But have these really changed, and how?

One of the most popular marketing innovation tools that remains is the flash mob. What is it that is so appealing about these for marketers and consumers alike?

The Joy of Surprise

In our era where it’s easy to reach for our smartphones and walk and text without looking up, there is still something special about seeing something nicely unexpected and taken out of our day-to-day routines. According to Flash Mob America New York with more than 8,000 members, “We LOVE to create JOY by surprising people! We are looking for like-minded people who love to challenge themselves, get up and dance (even if they’ve never danced before!), have a great time and meet new people.”

Attention & Awareness

It’s no surprise that when flash mob participants gather, people take notice. And when organized on behalf of a brand looking to gain consumer awareness, this attention can often result in sales leads or new website traffic.  The consumers participating certainly also have a motive – they want to be noticed.  Whether it’s just a fun thing or for a cause, it’s something the participants feel is worthy of taking the time to do.

Celebration

Who says you need intimacy for that special moment to be truly special? One New Yorker made it clear that he didn’t when he called on a flash mob to help him propose in Washington Square Park. Other flash mob moments have included European Transport Company’s “Better Bus Ride” campaign where they sang “Happy Birthday” to the very surprised and delighted bus driver in Copenhagen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To Champion a Cause

Flash mobs are a great way to help champion a cause.  For example, in support of Haiti’s Earthquake Relief Fund, Flash Mob America organized a Michael Jackson-themed dance party to raise money for the fund.

Take a look at some of the most “historic” Flash Mobs:

“The First”: The first marketing-related flash mob was organized in 2003 by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper’s Magazine. While his first try was unsuccessful after the retail store where he planned to host it was told about it in advance, he successfully had more than 130 people take to the ninth floor rug department of Macy’s and stand around an expensive rug and note they were shopping for a “love rug” and were making their purchase decisions as a group, if asked.

Oprah’s Kick-off Dance Party with the Black-Eyed Peas: To celebrate her 24^th season and one of the most memorable flash mobs broadcasted to the public, more than 20,000 people surprised Oprah with a piece choreographed to the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Frozen Grand Central: In 2008, Improv Everywhere started one of the most viral flash mobs (more than 32 million YouTube views), with more than 200 people who froze together at the exact same moment at Grand Central Station in New York City. The group also inspired the “No Pants Subway Ride” which happens yearly and consumers are invited to take to the transit in their skivvies.

World’s Largest Pillow Fight: Prompting local pillow fights across the country thereafter, Guinness World Records officiated the world’s largest pillow fight with 10,000 attendees at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what it is that still drives our fascination with this marketing innovation?  At the end of the day, it’s simply about reaching and engaging our target audience in an interesting way, which is really what we should always be thinking about in order to be true marketing innovators.

Image Source: Flash Mob America (New York).

by Mike Mulvihill

Last week the Virginia Senate narrowly passed (21-19) an anti-abortion bill that would require women to have an ultrasound 24 hours prior to receiving an abortion. The original bill (also passed by the Senate) was amended at the Governor’s request to strike a required transvaginal (internal) ultrasound, a more invasive procedure than the now required transabdominal (external) ultrasound contained in the bill. (This, however, disregards the fact if an ultrasound is required prior to the eighth week of a pregnancy; a transvaginal ultrasound is the only procedure capable of observing a fetus in utero.) Perhaps you saw William & Mary grad Jon Stewart’s Daily Show segment or Saturday Night Lives sketch on the topic? Not Virginia’s greatest moment.

 But wait. Things could get worse for the Old Dominion. After all, 20 other states have enacted similar laws in an attempt to circumvent the intent ,if not the letter of the law, set down in the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. But those other states were not memorialized in the eyes of a nation by forcefully arresting 31 of 500 peaceful protesters this past weekend using armed-to-the-hilt riot police in a scenario more appropriate for a war theater than the steps of the State House built by constitutional titan Thomas Jefferson. (BTW, the placard on the ground in the photo above was left behind by one of the 31 protestors arrested last Saturday.)

While it is obvious I am no fan of these attempts to set women’s rights back a generation (or two), the arrest of these protestors combined, albeit tangentially, with Rush Limbaugh’s anti-contraception poison tongue episode of last week, are good examples of how overreaction can polarize an issue in a manner that transcends the issue itself. If you missed it, Limbaugh called Georgetown University’s Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his show last week after hearing her testify to Congress arguing that her university’s health insurance should cover contraception for female students. As a mounting group of advertisers abandon his show this week, Limbaugh offered a public apology to Fluke, which she has not accepted.

