For those attending the Social Media 101 workshop at the Taking Action for Animals conference this weekend, or anyone else who might be interested, I’m providing a thorough case study of Oklahoma Senate Bill 1712 and how the Central Oklahoma Humane Society used social media tools to get this bill passed into law.

Disclaimer: You might want to grab a snack…this is pretty long!

SB 1712 is the Commercial Pet Breeder Bill, also known as the “Black Market Breeder” bill. Its purpose was, overall, to make it more difficult for irreputable “puppy mills” to operate in the state of Oklahoma.

Introduced in January 2010 by Rep. Mike Jackson and Senator Patrick Anderson in the Oklahoma State Senate, the bill had two main facets. The first was to require anyone with 11 or more breeding female dogs to register with a state licensing board. This would subject them to licensing inspections. They would also have to pay a license fee on an annual basis, which would generate income for the state.

The bill, if passed, would also create a “Commercial Pet Breeder Board” which would serve to administrate the licensing and inspection, and would also compile a database and registry website which would operate as sort of a better business bureau for breeders (a BBBB if you will). Breeders could register online, and members of the public could research breeders online, rate them, etc. If someone initiated a search for a breeder that was not listed, it would trigger an alert to the board, which would locate and inspect the breeder. Since most irreputable breeders would be unlikely to voluntarily register, this would be the way to find most of them—from the public, searching for information about the source of animals they had purchased or were considering purchasing online.

Read lots more about this bill here.

From the very beginning of SB1712, the Central Oklahoma Humane Society had been involved in getting it passed. This required us to mobilize a large number of people, all across the state, with recurring frequency, to take various specific actions, often with only a day’s or so notice.

Social media was instrumental in this venture and getting this bill passed. Without social media, we could not have reached people in a timely fashion nor enabled them to easily take action and given them the information they needed to do so.

The first step was getting people to contact members of the Senate Appropriations Committee; the bill would have to make it out of this committee before it could be heard in the full Senate.

We published blogs (and corresponding updates on all social media sites directing people back to the blogs) with information about the bill—in plain English, as well as providing the full text of the bill—and gave the name and contact information of committee members. We urged everyone to contact committee members and ask them to support the bill, but especially people who were constituents of those committee members. We only received about 2 days notice before the committee was going to review the bill, so we had to mobilize quickly.

Keys: we followed up with people whenever they posted questions. We gave them answers. We found out if we didn’t know the answer. We said thank you. And we followed up—when the committee met, our president was there, texting me updates, which I posted on the blog and social media. So they were able to tune in almost live and see the result of their efforts play out in real time. The bill passed out of committee, so we thanked them again!

We then urged them to contact the committee members and THANK them for voting in support of the bill. Those that did not support it, we encouraged people to ask them (politely) to reconsider and support the bill when it came before the full senate.

Next, we knew the bill would be going to the full senate. We had no idea when this would be—it could be the next day or in the next few weeks.

We were sure to follow up again on our blogs and social media and tell people what the next steps would be. Most people just are not at all familiar with the legislative process, so making sure they understood what was coming next was key to keeping them engaged and not getting bored with the whole thing. We explained that it would be within a few weeks that we would need them to take another action—this time to contact their specific senator—and we told them how to find their Senator and how to contact him or her. We also provided a sample letter and talking points, but encouraged people to use their own words when contacting legislators.

Over the next couple of weeks, we waited and we posted other types of updates, but we kept people in the loop by saying every now and then that we were still waiting, too. Finally we got word that the bill would be heard by the full senate the next day. We had no time to lose!

We immediately wrote a blog that reiterated the information we’d already posted: who to contact, how to do it, suggested talking points, etc. We exploded in social media, asking for people to not only contact their senator but to help us spread the word. This time, people from all over the state could be involved, contacting their own senators. We needed all hands on deck!

Keys: Again, we were present at the hearing to post near-live updates as the votes were coming in. We also provided a link where people could listen in live (the Oklahoma legislature live streams its meetings). We kept the excitement going; we were not at all sure that this bill would pass the full senate, so we were nervous—and this turned out to be a great way to keep people engaged. Those people who sent an email or letter, or made a phone call or visit, they were very invested in the outcome of this bill. They wanted to know as soon as possible what was happening and what they could continue.

SB 1712 passed out of the full Senate, so it was time for it to head to the House Economic Development and Financial Services Committee. It had been several months at this point, and we didn’t know when the house committee would get to hear the bill. Again, we kept up with other news, tasks, promotions, etc. via social media, but every now and then we’d give people an update on the bill. People often drop in to check on things infrequently; we had different people asking every few days, “So what’s going on with that bill? Did it pass?” To avoid posting the same information over and over again, we’d just say something like “still waiting to be heard in the house committee—click here for the latest updates!” and we’d add a link to the blog post with the latest information.

