@Jon2012girls Campaign Evaluation

For my campaign evaluation I chose to look at Jon Huntsman’s daughters, and how they have been using Twitter and other social media resources to spread their fathers platform for his GOP primary race for the presidential candidate. Through the Huntsman ladies work with Twitter they have been able to connect with their target audience that is young and middle aged Republican voters. To interact with their target audience they used Twitter to inform when and where their father will be speaking on his platform. They also have tweeted articles that others have published regarding their father and his campaign. Their work gained national attention from a parody video they made mocking Herman Cain’s campaign manager.

Although we have seen candidates’ children contributing on the campaign trail, these ladies have taken on a new style. Unlike Mitt Romney’s sons and John McCain’s daughter they have plunged into the world of social media never seen before. By using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and a Blog they are able to connect with their target audience in a positive way that sticks with them they are able to continue sharing information with voters. With the Romney son’s they only used a Blog and went on a bus tour with this campaign they were able to spread their father’s platform but were not able to continue to engage with their voters. With Meghan McCain campaign she only used a blog that shared information about life on the campaign trail that ended up being negative coverage for the campaign.

An example of some the information that is shared on the @Jon2012girls girls twitter page is as follows, “Catch Dad now on Fox News with @marthamaccallum and @billhemmer!” and “Tune in tonight to the CNN debate at 8pm est! And catch us before hand on Erin Burnett at 7:15 pm est. #cnndebate #huntsman2012.” The ladies have also cracked some witty jokes regarding the other candidates when they tweeted, “How does Romney know anything about China? He’s only been there once and that was for the Olympics. Panda Express doesn’t count.”

Although the Huntsman ladies have done a wonderful job at using social media to campaign for their father there are a few things that I would have done differently. First, I would utilize their Facebook page more. Currently their page only has four posts and is not as informational as their Twitter page. I feel that if they were to post more information on Facebook they would be able to reach more voters this is because there are more active users on Facebook than on Twitter. I would also recommend doing a bus tour, by doing this they would be able to use the bus covered in campaign ads as a rolling campaign ad that voters would see while on the rode and when they traveled from state to state.

Although Jon Huntsman is shown to be at the bottom of most political polls in the 2012 Republican primary, in more recent polls his popularity has been steadily increasing. I feel that this recent spike is evidence that his daughters are opening the doors to positive ways of using social media in political campaigning that has never been seen before. Through evaluating the Huntsman daughter’s use of social media in their campaign work, I am sure that their actions will become a modern trend that will continue in years to come.

Friending to Funding and Governing Through Networks

In chapter 10 the first topic that we tackle is how to turn your friends into funding. I found this to be very helpful to information because through this class and our work with Safe Harbor we have shown first hand that friends can become donor for your organization. We used Facebook to turn our friends into donors for Safe Harbor, our class created an event page for Safe Harbors Chic-Fil-A night. Through our event page we invited tons of friends that we had in the Clemson community by doing this we were able to communicate a mass amount of people informing them about the event. In return we were able do produce one of the best events in fundraising that the Chic-Fil-A has ever had in Clemson. This is just a small example of how an organization can use friends to turn them into fundraising. Now lets look at some of the information that our book gives to us on how to accomplish gaining friends and turning them into donors.

Now lets look at some tips that show strategic steps to get your friends to donate money the best way to do this is by following these rules:

• Being Transparent- the organization has to work in the open, this means all audit reports, financial statements, and annual reports on their website for their friends to see how their money is being spent. This is a great idea because if your friends are seeing how their money is being spent they will be more likely to continue giving.

• Being simple- this is keeping your message simple, tell what you are doing to the donors, let them know what your organization is about but keep it short. You don’t want them to become bored with reading the message so keep it to the point and you will have better results.

