"Hi, you're bad at your job, buy our service" #SaleFail

Picture from FailFunnies.com

I took a really weak sales call last week, it went a little like:

Salesperson: "Hi Paul, I'm John Smith from Agency XYZ, we'd like to draft nine Facebook posts for you, free of charge, that will increase your engagement levels."

Me [In firm, confident tone, suggesting contempt]: "I think we're pretty well covered on that front."

Salesperson [slightly sheepishly]: "Oh....... ok. Goodbye."

Me: "Bye." 

Does this conversation sound familiar to you? I'm feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu. Sales calls like this come in far too regularly, and I'm convinced that rather than generate sales, those receiving these calls blacklist these companies.

@pdarigan boooo! Never ceases to amaze me how some agency peeps behave/think... (disclaimer; I am an agency bod)
— Paul de Gregorio (@pauldegregorio) March 3, 2013

@pdarigan Oh yes. And they get put on the blacklist straight away.

— Danielle Atkinson (@RoxyMartinique) March 3, 2013

Why do these calls fail? Well, there are a number of reasons:

You can't do your job

That's what that call said to me. John Smith was offering to do my job properly, because, y'know, I can't.

I know your community better than you do

I've spent almost two years getting to know the Girlguiding online 'community'. The more I've learnt, the more I've realised I have so much more to learn. The people that Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook are a really diverse group of about 30,000 people, they are uniformally passionate and amazing people, but they have a range of interests, cares and concerns. This salesperson implied that the experience I have gained in almost two years at Girlguiding was worthless in the face of his amazing post-writing, hyper-engagement powers.

Agency is better than in-house

Now, this might be contentious. I fully believe that agencies are great for all sorts of work. They bring new angles, fresh perspectives, and they are outside of any 'bubbles' that you may have developed from long-term in-house work. Even with social media, they can be great for developing amazing campaign-focused ideas (and all sorts of other stuff), but I am firmly of the belief that long-term 'community management' is something that should sit in-house. Your community manager needs time to learn about your organisation, and time to learn about your online communities. Community management is not something that should be farmed out to an agency bod with several other accounts that s/he manages.

Result

Another agency/service blacklisted.

Lesson

John Smith from Agency XYZ may have had a great service to sell me (I doubt it, but it's possible). It's unlikely we would have bought that in, but still, it may have been worth looking at. The thing is, we never looked at it because the salesperson went out of his way to offend me. 

If you have a great service, optimise your sales pitch. John Smith offended me within about three seconds, and the call ended within 10 seconds. Damage done.

What do you think? Have you had any interesting, offensive or hilarious #salefail calls?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Engaging Young People Online

I'm still in recovery-mode after an amazing, intense, and inspiring Barcampnfp at the Mozilla HQ in London. 100 or so non-profit geeks and techies came together to share their experiences, deliver sessions and to share a few laughs (thank you Luke).

This was my first Barcamp, and I must admit that Barcamp "rule" number eight had me a little bit worried:

8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present. (Ok, you don't really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)

At first I wasn't really sure what I wanted to present on, but Cath (colleague and co-presenter) and I decided to stick with what we knew, engaging with young people online. The proposed session turned out to be quite popular. The core principle behind the session was that you need to have a great deal of respect for the people you're trying to engage with online, and everything you do must flow from that principle.

The presentation is embedded below, with some additional notes below that - Enjoy!



R Real: Don't pretend to be something you're not. I'm a 28-year-old guy and I'm Social Media Manager at Girlguiding. Most of the people that form our online communities are members of Girlguiding, and many of them are young people. I don't pretend that I'm a member, and I don't pretend to have an in-depth knowledge of youth culture. If I did, I would be quite easily found out, and it would be immensely condescending. Treat your community with respect.

