Florencia P Prada

Take control with a Social Media How to Guide for your org.

2009-07-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

Afraid that your employees will start posting inappropriate content? That you will have deal with negative comments? Take some control and issue some principles and fundamentals so that your employees not only learn what is detrimental but most importantly what could really benefit their organization. Especially useful for organizations that have chapters that are geographically dispersed or loosely affiliated.

Highlights:

1. Establish what you want to achieve, what kind of content you will be sharing
2. Use social media personally before you establish pages and accounts for your organization
3. Blog technology recommendations
4. Don't be afraid about criticisms but create a decision flowchart for how to respond to them!
5. Don't recreate press releases. Write like you are talking to somebody you know.

Kiva's request for feedback - Do you support Kiva's decision to allow loan requests from the U.S.?

2009-07-05T13:59:00.001-07:00

Kiva has received a lot of grief over the past few weeks from some supporters for their launch of peer to peer microlending in the US with the help of ACCION international on June 10th. Critics think, among other concerns, that the lending to US entrepreneurs will divert funds that could otherwise go to micro entrepreneurs in developing economies possibly living in more dire circumstances than their counterparts in the US.

Regardless of what your opinion is on the matter, KIVA has tried to address the concerns of their critics with blog posts, a poll (see below) and will devote its July conference call (July 15th) with supports and friends to address this issue. It remains to be seen if effective but as its CEO well put it to the San Jose Mercury News in its July 5th edition, all it can do is listen to its critics.

The poll is very close right now, with US supporters leading with slight edge over the naysayers. It will be interesting to see what KIVA does with the results and the feedback it receives. At best, it might incorporate and address some of the concerns but I highly doubt it will cancel its initiative.

What do you think?

Religion: Our Father, Lead Us to Tweet, and Forgive the Trespassers

2009-07-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

Speaking of the fear of losing control, one particular organization that has been fearful of this but even more so of losing their followers is the Catholic Church. Even Pope Benedict now has a Facebook fan page. This article in the NYTimes shows how different religious organizations are starting to use social media.

“If total control is what you want, social media will frustrate you,” a Presbyterian Minister observed, reprising his advice to the clergy. “But the trade-off is the ability to hear and learn, reach out in new directions.” Many clerics, desperate to connect with young people, have been like radio dispatchers using the wrong bandwidth, he said. “The young don’t do e-mail anymore,” he said. “They do Facebook.”

Don't lose sight of your flock. Go where they are and talk to them!

The fear of losing control

2009-06-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

I have to confess that I was forced to confront this issue while preparing for job interviews for communications positions this past Spring. After having worked for a well-know professional networking company in Silicon Valley, I was really pleased to see that all communications positions in the non profit world (where I had spent most of my previous life) asked for skills and knowledge of social media. There is so much that could be done! I just could not wait to tell them my ideas!

But I was in for a surprise. Although most organizations I talked to recognized the need to start leveraging social media, none were really ready to hire somebody primarily on these skills. I found that often the youngest employees are given the responsibility of building their organizations' presence on social media sites on top of their everyday jobs resulting in just passive extensions of their corporate sites.

The truth is that most organizations I dealt with still viewed Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to name a few as the new, ultra-hyped tools for selling Coca-Cola or where their younger staff spent some precious working hours. Some had already dwindled with Facebook, RSS feeds, podcasts with little effect. Most had not even attempted using any of them to avoid looking foolish or haphazard. The common theme that I picked on in their long explanations and excuses to not dealing with social media was an incredible fear of losing control.

The one argument that I heard the most was: "I want my audience to come to my site. If I set up a group on FB, they will never come back to our corporate site on which many $ have been spent". The truth is that you need to extend your content in an engaging way in those spaces to where your audience is spending their time online. For example, big organizations such as the World Bank and the IADB are doing this already. I don't have to go to their site because when I log in FB and Twitter, they let me know what's going on with just 140 characters.

On the one hand I understood that non profit organizations lacking the resources of the commercial world wanted to reap the benefits of the funds invested on their corporate websites. On the other, it seemed to me that because of this same resource issue they had so much to gain from engaging in social media. Surprise your peer organizations! Be part of the conversation! Engage your audience! Impress donors and clients! Leveraging other channels does not mean doing away with everything else they have already created (i.e. their corporate site). Although of course, for the most part much leaves to be desired of their sites. But that is another issue well worth a entirely separate post.

At its core, the issue is still about the most basic of communications principles: your audience. And today, you need to go to them because you can't wait for them to come to you.

Lesson learned: Losing your audience is worse than losing control. Get on with the program!