It’s fairly safe to assume that you’re [...]]]> Everyone from this guy to Edison Research has pondered this same question over the past year or so. We’ve all become familiar with that pervasive little blue bird, yet for most ordinary folks (and a decent share of communications professionals), the question lingers: What is the deal with Twitter?

It’s fairly safe to assume that you’re one of the 87% of Americans aware of Twitter, and you probably have a pretty decent sense of how it operates. But for those of you actually using Twitter, you’re in the company of only 7% of Americans. Seven percent!? For the sake of comparison, approximately 41% of Americans are on Facebook, including my mom.

Without a doubt, Twitter has made itself useful. How else would Lindsay Lohan have let us all know – within minutes of the incident – that she got punched in the face by a waitress? But is Twitter anything more than the latest PR channel for celebrities?

Of course. The beauty and the challenge of Twitter is its simplicity. Unlike Facebook – which takes a hold and never lets you go thanks to its supremely robust platform – Twitter is more of a social utility than a social network. There is success to be had; however it requires creative thinking to identify the ways in which Twitter can be useful to you or your organization.

Putting aside the celebrity phenomenon, the most noteworthy Twitter success stories involve identifying a solution to a given challenge. The challenges faced by the following businesses and organizations would exist in a world with or without Twitter; the use of Twitter to solve for these challenges is noteworthy in that someone simply saw new opportunity afforded by a new technology.

Kogi BBQ – Their twitter success is the stuff of legends. It’s the tale of a popular L.A. food truck that leapt at the real-time nature of Twitter to keep Angelinos abreast of current locations, wait times, and to provide a steady stream of good-humored, street-wise updates. Kogi BBQ currently has over 72,000 followers, a good deal more than McDonald’s. Their success has cemented social media – namely Twitter – as a marketing must for similar businesses.

Tweetsgiving.org – Clever in its simplicity, this was a highly effective viral fundraising effort from epic change. With the goal of raising $10,000 (via Chip-in) to build a classroom in Tanzania, influential twitterers got the ball rolling as folks were asked to tweet their gratitude alongside the web address and the hashtag #tweetsgiving. Look for the effort to return around Thanksgiving 2010.

Your challenge could be as simple as distributing organizational news quickly and efficiently. This may not be a noteworthy use of Twitter, but it’s certainly a good one.

A lot of discussion is taking place over who uses Twitter and why (Twitter collects only scant information about its users), and about just where it will settle within the pantheon of social media. Is it a B2B space for industry insiders?  Is it the ultimate celebrity news fix? Is it our collective consciousness streamed live?

Twitter is all of these things, all at once, because it’s up to its users to make of it what they will. The question becomes: What is Twitter for you?

It’s an educational program of the National [...]]]> By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about the text4baby campaign. It’s an innovative mobile pilot program where expecting moms can receive free text messages each week, timed to their due date or baby’s date of birth. Women sign up for the service by texting BABY to 511411(or BEBE in Spanish).

It’s an educational program of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. They have a ton of partners, including corporations (J&J, Voxiva, Pfizer) and the Federal Government (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, HHS, and the Department of Defense Military Health System).

The program is designed for pregnant women through their pregnancy and the first year of their baby’s life (the service will run through the end of 2011).

They cover all topics for expecting and new moms – here are some sample texts:

Have you visited a doctor or midwife? If not, you’ll need to right away. Call 800-311-2229 for free or low-cost health care & your local WIC program. 

Keeping your baby’s mouth clean is important even before she has teeth! Wipe her gums each day with a wet washcloth or use a soft baby toothbrush.

Here’s how they avoided cost, privacy, content and HIPPA issues:

-They only collect phone number, zip code and due date or baby’s birth date.

-HMHB doesn’t sell or share any personally-identifiable user data with any third parties.

-It’s a free-to-end-user system. Even if the participant has a text messaging plan, there will be no deduction from that plan. The participating mobile operators (good for them!) have agreed to make this a free service.

-All user data is encrypted and stored on HIPAA-compliant secure servers.

-Messages do not include any product promotions. The content is purely educational and scientifically accurate.

 -Content is developed by HMHB in collaboration with HHS/CDC, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and HRSA.

The results?  So far, they have nearly 72,000 enrollees and more than 3.5 million messages have been sent. (And encouragingly, 96% of enrollees reporting that they would recommend the service to a friend.)

In terms of evaluating the program, they’re working on it (they can’t track any demographic information since they’re only asking for a phone number and zip code so evaluation is probably tricky).  They do know about English (94%) vs Hispanic (6%) enrollees and they track by state.  Top states include New Hampshire, Wyoming, Virginia, Kansas, W. Virginia, DC, Missouri, Oklahoma, Alabama and S. Carolina.