Social media seems to be about groups of people, but at its heart it is all about individual expression, and every individual who makes a comment or asks a question is connected to one or more groups. Family, friends, social organizations, churches, clubs, workplaces…all can be places where that person can access MORE individuals who will embrace our cause and recruit others. This is the very definition of “viral,” and it’s what every organization hopes will happen with their message or cause!

So a few weeks later, we heard that the bill was going to go before the house committee the next day. We had been asking people all along to contact committee members and their own representatives, but we renewed our push for eleventh-hour pleas.

Because many people don’t really understand the difference between house and senate, representatives and senators, we had to make sure to direct people to the correct person each time. For example, many people were contacting our federal legislators, not the state legislators. It’s easy to get confused, so we wanted to make sure people had easy access to the correct contact information and could contact us for help if they didn’t understand who to contact.

We knew our “competition,” as it were—the breeder lobbies and AKC groups, to name a few—were very actively campaigning to legislators, just as we were—so it was critical to show at least equal support for the bill as they were displaying opposition.

Once again, our network of supporters stayed the course and delivered letters, emails, phone calls and visits. The bill passed out of the house committee and then was on its way to the full house of representatives. The pattern of events is hopefully becoming predictable now: updated our supporters, thanked them, informed them of next steps and gave examples of what to do next.

Once we got word the bill would be heard in the full House, we deployed the masses again, encouraging everyone in the state to contact their own representatives. Again they delivered. The bill passed out of the full house of representatives, but with a few minor amendments, which meant it had to go back to the Senate for approval.

As soon as we had the news, we let people know that we had once again succeeded (with their help!) but that there was another hurdle to overcome. We explained why the bill had to go back to the senate, what the amendments were, and answered a lot of questions. We were always patient, always helpful, because it is our belief that when people are fully informed and completely understand situations, they feel much more ownership; they are fully empowered to take action. It becomes THEIR mantle, their cause—they’re not just doing something because we asked them. If we relied on that sense of obligation to us over and over again, we would have lost a lot of supporters due to attrition and boredom throughout the journey of this bill. But we didn’t—in fact, the numbers of supporters kept growing!

After SB 1712 successfully got its amendments approved in the full senate, we thought victory was ours at last! Of course we spread the word and celebrations ensued online, with much gratitude on our part. But then we got some last-minute bad news.

Any member of the Senate had the right to call for a recount within 3 days of the bill passing. This basically means that someone who deeply opposed a bill that passed can call for a recall, and then he or she has 48 hours to convince his or her colleagues to change their votes.

Senator Jon Gumm did exactly this. And we knew he would exercise every resource he had to get his colleagues to change their votes—enough to overturn the passage of the bill.

So we had the very difficult and disappointing task of going back and telling our celebrating supporters that it was NOT actually over after all, we were NOT yet victorious.

We explained the process of what had happened (without ever vilifying Senator Gumm, as tempting as it was). We explained that even if they’d already contacted their senator, they needed to again, and if they hadn’t already, then now it was more important than ever. The only thing that would sway these senators from changing their votes if they were ambivalent on the issue would be the collective voice of their constituency.

The response was fantastic. Our supporters, having had a brief period of celebration at what they thought was victory, were enraged at this turn of events and contacted their senators with renewed energy, making last-minute empassioned pleas to continue their support of the bill.

Legislators reported receiving an average of 1200 calls and emails that day urging them to support SB 1712. They were amazed at the outpouring of support for this legislation.

So on May 7, 2010, SB 1712 was passed into law in the state of Oklahoma. Our governor is now in the process of appointing members of the Commercial Pet Breeder Board and things hope to be up and running by December of 2010.

NONE of this would have been possible without social media. Certainly, political change has occurred for many years without Facebook, Twitter and blogs—but we could not have generated the support we needed in such volume, with such geographical reach in such short time frames without social media. Each person felt empowered, through his or her own Facebook page or Twitter account, to be an activist. This is the power of social media—that it allows people to be engaged in ways and at levels they never would have been in the past. People who don’t consider themselves “political” or “activists” are taking action because it’s easy and accessible, and it’s in a medium they have embraced.

If you want people to carry a message for you, you have to carry it to where they are.

General notes

During all these months of the progression of this bill, we had a great deal of activity on our blog posts. We discovered that many opponents of the bill (breeders, etc.) were actively following our blog because it was the most current source of information on the status and location of the bill. We were always very careful to remember that anyone, anywhere, could be reading our blog, and we maintained a professional tone throughout. We simply presented the facts and hoped they would speak for themselves.

Censorship was something we kept in mind, but didn’t ever have to enact, because what we discovered is that our audience regulated itself. Some irate opponents of the bill posted very inflammatory comments about “animal rights nuts,” and totally inaccurate information about the bill (there was even a false copy of the “language” of the bill circulating at one point, with portions that implied that agents of the state could raid any house and arrest any person they felt might be breeding dogs, without any cause or warrant!). But we didn’t have to swoop in, remove the comment or be heavy-handed, because other people regulated those extreme comments (and there were some from either direction—some crazy “rescue people,” too!).

