Email vs social media: which is better?

Let me get straight to the point: the answer, of course, is that it depends on what you’re trying to do.

I’ve been around long enough to have seen new technologies come and go, each one trumpeted on its arrival as The New Thing that will replace everything that has gone before. But each time the new technology has settled into its place, finally getting used for what it’s best at. And the older technology has continued to be used, again for the things it does best.

So what about social media, one of the newer kids on the block? Is it really going to replace email? People have been saying so for quite some time.

Well, we all know that young people seem to prefer social media - and this would seem to suggest that email could die out along with the older generation of web user. But what we don’t know is whether younger people’s use will change once they enter the world of work. Because in the working world, email still dominates, with more than a trillion emails being sent a day.

Why is email lasting? Its particular strength lies in its one-to-oneness and its privacy. The openness of most social media communication isn’t suitable for many business purposes. To quote Dave Coplin, Head of Microsoft’s Envisioneers Team:

"The asynchronous nature [of email] is really important, the ability to attach things, the ability to have a secure conversation."

There are, of course, places where the very nature of email makes it less appropriate: for example, organisations whose business includes communicating with young people under the age of 18 are likely to find the openness and transparency of social media far more suitable than email, removing the risks that private communication can bring.

And social media clearly has a great deal to offer business. The ability to communicate with different groups and groupings of people has enormous potential. Nathaniel Borenstein, co-creator of the MIME protocol and clearly an email expert, believes its potential has yet to be unlocked and doesn’t think Facebook or Google + have found the answer.

Lee Bryant, co-founder of Headshift, the world's biggest social business consultancy, also believes that social media is set to become a powerful force in business.

"I think we've reached the stage where email as means of communicating is overloaded. I think we will see what happens on email today transitioning towards various kinds of both internal and consumer facing social tools: things like wikis, micro-blogs [like Twitter] and internal social networks, all of which allow a flow of information and communication."

However, he agrees that email still has life in it.

"You narrow down email primarily to what it was designed for, which is one-to-one communications."

This is supported by the stats. Right now, despite the surge in the use of social media, email use is still growing. According to Borenstein:

"There's no real sign that social [media] is making a major dent in it. For the most part I think they fill different functions, but that they connect with each other. I think they're symbiotic. I'm reluctant to cast them into opposition."

I agree with this. And so does Dave Coplin, to whom I will give the final word, since he puts it so well:

“Everything has its place and it's really understanding which is the right tool for the job”.

Read more

• Clash of the titans: Email v social media - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15856116
• Facebook subscribe: The safest way to interact with minors? - http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2bWwYt/www.cultureofsafety.com/2011/10/facebook-subscribe-button/
• Happy birthday email! Long live email! - http://www.charitybuzz.net/2011/10/happy-birthday-email-long-live-email.html

3 reasons why it’s worth using social media to find volunteers

As we all know, volunteers are crucial to not-for-profit organisations. Dedicated people -willing to work for expenses only – make a huge difference to what we can achieve. But most organisations have well-established ways of finding volunteers. So why am I bothering to suggest that we should use social media? Is it a case of desperately trying to justify these tools? Or do social media actually have something valuable to add to the process?

I am very glad to have happened upon a blog on this subject from Jesse Fineman of Volunteer Match. Reporting back on a recent US Social Media for Nonprofits Conference, she made me think again about the sense in using social media to connect with volunteers. Here are 3 of the reasons that made me sit up and take note:

1. Volunteers don’t just stuff envelopes anymore: they can take on any role for your organisation. And the best way to find the right people is by meeting them on the social networks they’re already using. Links at the end of this blog show how you can make the best use of Linkedin for Good (Linkedin’s new service for nonprofits), which makes it easier for us to use this professional social network to find the perfect volunteer for the job.
2. The people we engage with on social networks are way more likely to help us than we imagine. According to Greg Baldwin of Volunteer Match, we underestimate by up to 50% how much other people are willing to help us. And did you know (it was news to me) that volunteers are far more likely to donate to the organisations they help? “Two-thirds of volunteers donate to the organisations they serve, and they’re likely to give 10 times more than regular donors”.
3. Social networks can become a fundamental part of the entire volunteer cycle. People speak of the three Rs of volunteer engagement: Recruitment, Retention and Recognition. Social media can help with all three. Jesse gives the examples of using enticing photos to captivate potential volunteers; YouTube training videos to speed up the introduction process; and mentions on a Facebook post to give thanks and make people feel valued (and therefore stay).

Read more

• Read Jesse’s blog in full: http://blogs.volunteermatch.org/engagingvolunteers/2011/11/18/inside-out-engaging-volunteers-in-a-social-media-world/?utm_content=sf2574631&utm_medium=spredfast&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=VolunteerMatch+brand&sf2574631=1
• Check out Meg Garlinghouse’s tips on making the most of LinkedIn for Good: http://www.slideshare.net/SM4nonprofits/meg-garlinghouse-leveraging-linkedin-for-good
• Find out more about LinkedIn for Good: http://blog.linkedin.com/category/linkedin-for-good/
• See some recent research about people’s willingness to help: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/flynn_ask.html
  

How to be a massive social media success: a chance to learn from the experts

Thanks to Natasha in the excellent and ever-informative E-Campaigning Form for bringing this really great web interview to our attention. It’s an interview with the people at ONE, the huge grassroots campaign fighting against extreme poverty and preventable diseases – and it sets out to investigate how they’ve managed to be so successful with their use of social media.

