SOS is sharing. Not just strength, but also social media advice.

Photo by Share Our Strength

In last week's interview with Suzy Twohig at Share Our Strength (SOS) on their mobile giving campaign, I promised a part two with Jeff Wiedner, SOS's Senior Manager of Online Marketing, on their experience with integrating social media tools and techniques into their strategy. Over the past few months, SOS has participated in many prominent social media campaigns, such as SXSW's Social Media Smackdown in addition to ramping up their online presence in general. Here's what they have to share with other nonprofits:

Sokunthea: SOS has never been shy from testing the latest innovations in fundraising. It seems like you have really embraced social media tools and networks. How do you stay current with trends and tools and get the leeway to experiment with them? Does your leadership play a role?

Jeff: As an online “face” of Share Our Strength, I lead our social media efforts (check out Twitter (@sharestrength) and Facebook). More and more on our team are jumping in as well—including our Executive Director, Billy Shore, who’s on Facebook and Twitter (@billshore). Like all of us, they’re eager to leverage social media to build an active online community that helps us spread the word about the issue of childhood hunger. Having leadership buy-in is key—from an organizational standpoint, I can’t imagine engaging in social media without it.

In addition, there are so many great social media gurus we’ve been fortunate to follow, work with, and learn from in recent months, including Ed Nicholson of Tyson Foods, Scott Nicholson of Media Sauce—who created the Pledge to End Hunger campaign, Danny Brown of the 12 for 12K campaign, Beth Kanter, and Chris Brogan—all of whom are doing amazing things online. We’re very grateful to them all for sharing their strength online to help support our work.

Sokunthea: Reflecting on these exciting programs you’ve just come off of -- Pledge to End Hunger, 12 for 12k, Social Media Smackdown -- what are some lessons learned that you think others who may want to run similar programs can benefit from?

Jeff: First of all, the credit for these campaigns goes to Scott Henderson and his team at MediaSauce, and Danny Brown and his remarkable followers. Through clear and compelling calls to action (tweets, videos, emails, Facebook posts), they quickly created an online community around the issue of hunger. It’s inspiring to witness what can happen when a group of committed individuals comes together to take a stand—and raise thousands of dollars in just a few hours. But a few general takeaways for us overall:

1. Conversation (vs. fundraising) is key, and should be 90% of your efforts. We’ve been thrilled with the fundraising results of these campaigns, but what was equally important has been the increased awareness of hunger and the ~5000 people who got engaged through these campaigns. We look forward to continuing the dialogue and working together to explore creative ways to work together to end childhood hunger in America. The long-term relationship and community building are very important for us.
2. Listening is really important. It’s important to regularly tap into listening tools—Twitter Search, RSS feeds, etc to find what people are saying. When you hear something, reach out to them. Get into the conversation. They may reply, may not.
3. Get into the conversation. Be helpful. Share resources, ideas, articles. Give people a way to talk about the issue without being so self-promotional. It's appropriate to be promotional at times, but make it the exception rather than the norm. The more compelling you are and the more helpful you are, the more exponential the growth.
4. Don’t be afraid to experiment. You don’t get it until you do it. Plus, each organization's audience is going to be a little different than others. What works for others may not work for you. So test aggressively. We’re all learning together.

Sokunthea: Of all of the tools, techniques and platforms you have used lately, are there ones that you would recommend most to other nonprofits?

Jeff: At a minimum, I think you have to have Twitter and Facebook, and because people are so visually oriented, You Tube, and Flickr. YouTube and Flickr are great ways to allow people to connect with your mission in a dynamic way. Often if they like what they see, they'll link to it and you get nice viral exposure.

Sokunthea: What have you found to be the greatest value in using these new technologies; is it dollars raised, promotion and awareness, garnering support in a viral way, or something else?

Jeff: Our primary goal is to build the hunger conversation. The fact that 1 in 6 kids in America is at risk of hunger (and that was before the economic downturn) is eye-opening for a lot of folks. This message resonates whatever the medium. It also helps us reach a younger audience, who may be interested in engaging with the organization in a non-donation fashion.

Tags: billy shore mobile share our strength social media