Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Social media and fundraising; learnings from corporate world

The final session of day one at the WA state conference was with a young entrepreneur award winner, Tenille Bentley.
A very interesting session, beginning (like all social media sessions) with all the huge numbers but refreshingly localized for Australian market. Mind blowing numbers; I loved one analogy - as Australians continue to give up cigarettes they become addicted to Facebook. The infamous unfair break, the smoko, is replaced by the facebooko (or face-o).

Some good tips-
- Only worry about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.
- 80% of your social media communications should be about your topic, indirectly about you - only 20% about your products (something I call 'Fluff and Bite')
- don't think of social media with a 'what is the ROI' approach. That is like asking 'what is the ROI on my mobile phone'. It is about relationships
- gave example of peril of ignoring social media; someone working at Dominos spits in a Dominos Pizza, video goes viral, Dominos no idea why or what to do about it. Eventually they counter on YouTube and begin to recover sales
- always have policies that people agree to to allow you to remove inappropriate comments. But be aware they will just post them elsewhere
- all charities should have a Business Facebook page. Allows for analysis.
- great use of you tube, blender manufacturer blends things like iPads.
- how often should you update?
** Facebook 2 x a day on business page plus 5+ conversations on others walls
** twitter 5-10 days
** LinkeDIn once a day, business focus
** YouTube when you have something good and worthwhile
- biggest growth on Facebook is 55-65 year old women

Frightening end- managing a social media brand takes about 26% of a working week.

So if you haven't got time to do it, see her because that is what her company provides. Nice, subtle pitch!

Good stuff. The challenge for the fundraisers here is, of course, what role social media can have with their fundraising.

For me, social media is still best used for retention strategies, particularly for online and face to face recruited donors, and overlaying it with Game Layer is the best idea.

Tenille Bentley,

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