The ds-connex story - how one small social enterprise is striving to grow community, social media and fundraising for local Down syndrome associations nationwide
2. Today’s session
• Background on ds-connex
• Social media & the Buddy Walk
• Strategic approach
• Content as cornerstone
• Key lessons learned
o Earned – owned – paid
• Measurement & metrics
• Parting Thoughts
• Discussion
3. Who am I?
• Career PR pro since 1991
• Social media advocate and
strategist since 1994
• Blogger since 1999
• Now “mom blogging” at lara-
mom.com
• Columbus transplant since 2005
4. Tony R. Wells Foundation
Founded in 2001 by Tony and Dana Wells after selling their
international IT training business
Mission: Create Value for the community by developing
stronger nonprofit leaders and investing in the next
generation of social innovations
Work with more than 90 nonprofit organizations
More than 25 years experience serving on nonprofit boards
Vision for helping families and children with special needs –
especially Down syndrome, due to a Wells family
connection
5. Phase one: research
• Attended regional Buddy Walk events
• Reviewed more than 225 Buddy Walk events
o Number of teams and participants
o Average money raised per team and individual
o Size of market
o Staffing model – volunteer vs full time office staff
o Use of fundraising solution
o Extensive review of social media activities
o Search Engine Optimization (SEO) audit
o Website performance audit
6. Phase two: analysis
Analyzed Buddy Walk research findings as well as
results of other national walk events. Keys to success:
Highly engaged community of event organizers,
sharing knowledge about how to create a great
experience for participants
Clear, common voice through social media to
promote advocacy and to recruit support from the
local community for sponsorship and participation
Year-round event promotion to maintain a high level
of engagement
Use of a peer to peer fundraising solution to expand
teams and create a healthy competition to raise
money
9. Social media observations
Most Buddy Walk events have a Facebook page but
rarely update
Only 17% use Twitter and less than 5% use Pinterest
Audience is primarily female
Buddy Walk events leveraging social media raise
more money than other events of equal size
Adding new content is the largest challenge for
individual event coordinators
Inconsistency of language about the Buddy Walk
causes confusion
Most organizers only promote the Buddy Walk event for
four months or fewer per year
Celebrity endorsements and press coverage are largest
contributors to awareness
10. COMMUNITY + OUTREACH + FUNDRAISING
The goal:
Increasing Buddy Walk fundraising results from
$11 to $40 million per year within five years
The strategy:
11. Ds-connex 2014: Launch
• Recruited staff with specialized skills
• Developed ds-connex website, including Connexions blog
• Converted DSACO’s fundraising solution to Stride
• Validated strategy with NDSS, other Down syndrome orgs
• Launched ds-connex in January 2014
• Rolled out national social media program for ds-connex
• Developed hub & spoke strategy for Buddy Walk partners
o Local implementation plans customized by market
o 23 Buddy Walk partners ramped up on social by May
12. By the numbers
• Grew from 12 Facebook fans to 840
engaged fans in six months
• Built Twitter following from zero to 408 fans
• Grew Pinterest following from zero to 83
• Social media is consistently the top traffic
driver according to Google Analytics
• Managed social media for 23 Buddy Walk
partners
o Total of 72 profiles monitored
o 43 profiles actively managed
13. How we began
• Strategic focus on owned and earned social media
• Content as foundation and cornerstone
• Blog posts
• Content aggregation and dissemination via Twitter,
Facebook and Pinterest
• Campaigns to encourage content creation and sharing
• Engagement and follower growth as ultimate goals
o Demonstrate credibility, authenticity
o Lead by example
• Daily social media monitoring/listening
14. Simple, effective social strategy
1.Perfect your profiles
• Ensure bio, about page or description is complete and includes
website
• Demonstrate expertise, credibility, humanity in each post
2. Listen more than you speak
• Search for key words across platforms
• Observe conversations before you jump in
3.Build your community
• Develop relationships over time
• Focus on engagement
4. Contribute great content
• Share ideas and insights through status updates
• Focus content on audience – not just on your own needs
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15. Content strategy
• Differentiation through unique content
• Posts modeling community building
• Social media knowledge sharing
• Fundraising tips, especially about online
fundraising and peer-to-peer
• Showcase positive, inspirational content
about Down syndrome
• Give ‘em what they want
17. Creating a content calendar
Can include many social platforms
Can be done in any format (Excel, Word)
Use as a guide; be able to adapt accordingly
Beware of over-reliance on scheduling
Use Facebook Page Insights and URL shortener analytics to
determine which type of content is most appealing
Think beyond text to great visuals
Keep character count in mind – less is more!
Align messaging and themes with other marketing communications
18. Listening strategy
• Why listen?
o Content
o Ideas
o Trends
o Compliments
o Complaints
o Pain points
• Free listening tools
o Hootsuite
o Facebook and Twitter Lists
• Down syndrome associations (includes Buddy Walk
organizers) on Facebook
• Buddy Walk organizers on Twitter
• Down syndrome associations on Twitter
19. Using Lists as a tool
• What are Lists?