E Engaging: Give your audience the content they want. If you do this creatively and intelligently, you should be able to achieve the things that help you meet your business plan aims. If you're not sure what your audience wants, there are a number of ways you can find out:

• Ask them (sounds obvious, right? But I don't see it happen very often)
• Experiment with different types of content and measure responses (Don't have any cash for paid-for monitoring/measurement? You can get pretty rich data using free tools)
• Look at what other organisations (commercial and non-profits) are doing to engage and excite young people.

S Social: Talk to your community, respond to questions, offer advice, share a joke, share criticism and use it to start a conversation and improve your offering. It's a great way to keep your finger on the pulse, to help you understand what young people are passionate about, and to build a warm and engaged community. Oh, and it's the most enjoyable part of any community manager's job, and a pretty key part of 'social' media too ;).

P Promote: Young people are doing amazing things everyday, sometimes they're doing these things with your organisation, sometimes they aren't. Promote the good work that the young people in your community are doing, even if they aren't doing it with/for your organisation. Celebrate their passion, enthusiasm and dedication. They'll appreciate it, and you'll find that your online communities will grow and flourish.

E Empower: Help your online communities to help you. You should encourage young people to become part of your decision making processes, you should encourage them to become spokespeople and ambassadors, and you should give them opportunities to represent your organisation at events that you have been invited to attend. I firmly believe that all youth-focused organisations should support, encourage and provide a platform for young people to speak out on the issues that impact them and their peers. Let them know that their views and opinions matter, and demonstrate this in a tangible way.

C Call to action: Invite young people to join your campaigns and to support your causes. Don't be afraid to ask for this support - If you've empowered young people by bringing them in to your decision making processes, the campaigns that you launch will have their backing because those campaigns are ones that your community has agreed are important.

T Teach: If you're encouraging young people to join your online communities, you have a responsibility to ensure that they are safe online. You need to ensure that you are providing access to resources that help to keep them safe from physical harm, online bullying, fraud, and personal reputational damage. If you aren't doing this, then you are failing them. This doesn't need to be overly complicated or laborious, there is a whole host of great resources already available online:

• UK Safer Internet Centre
• BBC Webwise
• CEOP Safety Centre

That's it from me for now. The presentation was necessarily short, but have I missed any key areas that really should be included? Sock it to me in the comments. 

Six-second videos? That's Vine with me.

It's here, the all singing, all dancing embeddable (but not edible) Vine, an application that publishes six-second videos that embed in tweets. It generated plenty of excitement when it was revealed (who doesn't get excited about steak tartare?), but  a lot of people were also left pondering the value of six-second videos.

Feed full of " #myfirstpost" Vines, but none you'd ever use or watch but for novelty. We'll see, I guess.
— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) January 25, 2013

He's right, a lot of people posting Vines were trying to get a feeling for the application, and trying to work out exactly what the heck to do with it. It isn't surprising that many of the early experiments were less than compelling.

Despite this, I have seen some strong early examples of how Vine can work for non-profits and cause-focused organisations. Check out this one from Diabetes UK:

Hi @crawls18 - we made you a little video... Keep it going! #thankyou vine.co/v/b5tnVIVjt2M
— Diabetes UK (@DiabetesUK) January 25, 2013

A beautiful example of fundraiser engagement with a really warm, personal touch. The six-second video really suits this sort of engagement.

The Dogs Trust were also very quick off the mark with their first attempt:

@pdarigan @jamesrbuk Ta! @dogstrust have just published this one, which I like: bit.ly/10J14pt
— Joseph Freeman (@JosephFreeman) January 25, 2013

A compelling combination of a good cause, cute animals and a channel that makes sharing the call-to-action exceptionally easy. I love it.

We will need to wait and see if this really takes off, but if the early examples from Diabetes UK and The Dogs Trust are anything to go by, Vine provides a fantastic opportunity to produce creative and compelling content. We shouldn't underestimate the value that increased personalisation of engagement can offer, nor should we underestimate just how much the internet loves cute animals.