We have found this to be the case pretty much with every topic we’ve ever addressed. Even if someone posts something pretty crazy in response, the median normalcy of the group conscience will regulate itself. I believe this is very important to mention, because it is my strong belief that censorship destroys the credibility of an organization in social media, where transparency is an important standard.

In all situations where we wanted people to contact legislators, we provided the contact information for those legislators. We also provided a one-button email link in all our blogs, where people could click on one button and it would auto-populate a new email message with all the legislators’ email addresses already in the “to” field. We made it EASY for people to help.

We also asked very specifically what to do and when to do it. Specificity is key when asking for anything: money, items, actions.

It might be quite bewildering and you might think it’s difficult to coordinate all messages across all the different social media platforms. I can explain the strategy that worked best for me. Our blog was the central information headquarters; it’s where I posted everything first and where the most information was contained. All the social media sites—Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.—all steered people back to the blog where they could get more information. I can write a 1000 word blog update, but I don’t want to put that whole thing on Facebook. So I simply mention it on Facebook, with a couple of pertinent points (and attention-grabbers) and provide a link back to the blog post.

I also ASK people each time to go read more on the blog. It’s surprising how often people really do take an action simply because someone asked them to.

On ocassions where we had video, we posted the video on Youtube and then embedded it in the blog post or elsewhere on our web site (like our home page “news” section).

Summary and key take home points:

• Keep people engaged through frequent updates.
• Be transparent—provide all the information and let people make up their own minds.
• When you ask people to take action:
  • Be specific: what to say, who to contact, in what time frame, how much to donate, what type of XYZ you need donated, etc.
  • THANK them after they do it.
  • Be responsive—answer questions and help people to do what you’ve asked them.
  • Follow up—tell them the results of their participation, good or bad, and tell them what they can do next.
• Let digital crowds (commenters) regulate themselves. Set a policy. (ours is we will only remove comments that contain profanity, or that directly attack an individual)
• Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know.” (you can always find out and get back to them)
• Customer service applies online, too. Don’t type anything you wouldn’t say in person.

No matter where you are, or how small your town is, volunteers are out there, and they do want to help your organization. The question is, are YOU ready to accept volunteers? Are you ready to get to know some new people and let them into your organization, to trust them with your animals and your message? Recruiting new volunteers means widening your “inner circle,” and that can be hard for some of us in animal rescue.

While finding volunteers the old fashioned way through referrals and local contacts still works best, the use of online volunteer matching sites is growing, and is a way of at least doing a first quick cut of possible volunteers.

Why do people volunteer?

• To use their skills for good
• To learn new skills
• To meet people
• To build relationships
• To learn about an organization
• To have fun

Here are the some of the most widely-used volunteer matching sites:

• Idealist.org
• NetworkforGood.org
• VolunteerSolutions (http://volunteer.united-e-way.org/)
• Volunteers of America (www.voa.org)
• VolunteerMatch.org
• PointsofLight.org

Post a recruitment listing on Craigslist, too!

4 C’s of Social media’s role in volunteer management

• Communicate
• Coordinate
• Celebrate
• Connect

Ground Rules

• Research Social media for organizations, volunteers and influencers
• Develop an organizational policy (all it takes is one lawsuit to collapse your organization)
• Invest in your network before spending
• Start small
• Emphasis should be on networking, not just messaging (two-way, not one-way communication)
• Solicit feedback and original contributions (like guest/volunteer bloggers)
• Integrate across social and website channels
• Use emotion and numbers to connect with hearts and minds
• Brevity, specificity and clarity
• Share network with partners and sponsors
• Include in volunteer (and staff!) training
• Respond promptly
  

Uses for specific outlets

• Blogs can be a destination for other social media posts
• Blogs can also be more in-depth than other posts
• Facebook is convenient for these announcements
• LinkedIn group discussions are also useful
• Twitter is perfect for reminders
• Leverage the networks to tap new volunteers
• YouTube videos are powerful tools in recruiting and promotion (and the #2 search engine on the WWW)

Encourage volunteers to engage

• Blogs help maintain awareness with added context
• Facebook platform can host polls and solicit opinions/feedback
• Seed organizational and mission discussions
• Request volunteers to post stories and images on their own social media sites

Recently I received an email from a Social Animal reader who had successfully placed a Paypal button on her organization’s Facebook page using my tutorial. She wrote:

“I just added a Paypal Donate Button to our Facebook page thank to your tutorial! I was curious to know your thoughts on adding the petfinder code for adoptable animals on a facebook page. Is this even possible and would you do it the same way you added that Paypal Donate Button code?”

Her idea is a very good one; however, it is not possible in the same way you use the paypal donate button. Facebook does not allow the use of Iframes in the FBML application, and that is how Petfinder exports the pets for adoption lists.

There are a couple of problems here—one, iframe is a VERY outdated way of displaying HTML information, and I’m dismayed that Petfinder still uses it. I hope their developers are working with them on a new way (or at least new options in addition to the iframe) to display and pull information. I would (and have) recommend RSS to them. I am hoping to work with Petfinder to develop a solution and of course, I’ll keep you posted here if anything comes along!

