How to Build An Army of Online Brand Ambassadors

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How to Build An Army of Online
Brand Ambassadors
Julia Campbell
August 13, 2013
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Julia Campbell
Principal
J Campbell Social Marketing

Julia Campbell
President/CEO of J Campbell Social Marketing
http://www.jcsocialmarketing.com
Nonprofit Webinars
August 13, 2013
#army4good @JuliaCSocial @4GoodOrg

Takeaways From Today
 Why an Online Brand Ambassador program is
important
 Ways to identify and recruit Brand Ambassadors
 How to excite and acknowledge them
 How to cultivate relationships for future engagement

Before We Begin…
 There are no silver bullets and no
quick fixes.
 Time, capacity and resources are
needed to effectively develop and
maintain an Online Brand
Ambassador program.
 Every organization, no matter how
small and strapped for resources, has
champions and advocates.
 They key is passion, not Klout score.

Two Scenarios
Scenario 1: You receive a form letter
in the mail from a breast cancer
research charity that bought your
name from another organization’s
mailing list.
The letter is addressed “Dear
Friend” and lacks
any personalization.
You are confused because breast
cancer research is not even your
passion – protecting the
environment is.

Two Scenarios
Scenario 2: You receive a personal
message from a friend
on Facebook asking you to
sponsor her in a walk for breast
cancer research, in honor of her
mother.
She writes in the first person about
watching her mother suffer from
the disease, and why she wants
to help others.
Breast cancer isn’t a cause
you usually give money to, but
you love your friend and you
want to help.

Which Is More Effective?
 According to a recent Nielsen study on which types of
advertising or promotion people trust most, the top
five in North America are:
1. Recommendations from someone they know.
2. Consumer opinions posted online.
3. Editorial content such as newspaper articles.
4. Emails they signed up for.
5. Branded websites.

The Key Is Sharing!
Getting people who are sharing
anyway to share their stories =
more awareness and money raised
Online Brand Ambassadors are
people who want to spread the
word about your cause and want
to raise money for you – they are
your greatest asset!

Where Are They?
 Your email newsletter.
 Use your email list to send out
clear and concise calls-to-
action, and then determine
who is opening the emails,
who is sharing the content and
who is forwarding the emails to
their networks.
 Constant Contact, Mailchimp,
Aweber – email tools

Where Are They?
 Your social networks.
 LinkedIn – Use LinkedIn Groups strategically to
find people who care about your cause and who are
vocal online.
 You can now search
LinkedIn profiles
for Volunteering
History and Causes.

Where Are They?
Twitter – Twitter is a perfect place
to engage with supporters. See
who is following you and how
active they are on the site.
Do they ReTweet your content? Do
they give you a #FF
(FollowFriday) mention?
Create a Twitter list of all the
Twitterers who have shared your
content and mentioned you.

Where Are They?
Facebook – You can see who
your Fans are, but (depending
on their privacy settings)
you probably cannot see much
about them other than their
name.
However, you can see who is
liking, commenting on and
sharing your content – thank
them profusely! Try installing
a “Top Fans” app on your page.

Where Are They?
Pinterest – See who is following
you and who is re-pinning,
commenting on and liking your
pins.
To get Pinterest Analytics, go to the
name on your profile, and choose
Analytics in the drop down
menu.

Where Are They?
 Staff, Board members, volunteers, donors.
 Who always shares information about your
organization?
 Who was the top fundraiser
last year?
 Which community members
have held fundraisers or
awareness events for your
organization?

Where Are They?
 Cross reference with your
database.
 Make sure to cross reference your
online supporters your donor and
volunteer database.
 Are they there? Have they given
money? Have they attended an
event?
 You will get to know them and see
where their interests lie and where
they have yet to connect.

Where Are They?
NOTE: You have to be actively using these tools to find
your supporters – this requires an investment in staff
capacity and resources.

Questions?

What Do You Do With Them?
 LISTEN first.
 Listen first – Follow your online supporters on Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest.
 What are they sharing? What motivates them? What
moves them to comment on a blog, to like a Facebook
post, to retweet a link, to share a photo?
 Listen to their conversations, figure out what moves
them and tailor a strategy using this information.