• Hand-selected group of contacts with a
common interest
• Create your own lists or subscribe to lists
created by others
• Viewing a list will show you a stream of
content from only the users on that list
• Benefits of using Lists:
• Easily segment followers, fans or influencers
• Industry experts
• Media outlets/reporters
• Monitor competitors
• Follow or participate in events in real time
20. Using hashtags
• Useful in organizing and tracking trends
• Use Hashtag.org or Tagboard to find and track relevant tags
• To search hashtags, go to your navigation bar and enter it into the search
field. Results will populate below
• Searches can be saved by clicking on the gear
• Recommended uses for hashtags:
• Find people/organizations with similar interests
• Create conversations around a brand or event
• Create structured online events (Twitter Chats)
• Monitor topics of interest (i.e., causes, conferences, etc.)
• Discover new sources and information
• Quickly assess sentiment
21. Following to gain followers
• Ways to find new Twitter
followers:
• Find through Twitter
search
• Use Twitter’s
recommendations
• See who is following/not
following you
• Communi.It
• Use Twitter directories
• Twellow
• WeFollow
22. Engagement strategy
• If content is king, engagement is queen!
• Ask questions
• Answer questions
• Use humor
• Figure out what gets the best engagement –
and do more of it
23. Growth strategy
• Organic (earned/owned only) growth is
S-L-O-W! (About 6% per year)
• Great content, solid engagement are the
foundation
• To increase growth, it makes sense to
“boost” with paid campaigns if you can
• Start small – experiment in $5 or $10
increments to see what works. Hint:
Facebook typically drives more results
than Twitter
24. #DownsyndromeDads campaign
• Facebook photo contest to grow our community, gain more
followers, showcase our commitment
• Timed to Father’s Day 2014. 22 entries (dads nominated by
wives, friends, selves)
• More than 65,000 Facebook users viewed the nominees'
inspiring photo entries. Ds-connex more than doubled our
Facebook fans (from 120 to our current 307 fans) and
increased our Twitter following by 10% (from 250 fans to our
current 276). Per Google Analytics, we drove almost 300 new
visitors to the ds-connex website in one week, and had 318
unique views of our blog post.
• Full details available at
https://storify.com/larak/downsyndromedads-facebook-
campaign
25. Paid media strategy
• Boost what is already doing well organically. Great content
becomes great ads
• We "boosted" our social efforts with small ad buys on both
Twitter and Facebook.
• Our tweet about #DownsyndromeDads reached 23x our usual
reach, thanks in part to $20 in ad support. However, these
results were not high enough to encourage us to invest in
Twitter ads again for this particular program.
• Our boosted Facebook message about #DownsyndromeDads,
however, was our most successful Facebook post ever, with
an organic reach of 1,048 and a paid reach of 15,153
26. “Like” drive campaigns
• Facebook does not allow you to buy
page “likes” BUT you can make a
donation for likes
• We undertook like drive campaigns with
select partners we knew were our
biggest fans
• Gained approximately 200 new page
likes from each campaign (and donated
$200 to each Down syndrome group)
27. Community-building strategy
• Whenever possible, we lift up local
Buddy Walk events – whether our
partners or not
• Buddy Walk of the Day
• Messages of congratulations and good luck
before their events
• Tag other pages and organizations
whenever possible
• Ask our fans to share our content with their
friends and family
28. Blogger relations
• Research the top bloggers in your topical or
geographic area
• Find them via Google searches, ask around, check
your Google Analytics inbound links
• Create Facebook and/or Twitter lists to keep track of
them
• Down syndrome bloggers on Twitter
• Down syndrome bloggers on Facebook
• Follow and like their content. Leave them comments.
Link to their blog posts.
• Develop relationships over time so when you have an
“ask” they’ll be receptive!
29. Metrics & measurement
• Facebook: page likes, people talking
about, engagement, post reach, shares
• Twitter: followers, @ replies retweets,
favorites, lists, engagement
• Pinterest: followers, likes, repins,
comments
• Positive, unprompted mentions on any
social platform
• Social media as a top traffic driver
according to Google Analytics
30.
31. Five stages of social media sophistication
Level 1
• Ignoring social media
Level 2
• Experimenting with social media
Level 3
• Supporting marketing campaigns with social media
Level 4
• Developing and executing a social media strategy
Level 5
• Embracing social media holistically throughout
organization
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32. Top 5 social media mistakes
1. Just having a profile (often incomplete)
2. Self-promotional spamming
3. Assuming social media replaces networking
4. Thinking others will flock to you
5. Not being able to handle negative comments
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34. Commitment is critical
• Consistency is key to building and cultivating a
community online
• It can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but with a
strategic approach, a social media program is very
manageable
• Aim for 15 minutes per day at first
• Build up to an hour per day if you can
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35. General social etiquette
• Participate in conversations as if with
someone in real life whom you respect
o Talk like a real person
o Try to express your unique personality in your
posts
o Be helpful and bring value to the conversation
o Remember to always be professional in
communications
• Pay attention to how community members
interact with each other
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36. Recommended resources
• Hootsuite.com – free social media management
tool
• Smart Brief on Social Media – stay in the know
about top social news
• Explore Facebook Insights as well as the Analytics
areas of Twitter and Pinterest
• Look at your Google Analytics to see which social
sites are working hardest for you!
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37. Thank you for your time!
Questions about social media:
@LaraK (Twitter)
Lkretler@frazierheiby.com
614-702-2126
Questions about ds-connex or Stride:
Twells@trwellsfoundation.org
614-571-5195