Lada Gaga

Justin Bieber

Kim Kardashian

The Onion

Ashton Kutcher

Charlie Sheen

Mashable

Hell, even Ryan Seacrest

Identifying valuable influencers to target your audience has nothing to do with quantity. That’s the problem with all of the “influence measurement tools” such as Klout. The metrics of these tools are limited – there is no human analysis. There is only an algorithm which measures quantity. I suspect that the owners of these influence measurement tools would argue otherwise, making a case that the quantity is tied to like-minded social groups.

Not really.

Want to raise your Klout score? Do this: Tweet constantly and tweet about whatever the hottest topic of the day is, regardless if you give a damn about it or not. Tweet about the latest trending topic, scandal, and celebrities to see your score rise.

Determining the quality of a network is not a task for computerized algorithms. It requires human intelligence. It requires a discriminating approach to whom your audience is, and who the most valuable surrogates in that audience may be.

Let’s consider the legal community. If you have a massive network of Twitter followers filled with spammers, product promoters and porn stars, your reach is limited. If your network consists of legitimate individuals that have a limited to non-existent interest in legal theory or practice, but who are trying to build their own networks through use of automated tools, you’re not building an influential network. You might be building a broad network, but one that is untargeted and unhelpful.

Be selective. Know your audience. Weed out anyone in your network that does not advance your purpose for being online. Think of it as compound interest. If you build a small group of in-the-know followers – no matter your industry – then you will be reaching the holy grail of what PR folks refer to as target audience. Each of these finely selected individuals will, in all likelihood, have their own networks of various sizes, with a significant degree of others who follow your issue and care about the topic you’re promoting. They can, in turn, then share that information with their networks of similarly minded individuals. With each circle outward that you go, the value of the network diminishes of course. However, that is the very nature of social networks.

Do the unthinkable: Make your network small. You will be far better off with a smaller network of people whom only you can know fit the profile of infuencers within your target audience. In the old days, these folks were called surrogates. So shrink. Klout will frown on you. All the social media mavens will frown on you. But your audience will smile. As the content you’ll be providing, and the content you’ll be receiving will be relevant.

Engagement matters because the world is driven to distraction. With engagement, your stakeholders give you the benefit of the doubt when you screw up. They also have your brand as a part of their own identity. They can’t imagine a world without your organization or cause, and criticizing your organization means criticizing themselves.

Gallup conducted research with over 17,000 social media users to determine how people interact with social media and its effectiveness as a marketing tool. Gallup doesn’t conduct shoddy research, so I think it’s worth our time to see if there are applications for those of us in the grassroots persuasion business. After all, we are marketers of ideas and action. 

In this post, I’ll feature the first engagement myth busted by Gallup, and feature additional research findings in subsequent posts.

Myth #1 – Social media initiatives drive loyalty and acquisition.

Gallup Fact: Engagement with a brand drives social engagement.

Many of us believe that if we get enough online participation, it will lead to offline engagement. But according to Gallup, organization-sponsored social media initiatives “have very little impact on decision making.” Nor do they drive prospects to recommend your cause to those in their social network. According to Gallup, it’s actually the reverse: engagement with your brand drives social engagement. In other words, as my very smart colleague Dr. Kelton Rhoads said, “It’s the dependent variable. Social media is the result, not the cause. It is the result of political or social action and conversations. It’s a marker that something is happening.”

I was reminded of this rule when talking with my friends at Southwest Airlines. They are frequently asked to speak at marketing conferences about their social media prowess. They said that as much as they hoped other organizations could maximize their customer relationships through social networks, the inherent challenge for their audience members is that their corporations belatedly came to the “customer is king” philosophy; Southwest has held that belief system and ingrained it in their culture since its genesis. A corporation that uses social media to drive customer loyalty like what exists at Southwest Airlines will fall short because they aren’t Southwest Airlines. Online engagement is the result, not the cause.

What does work? Engagement is the result of psychological needs and rational needs. For your organization to benefit from social media, it must create stakeholder engagement by meeting those needs.

How You Can Drive Engagement

Now, so that we don’t see too many rainbows and unicorns, here is my real-world application on how you as a grassroots leader can, through your behavior and creating a culture of engagement, fulfill those needs. I have listed these from the lowest level of engagement to the highest. At the lower end we have the rational logical elements of engagement and then we get to the good stuff – the emotional side, where your behavior can make the difference.

1. An overall satisfaction with the organization – not particularly outstanding performance, but you are honest, forthright and don’t try to manipulate your audience.

