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HMV was hot news on Twitter today when staff took over the retailers twitter channel. I am not going to dive into the whole deal about financial troubles and layoffs. It is a tough time for retailers in the business HMV is in and with their new owners it might take them some time to get back on top. In the meantime it has been interesting to see how new technology has been completely passed upon in the first steps of restructuring.
I will try to set the scene based on the -now deleted- tweets by HMV staff this afternoon. Apparently HMV had an intern make the HMV Tweets account on Twitter. Nothing special. Even big companies choose to let interns rule their interpersonal communication with their fans. A good idea? Not at all, and I can give you lots of reasons why. However, that is not the purpose of this post, so I will leave them out.
So, HMV had a twitter account and they have mainly used it to communicate new releases, congratulating the stars on their own label and congratulating followers with winning their own competition. They did do a single personal retweet of someone calling everyone to purchase from HMV to support the high street. So, nothing too personal and relational on there. But as people love their stores, they still have thousands of followers. There are two sides to that story. Yes, you can dump your messages to almost 70 thousand people as a corporate. But the people holding the keys to that account can also reach some of your most loyal 70 thousand customers with one simple click.
And that is what happened. The person(s) who tweeted this have been seeing the demise of HMV as something they could have been able to turn around. It might have been someone who has really wanted to put in more than their share to make HMV work again. Or so the tweet seems to suggest when he or she says: “However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make hmv great again, have mostly been fired”. So they broke the silence they were bound to by their contracts and came out with what was happening at the offices. The bad news spread quickly over twitter and it did not take long before the news picked up on it and articles started appearing on the BBC and ITV website.
Will this affect the retailer in the long run? Possibly. After all, the tweets first reached their 70 thousand most loyal followers. So what should have been done? It is hard to say, but it does start with control over the social media channels of your organization. And that is a lesson that we can all apply to what we are doing. Very often, the management of the social media channels for our churches or Christian organizations is done by the volunteer that knows a bit about the internet. You might be the exception, but many of the organizations that I have talked to in the past years have assigned their Twitter and Facebook accounts over to youth from the church, or other slightly more tech savvy individuals. And this is where a lot can go wrong. You need to consider the fact that within your organization or church, things can happen that might make people less enthusiastic about you. And that is why you need to make sure the basic account is under the control of your management team. It might just be for that first hour after whatever bad news hits, perhaps for longer, but you need to make sure there is some kind of control. After all, these are channels that are now seen as at least as important for your communications as your official website and printed channels.
Quick tips?
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Seriously, the Beatles have sung it so many times that anyone that sees the title can probably hum the tune to it. However, many organizations still do not seem to be able to understand that it is the truth. Especially in this age of social media. Money cannot buy you love. However hard you try. And lately we have seen many trying. Together with you, I would like to take a look at a couple of corporate efforts to buy love and fans by spending money on social media channels. And I want to leave you with some ideas of what you can do to make these channels work for you.
Over the past weeks, Shell has often turned up in my Facebook timeline. They are talking about how wonderful they are. How much they care about the world and the environment. And only a day or two ago they posted the oil companies’ equivalent of the macho game “who’s got the biggest”. (See image.) This morning I was greeted by the results of all their money spent. Three of my friends have liked their page. Pathetic.
So, I went to take a look at their Facebook page. It is a site describing Shell in all its glory. Like the sites of so many large companies, you could call it a corporate display of narcissism. The subjects addressed are Shell, and Shell alone. If they address any other subject, it is solely from the Shell point of view. Such as working on a less pollutive environment, which really is all about the Shell eco challenge. And even regular oysters are turned into a Shell product. To be honest, it does not matter how many dollars you spend on Facebook marketing, the general outlook does not trigger me to be a Shell fan. And it shows. For a company with over 90,000 employees and almost 500 billion in revenues, a mere 2.5 million Facebook fans should not be something they ought to be excited about.
I could understand if you, and Shell, would come up with the argument that its business is fuel. Nobody loves fuel. It is something you put in your tank whenever you want, wherever you are. You do not build a relationship with a gallon of petrol. Or even bio-diesel for that matter. That is a reasonable statement to make. And it makes you wonder how this example connects to our organizations and churches. Well, the whole process changes when you put love in it. When you love your audience. When you talk to them. When you address the things that they feel are relevant to them.
