Crowdsourcing philanthropy

The exclusively Facebook execution of  ”Chase Community Giving” last year (what Kimberly refers to as crowdsourcing), also ties in well with one of our recent blog posts, Four Metrics for Determining the Value of a Facebook Fan, as it relates to avoiding the misleading measure for successful social media marketing by imposing a monetary value on Facebook fans (“To effectively use social media as a marketing tool, marketers must be able to demonstrate the value that a follower base delivers to their clients”).

I’d bet Kimberly Davis would argue that even the possibility of driving financial business in the future captured immeasurable value, not to mention the unquantifiable value of demonstrating thought leadership by diving right in – “Others have stepped into the crowdsource space,” said Davis, “but they’ve done it very gingerly. They’ve put one toe in the water. We put our whole foot and leg.”

A passion to change and engage

Davis stepped into the role of president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation in 2006, ready to cultivate a “futurist view” of philanthropy. She’s shifted the foundation’s portfolio from broad causes to more focused contributions to education and community development, which she hopes will eventually feed the financial business. And Chase Community Giving has certainly generated plenty of brand awareness among all those Facebook voters.

It was thrilling to read about Davis’ core passion; according to Invisible Children cofounder, Laren Poole:

…She showed up at 6 a.m. and talked to every single volunteer about what they did at the organization. It was so clear that she’s the heartbeat behind the whole thing. She got it in a way that I didn’t expect. “It,” of course, is how to connect corporate philanthropy efforts with a young generation more passionate about grassroots activism…

And this passion has helped her foster a very adventurous view of the new world we find ourselves in (at age 50 to boot). It was downright inspirational to hear someone saying out loud that we should be taking risks – especially from the president where “as a firm we’re in the business of managing risk”. Davis says, “Philanthropy is where we should be taking risks, but there were a lot of questions about the level of transparency needed to run this in an authentic way. Raising the blinds on the entire crowdsourcing process made a few bankers nervous…”

Staying transparent and authentic

In these times of general unrest over financial trust and leadership, Kimberly’s position on transparency and authenticity are not only important for maintaining engagement, but potentially has the power to be a first step in exponentially changing public impression. For me, Kimberly’s understanding of the power of “crowdsourcing”, or engagement leading directly to brand loyalty, is what conversation-centric marketing is all about. To be able to encourage activism on the scale Community Giving did… priceless.

Related articles:

• Feeding the Moral Hunger: Strategic Social Marketing for the Greater Good? (logicaljuice.com)
• The 100 Most Creative People in Business 2010 (fastcompany.com)
• Chase Community Giving Kicks Off Summer 2010 Program (eon.businesswire.com)

In Part 2, watch them discuss what these trends mean those trying to using social media as a marketing tool… Or, view Part 1 first.

Watch their conversation and hear their thoughts…

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, when Josh and Fred discuss the challenges and opportunities for companies trying to engage both individuals and communities in conversations about brands.

Just as eMarketer was making this prediction in January, Media Logic was ramping up a strategic social marketing effort with Healthways SilverSneakers Fitness Program® that would help prove its validity and demonstrate how social media can effectively engage the older adult crowd. By implementing a collaborative marketing approach and launching a site specifically designed to encourage information sharing in a safe, supportive online older adult community, SilverSneakers witnessed active engagement on its Facebook page grow from fewer than 500 fans in December 2009 to nearly 12,000 fans today.

The success of our work with SilverSneakers supports the upward trend of social media adoption among older adults while highlighting the value of social media as a marketing tool enabling conversation-centric, two-way models of communication for membership-based organizations.

Working Social Marketing Into a Mature Network
As far as membership organizations go, the award-winning SilverSneakers Fitness Program was thriving – offered to Medicare Advantage plan members through their health plan clients at more than 9,400 participating fitness and wellness centers across the country, SilverSneakers provides an innovative blend of exercise classes, health education and social opportunities to help mature adults maintain active, independent lifestyles. Studies have even found that older adults who participate in SilverSneakers are admitted to hospitals less frequently, have lower overall healthcare costs and experience a significantly reduced risk of depression.

SilverSneakers was already a hugely popular program, but the strategic use of social marketing has provided the organization with new and effective ways of connecting with potential members, and perhaps more importantly, encouraging loyalty to the program, ongoing member participation and involvement.

“The program is an inherently social experience,” according to our client and Healthways’ senior manager of Member Engagement Marketing, Michelle Eckert. “Introducing social media has allowed our participants to further enhance their social connections by sharing stories, photos, tips and notes of encouragement to others. Our experience supports the research that shows older adults citizens will adopt social media and participate, provided they see content and groups dedicated to their needs and interests.”

Managing Social Media Without Breaking a Sweat
While SilverSneakers began experimenting with social media late last year, the program needed a systemic approach, guidance, and support to create stronger interest and active participation. In January, the organization partnered with us and deployed Zeitgeist & Coffee^sm, our social media management suite specially designed to help organizations ramp up their social media marketing efforts, making them more effective and easier to implement and sustain.

