Case Study: Protecting Animals Socially Presented by: Carie Lewis, Director of Emerging Media, Online Communications, The Humane Society

1. Protecting Animals Socially
Carie Lewis
Director of Emerging Media
The Humane Society of the United States
@cariegrls // @humanesociety

2. What We‟ll Talk About
• Our strategy
• Where we are
• What we’re doing
• Campaign examples
• Measuring success
• Getting buy-in
• Resources and Time
• Brand monitoring
• Famous last words

3. My name is Carie,
and I‟m a social networking addict.
We have a team of 6. How do we know how to talk to these people? We are these people!

4. How many of you have…

5. FACT: The way we communicate
is changing. It‟s not a fad.
We must adapt by:
Having a presence in places where people are.
Finding new ways to engage our existing supporters
where they are.
Recruiting new supporters, donors and advocates
where they are.
Giving people a way to show they support us –
where they are.
Giving people an easy way to recruit friends, f
amily, and strangers where they are.
We have to accept the fact that some people will never join our email list or website.

6. Our Strategy
• Stay on top of latest trends
• Research new opportunities
• Train staff
• Have guidelines
• Take an integrated approach
• Measure everything!
• Showcase successes
• Listen
• Don‟t be afraid to fail
• Learn from mistakes

7. Where We Are
humanesociety.org/connect

8. WIIFM? Fundraising is only one (small) aspect
of social networking for nonprofits.
• List building
• Community building
• Connections
• Knowledge sharing
• Innovation
• Recognition
It‟s really about building meaningful relationships
with individuals and creating a two-way dialogue
about your brand.

9. Spay Day Pet Photo Contest 23,000 Facebook app installs
40,000 contest entrants
(donations / event fundraising) 60% utilization rate
$600,000 raised
Improvement from 31,000 // $72,000 in „08
Humanesociety.org/spayday

10. LOLseals Photo Contest 3,000 entrants
2,000 new email addresses
(awareness / list building) 28,000 page views
6 major industry blog entries
humanesociety.org/lolseals

11. 26 RSVPs to Tweetup
TAFA Community 357 hashtag mentions from 27 people
401 followers
(community / relationship building) 101 people identified themselves
139 Facebook event RSVPs
1505 YouTube video views
Takingactionforanimals.com/community

12. IHOP
(advocacy)

13. Success is no longer just about
how many friends you have.
Do those friends do what you want them to?
• Sign advos and petitions
• Donate
• Recruit friends
• Re-post your content
• Subscribe to your email list
You won‟t know unless you measure and evaluate.

14. How do you measure success?
Unique URLs (source codes)
– Advo links in blogs and bulletins
– Advo links in banners and badges
– Donation links
Click through & conversion rates
Statistics
– # of visitors and page views to quantify exposure
– Time spent on site or page to measure engagement
– Top pages and keywords to define interests
– Referring sites to find out where people are
RSS feeds (buzz)
Friend request / commenting trends in relation to other activities

15. …it’s not just about the money.
We started with
traditional metrics
Got the buy-in
Now tracking
social media
metrics

16. Speaking of Buy-in…
Don’t just tell them about it: get them involved!
Aggressive: CEO on Facebook,
Executive VP on Twitter
Passive: Communications SVP
Twitter via iPhone RSS Feed

17. Show results:
Twitter link on Press Releases = 300 new followers in one day
Sharing functionality on web stories = addthis now a top referrer
# new emails, donations via unique URLs (source codes)
Setting goals on # friends, followers (they get really excited!)
Leads to:
Social media links on homepage and emails
Increased resources and interest
Internet Communications Code of Conduct
Guest Tweeters in PR, Campaigns, Emergency Services

18. Resources
We started out with 1 person.
Now:
New branch of Online Communications
Department called “Emerging Media”
• Director of Emerging Media (project manager)
• Emerging Media Manager (online volunteer program)
• Emerging Media Specialist (brand monitoring)
• Social Media Specialist (Facebook, MySpace)
• Internet Marketing Specialist (advertising, SEO, analytics)
• 4 virtual interns
• street team
• several furry office mascots

19. A quick note about Brand Monitoring
No company or org can afford to not pay attention to what people are saying
about their brand online today.
There are many tools ranging from expensive (Radian6) to cheap (Filtrbox) to free!

20. At the very least..
You should have Google Alerts
and Tweetbeep notifications
or an RSS feed from Twitter Search
for your brand name.
Why the focus on Twitter?
Twitter is the most real-time account
you have of what people are saying
about you.

21. What if I’m a smaller business /
organization?
These same principles can apply
People talk (a lot) on a local level.
Follow interesting hashtags and
memes!

22. The time to have a social media policy is NOW.
Have a policy to help your employees understand what they
can and can‟t do when participating in online conversations.

23. Final lesson:
Social networking is not a silver bullet
for your organization’s marketing goals.
Our email program is still our #1 driver of success.
We participate in social networking to reach an audience we might not
reach otherwise.
You need to be where people prefer to communicate.
Take an integrated campaign approach to cover all angles.

24. Social media can be OVERWHELMING.
.
“If you‟re working for the weekends, your shit is BROKE.
Do what you LOVE!” -@garyvee #sxsw

25. Thank you!
Carie Lewis
Director of Emerging Media
The Humane Society of the United States
Email: clewis@humanesociety.org
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/carielewis
Twitter: @cariegrls
Blog: cariegrls.blogspot.com
HSUS Networks: humanesociety.org/connect