To learn more or become a partner, visit http://text4baby.ning.com.

A month after the launch of GLSEN and [...]]]> This probably won’t come as a shock, but sometimes gossip sites try to generate their own news on slow news days. OK, make that any news day. What’s not so obvious is what to do when a gossip entity reaches out to your organization looking for a comment.

A month after the launch of GLSEN and the Ad Council’s Think Before You Speak campaign, designed to raise awareness among teenagers about the derogatory phrase “that’s so gay, ” I received this email:

“TMZ.com here, wondering if GLSEN has any statement about “The Simpsons” episode from last night — specifically when Nelson called The Grand Pumpkin “super gay” and proceeded to make fun of Millhouse because of it.”

Typically, we leave media commentary about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues to our friends at GLAAD, but the insult did fall within the scope of our campaign, albeit in the form of an unsympathetic bully using the phrase in a way that may actually have been a commentary on the frequent use of the term. Alas, we don’t have Matt Groening on speed dial, so if we were going to comment we were going to have to do so without any context beyond what 60 seconds on YouTube could provide.

The way we saw it we had four options 1) No comment, 2) Bland comment in an effort to kill a story that seemed pretty dependent on us, 3) Serious comment calling into question the use of the term, or 4) Have fun with it.

Probably one of the hardest things with advocacy campaigns is to understand the point at which you cross from being passionate about an important issue to taking yourselves too seriously in the eyes of the very people you’re trying to reach.

In this case, it didn’t seem clear cut to us that this was a grossly improper use of the phrase deserving of a harsh response. But this was also an opportunity to get our campaign mentioned on a TV show/website that drives conversation among the very audience we’re trying to reach.

So we went with No. 4: Have fun with it:

Nelson’s use of ‘that’s so gay’ in a negative way is not surprising considering that 90 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth say they hear the term used this way frequently or often at school. Nelson should visit ThinkB4YouSpeak.com where he can send an apologetic e-card to Milhouse. GLSEN would also welcome Nelson’s participation in our next PSA so he can make amends by helping to educate young people about why such language is wrong.

The “story” broke in the early afternoon on TMZ.com with the headline, “Nelson Owes Millhouse Apology for ‘Gay’ Slur.” TMZ being TMZ, the post made it sound like we instigated the exchange.

The “story” blew up from there. E! Online and several other entertainment sites picked it up. TMZ also aired a lengthy segment on its TV show. The “controversy” then made it into several major newspapers and even Wikipedia. Many assumed that we took ourselves so seriously that we angrily wanted a cartoon character, known for being unapologetic, to apologize.

Did we end up accomplishing the very thing we attempted to avoid? After exhaling a bit, we decided maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing – as long as a conversation about the phrase was being had.

The challenge of ours and many public awareness campaigns is to make people think critically about the meaning of something deeply ingrained in their culture, certainly not an easy thing to do. If we had to make ourselves a part of the joke to start the conversation, so be it.

Global disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami are moments in time when Americans respond immediately, emotionally and generously.  But fundraising to end global poverty over the decades has encountered many hurdles.

Global NGOs working to end poverty and disease have learned some [...]]]> Originally published on The Huffington Post on August 4, 2010.

Global disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami are moments in time when Americans respond immediately, emotionally and generously.  But fundraising to end global poverty over the decades has encountered many hurdles.

Global NGOs working to end poverty and disease have learned some important marketing lessons over the past few years.  They now create an emotional connection by focusing on saving the life of one child rather than the millions of children in need.  They have also learned how much more effective it is to use images of thriving children rather than ones with swollen bellies.  The 21^st century brand for ending poverty is personal, hopeful and empowering.

But there’s one obstacle that is still difficult to overcome.  That’s answering the question “where is my money going?”  Whether it’s due to the perception of inefficiency or corruption, people worry that the money they contribute to solve poverty and disease in developing countries is not spent wisely.

The solution –complete transparency—and providing an answer to where the money goes can be quite compelling.

When the Ad Council engaged BBDO as the pro bono agency to develop a campaign addressing infant and child mortality on behalf of Save the Children, we knew not to focus solely on the nine million children under the age of five that die each year from preventable causes—as shocking as that is.

BBDO recognized the power of featuring the individual that delivers health care to mothers and infants in remote villages—the community health care worker.  These men and women travel on foot from village to village dispensing health care where no medical facilities exist.  The insight is that by helping fund the efforts of a health care worker, you are only one person away from the infants who can be saved.