The other bad thing is that even with the FBML app (the way you put the donate button on your page) it’s still not a great solution, because the button is not highly visible. What we need is to be able to put it ON our page, where it’s more visible, like in the sidebar!

There are a couple of ways to do this, but it requires the knowledge of some fairly advanced HTML. I am working on putting together a module, or a pre-made script for you to just insert. I CAN put together a tutorial for advanced users, but I’d like to find a way to make it available to beginners as well, because as we have learned and are learning more every day, Facebook is a HUGELY valuable tool for fundraising online! In fact, nonprofits (there are about 600,000 on Facebook) raise around $150,000 each WEEK on Facebook alone! Pretty impressive numbers.

The good news is that I’m working on coding solutions for both these problems. Facebook is pretty friendly to javascript, so I’m working on a javascript method for adding the petfinder or Petango display list to your facebook page.

As soon as I get this done, I’ll post it here, and you guys can be my “beta testers!” Sound good?

Keep those questions coming, and I’ll email you back and post them on the blog so everyone can learn!

I wanted to give a big shout out and congratulations to my friends at CARA (Community Animal Rescue and Adoption) in Jackson, MS. This video posted on YouTube gives a great overview of their shelter and what they do, but also details how they’ve been able to build up their efforts through social media.

CARA is the largest no-kill shelter in Mississippi, and their support extends far beyond the borders of their community because they take the time to focus on steady communication with fans and friends all over the country. A few minutes a day on Facebook and Twitter has made an incredible difference for this organization, and it can for yours, too!

Watch the video and see what this group is doing right–and take a page from their book and start a social media plan at your shelter!

Social media can definitely make a huge difference to your organization. But for it to really work, someone has to spend some time on it, that’s for sure. It’s all about engaging with your fans and community, and that takes some time.

You really have two choices if you have decided not to do it yourself (and believe me, that is OKAY if you can’t/don’t want to do it yourself!): hire someone, or find a volunteer to do it.

If you find a volunteer, that person is ideally going to be interested in your organization, engaged in your activities and invested in your success. A volunteer is great to do this, too, because he or she will be aware of what you’re doing. Is there an adoption event this weekend? Do you need cat traps donated? Are you having a fundraiser for a special needs animal? Did you recently have a great adoption that you want to tell everyone about? These are things that a volunteer will (hopefully) be pretty tuned into, and can share via social media without you having to do much prompting.

On the downside, though, volunteers can sometimes get burned out. You can’t be TOO critical if they are slow, make mistakes, etc. because, after all, they’re volunteers. They can be moody and fickle. But they’re free!

If you hire someone, you get a level of professionalism that you don’t get with a volunteer. You have some control over the quality of their work, because you are paying them. If they don’t deliver a satisfactory performance, you can fire them! However, finding a person who is truly qualified can be difficult. Just about anybody will say “sure, I’ll do your social media for money!” I mean, what could be easier, right? Just play on Twitter and Facebook all day and get paid?! However, to have a good strategy and really do it effectively, it’s not as easy as it would seem to be.

The main problem with paying someone to do social media for you (besides the fact of having to pay them!) is that they may not be tuned in to what your organization is doing. They may not be in the same state or city as you are, and they may not be familiar at all with your organization. How, then, can they accurately and effectively represent you via social media, if their finger is not on the pulse of your organization?

Good social media firms make an effort to become familiar with your organization, and stay connected, so that they can accurately represent you via social media. For example, I do social media for several clients whose organizations I have never even visited. But I have spoken with them extensively, I’ve become very familiar with what they do, and I stay on top of it. I’m dialed in. My biggest challenge is making sure their staff remembers to keep me in the loop on stuff, so I can promote it! I have to be able to represent them in social media as if I AM them, as if I’m on the inside.

Most of us in the animal welfare world are conditioned to not pay for ANYTHING unless we absolutely have to. We try to get everything we can for free. And that makes sense because we don’t have very much money, usually! But sometimes, it’s true that you get what you pay for. The key is not to look at it like you are “losing” money, but that you’re spending $1 to make $10. And the key there is in HOW you pay your consultant or provider.

If you pay someone $500 or $5000 or $5 a month to do your social media, just a flat fee, then there’s really no accountability, is there? What I prefer to do, as a provider, is tie my performance into your profits. What I do is take an agreed-upon percentage of all donations that come through the web site. Therefore I know that if I do a really great job, and generate a lot of money for that shelter, then I can make more money, too. Everyone is happy! If I sit around and be lazy, and don’t actively campaign to raise money, however, then they don’t make any money…but neither do I. It’s kind of like being on a comission-only sales job. I only get paid for how smart I work and how good a job I do.

I also only take clients, in general, in fields that I’m familiar with—and usually that means animal shelters, because that’s the are where I’m most comfortable. I can talk about being in an animal shelter because I’ve spent a lot of time in animal shelters! If you were a biotechnology company, or a fashion magazine, I probably wouldn’t do a very good job at doing your social media, because I don’t know much about your business. Not even enough to fake it!