• Listening, engaging, and building relationships- here we want people constantly talking about our issue and keeping them engaged. You have to make sure to listen to what friends are saying about your organization put their ideas into play. By doing this we are able to show our friends that we care about what they think. Here we are building relationships and through these relationships we will possibly be gaining new friends by our current friends telling their friends about your organization. But most of all you have to make sure to listen to your friends and follow through with their ideas.

Although with new friends can come funding you don’t want to think of them as just a money source, we have to let them know we care about their input. To do this you have to get them involved in the organization, through letting them know you care and being open and letting them know where their money is going and how it is helping others. As long as you follow these steps the funding will continue to come.

The next step that I thought was a good idea is to make sure that your organization is not stuck in its was with making new friends, this happens way to often with nonprofits. To turn your online friends into funders takes the following steps:

Social media are part of a multichannel strategy- this is using fundamental fundraising techniques such as email, website presence, Google ads, face-to-face events, and reaching out to the mainstream media.  

People are partners, not ATM machines- This is what we talked about above people are willing to fund your organization if they feel involved with your projects. So to continue the funding you want to get your friends in the field involved with the issues. 

Storytelling makes fundraising personal- by telling personal stories you will be bringing alive the activities of an organization and makes their issues real and urgent for current and potential supporters. I saw this first hand with our classes’ information speaker from Safe Harbor that was held on Clemson University campus. Our speakers from Safe Harbor told stories that hit home they were all stories that happened around South Carolina. By telling these stories people are better likely to pay attention and want to help the cause.

Thankfulness makes donors want to give more- This is a process that needs to happen often you need to tell donors that you are thankful for their support by sending letters, calling, or meeting them face to face. By doing this your relationship with them will grow and you will become closer.

Clicking to Leverage donation dollars- this is using social networks such as Facebook or Twitter to support a cause and when friends click to support your clause their friends my see that they support the cause and choose to do the same and maybe even become a donor.

Conducting online fundraising contest- this is when your organization has a contest where the participants can win something this will attract lots of friends because everyone likes winning free thinks.

If you follow these steps it will allow you to increase that amount of friends that your organization has as well as turning them into donors.  

In chapter 11 we looked at Governing Through Networks, here the section that caught my eye was Governing As A Network: A Beginning. Here the book tells how governing boards can begin to work in networked ways without any changes to their board structure. They tell that these are some ways that a governing board can act more like a social network:

• Create a private social network- this is organizations should practice sharing information online and having conversations directly with one another. 

• Join a public online social network- this is simply creating a Facebook page for your organization.

• Post draft agendas online- this is opening your agendas to the public and asking for their input.

• Train board members in social media and network weaving- you board members should be knowledgeable in social media so that they can become involved with people online regarding their issues they have with the organization.

• Meet somewhere new- this is your board members should pick a new place to meet outside of the office.

• Share information and data- this is just what it say make sure you are putting as much information about your organization and its projects how you are spending money to the public.

All of these tips in chapters 10 and 11 are very helpful for nonprofit organizations, and if followed and put into practice they will defiantly bring more friends to the organization, which could bring more funding. 

Working with Crowds and Learning the Loops

In today’s readings the one topic that stuck out the most to me is crowdsourcing. What is crowdsurcing you may ask? Crowdsourcing is the process of organizing many people to participate in a joint project. Now lets look at the different types of crowdsourcing:

• Crowd Wisdom- a group of people working together is better than just one.
• Crowd creation- crowds can create original works of knowledge or art.
• Crowd voting- crowds love to vote on their favorite things like ideas, artwork, essays, and people.
• Crowd funding- this category taps the collective pocketbook, encouraging groups to fund an effort that benefits many people.

Crowds can be hard to work with, however once you find your crowd you have to understand how to use them. You don’t want the task to be to large this will make individuals become uninterested in the task. At the same time you don’t want to make the task to be to simple because this can have the same affect as the task being to large, you have to find the right project that is in the middle not to simple but not to hard.