 Create content that people want to share.
 Much easier said than done, but necessary for success!
 Online Brand Ambassadors have their reputations on
the line – they are not going to share spammy info.

The Customer Insight Group (CIG) at the New York
Times published a study exploring why people share
content online. People share to:
 Bring valuable and entertaining content to others
 Define themselves to others
 Grow and nourish relationships
 Give self-fulfillment
 Market causes or brands
 How can you help your Online Brand Ambassadors do
these things?
 http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/

Spend some time and dedicate some resources to creating
content that is well-written, original, compelling,
timely, relevant and interesting.
This may seem like a tall order, but that’s what it takes to
stand-out in the noise of social media.

Make it extremely easy to share.
 Encourage commenting and other
interaction by disabling strict privacy
settings on your social media sites.
 Add social share buttons to all blog
posts and email newsletters.
 Social share buttons are those
buttons on the side or at the
bottom/top of articles and blog posts
with the social media icons.

 Write the updates for them.
 Send out emails, Facebook posts, Tweets, etc. with
suggested updates that the online supporter can simply
cut, paste and share.
 Example: “Tweet this! The @waterforlife campaign
for fresh water is well underway – can you donate $1
to help a child now? #waterforall” vs. “Tweet about
our fresh water campaign today!”

 Let them determine how they want to share the
information.
 Provide updates in several social media formats to let
the online supporter choose where they want to share.
 It’s not about where you want them to share the
information (although you can suggest it) it’s about
where they are going to want to post it!
 They are in control of the where, when and you are in
control of the why.

MA Conf for Women Social
Media Street Team
 Weekly emails with
tweets, Facebook and
LinkedIn posts, Pinterest
pins and Instagram ready
photos
 Graphics provided,
hashtags provided, all
speakers and relevant
people tagged

 Make it timely, relevant and interesting.
 Don’t say “Help our organization raise money!” (That
isn’t very interesting, compelling or timely.)
 Make it about the impact that donors and supporters
will have if they help you.
 How many kids do you help every day? How many
animals are you saving?
 What would happen if your organization disappeared?
 What difference are you making?

 Target online supporters
based on their sphere of
influence.
Craft a personal solicitation
to online supporters that wield a
lot of clout to support you where
they are most influential. them
to share on Twitter (if they have
lots of followers), post to
Facebook (lots of friends/fans) or
pin on Pinterest (many followers).

 Don’t ignore other social networks!
 Don’t ignore influencers and supporters on LinkedIn,
Google+ and YouTube. (MySpace is coming back too!)

 Give updates on your
progress.
 If you are looking to get a
specific number of signatures
on a petition, update your
online supporters on your
progress!
 Celebrate milestones in
fundraising – “We’ve raised
$5,000 – only $5,000 more to
go!” People love to be part of
success.

 Use hashtags to build community and monitor
the conversation.
 Hashtags can be used on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+,
Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
 The best hashtags are original, memorable, easy to spell
and short. Think #womeninbinders, #masswomen,
#water4all etc.
 Go to Hashtags.org to research

 Celebrate successes.
 Show your online supporters how they helped get
you there!
 “We had 348 retweets and an increase in Facebook
Reach of 567%!”
 You will need to monitor your insights to get this
information.

 Give them what they want!
 Online Brand Ambassadors are online and always
looking for content to share with their networks.
 They support you and your cause already.
 They are most likely looking for easy ways to get more
involved.
 Give them easy instructions and compelling content
and see your online reach explode!

Round Up
 We discussed:
 How to identify your biggest online supporters
 How to engage with them
 How to make content that is easy to share
 Coming up next:
 How to build continuing relationships with Online
Brand Ambassadors
 Examples from the field
 Conclusions/Things to Remember

How Do You Keep Them?
 The power of Thank You
 The 2012 AFP Fundraising
Effectiveness Report found
that for every $100 gained by
nonprofits in 2011, another
$100 was lost through gift
attrition.
 Donor attrition was 59% -
meaning that 59% of donors
did not give again to the
nonprofit!

 Acknowledge, thank, celebrate, rinse, repeat!
 Identify and acknowledge the special people.
 You know, the ones who always comment on your blog
(genuinely and with value) and share your Facebook
posts.
 They might only have 45 LinkedIn connections, but
their passion and interest is authentic and real – and
often contagious!

 Organize a “Thank You” campaign!
 Heather Mansfield of the blog Nonprofit Tech for Good
lays out ideas for creating “Thank You” videos for your
2012 fundraising campaigns.
 This idea, using Vine or Instagram video, can also work
for nonprofits as a “Thank You” to their biggest
online supporters.
 8 Inspiring Thank You Videos Created by Nonprofits:
http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/8_inspiring_Thank_
You_videos_created_by_nonprofits_11155.aspx

 Participate in Diane Darling’s “The Thank You Project”,
where you hand write at least four personalized thank
you notes per week.
 Blog about your Thank You campaign, post on
Facebook and Twitter, share your Thank You process on
LinkedIn. Your supporters and customers will
appreciate the special touch and the personalized
attention.
 http://dianedarling.typepad.com/blog/2012/01/inviting-you-to-
join-the-thank-you-project.html

 Pick a Facebook Fan of the Week
 This is a simple, easy-to-use Facebook application to
add to your business or nonprofit’s Page.
 It automatically highlights the person who interacts
with your Page the most within a given week.

Facebook Fan of the Week:
Offer to highlight that Fan’s business or favorite cause for
one week on your page
Create a gallery of Fans of the Week on your website
Make a special phone call to the Fan of the Week (if you
have their information) to thank them for their
engagement.
You can also send them items such as a t-shirt, pen,
coffee mug or other memento (with your logo on it of
course)!

 Give them something
special.
 “Something special” includes
exclusive access to events,
reports, celebrities, thought
leaders, discounts and offers.
 As a part of the Massachusetts
Conference for Women Social
Media Street Team, I am awarded
a free ticket to the Conference
and other enticing rewards.

 Show the impact!
 This is the most important
step.
 Your online supporters want
to know that all their
tweeting, Facebook posting
and blogging has actually
helped your organization.
 Otherwise, why waste their
time?

Example
 National Oesteoporis Foundation
 They use their Brand Ambassadors to:
 Advocate on behalf of their cause to congressional
leaders.
 Direct people to the NOF website to download
advocacy tools and resources
 Pass along key research and updates
 Respond to community conversations
about industry news and events

Example
 St Baldrick’s Foundation
 They are volunteer-driven.
 “Content is designed to give our
volunteers a voice, and provide them
with information to share with their
friends and family.”
 They analyzed what worked and
what didn’t work and did more of
the stuff that worked.

Keeping Momentum
 Be open-minded and don’t get discouraged. Not everyone
will be an Online Brand Ambassador (no matter how
much you want them to).
 Don’t go by Klout score alone.
 Just because someone is influential does not mean that
your cause will resonate with them.
 Actively look everywhere for people who are passionate
about your cause.
 Cultivate your current online advocates and thoughtfully
create others.

Keeping Momentum
 Identify and acknowledge the special people.
 See what you can do to find your offline community
and entice them to join you online.

In Conclusion
Too many nonprofits online today seem to have a race-
to-the-top mentality – who can get the most fans, the
most followers, the most likes.
 However, it’s said that just 1% of an organization’s
online fan base drives 20% of the traffic to the website
and 75% of the interaction on the social networking
sites.
 Focus your social media efforts on cultivating, engaging
and celebrating your biggest online supporters and
reap the rewards!

Tools
 GaggleAmp - Nonprofits are able to widely distribute
their content and messages by creating a network of
people (called a “GaggleTM“) that share, Tweet, and
post company-created messages and content.
 Dropbox – Post sample social media posts in
Dropbox, graphics, photos to share, and language for
Online Brand Ambassadors to use

Nonprofit Resources
 John Haydon – www.johnhaydon.com
 Nonprofit Tech for Good – www.nptechforgood.com
 Beth Kanter – www.bethkanter.org
 Giving 2.0 (book) –
www.giving2.com
 Amy Sample Ward –
www.amysampleward.org

How to Build An Army of Online Brand Ambassadors

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