So, back to the original question: where would you find someone? If you’re looking for a good volunteer, make contact with your local community colleges or universities. Most marketing departments teach social media (or they should), and your nonprofit organization would make a great test project for a class. Often PR/marketing classes will divide into groups and each group will take an organization for the semester. This is a great way to get talented people for free, AND often they will stick around after the class is over and keep helping you, if it’s been a good experience. Colleges in general are a great place to find people. Sure, some college kids can be flakey. But this generation, called the Millenials (born after 1980), research is showing that they are extremely interested in volunteer work and “making a difference.” So don’t discount young people. Even if you get someone for a couple of months and then they quit, well, at least you have had someone for 2 months!

If you already have a Facebook page, twitter account, etc. then that’s a great place to find people. Advertise there! Tell your fans you’re looking for someone to maintain your social media presence. Chances are your most active fans live and breathe social media…and they’d be thrilled to do it on your behalf.

If you want to hire someone to do this, contact PR firms or agencies; they may have reduced rates for nonprofits. I also have availability for a few more clients and can give you some pricing information. I have a few other people I can recommend as well.

It also comes down to trusting someone. Many of us started our own rescue; it’s our “baby.” Let’s be honest: we have a hard time delegating and trusting anyone to do anything for us…because we only know it’s done right if WE do it ourselves, right? Well, sooner or later we have to accept that we CAN’T do everything ourselves. There are too many dogs to walk, too many litterboxes to clean, too many emails to answer, too many applications to check on.

So we think we CAN’T do something new like social media, even though it will help our organization so much in the long run. Help us to grow, get more donations, more volunteers….but do we really WANT that? It’s a valid question. As much as we always say we want volunteers, we want more help…if we had it, what would it mean? It would mean a loss of control, to a certain extent. We’d have to trust other people to do things that we currently struggle to get done ourselves.

I talk to so many people about this technology, and they say they wish it could go back to the way it used to be, to a simpler time. But things can’t go back to the way they used to be. This is the world we live in. These are the tools we have available to us, for good or ill.

So what are we going to do with the tools we’re given? And who will we enlist to help us?

Sometimes the hardest thing is just asking for help—but it can return the greatest rewards.

Have you found solutions for getting someone to do your social media? Share your success with us here! We’d love to hear your stories and ideas.

Recently I got a question via email from a Social Animal blog reader:

“I am currently managing the FaceBook page for my shelter. The event I created is actually managed under a different name; it was set up before I realized you could manage multiple pages under your email. I can’t seem to invite all 200+ fans of my Facebook page to the event, although I have posted a message on the fan page to make sure you RSVP for the event, with a link to it, and the event is open to anyone to attend, anyone to invite friends to, etc.

I am missing the boat on having it on all 200+ fans’ own facebook profiles, but not sure how to get on board.”

So basically, this person created an event under a personal profile, so it’s not going to display on the fan page for the organization. It is possible (and in this case, preferable) to create the event under the fan page, that way it’s XYZ Humane Society’s event, not John Doe’s event. But even if that didn’t get created right, it’s fine–you can still promote the event on the Fan Page for your organization.

What this person really wants to do is “invite” all of his organization’s fans to the event.

Here’s what I told him:

You can’t actually send a message to your fans from a Facebook page. As a profile or a group, you can send an email message (through facebook) to all your members or friends. But as a page, you cannot send a message to your fans. This is really the one downside about a fan page. But you still have to have a fan page for your shelter (Facebook rules state that organizations and companies must have pages, not profiles). (What’s the difference between a page, profile and group?)

Only a person (with a profile) can “invite” people to an event. So even if you recreated the event under your organization page, your organization could not “invite” people to the event. What has to happen is that your fans can invite all THEIR friends. So if I’m a fan, I can RSVP to the event and invite all of my friends (and they can invite theirs and so on). So the way you have to do it is get your FANS to take the reins and do the job of really promoting the event on a one-to-one level.

So even though the event was created under your own personal profile, that’s okay. You don’t have to recreate it. You can just share the event on your fan page’s wall.

So how do you promote the event and encourage your fans to invite their friends? What you’re doing, for starters. Ask them to do it. Ask them specifically to invite their friends. “Invite 10 friends today!” and you can promote it through other channels—twitter, blog, etc. if you use those. Have you had the event before? Post some photos from last year’s event and ask fans to do the same. Do you have video from last year? Put something on Youtube. Be sure to list the event on any local event calendars; most newspapers/radio station/tv stations have event calendars. Put it on the petfinder.com public calendar.

Also, if you’re a fan on FB of any local media or other organizations, you can share the event on their walls as well. This gets exposure to all of THEIR fans, and hey, they might come and cover the event, too.

Hopefully this helps clear up the confusion over promoting/inviting people to events on Facebook.

