In philanthropy, the saying is that people give to people, not causes. Connecting at the level of hearts and minds has always been critical to building long-term relationships with donors, and also with grassroots supporters. And the best way to do that is through storytelling.  Now that YouTube and other Web 2.0 tools are giving so many nonprofits a “channel” for their stories, personal narrative is being rediscovered.  But to tell a compelling story requires critical elements.

What makes a compelling story about mission?

1.       Focus on outcomes. Everyone loves a success story. Reality TV is filled with them: obese person becomes thinner, aspiring chef wins the prize, talented singer gets a record deal.  Think of the success stories in your organization, but instead of listing them as bullet-points, express them through anecdotal stories.

2.       Focus on people. The people who make it happen and the people whose lives are changed. Who are the teachers who made a difference in students lives? What are those students doing today? Who is the volunteer who went into a community and changed it for the better? What is happening in that neighborhood now? What would have happened to that child without a medical intervention paid for by others? What kind of life does this child have today?  Interview-driven narratives are highly successful at building the case for donors and volunteers.

3.       Show why your organization matters. Somewhere in the narrative, you need to show viewers why your organization made a tangible difference in the outcome.  It wasn’t just random acts of kindness that led to this success. It was your people, your dedication, your/their dollars at work.

4.       Engage viewers in their own narrative. Make sure there is a call to action somewhere in your story, usually at the very end. “How can you make a difference just like Alice did?”  “With just 20 cents per day, you can change the life of a child like Shawn.” “Join us at our XYZ event to make your voice heard.”  Think about what story viewers want to create for themselves after watching yours.

5.       Provide follow-up options. If a viewer is moved by your narrative, they should easily be able to click somewhere next to the video or case study to do something–sign up for the conference, make a donation, become a member.  Despite the tendency to want sheer numbers—hey, our video got 20,000 views!—you really want qualified viewers. You also want the video to be the entrance point to engage them with other content, either on your web page, Facebook page, etc.  So be sure you provide that option in your web video interface.

Telling and hearing stories is our oldest human instinct. Web 2.0 just makes it easier to share.

CNN ran a story today about how well organized pirates on the high seas have become. As you’ve probably read or heard, pirate attacks are becoming a frequent hazard for sailors –particularly in areas such as off the coast of Somalia, with its highly unstable—some would say non-existent—government.  While pirates may appear to be rag-tag bunches of young men in small boats, it turns out they have significant organizations behind them.  Ones with strategic business plans.  And tactical structures like advisory boards and directors of logistics.  They don’t spend their money on fancy boats, but they do outfit their teams with the latest technologies, including GPS.  These are deployed systematically, through grass-roots teams on well-equipped small boats, which often foil larger ships with more sailors.

The management approach of pirates got me thinking about what grassroots organizations could learn from pirates.   The best know you don’t have to have the fancy ship, but you do have to have a plan for outmaneuvering those with more money and personnel.  For starters, having a business plan is essential. Not just for the organization, but also for each program, and even each outreach component.  So, for example, to deploy a new YouTube video to members, it’s critical to have a strategy, and then identify a tactical team, a logistics plan, and means of harnessing technologies–not just the medium for the message, but the tools to get eyeballs there and turn those viewers into positive outcomes for your organization.

So one of my New Year’s plans is to remind myself—and my clients—to think more like pirates. But for a much better cause.

It’s time to kick off the New Year.  Are you ready? Here are some of my resolutions, when it comes to branding and marketing, that is.

1. Add more video content. YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google. So it’s important that people searching for a brand find the content there. I’ve been primarily using Vimeo, because I prefer its copyright protections, but this year I may have to give in and post some clips on YouTube.  I already have video clips on my site, but I could do more to keep them fresh–I am a video producer, after all!

2. Set aside less time for email, more time for social media.  According to Neilsen Research, social media has now surpassed email for communication. I want to be sure I’m working in this space and not still getting sucked into the batting-away-emails mode.  Facebook also just surpassed Google in terms of most sought website. So maybe I have to suck it up and put a professional page there, in addition to my personal one. What do you think?