Limbaugh’s comments and Storm Trooper visuals will make it more difficult for anti-abortion and anti-contraception forces (read far right Conservatives) to recruit more voters behind their point-of-view. On these traditional Republican issues, proponents have now unintentionally done more harm to the cause than good. It is a good lesson for public relations professionals involved in issues management – the more zealous the opponent, the more likely they, or their followers,will eventually step over the line. And by doing so, help swing those in the middle away from “the cause” and into the hands of the opposition. In such situations, if you can at least hold your ground during the interim period, patience is not only a virtue but also a harbinger of success.

By Mike Mulvihill

This weekend, our family posted a question to our friends on FB querying if anyone knew what the Occupy Wall Street folks really wanted. The response was voluminous, but so were the array of answers and their alarming lack of clarity. As the movement continues to pick up speed in cities around the country and around the world, perhaps the organizers should re-examine a little Protest 101 to make the most of their days in the sun.

Get a lot of attention: OWS gets high marks here. They have gotten a mountain of attention. You’d have to be living under a rock to be unaware of their encampment on Wall Street , the placards, marches and personal stories railing against what used to be called the Establishment. Now, the movement is spreading to a theater near you.

Have a clear message: As Hamlet said, “Ay, there’s the rub.” All of the media attention has focused on the volumes of angst and frustration emanating from the OWS movement. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. abuse of power…corporations’ disproportionate influence in the political sphere…Wall Street got a bail out, but the people didn’t…mountains of college debt but no jobs for college grads…more government, less government. Unlike protests of the 60’s, which clearly wanted an end to the war in Vietnam, this movement has yet to form a clear message as to what they’re fighting for. And without a clear message, the movement will eventually peter out.

Have a call to action: It kind of goes hand in hand with a clear message, but now that you got me all worked up – what should I do about it? One of occupywallstreet.org’s own posts is a call for everyone to register to vote. Sadly, there is only one comment to this post. Whether OWS likes it or not, this movement must become a political movement to succeed. What the anti-war movement learned is that if you want to change the system, you must participate in the system. Infiltrate the system and then change it. If you don’t like the dirty bastards you elected (whether by commission or omission), then vote them out. Get people in office who will create legislation that helps the common man – people who won’t bend to the will of political funders and the desire to be re-elected versus do what they were elected to do in the first place. Please OWS, tell me what you want me to do to vent this angst before you merely lead me to decide I am a helpless victim.

Help organize the solution to the problem: Yes, I am emotionally engaged. I hear your message. I agree there is a problem. I am engaged and ready to act. I want to be part of the solution. What can I do? Effective movements capitalize on the opportunity to bring people to action by facilitating that action. They help you become part of the political process. They find and support candidates to run for office. Their members become part of these campaigns. Marching and chanting slogans is but a precursor to the real work of a movement – meaningful societal change. That change will not come from trying to create a parallel universe. It comes from working within the current paradigm.

Have staying power: OWS just celebrated a month. Change takes time. It takes a commitment to win the many battles it takes in order to win a war. Will OWS (or its successor entity) be around in six months? A year? Will all these people eventually decide they have somewhere else they might want to be? Now is the time to be laying the foundation for OWS to survive as a meaningful change agent, a formidable opponent to take on those who abuse power (or whatever the platform coalesces to be). This requires organizational skills, funding and strategic thinking. Because when you get me to act on your initiative, you better still be there when the real action starts to happen.

OWS has an opportunity to provide a platform, a voice and a vehicle to create change for a large number of Americans (the 99 percent) who are justifiably disillusioned with the status quo. Simply attacking the system without a plan is an uprising. And OWS isn’t in a position to architect a coup d’etat. But it can spark a evolution that could achieve real societal change that keeps our country from plummeting into a two-class system that history tells ends only with revolution. As OWS says in its press release celebrating one-month in Zuccotti Park(aka Liberty Square), “We are only getting started.” I couldn’t agree more.

Photo courtesy of CNN Money

By Mike Mulvihill

Cookies for Kid’s Cancer was created by a former colleague who lost her six year-old son Liam after a four-year battle with a form of childhood cancer called neuroblastoma. She and her husband founded the non-profit Cookies for Kids’ Cancer early in Liam’s battle when they learned that 25 percent of kids diagnosed with cancer do not survive because of a dearth of funding to develop effective therapies. They pledged to support the development of new and better treatments by giving people a simple way to get involved – by buying cookies.

Since then, our firm (CRT/tanaka) has been involved, along with many other local public relations practitioners, PR refugees and even those who have no clue what PR is, in raising up to $30,000 per local CFKC bake sale.

Now CFKC has a bigger stage to play on – a Cookies for Kid’s Cancer race car! Through the generosity of The Gene Haas Foundation, Stewart-Haas Racing, and Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Sprint Cup Chase car will be zipping the No. 39 Chevrolet around Charlotte Motor Speedway this Saturday night to raise awareness for pediatric cancer research. The race on ABC will been seen by millions and, hopefully, some of those will become more aware of pediatric cancers and more likely to donate to help children stricken by these diseases.