I know the comparison with coffee is going to be a big step. But for many, coffee used to be just like that gallon of petrol. At some point in time you would be craving a cup and you bought it wherever you were. And then Starbucks came along. They made buying coffee a rewarding experience. They put the love in it. And if you go to their Facebook page, you see that they care for their customers. This morning when I went to their page, they had just used a customers’ picture as their cover photo. They talk to their customers and address their issues. They even allow their customers to vent their thoughts towards Starbucks. When I visited their page today, there was someone who posted about how Starbucks does not support the military. And 107 comments below the post where from fans defending their shop and setting the record straight. Why? Because they love their shop and their coffee. The 33 million likes prove that point.
If you want to be on Facebook, remember one thing. It is never about the likes. It is about your attitude towards people. Because your Facebook Page (or your Google+ page, or any other social network page or account) is not about YOU, it is about THEM. And if you remember that, people will come and they will return. Because they care about you, because you care about them.
I love people. I love how the internet has enabled us to connect to people in ways we could not imagine 20 years ago. I love the people I have become friends with through the internet, through social networks and through internet conferences. The people that I have been able to share a part of my life with. I am also enthusiastic about startups. I enjoy seeing people follow their dreams and building startups that make a difference in the world. However, there is a problem. More and more, I meet people who want to get into the internet world to make quick money. They are internet specialists, social media experts or they start a quick startup with the sole purpose of becoming an overnight billionaire after an Instagram-style exit.
What are the posters you had on your wall when you were a kid? What were your dreams about? It seems to me that even as Christians, we are now bringing up a new generation on a money-infused diet of social network founders, rock stars and television personalities. It sometimes seems as if our main purpose is the making of as much money as quickly as you can, to then be able to do whatever you want. And to be honest, that is bad news for the world we live in. After all, neither money nor the internet are problems that we need to solve.
What we do need to solve are problems on a much bigger scale. Things like feeding more and more people in a much better way. Finding solutions for society to live more comfortably while using fewer resources. Lifting worldwide healthcare to a very high standard, while bringing down its cost. Those are the things that will allow us to breathe, eat and sleep every day. And we need to remember that it is not just us. As Christians, we need to look to God for success in that process.
To start the whole process, we need to see how we can inspire people with visions for all kinds of engineering. We need people that can ignore the boxes that we have been in and start fresh. Personally, I feel that we need to inspire our younger generations not just to code, to engineer or specialize in a single field. We need to inspire them to explore the marvels that engineering can offer them. Not to be a cog in the machine of the major engineering firms of the world, but to start anew. To learn what can be learned at school and to draw upon the knowledge and wisdom of our Lord to do things that we thought were impossible before. Things that solve problems. And as Christians, we have the greatest source of creative engineering and real world knowledge at our disposal. We just need to look up to Him more to see what it is that HE wants us to move upon. And then go out and do it.
I will go out and inspire others. Will you?
This was a conversation with Roberto Kusabbi from the British Heart Foundation and Euan Semple from Voice. Really, this is an overview of a number of things that have been discussed. And it includes a number of suggestions and experiences that will be very beneficial to you if you are looking to use social media for a non profit organization.
At the British Heart Foundation (BHF), they put social first. They do not consider it as a bolt on at the end, but everything needs to be centered around being social. That makes a huge difference in how you create the things you share, but also your ad campaigns for instance.
One of the biggest challenges Voice has found with their clients who are non profits is that it is hard to sell the idea into the organization. Even though as a charity you have a unique audience that is looking to connect to you, it is sometimes quite difficult to help the organization to get a vision to engage with people outside. And to be honest, it can be a quite daunting situation if you are a 14 year old that they have asked to tweet on behalf of a charity. Mainly because you were the only one they knew who was using social media tools in the first place. And if something goes wrong, people can jump on you from great height. These are the issues that need to be addressed.
You cannot just add a brand name, you need to add value to the community. That is the main thing for BHF to gain traction in their recent campaigns. And for them the promoted tweets were great value for money. Six months later they are still going over the data. And as a result of their campaign they have found 60 people that have said that after seeing the video on Facebook and Twitter, they have saved people’s lives. That for them has been absolutely incredible.
For Voice, another challenge that exists is that the level of experience of their client groups have is very basic. And their clients are very cautious about getting involved. Another reason for that is because it is harder to get budget allotted to online engagement. And then there are lots of questions to be answered. What to do, who to talk to, how does it work etc. Most of the people have not used social media on a personal level, so that creates a whole new situation. They get into new relationships that they have not been in before.