When thinking of examples of crowdsourcing I remembered a project that I had seen that was really cool called the Johnny Cash Project. What they do is artist go to a website, johnnycashproject.com and they make a portrait of Cash and then all the pictures are put together and made into frames and the frames were created into a music video of Cash’s song “Ain’t No Grave” so check it out real cool way of using crowdsourcing to pay tribute to a grate musician.  

Now lets take a look at the next step, microplanning this is a tool that is used when crowdsourcing that allows you to make the most of your crowd. Microplanning has benefits such as:

1. Creating buy-in for efforts sooner by including larger numbers of people in an unfolding implementation process
2. Unhooking organizations from needing all of the answers before they can get started
3. Reducing risk by focusing on short strategic bursts of activity that can be altered in real time and scaled without huge financial expenditures.

Now we have to learn the loops of social media, here we are talking about the loops. Here you will be tracking the results of your project in real time and analyzing the results. When an organization is learning the loops of social media they must first think about what they want to learn. To do that they should start here:

• Picking a specific narrow topic
• Designing low-cost, low-risk experiments
• Articulating key learning questions

Now that the organization has considered these issues they will be ready to begin watching how social media is working for a particular effort they are working on. I feel that the social media tools discussed in these chapters is information that could be helpful to organizations of any size. 

Listening, Engaging, Building Relationships and Becoming Transparent

    In chapter 5, one thing that I found to be intrusting is the importance that the writers placed on listing. This is the key for any organization to build a good relationship. It is vital that organizations understand that the key is to listen to what others have to say about them, and not just to them or even worse talking at them. I feel that Safe Harbor did an excellent job at this at the beginning of the semester when we had our meeting they wanted to hear our ideas and did not just tell us what they wanted. The book tells that “the value of listening comes from making sense of the data and using it to identify influencers, the key leverage points for spreading an organization’s message and efforts far and wide.”(p. 61) As you can tell to obtain the level of a top organization you have to make sure that you are listing to others.

     Along with listening organizations want to make sure that they are engaging with the public. There are many ways that organizations can accomplish this, such as sharing information, enter or initiate conversation, thank people for their efforts, educate and raise awareness. Through working with Safe Harbor it is clear that they do these things. They make sure that the public knows and understands they message and upcoming events by using their website, Facebook and Twitter pages.

      Organizations also want to make sure that they take critics professionally when using social media. Organizations should NOT refuse to engage in conversations particularly critical ones, this just shows that the organization does not want to listen or engage with the critics and makes them look bad.

Another tool that I learned about in this chapter is called the ladder of engagement. This tool is used to help the organizations get their supporters involved they want to get them to stay on board with their cause and even sometimes become donors. The levels of engagement are as follows:

• Happy bystanders- including blog readers, friends on Facebook, and personal acquaintances such as coworkers
• Spreaders- people who are willing to share information about a cause with other people
• Donors- who contribute financially to a cause
• Evangelists- who reach out to their personal social networks and ask other people to give time and money to the cause
• Instigators- who create their own content, activities, and events on behalf of the cause

     The book tells how the ladder gives a framework for envisioning the types of participation that organizations need to be successful.

     In chapter 6 we now turn to how to make sure that your organization is transparent. Building a greater transparency is vital for nonprofit organizations that want to embrace a broader network of individuals and organizations. This being said there are three types of transparency that organizations can fall into:

• Fortress- these organizations sit behind high walls and drawn shades, holding the outside world at bay to keep secrets in and invaders out. They have to understand that where there’s an “us” there must be a “them”.
• Transactionals- organizations provide services offered and selected by the public primarily based on cost.
• Transparents- could be considered glass houses with the organizations presumably sitting behind glass walls. However this is not transparency because the walls are still there. True transparency only happens when the walls are taken down.

    To make sure that your organization is transparent you have to have the following factors:

• Leadership is straightforward when talking to various audiences
• Employees are available to reinforce the public view of the organization and to help people when appropriate
• Their values are easily seen and understood.  
• Their culture and operations are apparent to everyone inside and out.
• They communicate all results, good and bad.

