Delmarva Council Boy Scouts serves more than 11,000 youth but, until November, it had no Twitter account.
The Ministry of Caring runs 28 programs in Wilmington, but, until recently, you couldn’t find it on Twitter or Facebook.
The segue to social media is happening as fast as you can tweet, directors of local nonprofits say. The Ministry already has 149 Facebook friends. The Delmarva Council Boy Scouts already has 830 “likes” on Facebook – and they include not only recent scout alumni but also former members now in their 40s, 50s and 60s.
Rashmi Rangan, the 51-year-old executive director of the Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council (DCRAC), put it this way: “Some of us are reluctant users of social media, but just look at the Middle East and you can see it is an amazing organizing tool.”
Nonprofit directors who use social media say it is less expensive and less time consuming than mailing brochures and organizing press conferences. “In this funding environment, all of us have to stretch our resources for the maximum impact,” said Rangan, who hired a social media manager six months ago.
Nonprofit employees listened intently Tuesday when Alan Rosenblatt, Associate Director for Online Advocacy at the Center for American Progress explained how Twitter applications such as Act.ly, TweetSuite and TweetDeck can help them manage their tweet universe and even nudge politicians to take action. Act.ly is an online petitioning site. TweetSuite and TweetDeck help users manage their Tweets.
Rosenblatt, who now has almost 13,000 followers on Twitter, delivered a tutorial on new media as part of an event co-sponsored by DCRAC, West End Neighborhood House, and YWCA Delaware at the Community Services Building in Wilmington. He explained how to get others to “retweet” what you write to maximize reach and how to attach coding tags called “hashtags” to garner greater readership.
“We used to live in a world where the producers of content determined the channels of distribution,” Rosenblatt said. “We now live in a world where the consumers of content determine the channels of distribution.”
Boy Scouts of America, the national organization, is an example of an early adopter of social media now reaping the dividends of its efforts through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Over 140,000 people “like” the national scouting organization on Facebook. One YouTube film shows two Boy Scouts helping an old lady ride a zip line across a ravine.
Dan Sullivan of Delmarva Council Boy Scouts says Facebook does double duty as a tool to get a message out but also as a way to obtain feedback and comments.
He said Facebook provides the council with analytics to show who is using the site and the council’s web administrator tracks how many of those who receive the organization’s e-newsletter open it and how many click through the stories.
“People my age definitely trust social media more than Generation Xers and baby boomers,” said Sullivan, 26. If I get an email for a cause I’m passionate about, I’ll give, whereas a baby boomer will give to a letter. Social media in the donor relations world is slowly but surely gaining traction.”
Sullivan said the shrinking of traditional media has been more difficult for nonprofits in some ways but helpful in others. He said statewide newspapers might not have as many reporters to assign to feature stories, but smaller local papers are more open to nonprofits. “It’s definitely easier to place information in those because they’re actually thirsting for information to fill their pages,” he said.
Rodel Foundation Delaware has been using social media to discuss its Vision 2015 agenda for schools for several years, said senior vice-president Dori Jacobson. The group has 1864 Facebook “likes,” 583 Twitter followers, and 2736 unique visitors to its blog last month.
“What social media really offers, in addition to direct feedback, is an expanded universe for our information,” she said. “People re-post and tweet our entries with great frequency. Other than seeking the traditional media focus on the work underway through news articles and opinion pieces, we’re not really seeking publicity. We’re trying to engage the public in a conversation. A lot of the people who follow us on Twitter and Facebook are other education reform organizations.”
Jacobson said Rodel gets direct feedback through social media and also a slew of calls and emails from people who are interested in educational advocacy. “So it seems that social media is a complement to traditional channels,” she said.
Rodel publishes an e-newsletter that is sent to 10,000 people every two weeks with the push of a button.
Jacobson says one change since the advent of social media: “Our communications are much, much broader. They are directed to policy makers, the public at large, the business community and the people involved in the program.”
Rodel’s broad-based media effort includes blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and advertising on Facebook and in the News Journal. “We are still using traditional media, but it’s not the sole source. We have had a very supportive traditional media,” Jacobson said.
In the past, members of the volunteer Ministry of Caring Guild have issued press releases, phoned reporters or voiced public service announcements on the radio to get the word out about fundraising events, but Brother Ronald Giannone, the Capuchin friar who heads the ministry, says the ministry recently added Twitter and Facebook links to its web page. Soon, it will be blogging.
Monica Alvarez has been using both social media and traditional media to deliver West End Neighborhood House’s message for about six years. At this point, she said, West End’s outreach is about 50 percent social media. “It’s so quick,” she said. “It’s a lot less work that traditional media.”
She uses Constantcontact.com, Thistoprint.com, Twitter and Facebook. She estimates 40 percent of West End’s Twitter followers are other nonprofits.
Alvarez said shrinking local news outlets make it a little more difficult to get traditional coverage. “It’s definitely more difficult to get a good feature article. Luckily, West End does enough innovative stuff that we’ve had luck with the News Journal, but it has been increasingly difficult to get an article with a picture, and that’s with really good relationships with the News Journal. What we try to do for news outlets is say, ‘Hey, what are you looking for,’ and make sure we supply it.”
Stepping into the instant communications arena has Alvarez wondering about the new etiquette: “I’m very conscious not to inundate our Facebook fans. I know when I get emails from the same people, like a restaurant, every week, I don’t read them. There’s so much in front of everybody’s face.”
In less than a decade, West End’s media outreach has morphed from mailing out annual reports to using email marketing solutions such as Constant Contact.
Before the advent of social media, West End mass-mailed its annual report. “We didn’t really ever find that effective,” Alvarez said.
The agency also published mail appeals, newsletters and brochures. “They were moderately successful for the era, but today they’re probably less effective,” she said. “I think people are just much more fast-moving now.”
Alvarez likes the feedback and figures she gets from sites such as Constant Contact. When she sends an e-blast, the digital equivalent of direct mail, to email subscribers and Facebook fans, she can see who opened it, who clicked through it and how many forwarded it. “You don’t get that with the newspaper,” she said. “You never get the satisfaction of knowing 7,000 people heard your radio ad.”