As well as the examples above, Vine provides clear opportunities for telling concise and compelling stories, and inviting your online community to share their stories with you in even more engaging ways; "Tell us why you care about X in six seconds" etc.

Have you created any Vines yet, or seen some really strong examples? If you have, please link to them in the comments or tweet me

Now, all they need to do is release an Android app.

Signed
Slightly disappointed Android user

Update: Well worth checking out a collection of non-profit Vines that Kirsty Marrins is Storifying here

London Tweetups (Social & Digital Media, Non-profits and Fundraising)

Image from sweetmandarin.com

Hey, so I put a shout-out on Twitter today looking for a list of regular London-based Tweetups with a focus on non-profits and social/digital media. I had a few great suggestions from @CharityChap, @Bronte_M, @RobmDyson and @JudeHabib, and @Spirals linked to the very useful Meetup.com, but I struggled to find a curated list of current Tweetups that deal with the digital side of the non-profit sector.

To remedy that, I've knocked together a Google doc that lists them along with some of their key details. I'd love you to offer your top tips, or correct any of my errors. If you do go to the trouble of helping out, please add your Twitter handle, a link to your website, or your name in the column on the far-right.

Edit this doc

Edit this doc
There are probably better, easier, automated ways to organise all of this, but I do like the personal touch, so please do only add the events that you think are pretty epic or really useful (for n00bs or experienced geeks). Cheers!

Young Trustees? No thanks!

Find out more about Trustees' Week here

That was a bold title, wasn't it? I of course don't agree with it one bit, but an article I read earlier has compelled me to write this piece (apologies for the link-bait).

David Ainsworth blogged in Third Sector today about young people and their inability to organise the proverbial in a brewery. In my opinion, one shared by those that commented on the piece, it was a collection of popular but inaccurate and crass stereotypes that do not (and that never have) accurately applied to 'young people'. David hits all of the key stereotypical touch-stones associated with young people, I won't go into them here, but I do recommend reading the piece and commenting as you feel appropriate.

Before I express my own feelings on the subject, I'd like to offer some excerpts from the comments already posted below the line on Third Sector:

Catherine Murray writes:

Trusteeship is like any other job - trustees are recruited for their expertise and for what they can bring to a board. Charities are like any other organisation - a living organism with diverse needs and projects it wants to do well. Charities therefore must have a diverse mix of people on their trustee boards, as people below have pointed out.

Leon Ward adds:

I joined the Board of Plan UK when I was 18 after spending 4 years as a young advisor. Plan is a £60m organisation. I'm also a Trustee of Leap Confronting Conflict (£1m) and Ineract Worldwide (£3m). Your views of young people are archaic and wrong. 

I blog regularly for ThirdSector and would like to direct you to that blog where I outline the benefits of young trustees:- http://leonward.thirdsector.co... you'll also find the perspective of a young trustee on several strategic issues for organisations 

I'm sure you'll agree that both Leon and Catherine are people that have their heads screwed-on, and they both happen to be young trustees as well. Not quite the drinking, unreliable, overly-emotional and forgetful young people that David describes, but I'm sure we can forgive them that.

I have the honour of working with the UK's largest voluntary youth organisation, Girlguiding UK. We have over half a million members, and everything that we do is driven by those members. We have a range of youth panels that steer the work of the organisation, and each year for the last four years we have released a major piece of research, the Girls' Attitudes Survey, that is designed and developed by our young members.

Our young members have attended and spoken at events such as Rio+20 and CSW 56, and we have one member due to attend the climate change talks in Qatar later this year. Some of our members are part of groups such as the British Youth Council, many of them have petitioned government on issues important to young people. These young people are not the people that David Ainsworth describes, these are highly engaged, political and community-conscious young people with amazing levels of drive and a determination to help make the world a better place.

David, in this case, is selling young people short.

