Social media is an important part of online communications and should be part of your nonprofit's marketing, engagement, and fundraising strategy. But you shouldn't just jump in blindly, you need to approach social media with the same diligence and attention to detail that you use with your direct mail, email, and telemarketing programs. This panel will discuss the best practices for creating social media campaigns that not only integrate with the rest of your marketing efforts and maximize viral potential, but are also set up from the beginning to be trackable and thus reportable. We'll also discuss what to do with all the data that comes from these campaigns, since data for data sake is fun, (for some of us at least!) but in the end is useless. Session Takeaways: 1) How to create trackable and reportable social networking campaigns 2) How to use that data for your forecasting, strategy, and testing planning 3) Best practices on integrating social web campaigns with the rest of your communications and fundraising strategy

1. It’s Not Direct Marketing If You Can’t Track It! Analyzing the Social Web #11NTCsmTrack Brenna Holmes, AH&A Heather Shelby, EDF Lauren Guite, EDF

2. Our Speakers: AH&A Brenna Holmes (@bfholmes & @ahadirect), Senior Strategist & AE, Interactive Services, Adams Hussey & Associates. I work on all things cross-channel & advocacy/fundraising integration, online list growth w/paid & earned media. My specialty’s integrating traditional direct marketing w/the social web & search to maximize supporter engagement &organizational loyalty. I’m also a graphic designer & have 2 master’s degrees from Syracuse University.

3. Our Speakers: EDF Heather Shelby (@heathershelb), Online Membership Associate, Environmental Defense Fund I started out working as an email consultant for Members of Congress, moving into the Non-Profit world a few years ago. At EDF, I focus on email advocacy & fundraising, especially in cultivating segments of our file (such as superactivists, sustainers, etc), as well as handling our Facebook page. Lauren Guite (@lguite, @EnvDefenseFund), Online Marketing and Outreach Coordinator, Environmental Defense Fund I've been working in advocacy for 7+ years with environmental non-profits. I started with on-the-ground grassroots organizing, moved on to grasstops organizing and then finally online organizing. Currently I help EDF staff develop, implement and measure social media strategies, provide trainings and conduct online outreach.

4. Session Evaluation Each entry via text or web is a chance to win great NTEN prizes throughout the day! TEXT Text #11NTCsmTrack to 69866. ONLINE Use #11NTCsmTrack at http://nten.org/ntc/eval Session Evaluations Powered By:

5. What You Can Look Forward To Best practices on integrating social web campaigns with the rest of your communications and fundraising strategy How to create trackable and reportable social networking campaigns How to use that data for your forecasting, strategy, and testing planning

6. A Couple Case Studies Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) & Then … Time for Questions

7. EDF’s Social Media Evolution: The Beginning If you want to stay in the game as a thought leader, you need to be online where the conversation is happening. Luckily, EDF’s leadership recognizes that. Held an EDF retreat focused on social media to encourage staff to get in the game. An explosion of social media requests! How do we make sure we’re investing wisely?

8. EDF’s 1st Steps into SM Blogs 2007 launched Climate411 How to make a blog measurable & worthwhile: Clearly define goals Define your audience including where they are and what they want from you Understand resources, both what’s necessary and what you have Define and revisit your metrics often EDF Now has 16 different blogs!

9. Examples The Chemicals & Nanomaterials Goal: to advance chemical policy reform by reaching key policymakers, industry and other advocates/NGOs. Audience: key policymakers, industry and other advocates/NGOs Metrics:feedburner subscriptions, networks, referring sites, links to blog from other reputable and related blogs, ASK!

