Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Blogging? Ning? Meetup? In this workshop, participants will find out how to pick and choose from these and other social media tools to make sure they’re reaching the right audiences and not wasting resources. Participants will learn what questions to ask and how to create a social media plan based on their organization’s strategic goals. We’ll review some of the most common social media tools together and look at successful examples. Participants will identify common social media goals for nonprofits, talk about resource constraints, and set out on the path to creating their own customized social media strategy. Attendees Will Walk Away With: • Questionnaire for a social media plan of their own • A list of social media planning resources • Case studies of nonprofits using social media strategically Archana Sridhar Archana is Associate Director of the Hennick Centre for Business and Law at York University and Co-Founder of the South Asian Philanthropy Project. She received her JD from Harvard Law School and has worked as a tax attorney, grant writer and university administrator. She also serves on the editorial board of The Philanthropist.

1. IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL:
DEVELOPING A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Archana Sridhar
South Asian Philanthropy Project and Hennick Centre for Business and Law

2. What is Social Media?
• Connection
– Anything that uses media to connect people with common interests, passions, professions and
more
• Interaction
– Allows the audience to respond and interact with each other and the organization.
• Old to the New
– Changes the old way that information flowed – from one source to an audience
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3. What is Social Media?
c/o Seven North Graphics
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4. Case Studies
• United Way of Toronto - http://www.unitedwaytoronto.com/
– Twitter feed plus updates on front webpage
– Facebook
– YouTube and Flickr
– Share buttons on the front page
– eCards
• MS Society of Canada – May is MS Awareness Month
http://www.mssociety.ca/en/default.htm
– Twitter – Twibbon
– Facebook – badge + donation
– YouTube
– MS Research Teleconference
– Mr. Lube offer – May 8th ($5 of every oil change donated)
– Online advocacy effort
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5. Questions to ask yourself and your colleagues
• What’s my goal?
• How often will we need to engage?
• Who is my audience now? Who do we want to attract?
• What resources do we have?
• What buy-in do we need?
• How does social media fit with our traditional communications plan?
• Do we feel comfortable losing control of our message to a certain extent?
• How will we know if we’re successful?
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6. What’s our goal?
• Marketing:
– Reinforce your brands and claim expertise.
• Outreach:
– Forum to recognize and cultivate volunteers, donors, and journalists.
• Fundraising:
– Talk about appeals, campaigns, donors, and drive traffic.
• Community-building:
– Provide on-line resources and community-building.
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7. How often will we need to engage?
• Depends on the platform
• Consistency
• Quality
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8. Audience
• Who is my audience now?
• Who do we want to attract?
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9. Resources
• What resources do we have?
• What do we need?
– Money – not much needed
– Staff and time – lots needed; volunteers?
– Audience
– Tech support
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10. What buy-in do we need?
• Board
• Staff
• Constituents
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11. Organizational context
• How does social media fit with our traditional communications plan or strategy?
– Print newsletter
– Website
– Media
• Losing control of the overall message
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12. How will we know if we’re successful?
• See goals above – money, volunteers, web traffic, etc.
• Metrics by platform
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13. Case Study: Interplast
• http://interplast.org/
• Blog
– How it started – staff and board buy-in
– Importance of being first-mover – media coverage
• Facebook and Twitter
• YouTube and Flickr
• Importance of hiring the right staff person
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14. Principles
• Don’t feel like you have to do it all – pick and choose
• Start small – upward trajectory of growth
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15. Case Study: The Philanthropist
• http://www.thephilanthropist.ca/index.php/phil
– New platform to encourage engagement
– More like a traditional website or online journal, but added two social media elements
• Comments
• RSS Feed
• How to include comments?
– Free registration and log-in
– Comments are moderated
• Example – feature article:
– http://www.thephilanthropist.ca/index.php/phil/article/view/813
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16. More Principles
• Be genuine
• Be interactive
• Despite the title of the workshop, don’t be afraid to fail!
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17. Case Study: The South Asian Philanthropy Project
• Blog
• Facebook
• Twitter – failure and retry
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18. Practical Tips
• Try a focus group or survey
• Add share buttons to your website –
Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Digg
• Use interns and volunteers
• Make a written policy
– What does it mean to stay on message?
– What can individual employees say and not
say?
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19. Online guides and resources
• Beth Kanter
– http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2009/01/creating-your-organizations-social-media-
strategy-map.html
• We Are Media
– http://www.wearemedia.org/
• Charity Village
– http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/archive/acov/acov09/acov0936.asp
– http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/archive/acov/acov10/acov1015.asp
• NTEN – Nonprofit Technology Network
– http://www.nten.org/
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20. Thank you!
• Handouts
– Resources
– Questionnaire to make a strategy
– Principles and tips
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