for using the right metrics:

  • ARC – the right metrics are those that help you identify if you have reached your goals, so if you have a goal to offer real time information to the public in times of disaster for example, the measurement is if peole get the info they need (not fundraising or anything else), so we do that by asking them and collecting metrics like how many people retweet information on Twitter, etc. over time have gotten other metrics and impact from working on this goal
  • NWF – focus on engagement, program called Wildlife Watch and is a space for people to share wildlife they see so asked people to use #nwf on twitter when they see wildlife, will track how many times the hashtag is used each day (hashtags.org) we use bit.ly and pop.url for tracking retweets (Check out Laura Lee Dooley’s URL shortener report!)
  • Livingston – corporate example, Network Solutions, negative perseption issues related to their brand (google your organization’s name and “sucks” and see what comes up!), assessed the conversation and they had a 58% negative blog/conversation ratio (used manual researching, icerocket, forumtracker, search.twitter, etc.), new that was the metric/goal to track and 6 months later there was only 18% negative ratio
  • Sarah – presidential commition on women in legisltation, legislator read our email wanted to do it and wrote a bill, so to raise awareness and support we asked people in membership what they wanted to see, asked them to come to us, gave qualitative feedback, had a tweetcast with feedback on Twitter, used facebook and tracking membership and

WeAreMedia Project (http://wearemedia.org/) has a listening toolbox!

Distinction between what you think they want to hear and what they want to know – can you address those separately?

  • Livingston – HHS, wanted evaluation of pandemic flu conversation online, point was to understand what they were saying about the government and so on to really know what to address as an organization to that community

Culture change:

  • NWF – social media is good for engagement but not always the engagement you expect, users on myspace and did a survey with all the members but only 400 responded and the boss wanted to discontinue social media work; don’t always need to hear what every person needs if you have that one person who will really tell  you useful things; there’s still community on myspace so we still update that blog and use the platform
  • Sarah – a lot of resistance to social media in political groups, the key is biting off small pieces and educating people one at a time, finding someone to train and working with them so that they can educate another person
  • organizational change is slow, you have to have patience, opinion starts to change once you find influencers within

Nonprofit staff are so overwhelmed, how many groups have someone to measure social media?

  • survey in room: most prevalent is 20 hours/week with other job duties

Co-creation Networks, look at the ladder of engagement and the number of use and the level of engagement – need all of them in your ecosystem

Clicking = good – a change in knowledge doesn’t equal a change in behavior; can you measure that?

  • NWF – greenhour.org so we share it with people in a newsletter and then see activity in a blog – we can’t see that they really did it in their home, it is hard to measure, but we are still seeing what seems to be real actions – don’t be afraid to ask!

Are there ways of catching offline datapoints?

  • NWF – every program we have has an offline component, i try to integrate a social media strategy that leverages and encourages the offline part; like #nwf wildlife watch, raises your awareness offline if you can see something and tweet it, etc.
  • ARC – it’s easier for us to suck in what people are already doing because we have found that it’s nearly 100% chance for people to give blood and then talk about it online if they have a space online
  • Livingston – if you don’t have their email, call them, keep asking questions but it is labor intensive

Adapt

Fail formally – protesting Wendy’s with a photo sharing with a protest sign but only got a few people doing it, heard so much about how hard it was for people to participate, etc. but didn’t stop doing photo contests; instead they adapted.  next, with LOLseals campaign, they made it as easy as possible for people to participate, used the Flickr API to allow people to upload from their website instead of going to Flickr, etc. this time they got 3,000 photos and 2,500 email address.  But don’t do it again just because it worked, keep evolving. Facebook app for spay day, upload a photo of your pet and then do fundraising for the Human Society with people voting on your pet’s animal. 13,000 installs of the facebook app, and $600,000 raised.

Discussion:

How have you reiterated?

  • Livingston – Network Solutions, free online video event, know who will send the most traffic second time around
  • NWF – we are still very new at this, there haven’t been a lot of programs, the photo contest is slowly moving online; we tweak all the time though, you can’t be satisfied because you can always make it better, like with #nwf as it got more participation we moved the stream onto our website
  • ARC – we have very few campaigns like Carrie’s at HSUS, but we tweak constantly, today everything is 100% different than a year ago but it was all very small tiny changes
  • HSUS – integrated it with everything else, email campaigns/newsletters, offline, etc.

Any resources to move from national to local?

  • ARC – we are set up similarly, Robin Parker does Oregon Trail chapter for example

How do you change around from failure?

  • NWF – there is no failure. everything can be taken to scale. you have to learn from everything, if it doesn’t work one time it could still work another time. have to decide if it is worth investing in.

Have you seen examples of your org changing?

  • NWF – initially i was the outcast, driving traffic but being sneaky; you need buy in to really do it. for some people it’s intuitive but others it isn’t. we had a COO who noticed social media was important and moved me to the education dept, if you are in marketing and someone says not to do it, keep doing it! i have changed my role a bit so that i serve as a consultant internally to get people started. i don’t want to force people, if they don’t want to do it, then they don’t have to.  if it isn’t natural then it won’t work.
  • Sarah – worked with a tech oriented nonprofit, had an old tech faction and the new tech faction; eventually we just got new people on and they wanted new, too so you just move on.
  • Beth – learning a lot from resisters now and strategies for it. have to have bottom up way of organizing social media but also evolve into a star fruit so that it goes all directions.