It’s quite a long piece, full of practical examples of what’s worked for them – and (especially helpfully) why - so I won’t be able to do it justice if I try to summarise it. But here are just 3 of the nuggets of wisdom that jumped out at me:

1. Use stats to your advantage and maximise the effectiveness of your tweets. ONE know from new media studies in the USA that more people read tweets from 8-9am, from 12-2pm and from 4-5.30pm. So they try to tweet at those times, especially if they have fresh and vital information that they want people to see.
2. Don’t just make a video for YouTube, make your own YouTube video channel. It’s very easy. Did you know that every time you post a video on YouTube, your channel goes up? And as well as making a channel, make sure you tell as many people as possible when you put up new videos: the more people that view your video, the higher it moves on YouTube’s page rankings.
3. Dare to make your asks specific. ONE has a great example. They asked their supporters to send an unusual kind of tweet, directed at the White House’s Twitter account and asking for a specific amount of money to be dedicated to funding vaccines against diarrhoea and pneumonia. The vast number of tweets convinced the White House that people not only cared about the issue but that their sense that the government was listening to them was actually quantifiable. In this case, the White House ended up announcing a level of funding that was even higher than the tweets had asked for!

I hope this has tempted you to read the whole piece. It really is worth it: http://www.devex.com/en/articles/how-does-one-do-it-behind-the-advocacy-group-s-massive-social-media-success

4 top tips for recruiting celebrity fundraisers

“Find us a celebrity to help publicise this campaign!” This is a common cry in the meeting rooms of charities across the UK whenever a new campaign is being prepared.

I’ve been part of those conversations – and have frequently been one of the voices insisting that getting celebrity endorsements will do untold good in boosting the profile of the campaign.

So it was very interesting – and challenging - to read about a new report by Zoetica Media and PayPal, which suggests that celebrities aren’t always the answer we might think they are, certainly where social media campaigns are concerned. The report suggests that the key to finding the best advocate lies in finding a spokesperson who will spend time online interacting with his or her followers and other potential donors.

This being the case, how do we go about choosing the best celebrity to approach? The report highlights the following 4 top tips, which I’ve taken the liberty of re-ordering into more of a step-by-step checklist:

1. Widen your definition of a celebrity: a blogger with passionate fans could do your cause more good than a ‘big-name’ celebrity with millions of casual followers.
2. Find a celebrity who has a personal connection and genuine passion with/for the cause.
3. Make sure the celebrity already interacts regularly online with their fans using social media.
4. Check that the celebrity will be willing to ask friends to get involved, not just fans and followers.

That all makes sense to me. I’ll make sure I remember it next time I’m in one of those conversations.

What do you think? Does your experience support this? It would be really interesting to hear...

Read more

About the report: http://philanthropy.com/article/Celebrities-May-Be-Overrated/129627

The report itself: http://www.scribd.com/doc/70669284/Effectiveness-of-Celebrity-Spokespeople-in-Social-Fundraisers

2 things that routinely drive away online shoppers

Given our obsession at Sue Fidler Associates with things content-y, I am thrilled to see this endorsed again this week by the experts, this time by the latest Nielsen Norman Group (NNG) report on E-commerce Usability.

Reporting on how usable e-commerce sites are, NNG says that the situation is definitely improving. 11 years ago their study showed a 56% success rate across 496 task attempts: this time the figure had increased to 72%.

However, some of the major problems encountered by users remain the same. That’s a bit shocking after 11 years. So it’s worth knowing what they are: that way we can try and avoid them on our own sites. Here they are:

1. ‘Bad’ content (I like this term, especially at this spooky time of year!)

It’s really important to remember that users need to be reassured about the product they are buying. They can’t see it in person or touch it or examine it, so we need to offer them as much information as possible. But way too often, users can’t find the information they need about a product. And if they can’t find it, they just won’t buy the product. So the first thing to check is that you are offering clear, full details about each of your products.

Another continuing bugbear to watch out for is inadequate photo enlargement. Although many sites offer photo enlargement, they don’t make the enlargement significantly bigger than the original photo shown. This is a simple issue to fix, so we should all make sure we’re doing it.

2. Search functionality not up to scratch

The problem here is that people will judge your site by the standards they are used to elsewhere on the web. And for most people this means being compared with the search engines like Google when it comes to the issues of search. Add to this the fact that web users generally have poor search skills, so they are likely to give up rather than try altering their search query. So it’s worth making sure your search really works.

The overriding message is this: almost two-thirds of users end up abandoning the site they chose to go to and go on to complete their task somewhere else instead. So we need to do everything we can – starting with the steps outlined above – to keep the users who've chosen to come to us on our sites. It would be foolish not to, wouldn’t it..?

Read more:

• Read the useit.com alert, which summarises the findings of the most recent report: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ecommerce.html
• And if you want to read the detail, you can download (at a price, unfortunately) the NNG e-commerce reports: http://www.nngroup.com/reports/ecommerce/