2. Delivers on promises – you do what you say you’ll do. You don’t over promise. I see this most pervasive when we exaggerate the power of “advocacy.” Sometimes we make our advocates believe that their form email or letter will change a lawmaker’s mind, or that one good story is all it takes to persuade someone. If that were true, every group would win its legislative issues.

3. Treats me fairly – When you screw up, you admit it and make it right. Have you ever had a grassroots volunteer treated poorly by a legislator or his or her staff? How do you address that situation? Who do you defend? Do you make excuses for the legislator or kindly remind the lawmaker that such behavior isn’t appropriate?

4. Treats me with respect; I feel proud to be a customer – Do your grassroots volunteers get to use their talents? Do you know what they are? Do you ask for their opinions, either formally or informally? Do you incorporate their suggestions?

5. Can’t imagine a world without your organization – At this level, your stakeholders will mentally resolve discrepancies about your organization or brand in your favor. You get the benefit of the doubt. This is exemplified by volunteers who view you as a friend, coach or mentor vs. a transactional figure.

The bottom line? Encourage your team to be evangelists with their networks, and focus on the most engaged volunteers. As the Gallup report stated, “They are most likely to advocate on your behalf and least likely to criticize you.”

Do you know who your most engaged volunteers are? How will you engage them on your behalf in 2012?

Are you currently using Mobile to reach your organization’s assets? Find out more and sign up here.

Date: Thursday, November 10, 2011, 6:00 p.m.

Location:
Adfero Group
1666 K Street NW, Suite 250
Washington, D.C.

Schedule:

6:00 – 6:30 Meet & Greet
6:30 – 6:40 Introductions
6:45 – 7:30 Sue Zoldak (Adfero Group) & John Craig (Purple Forge)
7:30 – 8:00 Q&A

More about Sue Zoldak (Adfero Group):

Sue Zoldak is a Vice President at Adfero Group. Sue provides strategic counsel for integrated issue advocacy and branding campaigns. She succeeds by combining message discipline with political insight while bringing together the right communications tools for each client.

Sue brings not only her expertise in issue advocacy and public affairs advertising, but also her ability to manage social media campaigns, build grassroots coalitions, provide the leading edge in digital communications tactics, and leverage a keen understanding of website design and usability.

More about John Craig (Purple Forge):

John Craig is the Vice-President of Sales and Marketing of Purple Forge.  Mr. Craig is an award winning market expert in the application of social media and mobile technologies for collaboration and communication for grassroots organizations, associations, politicians, governments and interactive marketing firms. 

Purple Forge has recently developed mobile applications for the American Petroleum Institute, Americans for Prosperity, and recent Royal Tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Canada.  Mr. Craig has over 19 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, with the last 11 years in the development and design of mobile applications.  Mr. Craig holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Honors) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an Ontario Professional Engineer and a member of the AAPC.

I give the protesters credit for getting off their computers and on the streets. Research we conducted with hundreds of grassroots professionals found that getting their volunteers into the trenches was their No. 1 challenge.

I also give them  points for understanding that being the underdog can be an advantage in the business and political arenas, especially during an economic decline. That’s what my research found.  I interviewed more than 1,000 grassroots advocates and the senators, members of Congress,  state legislators and business leaders whose minds they changed for my new book, The Underdog Edge: How Ordinary People Change the Minds of the Powerful…and Live to Tell About It.  Based on those interviews and survey responses, we have uncovered the seven key extreme influence tactics required to persuade those up the food chain. Upward influence matters because it’s about the results, not just noise.

We usually support the underdog, but my research found that not all underdogs are created equal. If you want the advantage of the underdog mantle, you can’t have a huge amount of resources, so the protestors made a mistake when they allowed the members of more than three dozen unions to march with them. Successful underdogs have few resources and don’t squander their resources. Few in America view unions as resource-starved underdogs, so the sympathy factor is negated. 

My most surprising finding was that being passionate for your cause actually makes you less persuasive with those up the food chain. Powerful people told me that overtly passionate advocates doomed their own missions because their passion made them seem unpredictable and,  difficult to work with. Nice matters more than noise.  

The most effective advocates have grit developed from experiencing adversity and loss and are willing to spend years working on their causes. Consequently, the most effective grassroots coalitions include members who have lived a little and suffered some hardship and understand what it means to persevere. Translation: get the seasoned citizens on your team.

