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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.”

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.

A Few Details About the Upcoming Twitter Analytics (MediaBistro)
Measuring your social media impact is more important now than ever: here are some tips on what to expect from Twitter’s new tool.

Gallup: Aim Social Media Marketing at Loyalists, Not Prospects (ClickZ)
According to Gallup analysts, “Since marketers are less likely to engage prospects directly through social media, they should encourage or guide their current customers to advocate on their behalf instead.”

How Social Media Transformed a Nonprofit Medical Professional Society (The Nonprofit Quarterly)
How one organization successfully built a community of followers by shifting their media strategy.

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