Pretty nifty coup for a small non-profit, don’t you think? Come on, that kind of moxie deserves at least a small donation. All you have to do is just click here.

Life is unfair, unjust, downright merciless.  I learned Monday that an old friend lost her young son, Liam, to Neuroblastoma, a deadly form of pediatric cancer. He was just six years old.

 Diagnosed when he was two, Liam’s family learned quickly that Neuroblastoma is a cancer only about 30 percent of children survive. They were shocked to hear the reason for such terrible odds was directly related to how little money was being spent on research by both the government and the pharmaceutical industry. Pediatric cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 18.

 Liam and his family fought as hard as any I’ve ever known to try and beat his disease. And they started a program, Cookies for Cancer, to help raise research funds and awareness to help others with all forms of pediatric cancer.  If you read this blog, I hope it will move you to support this organization and all the families it touches. 

 I know of no words, no salve for my friend’s pain. I have experienced the loss of close family members after long illnesses. I know the depth of that pain. But I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose my son or my daughter. No parent should ever have to bear such a load.

 One of my friend’s many supporters posted this fitting Shakespeare verse on Facebook:

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

–Hamlet, V, ii

Now go hug your kids, give your significant other a long kiss , call your mom and dad up just to say you love them. Rejoice in the life you have while there is life to rejoice. And give your time and resources to help the world around you.

Photo courtesy of Chrysaora

Social media can help bring people together and drive social activism. And more importantly, it can help level the playing field when corporate carpetbaggers knock on people’s doors.

Not unlike the California Gold Rush of 1849, oil and gas companies are moving to rural areas across the country to access the precious natural gas that lies beneath the ground — and in people’s backyards.

Last week, I had an opportunity to meet with Chris Csikszentmihályi, director of the Center for Future Civic Media, to hear how the Center is bringing people together through something called “civic media” and “click-through activism.” The idea is that communities can use social media to support grassroots efforts, and in this case, help people defend themselves from opportunists who are using their money and political clout to their advantage.

The Center, which is on the forefront of social media activism, is a joint effort between the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and is funded through a four-year grant from the Knight Foundation.

I was struck by the work the Center is doing with the ExtrACT project, which uses Web-based and mobile tools to help level the playing field when representatives from oil and gas companies, called “landmen,” knock on people’s doors to negotiate gas leases. Many landowners are caught unaware and don’t realize they have negotiating options – or that these companies often use toxic chemicals during the exploration and drilling process, which can seep into the ground water and pollute the environment.

To empower these people, the Center has developed the Landman Report Card (LRC), which provides resources for landowners in Colorado and Ohio, and eventually New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, states that are experiencing booms in natural gas exploration. The Report Card serves as a resource where people can find information, learn about the options they have and share their experiences with landmen.

We’ve seen social media activism gaining in popularity, with everything from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to videos posted on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter that showed the death of 26-year-old Neda Soltan, who was hailed as a martyr and became the face of the Iranian protests. Even The Washington Post wrote about this growing trend earlier this year.

According to a 2009 report from the Pew Research Center, 37 percent of Americans 18 to 29 use blogs or social networking sites for political or civic involvement, compared to 17 percent of online users 30-49. By the same token, the report states that people who use social media for civic engagement are more active participants in traditional political and nonpolitical engagements.

Knowledge is power, and by working together, people can make a difference.

As part of the social media team at Live Earth, I am thrilled to announce the “Love, the Climate” campaign launching today, and continuing through Friday, the 25th (landing page coming later this week). Before the Climate Bill goes to the Senate floor, Live Earth is calling upon Americans to set aside partisan politics, and join together for a fun, positive and mind?changing effort. For more information on the Climate Bill, see this Huffington Post article.

Ace Blogger and Thought Leader David Armano agreed to help, and created this fun alternate logo for the effort.

We need your help, too! Please, demonstrate your optimism and faith. Make our senators feel like environmental rock stars. Encourage and motivate them to support a greener future!

Here are three ways you can Love the Climate:

• Leave us a voicemail thanking a senator for improving the world and letting everyone know how much you love the climate. Call 347.422.6392 now to leave your message on the Live Earth message line (this is not a toll?free number) or go to www.liveearth.org and we’ll call you! Live Earth will highlight the best voicemails on our website and forward the best ones to the senators to whom they’re addressed.

• Add to the “Love, The Climate” Facebook Page with a note, a message, a photo, or a link to content that shows how fantastic the climate will be after senators have taken action by passing the Climate Bill.

Here’s my cheesy video ;)

• Make a video for the climate demonstrating to senators how amazing life has become in a future where the environment is protected. Submit your video at video.liveearth.org. Live Earth will promote the most creative entries, and forward the best videos to the senators to whom they’re addressed.

