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Geoff Livingston 7 min read

Integrating Social Into the Larger Mix

As we move towards the critical donation season during the holidays in a recession, now more than ever it’s necessary to integrate social media into the larger communications mix.  How do you turn an organic conversation into something more, perhaps a donation or an action?

Many organizations experiment with social media now, and that’s great. Causes have something real to talk about, meaningful missions that impact people’s lives. But keeping the experiment in a box or a silo is a mistake.

Yes, you should treat conversational media differently. It’s not a place to hard sell.  But, you can intelligently use advertising principles with calls to action and pull people through to make a donation, purchase cause-related goods online, opt-in to an email list, attend an event, or tell their friends about an effort (more email addresses for your database).

Let’s take a look at a classic example, calls-to-action on a  blog.  In this example, the Livestrong Blog, you’ll see four different calls-to-action on the right side.

That’s just a smart design. Why? Look at the various calls-to-action, petitions to email.  They are non-intrusionary and permission-based, meaning that people opt to click through. Now why not add a donation button for the holidays, too? Something manageable like $25.  A no brainer.

A for-profit example is the well known LOL Catz, or icanhazcheeseburger.com. While not the most attractive design, this popular site drives tons of traffic and is very profitable.  Calls to action are found throughout the site, yet the social content – LOL Catz photos -- remains the primary reason to be there.

Whether it’s cause related goods, a straight donation, or opting in to an email list, remember that social media is conversational. Make calls-to-action friendly and, though clearly present, the design should be non-intrusionary. 

Integrating Back to Social

On a reverse note, it seems like every nonprofit social media effort I see has the social media piece standing on its own for promotion. This represents a strategic error. On today’s crowded social web, if you build it they probably won’t come!

Email lists, newsletters, even print campaigns should offer social media as a means to get people involved. Maybe your stakeholders want to have a conversation with the organization as well as other donors and volunteers.  Yet, they may not be aware that you offer social communications. So tell them!

No one sits at home deciding to use “social media.” They just turn their computer on and surf! To the average consumer, there is no division of media. So unless you tell them about Facebook, Twitter, Care2 (who runs Frogloop), blogs, live chats, U-Stream video conversations, etc, they won’t know to come!  That mean’s your communications experience needs to be integrated across the line.

Never underestimate the value of a social conversation to a stakeholder. It reminds them of why they care about the cause. It creates buy-in and passion, and whether or not they are directly integrated, they foster trust for further stakeholder involvement later in the relationship lifecycle. Further, you may actually get some good feedback from the people you need the most.

*This article was written by Geoff Livingston, Senior Vice President of CRT/tanaka. Geoff is also the founder of Blog Potomac happening on October 23, 2009 in Washington, DC metro area.

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