The brilliance of the campaign BBDO created is that it explains where your money is going in an emotional and engaging way, inviting people to “see where the good goes.”  Beautiful film in television and online introduces people to these health care workers and tells the story of how they administer health care in remote villages.  The messages that appear in donated media encourage people to visit www.goodgoes.org where they can be educated about the issue and learn how to get involved.

On the site, each health care worker has a blog and a video profiling them and the life-saving work they do. They tell their story—all the way from places like Bangladesh—and they become very real, close and inspiring. There are also videos showing the child survival tools that a health care worker uses, such as immunizations, offering even further transparency behind what exactly you are providing with your support.

Tackling global poverty and disease in the 21^st Century is no longer being left to governments.  Individuals know they have to play a role.  As people demand accountability and transparency from organizations asking for their support, success lies in giving witness to your work on the ground. Thanks to programs like “good goes,” saving children half a world away has a name and a face.  And as one of the PSAs asks, “How beautiful is that?”

For Federal government folks looking to create or improve their online contests and challenges, GSA’s [...]]]> The Ad Council recently hosted a panel discussion, along with Google, on Online Contests. Presenters included YouTube, AARP, National Parks Foundation and ePrize.   While it was mostly geared to nonprofits, the presenters provided some good “lessons learned” which I’ve included below.

For Federal government folks looking to create or improve their online contests and challenges, GSA’s Center for New Media and Citizen Engagement is helping agencies learn more about innovation challenges and prizes. Visit their site to get tools, examples, guidelines, case studies and sample rules.  They will also soon launch Challenge.gov, which will be a one-stop shop for federal agencies to post challenges and for the public to find and participate in federal challenges.

Initial Steps for Success…

• Do your research.
• Prioritize your goals – what behaviors do you want to motivate?  Your goals will help define the solution.
• Identify consumer touch points.
• Assign a budget.
• Keep it simple. You may not need as many bells as whistles as originally thought.
• YouTube: Create a great call-out video.

Promotion… 

• You need to promote your promotion!  Use email blasts, banners, homepage placement, Facebook posts, Tweets, Direct Mail (bill stuffer), events, mobile – use it all.
• Prizes should be topically relevant.  The combination of a bigger grand prize coupled with frequent smaller instant win prizes has proven to be a powerful draw.
• Keep it simple – Simple clear message with clean creative.  Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.
• Leverage social networking, blogs, newsletters and websites.
• Think about advertising and which sites make sense for your contest and who it targets.
• Target individual YouTube users. Don’t be afraid to send messages.
• Utilize all resources (internal and external) available to you
• Engage your web and marketing teams
• Engage your partners/prospects
• Use social media/Integrate!
• Generate excitement about upcoming contest(s)
• Send emails to your database
• Have a sweepstakes or “teaser” contest

Internally…

• Don’t take on more than you can handle.
• If your budget is limited, keep it simple
• Engage a contest administration company if budget allows
• A major redesign/relaunch is not the best time to launch a complex campaign that requires technical integration.
• Bring some content from behind the registration wall, and don’t make it flash-based, in order for it to be viewed/found by search engines (missed out on organic traffic opportunity).
• Get legal in early and keep them updated each step of the way to ensure that there are no last minute surprises, i.e. incenting referrals are a no-no at AARP (which was learned just before launch).

After you launch…

• Keep it exciting – after 10-12 weeks, offer a new message or reason to engage
• Continue to grow and evolve. Keep it fresh.
• Create contest updates to keep people engaged throughout the contest.
• Finish strong and leverage your content to create mashups, ads and video press releases.

One of the most buzzed-about workshops was “Effective Storytelling,” presented by Roger Fishman, founder and CEO of ZiZo [...]]]> Last week, yours truly traveled to Chicago to attend Feeding America’s annual Mobilizing the Public conference, ready to hobnob and learn from the more than 400 food bank communicators and fundraisers who have come together for this event.

One of the most buzzed-about workshops was “Effective Storytelling,” presented by Roger Fishman, founder and CEO of ZiZo Group. His workshop was not initially on my go-list, but by day 2, with glowing reviews and comments like “his last session was standing room only,” it seemed ridiculous for me to miss it.

As it turns out, Mr. Fishman has quite the pedigree (marketing and media veteran, published author, and a famous wife), but instead of starting off with a run-down of his impressive resume, he chose to open the session by telling us a story about his mother, his childhood and his family’s struggle to get by.

He told us how as a kid he couldn’t afford lunch, but was too ashamed to stand in line for a free meal, so he skipped lunch altogether.  He told us about his elementary school principal who showed incredible kindness by giving him a quarter each day to buy lunch so he could eat and not be teased by other kids.  He told us about the importance of dignity, even for a young boy like him, and how his childhood experience affects the way he thinks about his own charitable giving today.   He told us about how much he admired the work of the food banks because they allow people to hold on to their dignity.