Your creativity can help you as well as the climate: all participants who register for the campaign will be entered into random drawings for one of our awesome “Climate Love Packs,” as well as our grand prize, a Schwinn road bike. In order to be eligible for the prize drawings, you must submit an entry form to Live Earth at http://joinliveearth.org/page/s/lovetheclimate.

Beth Kanter, Shannon Whitley and I will donate our efforts to the Chronicle of Philanthropy when the publication turns up its new web site. In the interim, we will continue to use the List as a means to promote the 125 changebloggers, and overall, hopefully benefit the many causes they represent.

To the many changebloggers particiapting in the List: Thank you for your fantastic support. We hope the List is useful to you, and want it to help your efforts by bringing you more community awareness and participation. Please let us know how we can be of service to your efforts.

Towards that end, we’ve already taken the master OPML file, fed it into Yahoo Pipes, and created an RSS stream for the collective List of Change. We’ve also created a Twitter profile for the List of Change, which is live, but also features periodic tweets from the collective RSS stream (h/t Joe Solomon for your help).

There are more ways to promote the changebloggers via the List that we are exploring, and we’re open to your suggestions. Please feel free to use the comments here as a means of adding your thoughts.

We still hope to attract more changebloggers to the list so feel free to tell friends about it. And we hope to improve the list with more function, etc. We have already begun discussing the BlogLines metric and whether or not to continue it. Again, we’re open to suggestions as the List of Change is really a tool to benefit the larger community.

The List of Change was developed by programmer Shannon Whitley and I, and is co-facilitated by leading Changeblogger Beth Kanter. The List was also one of Qui Diaz‘s last projects as an employee of Livingston Communications.

Shannon and I created the List because we ended up owning the ranking code, something that happened during the past year and a half. We wanted to use the code for good, and as participants in the nonprofit industry we could think of no better place to do so. Beth thought it was a great idea, and graciously agreed to lend her name to and promote the List, thereby helping us give the ranking to the nonprofit industry. By creating the List of Change we felt we could benefit the sector for several reasons:

1) It will provide a single point of aggregation for change blogs, allowing new and old readers alike to discover new blogs

2) Change and cause bloggers can use the list to promote themselves to new readers. They can also use the list to benchmark their own performance against their peers.

3) We realize that some people see rankings as competitive or subjective, and don’t want to participate. The List of Change is an opt in ranking where change bloggers have to submit their URL to become part of the ranking. Only those who truly want to participate will, thus keeping a spirit of fellowship among the listed.

4) At SXSW Panel on Social Media ROI for Nonprofits – KD Paine was asked a question about metrics for blogs. KD said that she couldn’t answer that because you’d need to have some industry or nonprofit benchmark. And, if one does not exist – trade that information with your colleagues. The list helps facilitate the exchange of benchmarks. So, it isn’t about the score or the number – it gives an industry number and way to begin thinking about to improve our effort.

And so here we are. We hope you agree, and will join the List of Change today.

“The “List of Change” is something that has been needed in the non-profit and social change blogosphere for awhile,” said Fly4Change Changeblogger Alex “SocialBttrfly” Rampy. “It’ll help welcome newcomers and highlight our growing and diverse community. Whether you consider yourself a changeblogger, do-gooder, non-profiteer or have a heart for social good, get to know this valuable community. Engage them in conversation and recruit others in your wake as our times call for all hands on deck.”

There is no profit motive behind the List. While this is currently being hosted on the livingstonbuzz.com URL, my professional blog’s domain, the ultimate intent is to move the list to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s site when it launches its redesigned philanthropy.com. Thank you to Peter Panepento and the Chronicle team for serving as our partners in this endeavor.

When we do move the List to the Chronicle’s site, we will donate the code without financial compensation. You will also note there are no corporate logos affiliated with the list either. This is literally a gift from Shannon, Beth and I.

Methodology

Credit for the idea behind the List of Change Index goes to Todd Andrlik, who developed the AdAge Power150. Many of the sources for the List of Change are the same as the original Power150, including Technorati Rank, Technorati InLinks, Bloglines Subscribers, Alexa Points, Google PageRank, and Yahoo InLinks. The List of Change takes a slightly different approach in generating the actual ranks. All of the blogs are essentially graded on a curve, using standard deviations to rank the blogs against each other on a scale of 0 – 100.

P.S. I want to thank my employer CRT/tanaka for supporting my philanthropic side projects. Without their silent, but substantive help it would be much harder for me to participate.

I’ve watched and listened to the growing debate social media has reinvigorated about the term “cause marketing.” In particular, the term “social media for social good” has been called into question. At the heart of the matter as raised by Beth Kanter is how far companies can go before they demean the nonprofit brand in their efforts to appear (or actually become) “responsible.”