What questions do you have about social media? Email me your specific questions, or post them in the comments on the blog here, and I will answer them and hopefully we can all learn something in the process!

What if you are completely sold on the good social media can do for your organization, but you’re encountering resistance from someone above you, like your board of directors, executive director, big donors, etc?

This can certainly be frustrating, and I talk to frustrated volunteers all the time who WANT to move forward with a social media plan for their shelter, but someone won’t let them.

Most of the time, the board/executive director just doesn’t understand what might happen if “their” organization gets on Facebook or Twitter. They don’t understand what these tools are. They envision a worst-case scenario: loss of privacy, crazy people making vulgar comments on the blog, people in India emailing about a pet online, loss of privacy…it can snowball and inflate to nightmarish proportions, and the fear of the unknown can be paralyzing.

Of course, if you’re on board the social media train, you know these fears are largely unfounded. And what is best to combat fear? Knowledge. Information.

Here are some suggestions for convincing the powers that be to let you give social media a try.

It’s free. These tools don’t cost you anything…only some time (and it’s usually volunteer time). So what’s the harm in giving it a try?

Show them success. Every day I hear stories about animal shelters and humane societies who have gotten incredible donations, recruited record numbers of volunteers, adopted a previously hopeless animal and many other results just from using social media. Find these success stories and share them with your opponents.

Educate them. People are afraid of what we don’t understand. It’s just human nature. Break it down, explain to them how this works. Once they see what it’s really all about (and that it’s really pretty simple!), maybe their resistance will die down.

Offer a plan. It’s not enough to just say “We should do this!” Because sometimes your director/board will hear that as “YOU should do this!” (especially if they “own” the group, if they started it, if they feel great ownership of the organization). People can more easily accept an idea if they see specifically how it could work. So before you bring this idea before your board, really craft a plan of how it will work. Who’s going to do it? What venues will you be on? (Twitter? MySpace? Facebook? Youtube?) What kind of content will you put on there? How often will you do it? What results do you hope to achieve? If your superior is VERY resistant, maybe start very small. Just create a Facebook Event or Page for your next fundraiser, and create a plan to promote the event, sell tickets, etc. and see how it goes.

Be ready to answer questions. Hopefully, your director will be receptive enough to ask some questions. Be able to answer them! Understand the privacy ins and outs of these social media sites. Be prepared to say what your recourse will be if someone makes a response to a blog post or on your Facebook page that you deem “inappropriate.” Be able to justify the time this will take away from other tasks (particularly if you’re having a staff person do it).

Know the data. The sheer number of people who are using social media is compelling enough reason to be on these sites, getting out your message. But what KINDS of people? Maybe your director thinks it’s only teenagers, or only computer geeks who have no money or wouldn’t be good pet parents. Show them real data about the people who are using Twitter, the people who are using Facebook. These are the people you want adopting your pets!

I wish I could say that if you follow all these suggestions, your opposition will crumble and you’ll be handed the keys to be able to represent your shelter across the spectrum of social media. But it may not happen. It took me about 6 months to convince my executive director at the humane society where I volunteer to let me have a blog. She was so concerned about losing control of our message.

But I followed these steps. I was persistent. I didn’t have tantrums or pout (well, at least not in front of her…: ) And I kept showing her the results that other organizations were getting. And eventually she let me start. At first she monitored it really closely, but after a while she trusted me enough to let me go for it. Now, over a year later, I pretty much have free reign to post and write about what I want, because she knows I’m trustworthy and I have proven myself through the results, time and time again.

What I see a lot around the country is a small rescue group or humane society, started by one person–we’ll call her Sue. Sue started this rescue 15 years ago, and she’s totally protective of it. Even though she has some volunteers, it’s still HER group. She makes all the decisions. Well, Sue is 65 now, and she’s just starting to use email. She’s not on Twitter or Facebook, and has no desire to be.

Because she doesn’t personally see the value of these tools, she doesn’t see the myriad ways they could benefit the animals in her organization’s care.  Because this organization is SO much a part of her, she is SO tied to the organization, it is very difficult for her to allow ANYONE else to have any part of it, because it would be less “hers.”

For people like this, it’s very hard to change them. People naturally resist change. The best thing you can do is continue to work on her, and continue to show her the positive results that other groups are getting. Always stay positive, don’t get frustrated (again, just not in front of her!). As my mom always said, “You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar!”

Do you have any ideas about how you could do this? Any success stories or words of advice to share with others? Lots of us face this particular obstacle, and I’d love to hear other ways you’ve gotten “the powers that be” to open their minds. What other questions can I answer?

Everywhere I go, I hear that people are pretty confused about the differences between Facebook profiles, pages and groups, and which one is appropriate for their organization or business. A couple of weeks ago, Facebook rolled out yet ANOTHER type of page, the Community Page, which makes things even more confusing!

Here’s the most important distinction that you need to understand. Facebook profiles are for people. Individuals, using the site personally, like you or me (or some people set up profiles for their pets!). If you do business as a person or individual, for example, if you’re a realtor, then it would be appropriate for you to use your Facebook profile for business. But generally, Facebook profiles are for personal use. Facebook profiles ALWAYS have to represent a real person.

