Social action isn't sending a tweet or sharing a petition on Facebook and calling it a day. Social action is about mobilizing people around your issue and turning them into advocates. As Frogloop has said before, the most successful nonprofit campaigns, utilize several tools and mediums at their disposal to build movements that make an impact.
Yesterday, Care2's webinar on Cutting Edge Integrated Social Media Strategies highlighted the importance of developing integrated campaigns that not only use email, direct mail and telemarketing, but key social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Alan Rosenblatt of the Center for American Progress Action Fund discussed how they organize their social media champions via Twitter lists and the positive impact it's had on their advocacy.
Garth Moore, of 1Sky discussed how the organization first started planning to grow their social networking presence strategically. 1Sky asked the big questions:
- Who really likes us on our email supporter list?
- Are they in our social networks?
- Are they on Facebook and Twitter? Will they post for us? Tweet for us?
- Can they get the message and drive more traffic?
- Who are these people?
Then 1Sky performed a "social networking scrub" where they recruited 15K petition signers with
Care2 and matched 10K of these petition signers with their social networking profiles on different social networks like Facebook and Twitter using
Care2's Social Networking Tracker. 1Sky then emailed these people and asked them to join 1Sky on Facebook and Twitter.