The social media aspect of this debate is only relevant in that it makes partnering and co-branding as easy as a click or retweet. What is important is the increase ease of co-opting a brand into somewhate questionable activity, such as the recent Tide T Shirt campaign to brand Tide, oops, I meant to benefit charity :)

The term cause marketing is often blurred by nonprofits in an effort to keep their perceived integrity. Some draw the line at the point where they receive cash, others at services. Other say the line begins as soon as the wolf is the hen house.

I subscribe to the wolf theory. As someone who has extensive experience in both corporate and nonprofit marketing on the agency side, and as someone who got their start writing journals for nonprofit trade associations, let me be frank: Companies rarely lend their brand or resources to a nonprofit unless they gain something from it.

That’s true whether its karmic do good efforts — the heart of what companies should be doing to be perceived social responsible — to flat out branding. Some companies go so far as to charge their customers and serve as a middleperson between from the consumer to the cause. Whether or not cash exchanges hands is irrelevant. Altruism is a very rare thing in corporate cause marketing.

Nonprofits who say balk at this remind me of a someone who goes on a date then says it wasn’t a date because a kiss wasn’t exchanged. OK, then… Denial is not a river in Egypt.

The nonprofit sector organization that bemoans the demeaning nature of cause marketing and, perhaps its affect on their own brand, needs to look at its choices. Companies will be companies. Some are good, some are not. For every PNC Bank, there’s an AIG. Some understand proper cause marketing and social responsibility, some do not.

The nonprofit sector should take responsibility for who it chooses to partner with and why (hat tip: Allison Fine, lecture, Georgetown University on March 31, 2009). The stresses of fundraising and marshaling resources — even in an economy like this one — do not justify shunning off responsibility for cause marketing sliminess and failures. Nonprofit organizations that don’t organize intelligent programs that manage their brands as well as attract donors risk losing face.

Using another metaphor, if one has a business partner whose behavior is less than appealing, dishonest, fails to fulfill obligations, or even competes in breach of legal contracts etc., one cannot simply blame them. Instead one must ask themselves why they chose company/person X as a business partner. Realize the other party’s behavior can serve as a mirror into one’s own business practices, whether similar in nature, or naive or inexperienced. There’s a lesson to be learned.

My point: The cause marketing questions of late have as much to do with the causes as the companies. It takes two to tango, and acknowledging that will only hasten better practices.

What we found was a tremendous opportunity for nonprofits to participate as trusted providers of credible information and ultimately cultivate the next generation of major donors through the social web.

You can explore the research findings on the original Mashable post!

I wrote about the importance of this book and it’s seminal line “There’s no market for messages” two months ago (students please read that post, too). And while that post really captures a lot of the marketing aspects that Cluetrain brought to bear, it did not get to the heart of the matter. We as communicators must listen.

In a media environment where people talk back, and expect to be listened to, simply talking won’t work. It won’t. Social media is relational, it’s two-way! If donors, volunteers and tax payers want messages, they’ll read your brochure, watch your educational video, etc. Not here. We want to talk. That’s why we’ve forsaken our roles as simple consumers of media and engaged in this vibrant online world, a veritable bazaar of ideas, conversations and yes, even products.

Consider what the old way of communicating did. Perhaps Chistopher Locke’s words in Chapter 1: Internet Apocalypso said it best:

We long to be part of a world that makes sense rather than accept the accidental alienation imposed by market forces too large to grasp, to even contemplate. And this longing is not mere wistful nostalgia, not just some unreconstructed adolescent dream. It is living evidence of heart, of what makes us most human. But companies don’t like us human. They leverage our longing for their own ends… Our role is to consume.

Nonprofit and government communicators may object and say, “Well, we are cause based, we are the essence of heart in life. We are bettering society.” But are you? Or do you just want to increase donations? Or “educate” the masses? Perhaps garner votes for your platform? Or even spread the word about your cause, movement or political reform?

Mass communications vehicles have lost a great deal of their strength and trust. Here on the social web those things live again. But to achieve them we must listen. That’s why so many organizational blogs fail. They talk first, and may never listen or let other voices be heard. In reality, it should be the other way around.

The Voices Will Be Heard

Back to Locke:

The Internet became a place where people could talk to other people without constraint. Without filters or censorship or official sanction — and perhaps most significantly, without advertising. Another, noncommercial culture began forming across this out-of-the-way collection of computer networks.

And so if organizations really want to participate in social web efforts, they need to engage in two-way — without filters, censors and punitive measures. That’s one of the big issues with the government 2. 0 movement. So much talk about the tools, and the technology. A sales pitch really. But what about letting taxpayers be heard? Do you think today’s social media government 2.0 conversation understands the difference between a new government policy/action inspired by our collective opinion, or just the same government only now more visible with social tools? I don’t.

That’s why burying criticism is so bad. It matters not that you agree with the points as an organization. People are going to say what they think of you anyway… It’s just a question of whether or not you choose to be a part of that real conversation on the social web. People need to be heard. Your filtering of that feedback is separate, but whatever you do, don’t stymie it.