Roberto says that the biggest challenge is the culture within the organization. To be successful you need belief. Non profits are not built to be social internally. We are lucky at BHF, but that is what we see. You need to have clear leadership on the inside, so you can be social to the outside. If you use it well, you can do a lot more work through social media, but it is a cultural shift. Social is by definition quick and spontaneous. You can plan campaigns and other things, but it is important to be quick and spontaneous.
Euan shares that his dream is that everyone within a non profit can blog. There are many things that are intriguing to the outside that you take for granted on the inside. And it is the mundane that is interesting for the outside world. Luckily we see that more and more non profits realize that they have been hiring media companies to thick boxes, but that they need to more than that to be successful. Roberto jumps in and says that even though the content strategy is not sexy to talk about, it is vital to have good content. Once you are on the way with that you can create new content together with the people around you.
Euan reminds of statement Halley Suitt wrote which said “content is a pimp word”. Having a content strategy often sets off a bell for him as it can also mean you are feeding content into a machine. And that is the antithesis of personal contact.
Both agree that it is easier for newer organizations to integrate social. It is a lot harder to make that cultural shift for organizations that have been around for longer. And that is probably the biggest problem for non profits. A great bonus for charities, is that commercial organizations need to look for an ideal to sell, but charities have that ideal ready. That does give them an advantage.
The last question asked is whether they will be using Kickstarter for fundraising? But that is a route that is not new and other have done that already. Kiva is also a very good platform to raise funds on as that makes it easier to see where your money goes.
As a last addition Roberto adds that gaming companies are interesting to non profits as well. Not to just use the fashionable term gamification, but it can be very beneficial to apply game techniques to what non profits are doing.
You have seen that button at the site of your bank or your insurance company. The button that saves you the hassle of dialing the number. The button that gives you easy access to their people instead of having to wait ‘in line’.
Lets face it, you have wanted this button for ages. An easy way for people to get in touch with your organization or your church. They just leave their phone number and the time when they want to be called, and they are done. This serves two purposes. One is the obvious ease of contact. They can always get in touch with you and they can get you to call them back whenever they have time. The second is the fact that you are calling them at a time that is convenient for the receiver. They were waiting for you to call them and they have time that they have set aside to talk to you. Up until recently those buttons were quite expensive and were sold by premium marketing companies. But times have changed and I will show you how to get one for free.
*Warning: This blogpost does assume you have a basic knowledge of websites, plugins and forms*
Ok, that said, how do you get that button? Your first step is to get yourself an IFTTT account. If This Then That is one of the easiest ways to build simple actions based on triggers that you set. The first step is easy. Join them. Fill out your credentials and click “Create account”. Done. That is your first step.
The second thing you need is a website. Obviously you have one of those. And your website needs the possibility to publish forms and send them off to a unique email address with a unique subject line.
On your website, build a form that people need to fill out to get called back. Unlike the instant call back from your bank, it might take a message up to 15 minutes to reach you. That means that it would be a great idea to add a field on when someone would like to be called back. 
In the example you see, mine says you can be called back within an hour and a half, you can be called back during office hours or that evening after 8pm. Other than that I ask people to leave their name and number. Only the phone number is a required field in this example as that is the only information I really, really need to make that call. Think carefully about what you need from your customers. The more you ask, the fewer will use the option.
To make the build as easy as possible, I will assume you have a Gmail account. If you don’t, you might want to make one just for this purpose. You don’t have to look at it ever again as it will only store an email that will be used as a trigger. But it is important to have one so we can use it as a trigger later on.
Have your form sent to your (new) Gmail address and use a unique subject line. Remember that subject line, because we will be using it a little later on. Content wise, make sure that the email you receive holds the fields you have asked to fill out. Mine tells me that “Name” wants to be called at “time set” on “phone number”. A decent smartphone will even make the phone number clickable for you to respond quickly.
Now that you have your form set up and sending emails (test it first). You can go and log on to your IFTTT account. Once logged in, you will see the dashboard. You can add loads of channels to IFTTT for you to use both as triggers as well as output channels. Click channels in the top right corner and you get the overview of all the channels that are available. Find the Gmail icon and click that. Google will ask you whether you want to grant IFTTT access to your email address. Grant access and the Gmail icon will now be all colorful on the site. Then you click the SMS button. Type your international phone number with all the extra’s. Mine should be written as 00653961138 for instance. Then have the system send you a pin code. Once you have received the SMS with the pin, type the pin in the field and you are connected.