Finally, underdogs who use the “gift of heroics” to influence powerful people are more likely to succeed. No fewer than half the powerful people interviewed told me they changed their mind about an issue once they realized agreeing to the request meant they would be one of the “good guys.”

Congressional offices are receiving between 200 to 1,000 percent more constituent communications than they were ten years ago. Despite the increase, a survey of congressional staff indicates that 90 percent believe constituent communications remains a “high priority” for the office. But sizable percentages of staff report that their offices are shifting resources to manage the increased demand.

The findings are part of a new report released today by the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), How Citizen Advocacy Is Changing Mail Operations on Capitol Hill. The report is based on a survey of 260 congressional staff on how email and the Internet are affecting office procedures. CMF researchers also collected mail volume data from ten House and Senate offices.

Read the report here.

“Congress is working hard to adapt to and understand this new environment,” the report states. “But are most Members and staff of the Congress fundamentally rethinking what they do, or simply trying to apply a 20th century paradigm, workflow, and communications process to a 21st century challenge?”

Among the findings:

 
• Senate offices reported a 548 percent increase in mail volume since 2002 (including one office that reported a 1,422 percent increase from 2002 to 2009); House offices reported a 158 percent increase. All offices reported a significant spike in volume in 2009 when Congress considered many high-profile issues.
• An increasing number of congressional offices are answering incoming email with an email response, rising from 37 percent in 2005 to 86 percent in 2010.
• A majority of staff report they spend more time on constituent communications than two years ago (58 percent); and 46 percent report shifting resources to manage increased volume.
• If an office has previously prepared a response to a constituent inquiry, a sizable percentage of staff (41 percent) estimate it requires more than a week to respond. If a new policy statement or text is required, 42 percent report it can take more than three weeks for the office to respond.
• While senior managers and staff primarily responsible for answering the mail agree on the top three challenges to quickly responding to constituent communications, they do not agree on the most significant problem. Senior managers state that the mail volume is the biggest challenge (35 percent); but, “mail staffers” report that “the review and approval process” is the biggest obstacle (41 percent).

The report notes that congressional offices have seen no increases in personnel in the last three decades. “I don’t know any industry in the world that could absorb as much as a ten-fold increase in customer interest and a zero increase in labor to support it,” said Bradford Fitch, President and CEO of CMF. “Under the circumstances, most congressional offices are doing the best job they can in just keeping up with the increasing volume,” he said.

The report is the latest in a series of CMF’s “Communicating with Congress” research, part of the organization’s Partnership for a More Perfect Union, which seeks to enhance the understanding, communications, and relationship between citizens and Congress. The report is the third in a series released in 2011 by CMF based primarily on a survey of congressional staff conducted October–December 2010. Perceptions of Citizen Advocacy on Capitol Hill was released in January 2011, and #SocialCongress: Perceptions and Use of Social Media on Capitol Hill was released in July 2011. Today’s report and other CMF research are available at CongressFoundation.org.

The report was sponsored by Convio, Fireside21 and voterVOICE. CMF’s next report will be released on October 24, identifying the best websites on Capitol Hill, with the issuance of the 112th Congress Gold Mouse Awards.

With 800 million active users, Facebook has earned the title of most popular social network around the globe. At the f8 conference a few weeks ago, CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced some big changes, the latest in the site’s constant evolution. It’s hard for a lot of users to adjust to the new features and, for organizations using Facebook in advocacy efforts, it may seem like things are changing just as they were getting the hang of things. Despite the growing pains, Facebook is a valuable tool that can raise awareness and inspire action.  

Here are a few rules to live by:

1.       A Few Can Activate Many

Engagement, not number of fans, is key. On average, every time someone shares a link to your organization’s website on Facebook, two to five people will visit it. In any online campaign, it’s imperative to utilize social context. People care about what their friends are doing and are heavily influenced by actions. If you can show Facebook users that their friends “liked” or engaged with your page, chances are high that you can get them involved, too.  
So, now the question is, how? 

 
• Use Facebook Questions. Asking your fans a question leads to viral exposure. If you ask a question, it will appear on your fans’ newsfeed. If they answer or follow that question, their friends can also see the activity. This is also a good way to get direct feedback from your fans. 
• Use Facebook to live stream your events or town halls. Free tools like UStream allow you to broadcast your event to all of your fans. Also, if you use event materials to let people know they can tune in on your Facebook page, you are likely to get more fans.
•  Make everything you can an event.  All of your organization’s events should be shared on Facebook. You should also use this tool for virtual events or calls to action (i.e. “Call your congressman by noon today!”).  Again, this allows your fans’ friends to see their action, making them more likely to join in.

 2.       Don’t Be Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

Facebook encourages open communication, something that may seem daunting to organizations because it can indicate a lack of control. If you want to successfully use Facebook as a tool, you have to put some time into engaging with your fans, monitoring your page, and moderating the comments. That being said, most press is good press.

 
• Post a clear comment policy on your page info, and stick to it.
• Don’t delete comments just because they’re negative.  Even negative comments make it more likely for people to see your page. Supporters will defend against these negative comments and drive traffic to the topic.
• Be active. When people know that someone is actively monitoring and responding to comments, they tend to be nicer.

 3.       Be Human

If you let your fans and activists get to know a little bit about the people behind your mission, you give them a way to connect.  When people are more connected to the page, they view it as a legitimate source of information, and will be more inspired and inclined to take action.

 
• It’s great to post a story or anecdote about your staff that’s not strictly related to your organization. Show the personalities behind the work you do.
• If you have a good relationship with your fans, you can raise money without even asking for it
• If you’re posting more than press releases, you can provoke interesting conversation on your site, giving it a lot more personality.

Facebook is evolving, and so should your organization. In your advocacy campaign, be innovative and embrace these tools as a way to reach a wider audience.

The Super Committee is charged with recommending how to reduce the U.S. deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years, and has until Thanksgiving to do so. Committee members say comments from the public are being taken seriously (here’s the web form to prove it), though some of them are also limiting participation: for instance, Senator Baucus (D-Mont.) is not taking messages from any one who doesn’t live in Montana — even though the mission is national in scope.

The limited time frame for decisions and the committee’s difficult task makes advocacy especially challenging. What’s an advocacy group to do?

Hopefully, most organizations have plans in place to handle a sudden grassroots need. But if your organization was not quite as prepared as others, don’t despair. Even in this Internet age, all politics is still local.

Meaning stick to the basics and do them well:

1. Key Contacts: Activate the members in your organization that are from these states. They should already be identified as key contacts for the members of Congress, and now is the time to leverage those relationships.
2. District Meetings: Never overlook district staff. These Super Committee members may not make it home very much over the next few weeks, but they will still be getting a daily report from home. Make sure your organization and your members (i.e. their constituents) feature prominently.
3. Social Media: They are listening to social media. Get as many of your advocates as possible to upload content to your YouTube channel, personalizing the issues. Your Facebook and Twitter strategy should be integrated into this campaign as well, for a social media “surround sound.”
4. Coalition Partners: Most advocacy groups are part of a coalition. Are you contacting partners and their followers? It’s imperfect, since your message may not be delivered exactly how you would prefer, but it’s more voices added to your chorus.

At the end of all of this, remember the poor congressional staff of these Super Committee members. You can’t buy them dinner these days, but an honest and sincere thank you for all their work will be (almost as) appreciated.

Can opinion research help unlock the key to winning your advocacy effort? From free survey platforms and social media polling to state-of-the-art message testing, Adfero Group’s Sue Zoldak will be discussing the research tools that you can apply to increase your campaign’s effectiveness.

Join us as we explore how public affairs campaigns use research to find, reach, and win over their audience. We will take questions from attendees and discuss your case study live.

Click here to find out more
and
REGISTER TODAY!

Despite the successful and headline-grabbing launch of Google+, only 13 members of the U.S. Senate and 15 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have established profiles on the new social networking site, far fewer than the number from each chamber who are active on Facebook and Twitter.

Google+ launched in July to much fanfare and within three weeks had attracted 20 million users in the U.S. Some technology pundits have labeled it a “Facebook killer.”

Congress’s slow adoption of Google+ comes as a surprise because the new social networking platform contains at least one unique function the others do not: It allows users to segregate relationships into “Circles,” meaning members of Congress can isolate constituents from other followers. Heavy social networking “spam” from non-constituents is a significant frustration for members and their social media staffs.

“Just the other day, someone posted on our Facebook wall that she wished my boss was her senator,” a Hill press secretary told me.

A recent study by the Congressional Management Foundation reports that members of Congress and key staff have embraced social media as a tool to communicate with constituents. But privately, many also complain they receive too much pre-packaged “Astroturf” in the form of canned Tweets and Facebook wall postings. In many cases, these communications come from people far away from the members’ districts or from undetermined locations. Google+ Circles allow members of Congress to target their communications directly to people in the states or districts they represent, while ignoring communications directed at them from people outside their states or districts.

The Circles feature offers additional benefits as well. For example, members can compartmentalize constituents based on the content of their communications. A member could have a Veterans Issues Circle or an Energy and Environment Circle, for example. Circles can also streamline and facilitate press communications. And Circles are by no means the only promising functionality on Google+. So-called “Hangouts” — a native, pushbutton small group video chat feature — could become an alternative to district town hall meetings, which have become made-to-order YouTube set-up moments over the last couple of years.

Nevertheless, one staff member for a Republican U.S. senator told me he was reluctant to dive into Google+ because, “We already have enough difficulty keeping Facebook and Twitter up to date.”

It appears that Google has not yet made a concerted effort to encourage members of Congress to use its new platform. “While Facebook and Twitter appear to actively work with the caucus, Google has made no such effort,” another Republican staffer told me.

Of the senators who have established profiles on Google+, only four appear to use it to reach out to constituents actively: Sens. Bob Casey, Orrin Hatch, Bernie Sanders and Mark Warner.

Only thee House members on Google+ (Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Jared Polis and Kathy Hochul) use it frequently to post and interact with followers. The others have profiles and occasionally update their spaces.

One reason for the relative lack of Capitol Hill enthusiasm for Google+ to date may be the fact that the platform has not yet lived through an election cycle. In the past, heated primary and general-election contests have fueled the explosive growth of Facebook and Twitter in the political world.

It’s also important to note that despite its widespread use, Google+ is still a Beta product. Google is currently testing a platform for business entities that might have additional functions that will benefit political leaders, like advertising tie-ins to aid brand management and data collection. And in addition to its native applications, developers are certain to enhance the Google+ experience with custom apps.

Some Hill staffers I have spoken to feel a bit burned by the overstated expectations of other social media platforms. It’s not altogether clear to them that they are getting out of it all they have put in. But the successful launch of Google+ ensures it is here to stay. And its native functionality and promising future appear well-suited for leaders in government, politics and public affairs.

Patrick Hynes is the President of Hynes Communications.

We’re living in a mobile age. You can’t walk down the street without bumping into someone on their smart phone. And now with the stunningly fast growth in sales for iPads, people are spending less and less time at their actual computers.

Wired magazine famously declared last year that “The Web is Dead.” In the article, Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff argue that we’re abandoning the web for sleeker, simpler services. They say that “these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into [people’s] lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen).” People are no longer interested in seeking. They are interested in getting.

In today’s world, people are constantly on the go. And so naturally, staying connected and receiving information happens on the go as well. In fact, a recent study by Flurry found that people are now spending more time on mobile apps than they are on websites.  Consumers in June spent 74 minutes per day on websites compared with 81 minutes using applications. That’s a growth of 91 percent over the past year. The data speaks for itself: mobile apps are crucial in reaching audiences.

So what does this mean for advocacy? Web sites alone will no longer cut it. Sure, your online Grassroots Action Centers and the Web tools you employ for grassroots action (for example, providing the opportunity for your activists to send emails directly to Congress) should remain part of your overall advocacy strategy. But you have to look beyond the Web now.

Some advocacy organizations have begun to embrace this growing trend. In the beginning of June, the ONE campaign launched an iPhone app dedicated to encouraging activism in order to enact social change. In short, the app provides the user with relevant information about “various advocacy movements…then lets you call a senator, sign a petition or join up with a real life rally for causes in order to raise awareness.” The interest in the app has been tremendous. During its first two weeks, the free application recorded more than 20,000 downloads.*

Other grassroots groups have actually been taking advantage of this innovative tool for awhile. In June 2010, The Poker Players Alliance created an iPhone app that allows users to take a variety of actions. Directly from their iPhone, a user can get the latest PPA news and updates, connect with other PPA members, and actually donate via PayPal. Even better, it has a ‘click to call Congress’ feature, where users can simply click a button and be automatically connected via phone to their member of Congress’ office in Washington, D.C. For all of those poker enthusiasts on the go, it has never been easier, and less time-consuming, to take action.

Remember this: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you are asking your audience to take action, it only matters if you reach them where they are paying attention. Consider utilizing mobile apps in your next advocacy campaign. The results may astound you.

*Source: http://philanthropy.com/blogs/social-philanthropy/new-nonprofit-apps-advocacy-management-and-mission-get-attention/28766