Back to the social cause. Voices (did you know social cause network Care2 has surpassed 10 million members).. A group of donors who want to voice their opinion. Volunteers who want to conduct their own kind of activism. Many stakeholders who want to see what the organization is doing and how, all who want to move that cause, affect that change together. They just want to talk about it, and yes, participate.

Let Them Be Heard. Begin your conversation with listening.

All we need to do is what most of us who’ve discovered this medium are already doing: Using it to connect with each other, not as representatives of corporations or market segments, but simply as who we are.

Evan C. Parker, the Manager of Digital Membership at the Nature Conservancy, heads up the organization’s online communications efforts. For the past twelve years, Parker has specialized in mobilizing online audiences for nonprofit and political causes. Prior to joining the Conservancy in 2005, Evan led Congressman Bernie Sanders’ online outreach efforts.

BB: What was your biggest achievement on the social media front in 2008?

EP: Our social media efforts are really more about lots of small efforts over a wide area, as opposed to a deep dive in any one particular pool. As a result, our achievements tend to be targeted, and more distributed, as opposed to any one "big thing" to be singled out.

For example: this year we’ve past $100,000 and 50,000 friends on Facebook, our Flickr community saw it’s 100,000th picture posted, and we launched a really successful widget campaign through Plant A Billion Trees. They’re all great accomplishments, but they are built on a sturdy social media foundation that we’ve been developing — slow and steady — over the last three or four years.

BB: Tell us about your organization’s marketing/communications strategy for 2009. What big hairy audacious social media goals will help you achieve your objectives next year? Do you foresee any particularly enticing opportunities that can help nonprofits/causes reach their social media goals in 2009? Any advice for how to take advantage of related trends?

EP: It sounds so dull, but we are really looking for more of the same — we want to keep engaging our community of conservationists, on whatever networks/platforms that energize them. Obviously, that will mean a lot of work in the more traditional social media spaces — the Facebooks, the Flickrs — but we will certainly keep an ear to the ground for where our current/future supporters will be congregating next.

There seems to be a lot of real traction around online donation affinity programs lately, and that certainly looks promising to an organization like the Conservancy. People are looking for easy solutions to everyday problems, and that includes everyday ways they can support the causes that are most important to them.

BB: How do you plan to integrate your social media efforts with the rest of your marketing mix (e.g., direct mail, email marketing, mobile, media relations, etc.)?

EP: We’ve seen first hand that integrated marketing messages across channels is really a rising tide that lifts all boats. That being said, each element of a marketing mix appeals to a very specific audience, so the trick is all about figuring out which audiences can be best reached through which channels. So, as we kick off each marketing effort, we will think through the channels vs. the audiences, and roll our messages out to as many as we can.

BB: What is one challenge you face when executing new, social and/or digital media strategy? How are you overcoming this hurdle? What will be the final measure of success for your digital plans?

EP: In my mind, the biggest challenge in this space is always going to be time. Right now, our digital teams could easily put together a list of social media spaces that vastly outstrips the collective hours in our day, so we have to prioritize as best we can.

This, unfortunately, highlights the second biggest challenge inherent in social media, which is metrics. Unless we have good metrics, it’s impossible to gauge the success of social media efforts. Without success, it’s impossible to measure ROI. Without ROI, it’s impossible to figure out where we should be focusing our attentions.

It’s a bit of a vicious circle, but we will be focusing a lot of effort figuring out how we measure social media engagement, tie it back to traffic, and then track the long term value of our social media audiences over the next few years.

Both Joan and Robert have experience in marketing-communications. Prior to GlobalGiving, Joan provided marketing support for clients such as Fannie Mae and HP. Robert worked at Burns Marketing, Colorado’s fifth-largest marketing-communications agency.

BB: What was your biggest achievement on the social media front in 2008?

GG: Being a part of America’s Giving Challenge – an initiative spearheaded by the Case Foundation earlier this year. The objective of America’s Giving Challenge was to inspire Americans to use online tools such as widgets to participate in a fundraising for a cause – either a project on GlobalGiving or an organization on Network for Good. The Challenge ran for about 6 weeks and attracted over 130 “fundraisers,” more than 13,000 donors, and generated approximately $364,000 in donations. Interestingly, many of the top fundraisers who participated in the Challenge relied not just on social media tools such as widgets and blogs, but used traditional outreach vehicles such as phone calls and email messages as well.

We continued to experiment with other social media tools (Facebook, our own blog, Second Life, etc) as well, and learned that every tools is not right for every organization. Participating in and maintaining a presence on social networks is time consuming and resource intensive, and we found that merely having a presence on social networks has for the most part not been effective in developing online communities or building relationships with new or potential donors.

BB: Tell us about your organization’s marketing/communications strategy for 2009.