     I feel that Safe Harbor does a great job at following these points through their organizations. Through seeing their operations first hand there is only one thing that they could work on in this area and that is making sure they work on making some of their sites easier to find. An example of this would be their Facebook page for R.E.P. could be hard to find if you do not know where to look. Overall I feel that these chapters had some very useful information. 

Chapters 3 and 4 of TNN

     In today’s society a vital part of becoming a successful nonprofit is maintaining a strong social network. Our book shows the how social networking takes a organization from a small scale to something much larger when they state, “networked nonprofits shift their focus from working as single organization to working as part of larger social networks that exist inside and outside of their institutional walls.” Networked nonprofits understand the key to growing big fast is using the influencers in their network. Social networks can come in many shapes and sizes:

• Personal social networks- family, friends, and neighborhood members.
• Professional networks – colleagues within organizations, funders, government agencies, and associations. 
• Self-organized networks- Facebook
• Networks of people- created by specific nonprofit organizations way of getting people to post information on their website for you.

These examples are known as organizational ecosystems.

       Ok so we know now the different types of social networks now lets look at how everything ties together this is fairly simple.  First off there are two main components this is the people or organization they are called Nodes and the connections between them is called the Ties. Here the ties are what play the big role they bring everything together fast. Another factor that plays a roll in this is Hubs they are larger nodes within networks meaning they people or organizations that have lots of connections. I like to think of it, as the Hubs are the big dogs, if you want something heard by tons of people then they are the ones to contact. This is what we call going “viral” this is when huge amounts of people view your video, blog, Facebook post, or tweet. Going viral is largely due to the fact that a Hub shared this information.

      There are two additional characteristics of networks are counterintuitive but essential to networks’ effectiveness:

1. The networks edge or periphery is vital to its growth
2. Effective networks are made up not only of strong ties between nodes, but of a combination of strong and loose ties.

      Thinking back to our group’s homecoming campaign I feel that we used our social networking to our best ability. This is especially true when it came to the Chick-Fil-A night we made sure that we invited as many people as possible through Facebook and email list servers. We also used word of mouth to spread the word about our ribbon campaign. I like to think we acted as nodes in our Facebook like campaign to get as many people as possible to like Safe Harbor the day of homecoming.

      In chapter 4 of our book we now shift our attrition to the importance of creating a social culture. Making the shift to a social culture can be uneasy for some organizations; this is because it requires their leaders to practice using social media personally. Many of the organizations are scared because they have to put themselves out there for everyone to see and they don’t know how much or how little to share.

Organizations with social cultures:

• Use social media to engage in two-way conversations about the works of the organization with people inside and outside of the organization.
• Embrace mistakes and take calculated risk
• Reward learning and reflection
• Use a “try it and fix it as we go” approach that emphasizes failing fast
• Overcome organization inertia (“we’ve always done it this way”) through open and robust discussions
• Understand and appreciate the informality and individuality do not indicate a lack of caring, professionalism, or quality.
• Trust staff to make decisions and respond rapidly to situations, rather than crawl through endless check-off and approval processes.

      I feel that through our work with Safe Harbor that they have the use of a social culture, they are open with the functions of their organization but at the same time with the line of work they are handling they have to be confidential to protect identities. I feel that Safe Harbor uses social networking in a way that is very positive in gaining the support needed to reduce domestic violence in the counties that it covers.

      Overall I feel that these two chapters really show just how important and helpful have a social network is to run a successful organization. I think there are some really good points that I would recommend and organization to read before getting started in social networking. 

The Networked Nonprofit Ch. 1 and 2

So today I started our next book “The Networked Nonprofit”. I have to say that it was pretty good, the first two chapters were as expected more like an introduction telling a lot about social networks and nonprofits and how in today’s world they work hand and hand.  