Now everything is set to create your unique task with IFTTT. Click create task on the dashboard. Then click the highlighted “this”. The screen will now show all the channels that are available to you.
Click the Gmail channel. You are now asked to set your specific trigger. 
I have built mine around a search for the unique subject line that I added to the email my form sends. 
Then click complete trigger.
With the trigger set, we need to define an action that IFTTT has to do when triggered. We need to have IFTTT send an SMS to our number. So, click the highlighted “that”. 
As a channel choose the SMS channel. You then receive a single option. Send me a text message. And that is exactly the one that we need. 
Click it and you get a new screen. Here you can set the message that is sent to you. On the right you will see a dark balloon. Click it to get extra options that you can add to your SMS. In my case I had cleaned up the form email so much that I just wanted the Email Body Plain to show in my text message. That gives me the name and phone number of the person I need to call and the time I need to call them at. Click complete action and you are done.
You can now name your new IFTTT task. 
And hey presto, you have just built yourself a form on your site that notifies you via SMS for free.
If you feel this might be too complicated for you, I can build one for you. Or you can use my IFTTT recipe.
Lets start off with the fact that I strongly believe you need to be on Facebook. Even though the statistics might prove otherwise at times, there is much more than statistics to Facebook.
In a previous Facebook post on arnehulstein.nl, I used analytical data from several sources to determine that only 0.4% of the Facebook fans of a brand actually visit the brands’ Facebook page and that only 0.02% of Facebook fans visits one of the tabs that is put on a Facebook page. However, there is a much more important reason to be on Facebook. And this is especially true for Christian organizations and churches, as the connection that we make with people is more of an emotional bond than a bond that has mutual gain as a basis.
People spend a a great deal of their time on Facebook. They come there to share with their friends. To talk. To hang out. Basically, they are not spending time with Facebook, they are spending time with their friends. That is the reason why commerce on Facebook failed, but also why Facebook works well for our type of organization.
“It was like trying to sell stuff to people while they’re hanging out with their friends at the bar.” That was the reason why large retailers closed their shops on Facebook. And that is a great analogy. As Facebook is very similar to hanging out at a bar, or at the coffie place after church. People share stories, jokes, have fun, play games, exchange thoughts. People are there together. Nobody walks into a bar to buy a suit and neither will someone go to Facebook to do the same.
However, relationships are built at the bar. People will get to know each other. They will exchange stories, ask questions and when the time comes, they will refer others to the people they have met. Or bring them into their ‘safe place’ to share their experience. That is the power of Facebook. Building that relationship and making it easy to bring others into that as well.
Six things to do on Facebook?
<ul>
<li><strong>Be personal</strong>
Do not just create an account for the organization. Build your presence based on your people and gather them to be the pillars of your Facebook page.</li>
<li><strong>Be personal</strong>
Talk to your visitors and your ‘fans’. Be genuinely interested in who they are, what they care about and what you can do for them. Do not push your church, your organization or even push Jesus. Build a relationship. Things will grow from there.</li>
<li><strong>Be inquisitive</strong>
There is a reason why people like you. There is a reason why they like your page. Find out why. NEVER assume you know! Rule of thumb, if you have not asked and they have not answered, you do not know.</li>
<li><strong>Be relevant
</strong>
Once you have found out why people like you, you can be relevant to them. You can share with them what they care about. There is a fair chance that they are not interested in you pushing your events, your causes, your abbreviated sermons. Keep that in mind. But the only way to find out, is to ask!</li>
<li><strong>Be sharable</strong>
If you are relevant, you can become sharable. That is the point where what you communicate resonates with your audience so well, that they want to be a part of it. And they want to show that they are a part of it by sharing it with their friends.</li>
<li><strong>Be available</strong>
The key to it all. You have to be available. People need to be able to talk to you and get an answer. Not just your biggest donors or your most devoted church goers, but everyone. Because it is like that bar scene. If you only talk to your biggest friend, none of the others in the bar feel pulled towards you. Even though you might be offering something they want. If they feel ignored, they will ignore you.</li>
</ul>
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