GG: Going forward, we are focusing on both acquisition and retention by creating a more engaging website experience – one that will motivate people to return regularly to take advantage of and participate in the more community-oriented features on GlobalGiving. Some of the functionality under development include fundraising tools (which would allow individuals to come together to raise funds for a project in which they have a common interest), tell-a-friend features that enable viral marketing, online discussions between donors and project leaders, and enhanced donor profiles.

BB: What big hairy audacious social media goals will help you achieve your objectives next year?

GG: Once again, we feel that community – oriented features – the ability for donors to connect and interact with project leaders, as well as with other donors – are becoming increasingly important. For example, if I can see what projects my friends support, I might be more likely to support those projects, too. We want our donors to feel connected – with projects and the people that run them, with other donors, and with the broader GlobalGiving community in general. Today, we enable donors to add comments to reports posted by progress leaders – we’re working to make this more dynamic and hopefully turn this “back and forth” into interesting, lively, and educational conversations. And of course, we’ll continue to promote widgets and integrate more video and audio (e.g. podcasts) into our site.

BB: How do you plan to integrate your social media efforts with the rest of your marketing mix (e.g., direct mail, email marketing, mobile, media relations, etc.)?

GG: We typically use email communications to encourage individuals to visit gg.com and engage on our site. Traditional media/public relations also tends to be very effective in driving qualified visitors to our site. Our goal is to create a unified/consistent user experience, so we employ landing pages that are customized based on where the person may be coming from – e.g. if we place an ad, we’ll direct viewers of that ad to a specific landing page that might leverage the same look/feel/messaging, etc.

BB: What is one challenge you face when executing new, social and/or digital media strategy? How are you overcoming this hurdle?

GG: Being a small organization, we have limited resources and therefore a very long wish list of desired features and enhancements – and of course, we can never get these features in as quickly as we’d like – so prioritization is especially important. In addition, it’s hard to evaluate how much time and resources to put into a new (and perhaps unproven) social media tool. We have to ask ourselves “is this the next best thing, or something that may fizzle within the next six months?”

BB: What will be the final measure of success for your digital plans?

GG: Put simply – meeting and exceeding our goals, usually around donation volume as well as other more standard web metrics such as conversion, bounce rate, repeat visitors, etc. As we expand our community, we will implement goals related to community participation and engagement, referrals, etc.

BB: Do you foresee any particularly enticing opportunities that can help nonprofits/causes reach their social media goals in 2009? Any advice for how to take advantage of related trends?

GG: There’s so much out there that it’s tricky to stay on top of all the latest developments. Reading blogs like this one :-) and taking advantage of the myriad of opportunities out there – from Google applications and seminars, to resources like Progressive Exchange, Net Squared, TechSoup – and you’d be amazed of the tips we get from Twitter, too! It’s important not to try to use every social media tool at once – figure out what your organization’s needs are, and then identify the tools that you think would best meet your specific needs.

PS. Could 2009 be the year that mobile actually breaks through as a social media tool in the US in a big way???

Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, the day after the 60th anniversary of the UN’s pact to end genocide. To commemorate the Human Rights pact, bloggers throughout the world are discussing their first human rights memory of import.  And because so much of our work at the agency involves social causes, the Buzz Bin will participate (image: Fires over the Hills by Timm Williams).

My first memory of human rights was not a good one, a prolonged period of time in which my Jewish family was harassed and attacked by anti-semites for a period of years. I do not like talking about that time, so instead I’ve decided to blog about the thing that had the most impact on me from a human rights perspective this year. By far, reading Amy Chua’s World On Fire had the most weight.

World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability is  Yale professor Amy Chua’s unrelenting examination of how sudden free trade and democracy together can actually destabilize countries and cause ethnic hatred and genocide. Region by region, continent by continent, from Burma and Russia to Africa and Latin America, Chua demonstrates her case.  The book clearly shows how Western, and in particular U.S. free market democracy, has created some of the worst human rights violations of our time, including the genocide in Rwanda.

And the secret recipe is simple. Inevitably, when you have a free market, one minority group rises to the top and succeeds financially – this is true of the Chinese in Burma and the Philippines, the Jews in Russia, the Tutsis in Rwanda, etc. etc. Next, enter the democratization aspect.  Now you have a poor, down-trodden and uneducated majority that’s angry about being robbed of the promises of free markets. Stating it in oversimplistic terms, when a minority rises to power, the majority brings political pressure to bear,  leading to everything from ethnic hate crimes and oppression to manipulation of political power by the minorities or even genocide.

World on Fire provides sobering humanitarian reasons to end Friedman-like declarations for simply flattening and democratizing the world (the American version of Empire).

Instead, I advocate for preparing countries to handle free markets and democracy.  We should focus on creating education, building country-wide infrastructure, raising health standards, and ensuring people can eat everyday. By doing so we can help the world embrace the great human rights principles that allow for true democracy and freedom.