PS - I do really enjoy reading Third Sector, I find it an immensely valuable resource, and I am also confident that the majority of David's contributions are on-the-money (Just not the one that I refer to here)
   

“PR should own social media” Yes! It should, but...

This piece references a beautifully frank interview with Martin Harrison by Craig McGill at The Drum – I fully recommend reading it, and then coming back to read this piece, if you’re so inclined.

The question you might ask is; “If social media doesn’t sit in PR, where the heck does it sit?”

Well, I’ve spent a little over three years, spanning two jobs and some freelance bits-and-bobs, working in social media roles. In both full-time jobs, my role began in the Web Team, and was then moved to the Press Team. In both cases, I worked very closely with the Press Team whilst I was seconded to the Web Team, and then worked very closely with the Web Team when my role moved to the Press Team. My freelance work is usually commissioned by the Press or Marketing Teams of the organisations that I work with.

It’s interesting, the core function of a social media guy or gal is to communicate, usually to speak on behalf of the organisation through branded accounts (I know the role is far more complicated than that, but talking to people online on behalf of your organisation is the basest, most simplified way of describing what people like me do to put bread on the table). That voice, or at least the person/s responsible for the formation and development of that voice, should sit within the Press Team, absolutely no question about that.

Having said that, the best social media people also have a working understanding of SEO, HTML and image editing software (Photoshop etc), and the really good ones might be able to turn their hand to some programming as well. It is this understanding of the technical side of online that can really help to drive creativity and deliver campaigns that really have an impact.   

Your social media manager/strategist/other should sit with the Press Office peeps, but he or she MUST have direct communication channels with your Web Team, Customer Support Team, and any other people that speak on behalf of the organisation in any role – From your Chief Exec to an intern helping to draft some copy for the website.

The key is to ensure that your social media person is adept at razing silos to the ground, developing/fixing/maturing internal comms channels, and being able to do all this whilst developing positive relationships with key members of key teams within your organisation, rather than harming them.

Does your organisation’s social media role sit somewhere other than the Press Team? If so, where does it sit, and why?

So, your organisation is going social (Part one)

This post is the first in a short series on setting up and managing a social media presence for your organisation, you can find the rest here.


You’re a social media evangelist in an organisation that doesn’t have a social media presence, you’ve managed to convince your boss that it’s essential to start doing that Twitter thing, now what?

Well, the bad news is that you’re behind the curve, with 94% of corporates and over 90% of non-profits already using social media. The good news is you can learn from the mistakes already made and make the most of a swath of best-practice case studies. Before all that, there are a few key questions you should ask:

Why are you getting on board with social media?

If the answer is “because everyone else is”, you need to rethink your position. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t jump on board, but you should have a sound business case. Good reasons for developing a presence in the social sphere might be:

• To increase brand visibility/awareness
• Develop leads and drive sales/subscriptions
• Strengthen campaigns
• Improve customer service
• Network with key stakeholders

There are loads more reasons, and your strategic plan should be able to help you identify them. The initial reasons you outline can help you to develop your key performance indicators and create a formula to measure return on investment.

Who’s going to manage it?

This is one of the key questions, who do you trust to be able to manage both the technical and communications side of engaging with people on behalf of your organisation online?

Ideally, you’ll be in a position to appoint at least one full-time person to manage social media. Speaking in the most basic terms, you have two options from here:

• Appointing someone internally that may make a fantastic online ambassador
• Appointing a social media professional from outside 

Both of these options have pros and cons, a professional new to the organisation may take a little time to familiarise themselves with the organisation (although, you would hope they do much of this before they take up the role), whilst appointing someone internally may mean you run the risk of some early social media faux pas and that you may need additional investment to cover training.

What channels will you use?

If you hire a social media professional, they will be able to help you make the right decisions. The right channels will be influenced by your demographics, your sector and your ability to produce content. I’m a big fan of experimenting with new channels (usually with a personal profile initially), but one thing that you should avoid is spreading yourself too thinly across too many platforms.