In chapter 1 it starts off by telling about the organization called Surfrider Foundation and how they have used their networking to better their nonprofit. On page 3 the book tells about Networked Nonprofits when it states, “They engage people in shaping and sharing their work in order to raise awareness of social issues, organize communities to provide services, or advocate for legislation”. They also tell how these groups use social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, or Blogs, to spread awareness. This chapter really relates to the work that we have been doing for Safe Harbor and domestic violence awareness, by using our social media groups and other networks. One why that we have done this is through our Chick-Fil-A page that we made on Facebook, by doing this we were able to use our classes networking groups. The book also tells how our work with Safe Harbor is what they like to call “social change” which means any effort by people and organizations to make the world a better place.

Chapter 2 tells about the Millennials and how they are the generation that is bigger and more diverse than the Baby Boomers (I thought this was cool). They book tells how the Millebbials are what they like to call “free agents” these are people that work outside of organizations to help are raise awareness. The free agents use social media to their advantage to spread awareness to mass amounts of people. The chapter does tell of rules that organizations want to follow when working with free agents to adapt to the change of working with a younger crowd, such as:

• Get to know the free agents 
•  Break out of silos 
•  Young people and free agents need to explore and learn about issues and sort out their feelings about them.
• Don’t ignore the newcomer

Overall this chapter is showing how nonprofits need to change their way of thinking and start working with free agents to insure that they keep up with social change. I feel that this is what Safe Harbor is doing, they know that our class has the age generation that is always growing in social media and with our help they will be able to spread awareness on a very touchy subject.

SCFN Chapters 9 and 10

When working for a non-profit or any other organization it is very important that you have a knowledgeable or creditable spokesperson. This could be the organizations executive director or a celebrity, however the book does explain that a celebrity is not always the best person because they could hurt more than they help if a personal scandal appears. When picking a spokesperson there are three key points you want to stick to.

1.     .     The person is comfortable doing press interviews
2.          The person is willing to take time to out of the day to deal with journalists
3.          Delivers a good presentation on television, on the radio, and in print or is willing to be trained

Another point that is also important when training your staff, is the proper way to relay a request for an interview. If this is not done properly it can ruin your chances of ever getting another call. The first step is that you need to make sure they understand the reporter’s deadline. You also want to make sure that there are only two stops in relaying the message; the receptionist and the press staffer.  

When giving an interview the spokesperson wants to make sure that they always assume that they are on the record with a reporter. You want to make sure that the spokesperson is aware that there are three ways of speaking to a reporter:

•             On the record interviews- reporters will assume that everything said to them is on the record and   quotable unless otherwise stated at the start of an interview.
•             Background interviews- are discussions with reporters that are held with a prior understanding that the information can be freely used in a story, but only as background, without a direct quote.
•            Off-the-record interviews- not for quotes, not for attribution, and usually not for use in an article.

I also found the section of the book “Doing Better Media Interviews: Quick Tips” to be very helpful.  I feel that the two most important points here are to always tell the truth and state your messages more than once. If these steps are followed your organization will have a well-rounded spokesperson.

  

I feel that our group did a very good job at having just one spokesperson for reporters to contact. Erin did a great job, she made sure that the right reporters got our press release so we were able to spread the word about our project to a mass amount of people. Our release was consistent in stating our message. I also feel that throughout promoting our projects to other organizations and visitors at our booth on Bowman Field, we made sure to keep telling explaining that we are supporting domestic violence awareness. The group made sure that DV and Safe Harbor was our focus and I feel that this is why we were so successful in spreading awareness.

In chapter 10 of SCFN, they stress the importance of partnerships in the world of nonprofit organizations. This is a great way of making sure that your message is heard. Our group did that by utilizing the Fraternity and other organizations that built a float for homecoming by getting them to pomp and purple ribbon of their floats. This was a great opportunity for both our class and the organizations because it allowed us to reach mass amounts of people to spread awareness and it also showed the school that these organizations do care about more than just partying and want to help spread the word about domestic violence awareness month.