I thought this list to help companies determine if a social media consultant was any good was informative (and even made me second guess some of our approach to social media). So that’s how to do it wrong—so who’s doing it well? I like United Way’s recent foray, connecting with donors and volunteers. The Wilderness Society is engaging recreationalists, conservationists and wilderness-adjacent communities through its North Cascades initiative. And of course, there’s Obama, the social media savant, who is gathering up an army of connected activists through http://www.barackobama.com/, complete with listening tours, story collection, links to social media sites and more.

-Lynn Parker

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Branding experts Briana Marrah and Joe LePla will be leading a workshop at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Internal Branding Conference. They will be speaking on how to leverage social media tools to engage your employees and create effective brand champions.

Save 50% on your registration fees when you mention email code “SPK”!

Description:
Social media tools have added more visibility to your brand, providing a channel for anyone’s opinions and experiences to be distributed to the world almost instantaneously. If this isn’t enough to make you a little nervous, what about the fact that conversations in social media aren’t limited just to your customers? Your employees are online sharing their opinions about you, too. Your employees’ lives and jobs intersect online where the lines between public and private are blurred at best.

Don’t be deterred by this reality! Your employees, if given the right incentives and tools, can become the biggest champions of your brand. They are the most important audience in any brand effort because they both deliver the brand experience and influence public opinion. If you re-examine your internal social media policy through this lens, your employees look less like a ticking time-bomb and more like message mercenaries.

In this approach, we find a more authentic way to communicate with all audiences, an opportunity to personalize your brand and connect on a deeper level—a level synonymous with trust, honesty and transparency. And that’s what builds a brand. You must be deliberate, strategic and careful in this effort, however, to improve the likelihood that your employees’ powers are being used for good and not for evil.

Attend this workshop and learn ways to utilize social media tools to help, not hinder, your brand. Specifically, you’ll learn:
-Examples of how social media has enhanced and destroyed brand value
-How social media can be used to drive deeper engagement
-Ways to overcome hurdles to implementation and gain organizational buy-in
-How guidelines can ensure that social media touch points stay true to your brand
-Tactics and strategies to successfully leverage and measure social media effectiveness

For more informatiion: call 888-362-7400. Get discount by registering by June 19th or by bringing or Marketing, HR or Communications Team. www.aliconferences.com.

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Check out Lynn’s presentation from the Ordnance Survey’s Location Conference!

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I read a very interesting blog post this morning entitled, “How to Kill a Brand with Social Media.” While I can’t say that I agree with the entire blog—particularly the part that says Twitter is not social media—I do think the author made a very valuable point when talking about the lack of brand alignment in social media.

While most Twitter users are aware of the amazing job that Frank Eliason has done for Comcast on Twitter, acting as a one person rescue squad for their customer service issues, the rest of the brand has not aligned with this new way of doing business . . . Why? Because having one or two people creating a good impression on one platform is not enough. If there is no brand alignment behind the philosophy of listening and responding then all of the social media efforts in the world will not turn a brand around.
–From the IncSlinger blog, posted on May 14, 2009

Although we have been discussing the immense value that social media offers organizations, we don’t believe that a brand can rely on Twitter or Facebook alone to strengthen its relationship with consumers. The brand must be delivered consistently in all customer touch points, not just those in the digital world. A certain computer company that I’ll call “Swell” (for the sake of anonymity) has a great social media strategy—from their blog, to their Facebook page and now their Tweets! Yet, when I call “Swell” to troubleshoot my computer issues, I’m left to navigate through a labyrinth-like phone tree before I reach a “technician” that has no idea how to fix my computer, let alone communicate without reading off a script.

A brand cannot hide behind the façade that it creates online. If you’re not living the brand that you’re projecting online, your customers will eventually find out and they won’t stick around—they might even de-friend you.

-Hiley Spaet

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Briana Marrah will be leading a workshop at the BIIP Conference at the end of this month. The topic of her workshop is “Product Design for Individuals Consumers: How to Cultivate Preference and Loyalty in the Individual and Family Market.”

To learn more about the conference, which is being held May 20-21st in Chicago, visit this official website by clicking here.

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Results 1 – 10 of about 37,700,000 for charity water

When funds are limited, social media provides a cost effective and ubiquitous way to gain awareness and mobilize support for philanthropic efforts.  And, believe it or not, it’s changing the whole dynamics of giving, too.

Instead of forceful solicitations, (think about the unsolicited phone calls you receive during dinner, which, if you’re like me, you ignore, and direct mail flyers, which, hopefully, you at least take the time to recycle), social media helps create a space where people can not only learn about an organization on their own time, but also engage with the organization and its community.  Social spaces, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, are creating an atmosphere of philanthropic interactivity and ‘cause celebration’.  In this new space it’s not just about whipping out the debit card and dropping a few cents in the bucket, it’s about the relationships people build with their causes, it’s about getting involved, joining an effort to make a difference and working together to build a community that helps drive change.

According to Scott Harrison, founder of Charity: Water, (as above), it’s the layers of interactivity that social media allows for that truly drives effectiveness.  What’s key: Compelling content—words, pictures and videos—that tells your story and opportunities to champion the cause by creating involvement—linking, sharing and creating.

Harrison’s approach seems to be working: Charity: Water raised over $7 million dollars over the last two years, allowing them to fund 1,247 water projects.  And, staying true to social media’s ability to forge trust with its humanizing and transparent approach, the organization uses Google Earth Maps to track projects and bring alive supporters’ accomplishments.

So, how has the organization leveraged social media to raise awareness, build a loyal following and raise funds?  Here are a few examples of their work.

Using the power of the tweet, Charity: Water gained recent notoriety and $50,000 thanks to Harrison’s tweet, “dear @realhughjackman — just snapped this near eritrean border at a school of 1400 w/o clean water” and inspirational photo (below).”

In February, 202 cities around the world held Twestivals on Charity: Water’s behalf.  Volunteers, using the power of their Twitter communities, hosted offline events to raise awareness and $250,000.  And it didn’t stop with this one day event, visit the site and you can upload and buy music and watch videos from the festival, check a schedule of events so you can get involved in future Twestivals, or make a donation.

In April, to celebrate World Water Day, Charity: Water tapped into YouTube with a powerful Call to Action video that resulted in over $10,000 in donations in just one day.  

Success with social media is achieved when organizations connect with people, establish relationships, create loyalty, build a community and then harness the power of their champions and their champions’ networks.  From more hits on Google to more fans on Facebook and more followers on Twitter, social media drives awareness and, when used as a tool to drive engagement, results in increased commitment and loyalty and, yes, because of that, more funds, too.

~Rachel

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Lynn Parker will be speaking at the Out for Business Conference in Seattle on Friday, May 29th from 1:30 PM – 2:45 PM. She wll be speaking on the topics of communications and brand care.

For more information, check out the conference website here.

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Lynn Parker will be speaking in the UK at Ordnance Survey’s 2009 Location Conference on May 20-21.

Ordnance Survey is Great Britain’s national mapping agency, providing the most accurate and up-to-date geographic data, relied on by government, business and individuals. Lynn will be speaking on the topic of “Global or local: branding truths and their relationship to your market’s location.”

Check out the Ordnance Survey website to learn more about the 2009 Partner Conference.

To learn more about the topic Lynn will be speaking on, click here to read the press release.

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