Working on the Save Darfur campaign has provided me great relief, in part because I understand some of the underlying causes.  While this is in essence fire-fighting, at least we can stop the flames. Then we can put in some fire codes with better global policies that involve a more sober view of human nature when faced with poverty and hunger.

I encourage you to read World on Fire. And I encourage you to do your part not just today, but everyday, a little something to help human rights efforts throughout the world.  Finally, if you want to help the Livingston Communications team  in our efforts to end Darfur, sign the petition either on Facebook or on the Add Your Voice site.

The reality of business is that crisis happens. Whether it’s cyanide in your medicine, your inability to get airplanes off the ground, or a financial implosion, companies inevitably face difficult, even life threatening situations. Those situations demand crisis management and communications.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to the airline industry vis a vis the National Transportation Safety Board on how social media can impact companies in this scenario (see above presentation). Clearly social media offers a fantastic toolset because it allows direct access to stakeholders. Consider how during times of crisis the American Red Cross uses social media tools to keep both stakeholders and the media informed.

At the same time, the social web can be a lightening form of brand damage or death in a time of crisis. It’s conversational, and companies have a limited scope of meaningful dialogue to offer, especially when something goes wrong. Consider jetblue’s Valentines Day crisis and the beginning of the end for Toshiba’s HD-DVD standard respectively.

See the social web is so open, so uncontrolled that companies with active communities online must communicate. Further, in life-threatening situations it’s even more paramount. Online there is no way to tell if the voice tone, no body language to read, no facial expressions. In the cases of audio or video, you can at least hear voice or see body language (though editing and re-recording can mask this). Then there’s the person to person interaction.

It all equals a very emotional place that requires not only communication, but a company that will listen and react appropriately. Reacting appropriately means not getting caught in the emotions of the moment by either shutting down or over-promising resolution. Acknowledge community frustrations, but company representatives must be factual, prompt and genuine. Otherwise social fire may catch.

Consider the worst case scenario, a plane down over the ocean and no one knows exactly where. How can you promise rescue? Further, given the government’s role in investigations, you can’t even offer deep insights. But you can communicate and interact and answer questions about the families, etc.

It gets back to meaningful dialogue. People want to have a real two-way conversation about the situation. That’s why companies that have high risk scenarios should do everything they can to prepare so when crisis does occur, the teams and tools are in place to best communicate between all parties.

“Our mission is to break the world’s oil addiction.”

Compliments of September’s Wired cover story, I learned of Shai Agassi’s phenomenal start-up Better Place. An admirable mission as Green is my number one current cause. And social causes have rapidly become critical professional matters for those of us writing on the Buzz Bin.

Shai (see his blog here) abandoned a promising career at software giant SAP to fulfill his quest to end oil dependence. His vision of all electric cars is so ambitious it makes your mouth drop. Forget GM’s broken Volt model. Instead, envision battery power readily accessible through a networked grid everywhere. And the cost? One third of the gas-guzzling fuel costs the average American spends.

Impossible you say? Yet he has Renault, Daimler, the Israeli and Danish governments, powerful investors, and talented individuals across the globe getting in line behind him. He is attracting the world’s most incredible minds, and breaking so called rules left and right. And he is likely to break current paradigms for hybrid and electric cars.

Why? Because he was tasked by fellow entrepreneurs to change the world, to make a difference for the environment. In his relentless passion to achieve what he sees as the world’s biggest environmental challenge — oil addiction – he has turned the heads of many, and may become one of our generation’s greatest heros. I hope so.

Many times on my personal blog (this piece is cross-posted there), I’ve stated a definitive intent to use my communication “powers” for good.

At Gnomedex this weekend, I will have the great pleasure of meeting Beth Kanter, one of the leading change bloggers out there. Beth’s work is so prolific we felt compelled to interview her yesterday. Voices like hers, like la Marguerite, like EcoGeek, speak to me every time I open my reader. It’s dedicated, 110% committed people like these change bloggers, like Agassi, that let you know the impossible can be achieved.

Inevitably my mind returns to our internal mission: Building a significant social cause practice, and using our social media skills for good. In the past week, we’ve made several steps that have put us in position to kick some real butt on behalf of organizations trying to relieve poverty, end genocide, educate America, and more.

We live once. No one will remember us for marketing body armor, wireless networks, cars, software, etc., etc. What will your legacy be?

Yes, we have to pay the bills. Not everyone can direct corporate strategy in this way. Or maybe you can just quit like Agassi — like me — and start your own company. But all of us, every single one of us can do more. As communicators we have the ability to help in ways most people cannot. We can use social media and traditional channels to heighten public awareness, help fundraise, and build better companies. And it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t some cause that every person holds dear to their heart.

2008 is 66% over. What are you doing to make Earth a better place this year?