3. Be a more consistent blogger. I’ll admit this year I fell off the wagon a few times and didn’t post weekly. That reduces pickup by Google and other search engines. Guest posting was really successful and I want to add some more guest bloggers this year. Let me know if you’d like to be one!

4. More speaking engagements.  I got pretty tied up with content production this year, and only did a handful of engagements. This year I’ll be giving 5 workshops at the NAB Convention in Vegas, so I’m already on my way to doing more presentations in 2011.  It’s a great way to meet people, and take time to consider the big picture of social media, marketing and brand strategy.

5. More comments from you.  I’ll admit it, I’m a little anxious about posting on controversial subjects. It gets more hits but the comments can get rough. But I’ll try to be a little more daring this year. Shoot me a topic you’d like to hear more about.

Happy New Year to you and yours. May it be a great year for advancing your mission, raising awareness about your issue, or bringing more impact for your company.

As a parent, I know that cyber-bullying has been a hot topic lately.  It seems everywhere we look there’s a PTA meeting about it, or consultant being hired to give us tips. And the most extreme cases have led victimized kids to suicide. Yesterday’s New York Times carried yet another wake-up call article for parents.  Among many frightening stories, it discussed a child who had no presence on Facebook, but whose peers had created a page using his name and images and were posting nasty comments, as if by him, about other kids. As a result, this child was shunned, taunted and ultimately physically threatened.

The idea that your child has a brand online is hard for some of us parents to imagine.  We have a hard enough time managing our own online brands, both personal and professional. Now, we are told, we should have Google Alerts set up for our kids. (It’s a good idea, when you think about it.)

So what can we do to protect our childrens’ good names?

We can teach them to be cautious about what they put online, including texts and IM messages, and consider it public.  We all know college admissions staff, as well as HR personnel, regularly look at websites and social media to do background checks. Which leads to my next point…

Let your kids know you watch what they do (and then actually watch). Some parents are putting keystroke capturing software on their kids’ computers so they can see where they’ve been.  I periodically review texts.  Kids should know that we’re paying attention to what they say and do in cyberspace, just like we do anywhere else.

Teach a healthy skepticism about both what and who is online. In a media literacy classes I teach in schools, I talk about how what you see isn’t exactly always what you get in terms of sources of content.  But we can extend this to the home communications environment. Kids need to know that every avatar isn’t necessarily who they say they are. And that any given text or Facebook post may not be from the person listed.  Impersonation is one a common occurrence in cyber-bullying. The lure of online postings–for both bullies and victims–is the anonymity. Dealing with someone directly, in person or over the phone, can take away some of that power.

Finally, we need to get digi-literate. I teach classes in online brand management and social media for professionals, and I’d say a good majority of my attendees have kids. Yet most are only touching the surface of social networking and online engagement. I’m starting to think I need to add a new call to action: If you don’t want to deal with Twitter, Facebook, IM, interactive tools, and texting for you, do it for your kids.

©2010 Barbara DeLouise

One thing’s for sure about GAP’s recent logo debacle (if you missed it, here’s a quick summary by Huffington Post): they got a lot of visibility for their brand. Hmmm, maybe that was actually the point?  Hard to know, but when changing your corporate logo in this era of social media, it’s important to consider more than what your brand consultants tell you. You need to consult your users.  When considering changing any key aspect of your branding—colors, logo and/or tag line—consider these four points of input:

1.        Current customers/clients/donors.  Organizations that already have deep roots into social networks can use them for feedback. But it’s also good to use old-fashioned focus groups, with a trained professional to run them. However realize that all of these sources are subjective and subject to change from a variety of external pressures you can’t necessarily control.

2.       Prospective customers/clients/donors.  This one is always a bit harder to pinpoint, but a firm specializing in both quantitative and qualitative survey data can help you hone in on key submarkets and assess the resonance of your new branding with them.

3.       Vendors.  I know, on first blush this seems odd. But as one of the people who often has to deal with people’s new logos (for multimedia/video production), I’m often struck by how they don’t work across multiple mediums.  Check in with your favorite printer, video producer, webmaster and be sure the font and color can work in their medium.  See how the logo looks when it is faxed, projected, and seen on various screens (LCD’s being different than some TV screens, for example).  And especially, what happens when you view it on a Blackberry or iPhone?