What is your ONE takeaway?

  • be more intentional
  • failure is adapting
  • tools in context
  • when you miss in battleship you take another shot
  • want to embrace failure
  • all about relationships
  • delicate balance between involvement and take over
  • take chances
  • they can’t control people when they are taking part
  • metrics spring from your goals
  • listen more
  • even one voice can give you great insight
  • if you are really interested in this stuff and you see the opportunity at your organization, just try it and see what happens
  • metrics bubble up
  • even if people say the same thing loudly doesn’t mean the minority isn’t speaking too
  • reminder to talk to eachother

Thanks!

Published on April 27, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 4 Comments

SXSW: Nonprofit ROI Poetry Slam

Published in events. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Using a poetry slam format, each panelist will present a five-minute poem or story about how their organization has successfully implemented a social media strategy experiment and how they considered the ROI. The audience will have ample opportunity to ask questions and respond.

PRESENTERS
  • Beth Kanter – Beth&apos;s Blog
  • Danielle Brigida – National Wildlife Federation
  • Wendy Harman – American Red Cross – National Headquarters
  • Carie Lewis – The Humane Society of the United States
  • David Neff – American Cancer Society
  • Katie Paine – KDPaine &amp; Partners
  • Holly Ross – NTEN

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

You can follow the session on Twitter at:  http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23roi

I’m going to be helping the panel by moderating the Twitter conversation and pulling questions out from the stream to ask the panel.  Tweet your questions with the #roi or @amyrsward and we’ll try to get them in!
Published on March 14, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Thank you, Beth!

Published in blogging. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

I hope all of you know Beth Kanter, and if you don’t, you can follow her blog at http://beth.typepad.com

Beth is a maven for nonprofit tech and a great resource for organizations and individuals looking to ramp up social media use for their social change work.  She had the opportunity to create a top ten list for Blogs.com and included this blog.  So, a big Thank You to her!

Check out who else is on Beth’s Top Ten NPTech blog list! Beth’s blog, obviously, would be #1 so this list is the following top ten. :)

It’s a great honor and I’m excited to be listed with other friends and bloggers.

What would your top ten list be?  What are your ten most-read blogs, the ones you just can’t work without?

Published on December 2, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 1 Comment

Reflections on the “wired fundraiser” of America’s Giving Challenge

Published in fundraising. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The Sharing Foundation came out on top in its division of the Giving Challenge, which ended on January 31st. This is great news for the many bloggers and other social media community members that worked hard to promote the cause and garner so many donors. It was also a terrific learning experience for those of us involved. I have thought about “reflections” for the past few days now and wanted to share some early formulations:

What does timing matter?
The Challenge took place over the course of December and January. That is a very long time in the scheme of online fundraisers that many of us have been involved with in the past that may have had only a one day or one week window. I think that the longer time frame definitely had an effect on the “race” and posed a challenge for all organizations trying for the top: How do you keep donations coming through to the end?

In the Sharing Foundation’s case, Beth Kanter was the main ringleader and she had a great strategy of requesting donations whenever possible (in blog posts telling stories of those served by the organization, for example) and only really pushing a few times (like on her birthday 1/11 and at the end). It felt like a good mix – the constant option and then the intermittent request. I tried to do the same, including links to donate in blog posts dealing with the Challenge and then asking urgently at peak times.

What does the platform matter?
I found it interesting that in my personal involvement in the Challenge, I prioritized platforms on their timeliness. For example, I included links to the donation widget page in blog posts consistently throughout the Challenge, but put links and requests in Twitter on peak days like Beth’s birthday and at the end of the race. When there wasn’t as much urgency in recruiting new donors, it felt just fine to throw out the links and stories and thoughts in to blogs that could be read that day, or read days later in a reader etc. But on the days when we were really trying to get high numbers, I couldn’t handle only putting up a blog post (though I did); I needed to use Twitter and IM and emails.

This leads to the second part of the platform answer in that it really did seem to matter that the requests were peronal. I totally agree with the points Beth Dunn makes about the personal side of asking for donations. It means a lot more to people who don’t know anything about or have any connection to the Sharing Foundation to get a request from someone they know who does have that connection, than for “The Sharing Foundation” to send out a message to them asking for just $10.

What does the ask matter?
This one seems simple to me: It’s easier to give small. Think about it, if someone asked you to “Please donate $100 to The Sharing Foundation who helps Cambodian children get the education and services that are critical,” or “Please donate just $10 to The Sharing Foundation who helps Cambodian children get the education and services that are critical,” which would you probably do? Sharing stories and connecting on a personal platform with potential donors is crucial, but so is putting the “ask” into an amount that is doable and not overwhelming. People WANT to donation and help. So give them a way they can do it without hurting their own wallets, too.

I’m excited to hear about others’ reflections on the Challenge and to continue to share my own thoughts. What did you think as a fundraiser for the Challenge? What were your impressions as a donor?

Published on February 4, 2008 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments