Facebook

• Understand the FB algorithms: The default view on Facebook, Top News, shows only a small selection of posts from your friends (and pages you’ve “liked”). If you switch to the Most Recent tab you’ll see how much content isn’t included. Facebook uses a sophisticated set of algorithms to determine which content you see on the Top News tab. An important factor is the number of likes and comments the content has received, so you’ll often want to ask questions in your posts and phrase updates so that it’s more likely people will “like” your post.
• FB Advertising: Facebook allows you to advertise either Facebook pages or websites that are external to Facebook. When you advertise your pages on Facebook, a “like” box will appear next to your ad, allowing people to become fans of your page with a single click.
• Facebook tab as landing page: Since your primary goal on Facebook is likely not to simply increase wall posts, you may want to create a custom default landing tab on your page. Many custom tabs include an arrow pointing to the like button or a registration form (possibly with an offer to induce signups). It’s also possible to show different content to Facebook fans and non-fans. Exclusive content and special offers that are only available to fans can be a great way to induce people to “like” your page.

Twitter

• Following others: Twitter users will often follow you after receiving an alert that you are following them. When using this strategy you may want to target your universe by searching for tweets with relevant words or hashtags, or follow reporters, bloggers, and others who are influential players in your field.
• Hashtags: You can tweet using relevant hash tags or use trending topics to increase the number of people who will see your content. You can also start a tag for a contest or conversation and encourage others to include it in their tweets.
• Write for RTs: Tweeted responses (i.e. tweets starting with @name) only appear in the feed of people who follow both you and the person you are responding to. While good for relationship-building, these messages do not show up for your full potential universe. Retweets, on the other hand, will show up for everyone who follows the person who posted the RT. Encouraging responses through questions can be less useful than brief tweets designed to be retweeted (thought they can help to build relationships)

Email

• Petitions and letters to legislators: This time-honored technique can help you build targeted lists while simultaneously engaging in efforts to support your lobbying initiatives. An eCRM advocacy tool like CapWiz and Salsa can help strengthen your grassroots advocacy program and make it easier to manage. This is an especially good tactic if you are encouraging compelling actions since the new emails you get are likely to take action again in the future.
• List acquisition: While blanket spamming can be counterproductive, acquiring targeted lists from trusted vendors like Care2 or Change.org can be a great way of expanding your audience. Be sure to segment your lists! Where it makes sense, you could also ask a strategic partner to send out an email to their list on your behalf, with a call to action that will help build your list. It’s recommended to use URL sourcing codes so you’ll be able to use your website analytics software to identify whether this tactic was effective (and should potentially be repeated).
• Special offers: Providing special access information on your website (possibly in conjunction with search engine marketing) can be a great way to expand your email lists. You can offer white papers (targeted to strategically desirable demographics), or allow people to sign up for webinars once they have provided their email address.

Do you have other techniques that have helped you to build your outreach capacity? Leave your tips in the comments.

When the “Do I Care” of constituents meets with a spectacularly simple, compelling campaign message and call to action, rapid and radical growth is possible. This “perfect storm” is truly for the vast majority of organization.  For most, the break-through campaign is difficult to achieve and not necessarily something that their online marketing strategy should be based. Fortunately, the experiences of the past have taught many organizations that the “online campaign” is more like throwing the dice than a sound long-term strategy for consistent growth and engagement.

We contend that list growth is a core ongoing business practice of the organization requiring sustained staffing and financial investment over time. As with direct response fundraising, online list growth is not something you do once. Organizations need to continually recruit new online supporters to replace those who unsubscribe/go inactive. This can occur at a rate of 18-25% a year.

We are not saying that an initial campaign isn’t called for to jump-start the ongoing program of list building. Nor that one should never do an online campaign. Our position is quite the opposite – we contend that campaigns are a vital part of a larger growth and engagement strategy. Just not the only part. Further, choosing to do campaign and how should be the outcome of a strategic analysis of whether the campaign truly has a chance of achieving the goals versus an enthusiastic gamble on “a cool idea.”

We think the context for both the initial campaign and the longer journey need to be fully understood before dollars and time are spent in earnest. We have learned through our experiences on other clients that the following are pre-requisites for successful list growth:

We start by evaluating the “Do I Care” factor.

[“Do I Care” Factor] = [Personal Impact] * ([Policy Controversy] + [Media Coverage])

Within this context, comes the factor of compelling campaigns.

[Compelling Campaign] = ([Motivating Message] + [Clear Solution] + [Simple Action])*[Resources]

List growth is then the product of these:

[“Do I Care” Factor] * [Compelling Campaign] * [Marketing Reach] = [List Growth]

We lay these formulas out as a useful rubric to assess candidly and soberly whether an organization is in position to undertake a mass market list growth effort. As many of our clients know, 2009 and 2010 have presented a particularly persnickety marketplace for campaigning. Macro-level issues of the economy, jobs, and health care reform have dominated the constituent’s focus. So our calculation of whether the market is ripe for growth within certain issues areas is more complex than ever.

Example Readiness Rating

The Readiness Rating is an assessment of how well positioned an organization is for a particular campaign issue. This shouldn’t be used as a “pass/fail” scoring system to decide to more forward or not. The analysis simply provides an honest appraisal of where you are today and highlights gaps in readiness that could undermine the success of a campaign unless those gaps are closed.

As you will see, some of these gaps are internal to the organization like whether the message being put out is motivating or the online action is compelling. These gaps may be more easily closed than external factors such as whether the policy controversy is significant enough in the minds of constituents or whether the online conversation/media coverage exists in enough of a critical mass that the organization’s message and solution to the issue can tap into existing interest.

The following is a recent example from a client for their Readiness Rating as they considered undertaking a new campaign. The organization specifics have been altered to protect the innocent.

On the whole, this organization’s gaps are not insurmountable obstacles. The external personal interest passion is there (one of the hardest things to create if not present.) While the policy controversy is muddied for this organization at present, there is opportunity to pivot the campaign into a more prominent controversy in the marketplace.

Internally, the analysis revealed gaps that were not previously clear to stakeholders and decision-makers. The Readiness Rating can serve as a “reality-check” or going further, as a wake-up call that there are headwinds facing the campaign which could blow things off track. We’ve found the review enables an honest and open conversation about what the real constraints are, focuses creativity and problem-solving more appropriately to true barriers, and helps everyone involved understand the key factors the organization is going to need to manage through to achieve success.

There are likely a number of variables that could be added to this analysis to give a more complete picture. Do you have thoughts on what might be missing?

Slacktivism is the fine art of one-click activism, and it’s been panned as a way to feel good but accomplish nothing.  But from the time I woke up yesterday to the time I went to bed, I watched this statement grow and spread through my Facebook network, and it didn’t feel like an empty gesture:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

It’s simple, direct, and easy to join in. It got the attention of the White House, for one. I’d be surprised if plenty of Congresspeople didn’t see it, too. But the striking thing to me is that, in a debate that’s been known for anger and misinformation, this simple, positive message spread so fast and far. Where a few people might have spoken out in favor of health care reform of their own accord, this statement had (probably) thousands of people speaking out with a single voice and showing their support for an issue in desperate need of supporters.

President Obama was "encouraged" by the spread of this pro-health care message on Facebook

I haven’t heard where this effort started – whether it’s the careful plan of an anonymous cause marketer – but I like to think it was a spontaneous, grassroots statement.

As a marketer contemplating the implications, I’ve got a lot of lingering questions about what this means.  How many people posted it?  How far did it spread?  On a closed network like Facebook, it may be impossible to find out.  There’s no signup to track, or link to click – just a plain-text post to your status.

But we can ask about the impact: Did it change the debate? Probably not too much.  Did it get attention? Most definitely. I don’t know whether it spurred dialog or just made a statement – if you have any anecdotes, please share them in the comments!

I, for one, found this to be a very inspiring example – Slacktivism at its best.

While the definition is its own debate topic, most agree that it is the act of doing something that requires very little effort and has only the perceived effect of impact. Or in the words of Urban Dictionary, “the act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.”

So do “click actions” like signing a petition and becoming a Facebook fan actually make a difference? We want to get the best and brightest in a room at SXSW and go at it. Help us out and vote for our panel “Can Double-Clicking Change The World? Slacktivism 101″, leave a comment and come to SXSW in March to join the debate with Jacob Colker (Co-Founder and CEO of The Extraordinaries), Premal Shah (President of Kiva) and Jason Cooper (Online Coordinator at Kaboom.org).

And in case you’ve missed the debate,  I’ve done some of the reading for you…in the true spirit of slacktivism.

1. “For [Jacob] Colker, the idea of spare-moment do-gooding is ‘transformative.’ He takes the long view of short attention spans…it’s sometimes hard for people to find the right organizations to volunteer for, and it can be equally hard for organizations to capitalize on the various skills that volunteers bring to the table… But microvolunteerism, Colker says, ‘is perfectly suited for the Millennial Generation. They are used to text messaging, MySpace, Facebook, get-in, get-out, instant gratification. For them, going out and cleaning up a park — that’s not necessarily attractive to them…’” – Linton Weeks
2. “Are the publicity gains gained through this greater reliance on new media worth the organizational losses that traditional activists entities are likely to suffer, as ordinary people would begin to turn away from conventional (and proven) forms of activism (demonstrations, sit-ins, confrontation with police, strategic litigation, etc) and embrace more ‘slacktivist’ forms, which may be more secure but whose effectiveness is still largely unproven?” – Evgeny Morozov
3. “Sure, each new technology comes with Faustian ambivalence, but even though the Twitter protesters may not have lead to any substantial change (yet), I’d argue that the worldwide attention (and sympathy) for the cause of the Iranian people was significantly enhanced through the hundreds of thousands of Twitterers who used #iranelection (especially given #CNNfail). Was this ad-hoc Twitter community a political movement? Maybe not. But it politicized and generated social power that can instigate political change.” – Tim Leberecht
4. “These groups will need help to find ways to break down their efforts into bite-size pieces while maintaining the thread of connection between these immediate actions and their intended longer term results. And it is exactly these results that are at risk within the micro-environment. It is quite possible that we will become frantically busy doing a lot of change stuff that does make the doers feel great (which is important ) but doesn’t add up to the systemic social change needed in communities. Does busy mean the same thing as impact?’ – Allison Fine
5. “VolunteerMatch is different from slacktivism services because we’re using technology to help nonprofits and volunteers create enduring relationships based on real-world contributions of time and energy (and often skills as well). Whether these contributions are on-the-ground service roles like working in a soup kitchen or reading, or whether they are “virtual” opportunities like providing Web design or grant writing help from home, the support VolunteerMatch volunteers provide can often be measured in sweat rather than clicks or page views.” – Robert Rosenthal
6. “But we have to recognize that just because someone is using social media as a part of their “strategy” does not automatically mean they are using it strategically. There are ways to waste time with campaigns that, in the end, don’t really bring about social change, but there are ways to waste time with direct mail and organizing rallies too. This flaw is not that the tools are ineffective; it’s rather a misuse and missed opportunity by the organization.” – Kristin Ivie
7. The recipe for effective slacktivism is embracing technology to attract and organize mass amounts of people combined with an authentic belief on the part of the slacktivist and action sponsor that it will make an impact, add in a dose of creativity and recognize that a click is part of a portfolio of other actions – numbers, stories, face to face meetings, etc. – both offline and online. Ideally a click action is used as an entry point for new supporters, or supplemental, and that most people engage in many forms of action when they care about an issue. – Ali Cherry

Don’t forget to vote for our SXSW panel “Can Double-Clicking Change The World? Slacktivism 101″.

Well, visiting the Zoo for real was quite impressive! I’m still wowed by how great it was and I had pretty good expectations having learned about the great work they do. Have you been? If not, the next time you find yourself in New York make it a priority (and be sure to plan your trip on the Web site, which we implemented last year).

If you can’t make it to New York, consider telling your friends and family who do live in New York to make sure they support efforts to keep funds from being cut for the Zoo as New York state deals with its budget shortfalls.

It’s nice to be able to see all the great work our clients do close. This client’s work is just a bit more cuddly than others. Keep up the good work.

Heifer is a non-profit organization that uses an innovative and proven method to reduce poverty and hunger around the world: they give families living in poverty the gift of a goat, chicken, or other farm animal, along with training in sustainable farming practices. Heifer’s gift recipients use their animal’s milk, eggs, and other products to feed and clothe their families, and can sell the extra to support themselves financially. Our goal with this game is to educate players about Heifer’s unique approach to ending hunger and poverty.

But your goal is to stay alive! You’ll put yourself in the shoes of a 12 year old Nepalese girl whose village is struggling with poverty. You’ll go on a series of missions to seek out life’s necessities — starting with firewood in an area that has seen extensive deforestation. The challenges you’ll face mirror those that Heifer’s real-life partners in Nepal deal with every day.

The game is in beta – which means it’s fully playable but we’re still tweaking it and working out rough spots. We’d love your help in making this game the best it can be. We hope you’ll visit www.heifervillage.org/nepal and try it out. After you’ve played it, we’d love to know what you think. Please leave a comment on this blog post to let us know:

• Did you have any problems getting started?
• Did you know what to do?
• Did the controls make sense?
• Could you find your way around?
• Were you able to complete the missions you received? How difficult was it?
• Was it fun?

We’ll use your feedback to help us as we plan the final version of the game.

Thank you, and enjoy!

I’d like to say I was prescient enough to know Obama would emerge victorious the second I saw his campaign’s logo, but you would call me a black-turtleneck-wearing-
abstinithe-sipping-the-revolution-will-be-designed-hippie.

But I really did.

Why? Because short of the ubiquitous American brands of our generation (Coke, Harley Davidson, Nike, Chevrolet) there has not been one as seamlessly versatile, and consistently leveraged without breaking a sweat, as the O.

Much has been said about the unique choice of font (Yay, Gotham) and the multi-channel appeal to a variety of audiences, but I propose one more reason for it’s success: The unspoken sense of hope the “Obama rising” visual has conveyed to a world thirsty for inspiration. When a brand becomes more than just a graphic, but invokes a sense of “what could be if you just believe”, there is truly no stopping it.

The latest casualty of these archaic rules is the twitter feed of Representative John Culberson, a Republican(?!). Culbertson won some notoriety as he suggested that a letter sent by the Committee on House Administration (pdf) implied that,

They want to require prior approval of all posts to any public social media/internet/www site by any member of Congress!!!

Now, while few Members of Congress generally express themselves with three exclamation points, this is really his Twitter feed – in his capacity as “Most Connected Congressman,” Culbertson uses an impressive array of interactive web tools, to communicate (h/t for most of the info in the previous paragraphs to Personal Democracy Forum and the Sunlight Foundation, who’ve been providing continuing coverage of this issue).

For my part, I think that it’s time we modernized the rules that govern Congressional use of the internet, for reasons I’ll go into below the fold…

First, let’s all acknowledge that there’s good reason to have some rules. Without any guidelines, Members would be able to use their official office as a way to provide significant resources to their campaigns, giving them unfair advantages over challengers who don’t have a whole staff of online content creators that they don’t need to pay out of their campaign funds.

But these guidelines should be created by a body that’s more nimble and has less conflict of interest in the process of getting Members of Congress elected. A small group of commissioners who could make rulings on an individual or site-by-site basis could quickly form a sort of case law that would allow officeholders to make greater use of technology without running afoul of ethics rules.

But why should we care if Congress can twitter, or post videos on YouTube or update their Facebook pages from their Federal office? Partially because there’s something to be said about the people who regulate the internet knowing how to use it, just as there’s something to be said for umpires having played Baseball. A legislator who wants to promote net neutrality has a lot more credibility if he can really understand why putting video in the slow lane would cause problems for our Democracy. And just as every member needs the obligatory picture of him or herself with a tractor to show they understand farmers and in a hard hat to show they understand construction, maybe it’s worth seeing them comment on a blog post to show that they understand the world of an increasingly technologically sophisticated workforce.

Congress will never be made up of early adopters. I would bet that we wouldn’t find ten iPhones in the pockets of Senators, and it shows every time a septuagenarian Republican opens his mouth to discuss technology (see here and here). Similarly, the draft Congressional Management Foundation report shows that many Members’ offices have a backwards approach to email that treats it as a second-class communication.But Congress’s telecommunications policies on net neutrality and rollout of higher speed broadband would likely be more progressive if they had a bigger stake in the issue.