Facebook Pages (they refer to them as “fan pages” too) are for organizations, companies and businesses. Facebook’s official definition is:

Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner. Like profiles, they can be enhanced with applications that help the entity communicate with and engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fans’ recommendations to their friends.

So any organization–a football team, animal shelter, restaurant, dry cleaner’s, etc.–should always have a Facebook PAGE. (You can create a Facebook page here)

But you’ve all seen profiles that represent businesses and organizations! Well, these are in violation of Facebook’s policies. If Facebook identifies these profiles, they can and will remove them from the site.

Facebook makes it a little more difficult to set up a profile if you’re a business or company, because it requires you to have something that it recognizes as a “name,” and it requires you to select a gender. For example, if my business is called “Emily’s Oklahoma City Lakeside Cafe” it would not recognize this as a “name” and it would not let me create a profile. So I’d have to modify my name a bit…for example, here’s one of my favorite restaurants on Facebook. It refers to the restaurant as “she” because the person setting up the site chose “female” as a gender, and had to have something that Facebook recognized as a “name,” meaning a first and last name, so she had to condense it to “MamaRoja Mexicankitchen.” So if I were still trying to set up a profile for my restaurant, I’d have to be “EmilysOklahomaCity LakesideCafe” or something clumsy like that.

These should be flags or deterrents to setting up a profile instead of a page, but people still do it.

Don’t do it. Play by the rules. It’s not worth getting your profile deleted!

The main differences between pages and profiles:

• On a profile, someone is your “friend.” On a page, someone is your “fan.”
• With a profile, you can send messages to one or more friends, that go directly to their inbox on Facebook. As a page, you can’t do this–you can only send updates (which not as many people see).
• Pages and Profiles can both post status updates, links, photos, etc. that appear in their fans’/friends’ news feeds.
• Pages cannot “add” people as friends. However, your fans can suggest your page to their own friends to become a fan.

So, where do Groups fit into all this? Groups allow for more interaction between members, sort of like a forum or message board (BBS) system. Here’s what Facebook has to say about Groups:

Groups and Pages serve different purposes on Facebook. Groups are meant to foster group discussion around a particular topic area while Pages allow entities such as public figures and organizations to broadcast information to their fans. Only the authorized representative of the entity can run a Page.

So one of your employees might set up a “group” for your organization, and that would be fine. But only an official representative of an organization can set up the official Page for that organization (or at least someone who is willing to say that they are an official rep!).

So for example, for our client the Central Oklahoma Humane Society, we have set up a Page that is their official presence on Facebook. We post events, updates and other news. But we also have groups for specific volunteers within the organization, like Trap/Neuter/Return volunteers, clinic volunteers, foster parents, etc. That way those people can talk about subjects that are specific to their areas of interest.

Ready to create a page? Click here to get started.

So what the heck is a Community Page?

This is something Facebook has just rolled out. If you’ve spent much time on Facebook, you have seen lots of “unofficial” pages. These can be for celebrities, like unofficial fan pages for the Twilight movies, or for beers or sodas or sneakers or whatever. There are also funny groups like Tim Tebow Crying (sorry, Florida fans..this is just one of my favorites) or “Can this dung beetle get more fans than Glenn Beck?“(also a favorite).

These pages are becoming really popular, some having hundreds of thousands of fans. So now you have the option to choose to be a “community page” if you are creating a new page on Facebook. Now, if you’re making a page for your organization or business or brand, there is no reason to select a community page. Your page still definitely qualifies as a regular Facebook page.

What is kind of cool about the Community Page idea, though, is that Facebook says “If it becomes very popular (attracting thousands of fans), it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community.” What that means is that it will become basically the same thing as a Wiki. A Wiki is a web site or page that allows anyone to contribute content, much like Wikipedia. So if you create a community page that goes extremely viral, then it could evolve into something completely new on Facebook!

Again, for your purposes with your company or organization, you don’t really need to worry about Community Pages. Hopefully this has helped you understand the differences among the different ways you can represent yourself on Facebook. What other questions do you have about Facebook that we can answer? We can help you craft a social media strategy that will bring you business!

I’ve been traveling around for a few months now, speaking at animal welfare conferences about social media, and I’ve learned many things–but there are two things I find at every single conference:

1. Audience members range from people who are already on board with social media, using it daily in their organizations, and are hoping to learn new strategies and ideas–to people who have no idea what Twitter even is.

2. There’s never enough time to really go into detail about HOW to do things–I concentrate more on strategies and the “why” of doing things, and giving case studies of ways social media has worked for animal welfare organizations. But there’s not time for any hands-on demonstrations, or to answer specific questions that individual people may have about their own social media issues.

It almost feels like trying to teach a class that includes college students and first-graders. Neither is better than the other, but they have very different needs, and a teacher uses very different methods for such diverse audiences. With a “mixed crowd,” so to speak, I’m unable to do this.