4.       Your mother.  I know, it’s totally unscientific, but if your mother would hate this logo, you might want to reconsider it.  Call it the “gut check.”  If there’s something bothering you about it now, imagine when it is imprinted on everything around you!

While I don’t fully agree with GAP’s post-logo plan to use crowd-sourcing to design a new logo–and they ultimately pulled the plug on that unwieldy idea–I do agree with the concept that in today’s era of “dialogue,” you need to include the customer in your decision-making. That said, it’s pretty hard to create good design by committee. So ultimately you have to trust your own process. Just be sure to have one.

c 2010 Barbara DeLouise

The recent uproar created by the Forbes Obama article–and no, I’m not going to provide a link!–reminds anyone functioning in the public space how important it is to know how to react to information you deem factually incorrect, mis-informed, or downright salacious.  The echo chamber of social media means that anything that is published gets instantly amplified through re-purposed media, tweets, Facebook mentions, and news aggregator sites.  So when and how do you respond?

1. First, determine how loud the negative voice really is. That is, does this person/entity have a significant and established following? Will what they say be re-tweeted and picked up by major news organizations?  In the case of the Forbes story, the answer is clearly yes. In the case of one angry person responding to one of your blog posts, maybe not so much. Depends who s/he is and who’s in their network. Responding could just feed the echo chamber and make it worse.

2. Get out your set of facts. You can’t change someone else’s information, but you can put out your own. If you don’t have your own version of Robert Gibbs (hopefully more cheery), get your followers/supporters to put out your side of the story through their own social networks.

3. Make sure you are getting good advance intel of what could be brewing on your issue/company/clients. Use the Twitter subject hashtag (#) to search for tweets that are relevant. Set up Google Alerts not just on yourself and your organization, but that of important donors/clients/thought leaders in your industry.

4. Don’t forget to follow competitors and folks with an opposing viewpoint. Trying to understand where they are coming from and to whom they are speaking is helpful in crafting your response (or lack thereof).

5. Don’t panic. The nightmare of social media is it promotes the 24-hour news cycle. The bonus is it’s only a 24-hour news cycle. How soon they forget.

Finally, a note about disabling discussion on YouTube and Facebook sites. When my clients do it, it concerns me. They always have valid reasons–typically really nasty, obscene or racist comments. But I always prefer to see the community self-correct. Also, when comments are blocked, you have many fewer hits to your site (thus potentially promoting the antagonist sites). Just have a thoughtful discussion if you feel the need to stop comments, and re-consider after a brief interval.

According to Neilsen Research, the percentage of online time Americans are spending with email has dropped 28% from June 2009 to June of this year. Overall time spent on social networks and blogs has increased 43%.  Yet email clearly isn’t dead.  In fact from what I see, its volume is growing exponentially. I’ve noticed an interesting trend among my clients lately–many prefer to be texted about certain projects, presumably because their email boxes are full and they might miss the information.

But as we change our relationship to email and social media, how should organizations respond?  What can you do to use these tools wisely to position your brand and create a good experience for your customers.

Email is still a great way to reach large numbers of customers, prospects, donors or volunteers. Successful email campaigns can drive traffic to your social networking sites, where more personalized interactions can take place.

Make sure everyone in your organization has an email signature that includes your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube locations. It’s common for people in the communications department to have this, but often others in the organization do not and it’s a major missed opportunity.

Use in-person interactions to promote your social media presence. So, for example, your hold phone message could include “please join us on Facebook,” and your receptionist could say the same thing as she says goodbye to someone who’s been visiting in your office.

In your next e-Newsletter, include links with additional information can be accessed through your social media sites.

Encourage feedback to new content or campaigns–people love to comment!  Create a feedback mechanism so that you can then let your customers/donors/volunteers know what the response was.

Contests are great for driving eyeballs to websites and social media sites.

Include polls in your blog posts and tweet them.  Polls tend to get circulated and re-tweeted.