As he finished his intro, I looked across the room and saw 50 pairs of eyes glued onto him, some even glistening with tears. Wow, this guy’s good.  He obviously did his homework and knew that his personal story is the best way into the hearts and minds of a group of compassionate food bank employees. 

So how can storytelling be effective?  Mr. Fishman offers the following:

• Know your audience.  Everything starts from here because we all make decisions emotionally.  Without an emotional benefit, all the facts in the world won’t make an ounce of difference.  Find out what moves them, bring it to life and then make it personal and relevant.
• Do your homework. In addition to knowing your audience, know your competition, know your environment, and know your goals.
• Get to the point.  Time is precious.  Be quick and be authentic.
• Story sharing vs. storytelling: A story should be a two-way exchange.  We are all incubators for stories… encourage participation from your audience, and find out what’s their story?
• Think laterally: Don’t just be linear in your storytelling—if it feels familiar, it probably has been done before.   Repackage your story and frame it in a new way. 
• Firsthand stories beat secondhand any day.  If you cannot be present—ask for specific details before retelling.
• Always be relevant, different and important to your audience.

He closed his workshop by saying that all of us have our own personal and professional experiences that shape our narrative.  The important thing is to do the research, take the time to get to know your audience, and make your story relevant.

 I also found myself to be pretty nervous. I have worked on teen targeted initiatives, but I have never presented to real [...]]]> Don’t ever underestimate the power of teen ambassadors.  At the SADD National Conference in June, I found hundreds of fun, energetic teenagers that were very engaged in teen issues – a social marketers dream.

 I also found myself to be pretty nervous. I have worked on teen targeted initiatives, but I have never presented to real live teens. I couldn’t help thinking of the stereotypical paper airplanes whizzing by my head, strategically placed whoopie cushions and maybe even a spit ball splattering on my powerpoint projection.

However, we came prepared; we came with a gimmick. And to my delight, I believe it worked.  We named our workshop “How to Become a Digital Superhero.” At our booth we had teens text the word ‘digitalhero’ to the short code 30364 to receive all our teen-targeted campaign website links with the message “Your 1^st assignment as a digital superhero is to share these links.’” Then we had them give their name and email address so we could follow up with more info (when they are at their computers and not at a resort with three waterslides) and took their pictures dressed as superheroes.

Did they know it was gimmicky? Yes. Did they care? No. That’s what I love about these kids most of all. Their willingness to try new things, play along and do what they have to do to keep themselves and their friends safe and healthy. If your organization has teen initiatives and has a chances to attend a teen-heavy conference, I say do it. It’s important to get staff out from behind the desk to actually talk with the teens they are messaging.  Plus, as much as we message to teens, nothing can compare to hearing the message from their peers. We hope our new superheroes will take their first assignment  seriously and  share the information about digital safety with their friends.

As the founder and principal of Big Duck, a communications firm that works exclusively with nonprofits, I spend a lot of time working with programs, fundraising, and advocacy staff. The people I work with are incredible: through their work they save lives, protect the environment, change opinions, and move [...]]]> Sarah is a contributing guest blogger from Big Duck.

As the founder and principal of Big Duck, a communications firm that works exclusively with nonprofits, I spend a lot of time working with programs, fundraising, and advocacy staff. The people I work with are incredible: through their work they save lives, protect the environment, change opinions, and move the needle on all sorts of issues. They’ve studied social work, political science, philosophy- sometimes even nonprofit management. But few have marketing backgrounds, despite the volume of marketing and communications work they have to do in order to reach audiences, build relationships, and influence behavior. 

A couple of years ago, I decided to write a book to help non-marketers in the nonprofit sector develop a more effective way to communicate. This year, my book “Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications” was released, and folks seem to be finding it helpful. 

Of course there are many other terrific reads out there to help non-marketers in the nonprofit sector boost their own capacity. (Oops! Did I just say ‘capacity’? That’s on Lake Superior State University’s annual ‘List of Banished Words’. I take it back.)

If you’re looking to kick off your flip flops, lather up with sunblock, and boost your nonprofit communications IQ this summer, here are a few must-reads:

Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes by Katya Andresen has been out a few years and is a classic. I hope it’s on your bookshelf. 

Katya Andresen also wrote the forward to the newly released, “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide” by Kivi Leroux Miller, which is a great getting-started reference- particularly useful in grassroots organizations. 

And if you’re ready for more, check out The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change  by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine. 

I’m reading a few other books this summer, including those Stieg Larson books everyone seems to be talking about lately. Check out what’s on my summer reading list here, and let me know what you’re reading. (Sarah Durham tweets @BigDuckSarah).