So what I’m trying to do is find out other ways to reach people. Ways that are more personal, more one-on-one, where we are able to dive into issues specific to your shelter and your community and your own computer skills, and also to show you and walk you through the process of using these tools.

If you need help setting up an account, great–I can walk you through the steps of doing that. If you need direction on how to set up an advanced listening station using Tweetdeck and an autoresponder to Craigslist ads, then I can do that, too. But it’s hard to do both of those things in one session–one person will feel lost, and the other will feel bored at least part of the time!

So what I’m thinking is that I should do a series of webinars. What’s a webinar? Well, basically it’s a seminar on the web. I’m online at an appointed time, and you login to the proper web site at that time, and call in to the conference call on your phone–wherever you are in the world–and I go through a presentation. I might be on camera, I might show some slides, or we could walk through web sites together in real time. You can hear my voice over the phone, and you have the opportunity to ask questions as I go along.

My thought is to keep it pretty small, so that everyone can ask plenty of questions if they want to, and that keeps it manageable for about 1 hour–any longer and your brain gets tired! I would also break it into sessions–sessions for Twitter, for Facebook, for advanced users and for beginners, so that people could attend whichever session most interested them and fit their skill level.

At home in Oklahoma, as part of my paying job, I teach a social media class. it’s a 3 hour class and we limit it to 10 people. Everyone brings their computers and we walk through the process of setting up accounts, understanding how the tools work and all that. So a webinar would be like that, only we don’t have to be in the same room together.

This is the best solution I can think of to help you, and I think it would be very targeted to each group’s specific needs.

What do you think? Can you think of a better way? Would you be interested in attending an hour-long webinar that would teach you skills that were specific to your interest and ability, and where you could ask questions and get specific instructions?

If I get good feedback and people think this is a good idea, I’ll start putting some together and offering them soon. I’d love to hear what you think about this!

I am writing from Austin, Texas, at the Texas Unites for Animals conference. This is unlike any conference I have ever been to before, for a couple of reasons, and both of these reasons really impress me (excuse me while I take off my social media hat and put on my 100% animal welfare hat for just a moment).

This is the first conference I’ve been to where the majority of attendees are from nonprofit animal shelters and city/county animal control services, NOT small, independent rescue groups. To see the animal control officers and personnel here in such great numbers is truly inspiring. These are the people who deal with the heartbreaking issues of pet overpopulation, abuse, neglect and euthanasia every single day. They can offer a perspective that no one else can, and to see those folks here, participating in this dialog, is really a step in the right direction.

The second impressive thing is that all these organizations are here together, talking to each other, sharing ideas. Represented here are small “mom and pop” rescue groups, breed rescues, big humane societies, small humane societies, city animal control, county animal control and everything in between. And they’re actually talking to each other!

I had to steal a picture of Sharri Boyett's dog...he was really enjoying the seminar today!

I want to thank everyone who came to my seminar today at the conference. You were a fantastic, attentive, engaged audience, and I feel like it’s one of the best seminars I’ve had so far! Many people think we aren’t going to be able to accomplish the tough but worthy goals of reducing (or even eliminating) the euthanasia of healthy, adoptable animals in the southern states. I’m from Oklahoma, so I hear it too.

But after talking to many of you today, and seeing your willingness to be open to new ideas and (most importantly) put aside personal or idealogical differences and WORK TOGETHER, I think we’ll prove the Yankees wrong!

Thanks also for the great suggestions you gave me today about things you’d like to see blogs on. You had some great suggestions about adding information about Craigslist to my coverage of social media. You’re absolutely right; this is a tool that many individuals and shelters are using to rehome animals. I am going to do some research on tools that would most benefit us and help us in our outreach on Craigslist and get back to you.

I also will present some information on photo editing software and techniques, as well as some information on video format conversions for uploading to Petfinder and other sites.

My goal is to give you information and tools that, if you use them, will make your life and work easier and more efficient.

We talked a bit about the crazy stuff going on behind the scenes with Petfinder/Petango/Petpoint and your frustration with not being able to automatically or batch upload your animal updates into Petfinder if you are using Petpoint software. I am talking to both groups about a solution for this. It really only hurts the animals in the long run if you can’t get these pets seen by the largest number of potential adopters. That’s what it’s all about! I will keep you updated on these conversations and let you know what is in store. We are going to figure something out to make this work.

Thanks again, Texas! I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Austin and will come back soon for a more recreational visit. I enjoyed meeting each and every person I met this weekend. If you weren’t able to attend my seminar (there were many other good ones going on at the same time!) feel free to drop me a line and I’d be glad to send you my notes.

As is the tradition with TheSocialAnimal, please continue to come back. Post your questions and ideas and musings. The purpose of this site is for us to learn together. I may be “the expert” on this particular subject, but we can all learn from each other. And I don’t know what will help you most if you don’t ask. So comment, post, write me an email and we’ll walk through all this new media together!

Hope everybody has a great week.