10. Examples Texas Clean Air Goal: educate the public on the current status of air quality in TX, inform the public on opportunities for fighting for cleaner air, resource for assessing the air quality at TCEQ monitors

11. Examples Texas Clean Air Audience: legislators, TCEQ staff, Texan activists, journalists Metrics: more unique views by a broader audience, more pick up on general green, health and mommy blogs, more social sharing, more actions

12. EDF’s Facebook Evolution: The First Fans

13. EDF’s Facebook Evolution: Organic Growth

14. EDF’s Facebook Evolution: Ad Experimentation

15. EDF’s Facebook Evolution: Using Metrics – What Works & What Doesn’t

16. Building your own metrics Step 1: Set Goals “Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goalsand I’ll give you a stock clerk.” – J.C. Penney “If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.” – Yogi Berra

17. Step 2: Reaching Your Audience With clear goals in sight, the next step is getting your message to as many people as possible. Awareness is the first step in bonding a Facebook user with your organization. Prospective fans = mix of those who should be interested in your organization and those who already are. Those who should are your target of choice Experiment with Facebook Ads’ targeting to find those people

18. Step 3: Triggering Action This is where your metrics must go beyond simply the number of fans you’ve managed to obtain. What kind of posts encourage engagement? Test it out, and keep track of what works best. Source your action alerts and any sign-up opportunities on Facebook

19. EDF & Twitter Just because it is only 140 characters doesn’t mean it takes any less planning! Same strategic process IS necessary: Clearly define goals Define your audience including where they are and what they want from you Understand resources, both what’s necessary and what you have Define and revisit your metrics often

20. The Evolution of @EnvDefenseFund 2008 Goal: get word about our work out Audience: activists, influentials, journalists Metrics: # of followers, lists, retweets, and mentions Tactics: live-tweeting, rt & @ mention influentials, make fact sheets tweetable, twitterviews, etc.

21. The Evolution of @EnvDefenseFund ACES (climate bill of 2009) in the House caused huge fight on Twitter to get messaging out Started looking at sentiment (on Twitter & blogs or targeted Tweeters) Added hashtag use to metrics: #capandtrade vs. #capandtax New tactics included creating a Twitter Tool kit (http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=45878)

22. The Evolution of @EnvDefenseFund Post-Staff Retreat More and more staffers want to use Twitter so we developed the same kind of planning template for Twitter that we have for blogs (EDF’s Twitter List: @EnvDefenseFund/edfers) All Twitterers to use bit.ly and track click throughs

23. The Evolution of @EnvDefenseFund Current goals & metrics for @EnvDefenseFund Goals: Drive traffic to our blogs & website Metrics: source codes to better track links shared, mentions as well as rts, followers and lists New Tactic: writing tweets for click-throughs over RTs now Tweeting more strategically means more focus = less of my time

24. Jumping In California State Parks Foundation May 26, 2009 – Sacramento releases news that 220 parks may close due to budget cuts Online, Direct Mail, and Telemarketing worked together to increase awareness of the imminent threat and garner public support to save California’s magnificent state parks and beaches. This was CSPF’s first use of multiple online channels Crisis drove robust adoption, but staff commitment to their digital brand has maintained & improved their online presence since

25. Online & DM urgent prospecting bolstered by Online & TM conversion follow-up Care2 petition, over 14,000 signers Facebook Friend Get a Friend campaign 10 times the fans in 4 days 90 times the fans in 4 months (517  48,828. Now over 58,200 fans!) Google & Facebook Ads 24,512 clicks Over 75% of petition signers camefrom Facebook and Google Ads Multichannel & Multimedia

26. FB Tools & Tracking Facebook Page Insights Page Views & Unique Page Views Tab Views & Referrals “Likes” (formerly known as Fans) Demographics Interactions Click & Conversion Tracking bit.ly pro, ow.ly, Convio source codes FBML 6 = Welcome tab FBML 8 = Get Involved tab FBML 3 = Donate tab Most growth at the beginning of the campaign Most growth at the beginning of the campaign New peak in growth w/new summer budget campaign Never goes below 0% growth

27. Twitter Tools & Tracking Followers Lists You follow. Great for keyword/topic searches! Following you. Shows how many people value your content at a higher level RTs & Replies When & How much you tweet Click & Conversion Tracking Track your most popular types of content and your referral & regional stats. Hootsuite has Google Analytics overlays & all sorts of fun new reports with their Pro Editions!

28. Q&A Time for …