The most important takeaway from the Neilsen’s August research data is not that email is declining and social media is on the rise. It’s that this amalgam of communications tools is evolving. For those of us in the business of creating and promoting brands–both personal and corporate–we’ll need to keep evolving too.

With email, iPhones and Blackberrys, not to mention school and community list-serves, and buckets of emails for work and home, information is coming at us faster than we can say digital download. And now we’re expected to keep up with Facebook, Linked In and Twitter, too?  There’s simply no time!  Why should anyone want to use social media if they are already busy professionals?  More specifically…

Who Cares About Social Media?

If my customers, clients, donors or referral sources don’t care about social media, why should I?  It’s hard to imagine they don’t. Consider these facts (from Neilsen Research):

  • In March 2010, people spent an average of 6 hours per month on social networking sites, as compared to a little more than 2 hours two years ago.
  • 13.4 M Americans watch video on mobile phones.
  • There are roughly as many iPhone users 55 and older as there are 13-24.
  • 27 M Americans have listened to an audio podcast in the last month.
  • Unique Twitter Use was up 1,382%, with 7 Million users as of last February.
  • Facebook has more than 400 million users.
  • The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is Women Over 55.

Notice that if folks are spending 6 hours a month on SM, that’s about 12 minutes a day. That seems doable, right?

Stats are nice, but no serious business people care about social media, so why should I?

Given that more people are using social media than email (as of March, 2009-Neilsen again), corporations are taking notice. Forrester Research projects that companies will spend $3.1 billion on social media by 2014. Why? Because smart companies are using this cost-effective tool to build better relationships with clients, vendors and policymakers.  And frankly, nonprofits are way ahead, as they’ve learned how to leverage social media tools to reach donors and advocate issues directly to the public.

OK, fine, but we’re a [fill in the blank here] and not a multi-national corporation or a nonprofit with a cause. How can social media help us?

Social media can help a small firm compete with bigger players.  It allows businesses to offer added client value (content) in an information marketplace. And it can help you promote your personal brand and that of your organization. How? If you’re just getting started with SM, set up a Linked In account and join and follow two user groups—one related to your area of business and one related to the industry of one of your top clients.  Almost immediately, you’ll gain new professional contacts, access critical information, and be able to share resources with colleagues and clients.  Twitter is also an excellent resource for intel on best practices, thought leaders, and what your clients are up to or up against.  (Try Tweetdeck to customize your Twitter feed–it’s a handy tool to lay out tweets in columns so they are easier/faster to follow).

Fine. But people can bad-mouth us through social media.Who needs that?

Yep, they can. Possibly they already have. But how would you know if you aren’t using social media? At a bare minimum, set up a “Google Alert” for your own name and that of your firm, as well as for the names or issues of any key clients (Hint: you can remove any Google Alert once you don’t need it any more).  You will now be quickly informed via email on issues that affect your firm and your clients.

But what about our younger staff? We can’t just let them be “out there” on social media!

Well, first of all they already are. So to protect yourself, you need to have firm policy for social media use. In a survey of employers, the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics found that while one-fourth of companies have already had to discipline an employee, only 10% have a policy addressing social network sites. Don’t panic. There are  plenty of sample policies to choose from as a basis.  The Red Cross spent quite a bit of time thinking about their policy, for example, and you can benefit from their ideas.  Engage your stakeholders–management committee members & managing partners but also younger associates if you are a law firm, marketing folks and executive leadership as well as up-and-comers if you are another type of business.  Have a discussion about how SM can propel your organizational and personal professional development goals. Are you looking to attract new employees? To learn more about a  new client industry? Be more visible in the local community? Develop your strategy intentionally around goals and your social media outreach is more likely to deliver results.

There’s no question that social media takes some work to understand and eats up time.  The question is whether you can make it time well spent. I’ve had to accept the fact that I need to make time for social media, just as I did for email and the web.  I’m pretty sure other professionals will need to do the same.