In the end, though, it may be just as simple as what the Sunlight Foundation is arguing – that the most important reason for allowing members to make free use of interactive web tools to communicate is that we’re a stronger democracy with more communication. If Members of Congress want to use new technology to speak to their constituents in new ways, I say more power to them. And because I’m not a Congressman, I can even say it on Twitter.

The Beaconfire team’s created a Google mashup using data from NPCA on park boundaries and the land within those boundaries that is vulnerable to development. The map lets constituents visualize the land at risk which heightens the understanding of the dangers to our parks. You can zoom around the map to see the parks across the country, zoom in on a park and area of the land threatened. If you’re not into panning and zooming, just pick a park from the drop down to go directly to it.

If you click on a pin or region, you can learn about the affected area and how cheap it would be for the government to buy the land — to buy the land in the top 10 parks is a mere $50 million.

After checking out the map to see some parks in peril, you can sign the petition to tell Congress to approve the cash the National Park service needs. The Google Map displays in a native Convio advocacy campaign page. You can tell your friends about the map or become an NPCA member, since the more members they have, the more Congress will listen. You can also Digg the map and petition (http://digg.com/environment/McMansions_in_National_Parks or share it with your friends on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://ga1.org/campaign/lwcf).

Congrats to the NPCA team for their great work on their report and to the Beaconfire team for an innovative representation of what’s at stake in America’s parks!

A recent study by PEW found that more than roughly 6 in 10 American cell phone users text message. It’s no wonder that everyone from Presidential campaigns to police officers to WalMart to nonprofit causes (highlighted by MobileActive.org) seek to leverage the popularity of text messaging.

1. The mobile audience is wide and deep: Worldwide, more people have access to and use of mobile phones than the Internet. As Ethan Zuckerman of TechSoup points out, “The only technology that compares to the mobile phone in terms of pervasiveness and accessibility in the developing world is the radio.” Given the penetration, personalization and simplicity of mobile devices, there is no better tool to reach both wealthy individuals and underserved populations. In addition, you can activate young, tech savvy people using the communications channel that makes the most sense to them.
2. Simple is superior: I may be biased given my blog style is list format, but people like byte-sized – and actionable – information. In an information economy, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with the breadth of accessible knowledge. Communicating with individuals via the limited 160 characters in a text message requires the messenger to cut the window dressing and deliver messages that are simple, clear and clever to make an impact. To educate and motivate, it’s all about the words themselves (which is great since haikus are so cool).
3. Reach people where and when they matter: All politics are local and all advocacy is timely. When someone is checking email at 10pm after a long day of work, sending a letter to an elected official may be overdue. With text messaging, you can give people a specific address of a place to be, a direct action to take or short talking points while they are in a meeting or at an event so they can act on it when it actually matters. However, this means the action must be real and serious not just a faux-urgent engagement effort. The technique also allows you to reach people when their emotional senses are heightened before they lose their enthusiasm (or anger) about an issue.
4. Penetrate the “Circle of Trust”: While studies show that people will offer up their email address for almost anything, cell phone numbers remain relatively protected, both by the individual and the mobile service providers. Therefore, if your supporters give you their cell to reach them on their most personal device, you can assume you’re in the circle of trust and that your message will be read. The key is to maintain that level of trust through infrequent, authentic and relevant subsequent messages. Mobile communications elevates the level of accountability for all campaigns and requires listening to what supporters want.
5. Another spoke on the wheel of integration: Continuing to blur the lines of offline and online, text messaging allows marketers to both capture and measure the success of offline events and print advertising like never before. Supporters can text from an ad they’ve seen or post on a website a photo or podcast they record from an event. A mobile strategy is another tool to use in conjunction with traditional advertising and media, online marketing and in-person events but should not just replicate what’s being said through other channels.
6. Experimentation is expected: Because it’s still a relatively new channel, text messaging campaigns leave a lot of room for trial and error and users expect it. Advocacy organizations and corporations alike can promote their “products” in innovative ways that push the interactive brand experience envelope. Successful campaigns will think about marketing as two-way conversation and not just another medium to push an agenda.