Okay, for those of you who are regular readers of my blog, I promise I’m not becoming a car blogger, but…

During the Superbowl, I was surprised by the ad for the new Dodge Charger. Now those of you who know me well know that I’m a sucker for a muscle car.  And lately, I’ve had my eye on this one.   Of course the Charger goes way back (like the ’73 beauty driven by Michael and Fiona in “Burn Notice.”) One of the options on the new model is a ridiculously powerful 6.1-liter SRT® HEMI® V8 5-speed.  A girl can dream.

So imagine my surprise when the ad unfolded as a paean to the wounded male ego.  A car to salve the soul of the beleaguered husband, which the ad defines as a guy who is forced by his wife to “separate the recycling” and “put the seat down.” Oh puh-lease.  Guys still get to run 487 of the Fortune 500, and have 444 seats out of 535 in both houses of Congress, okay?

What really upset me about the ad, though, was not its false premise that marriage emasculates men and women rule the world. What really bugged me was the fact that Dodge was saying to me “you’re not our customer.” Wow.  That hurts.  I was actually seriously thinking about becoming your customer. And maybe so were other women.  And, we car-driving womenfolk actually watch the Superbowl (we’ve done it for years now).

Maybe the folks at Dodge have decided their brand will settle for targeting 49% of the market, instead of 100%. And with this ad, they’re only targeting a small subset of that 49%–married guys who are super-insecure and don’t like to separate the recycling.

So what did the ad do for the Dodge brand?  Well, it certainly got a lot of attention. In addition to the getting eyeballs during the Superbowl’s largest viewership in history, the ad’s have close to 765,000 views on YouTube. And plenty of controversy on blogs other than this one.  As David Ogilvy famously said, “any publicity is good publicity.”

But maybe he wouldn’t say that in this day and age, when a bad impression can be multiplied and amplified millions of times over through social media.  My own take is that a company needs to be very careful with both market segmentation and humor. It can be done brilliantly, of course.  (Case in point, the IBM “training” film that spoofed The Office and shot up sales of mainframes.)  But it can also fail miserably, and lead to an actual degradation of your market share.

The jury’s still out on the Charger.  But they lost at least one customer.

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Feb 12, 2007 – After I wrote the previous post, this video response to the Charger ad surfaced on YouTube.

I’ve asked some colleagues to contribute to this page.  Here’s Melissa Houghton, Executive Director of the Washington D.C. Chapter of Women in Film & Video (WIFV) on how younger members and staff have increased the impact of this professional membership association.  If you are interested in guest blogging, please feel free to email me at amy[at]amydelouise[dot]com.

WIFV is blessed with many members who are early adopters of all types of technology. Social media platforms have been no exception. But when it came to WIFV moving from its members-only listserv into a social media platform, so we could reach beyond our members, we didn’t jump in with both feet.

What held us back? What keeps us moving forward?

Sometimes, the same thing.  WIFV has about 1000 members, many of them filmmakers using the latest non-linear computer-based editing tools and digital cameras.   The organization has a vibrant listserv for members that makes it easy for them to get technology questions answered, fill positions, get references and learn what films are screening.

On the one hand, why do anything more?

Our goal is to provide services for members and the listserv is where we’ve encouraged them to go for information. At the same time, they expect WIFV to be available to them wherever they are and they are on social media.  And they want others within and across industries to know more about us. When some members set up Facebook and Linked In profiles for the organization, and we only found out after the fact, we realized we had to become pro-active about our brand in this new space.

Who could help us?

Thank goddess for interns and student members! They are fearless with social media and were able to watch the sites for a while to learn who was using them, and what were the most active discussions. Our younger members’ experiences in the office with program development also helped them understand what types of postings would generate the most interest and keep the sites active with valuable and engaging content. They’ve also been tireless about getting involved with our committees and bringing their enthusiasm and know-how to the members who had more reservations about how WIFV would use social media.

It has been a learning experience for us all.

Our older members are beginning to engage through SM and build the same personal connections they’ve always used to produce and distribute powerful films, just in new ways. The young professionals in our midst realize that there is a business as well as personal need to share content and resources and keep pushing us forward.  They don’t let us slack off with postings and make sure we re-tweet, write on walls, and link with others. And hey, here I am, blogging!