Since implementing Zeitgeist & Coffee, SilverSneakers has realized…

• A significant spike in Facebook fans
• A dramatic increase in fans’ levels of engagement
• More fans who are potential SilverSneakers members visiting the Facebook page to learn about the program
• Friends and family members of SilverSneakers participants are joining the Facebook page to lend support and enthusiasm

SilverSneakers’ experience with Media Logic and Zeitgeist & Coffee has meant the difference between having a Fan page and having an active community.  By providing the methodology, marketing expertise and technology to fully leverage social media as a marketing a tool, we’ve made it easier for organizations to engage older adults and foster a meaningful social presence with the mature audience.

Related Articles

• Engaging the Aging: Creating Conversation for SilverSneakers (logicaljuice.mlinc.com)

In recent years, the trend toward outsourcing has dramatically changed the relationship between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers.  According to industry sources, “a generation ago, of the total value of goods sold by OEMS, the share that originated with suppliers averaged 40 percent. Today, the average share is 80 percent!” The result has been an increasing concern among OEMs to hold down supplier costs while demanding quality, service and delivery.  Many suppliers have responded by reducing costs (particularly labor) in a downward spiral of price promotion, reduced productivity and unreliable performance. These issues have been particularly salient in highly competitive, technical and error-sensitive arenas such as medical device manufacturing. In dozens of recent conversations with purchasing agents for medical device manufacturers, we heard report after report of the stress these agents faced as they sought to obtain high-quality parts in a timely fashion at a good price.

Enter Media Logic client, MicroGroup. Originally a machine shop, MicroGroup offered “off-the-shelf, finished-to-order, microthin metal tubing products for various industrial segments.” As it saw its products becoming more and more commoditized, it turned its focus to the bourgeoning medical device manufacturing market.

According to Jay Caraviello, President and CEO of the Medway, Massachusetts-based company, “We saw an opportunity to meet the needs of medical device manufacturers by offering consistently high-quality products that meet the demanding specifications and delivery requirements of this industry. But we also wanted to go beyond that to become a true manufacturing partner, to function as an extension of the OEM.”

MicroGroup began what could be called a “cultural evolution,” turning the “get it done” attitude that had become part of its DNA into a corporate commitment to the OEMs, their customers, the medical professionals who use the equipment and, ultimately, to the patients who are being treated by the devices.  Of course, Caraviello and his team implemented new processes and procedures to ensure consistent quality and delivery, but perhaps more importantly, the organization hired project management teams to function as liaisons between the OEMs, the engineering crew and the production floor – spending as much time on the OEM site to ensure manufacturability as they do with their own production department.

In effect, MicroGroup had established the foundation for a new brand in a new market – a brand that offered the value that OEMs were seeking. But how could MicroGroup describe this value in a way that would resonate with its markets – quickly and effectively? How could it use this value to move itself away from continual price promotion and competitive bidding?

Caraviello hired Media Logic for Brand Amp^SM, our fast-track strategic process that helps organizations create “conversation-worthy” brand identities, develop strong positioning and marketing strategies, identify brand community opportunities and prepare for active participation in the conversation.  The Brand Amp process helped MicroGroup:

• Uncover its brand opportunity
• Define its brand positioning
• Design corporate, product or initiative identities
• Begin to establish brand communities
• Develop key brand collateral and online properties
• Create seed social media content

Keying off MicroGroup’s awareness of “what’s on the line” for their OEMs and the patients ultimately treated by their products, we created a new look, tone and feel for the company that reinforced the spirit of the brand.  The brand launch was supported both internally and externally through a new and highly optimized website, an e-commerce site, a video, print ads, online presence and direct marketing campaign. The introduction of the new MicroGroup brand has effectively raised the company’s profile and search visibility and set the stage for additional content development (case studies, white papers, blogs) that will deepen relationships with clients and prospects.

Says Caraviello, “We’re committed to working with our OEMs to improve productivity, quality, delivery times and costs. Ultimately, we’ll all win.  Media Logic’s Brand Amp process allowed us to begin, build and maintain the conversations we need to get found, be credible and create preference.”

The NBC Tonight Show dust-up has shined yet another light on the power of social media.

Most of the noise provided empathy and support for Conan O’Brien, clearly the victor thus far in the court of public opinion… as Jay Leno and NBC execs get painted as villains or village idiots.

Witness the grass roots growth of the Facebook fan page “I’m with Coco.” I checked the fan count a couple days ago — more than 166,000 people had signed up to stand up for their high-haired hero. That’s pretty astounding, given that the page had only been a few days old! Today, that number topped 489,000. Feel free to check out the latest fan count.

And fellow celebrities have joined the fray, voicing their support for Conan on their Twitter streams. And in the meantime, the #TeamConan, #GoConan and #Coco hash tags are flying freely. Just do a search on Twitter.

Throw in some public insults from NBC exec Dick Ebersol, and this appears to be a classic example of a bad situation made worse. Faster and fiercer than anyone ever imagined.

Which leads marketers to ponder how we may one day need to address a similar uprising — either intentionally trying to rally customers/fans around a cause, or working to manage an unhappy constituency. This we know: in the new social world order, we’ll need to act fast. For the battle will be instant.

But for the last 4 years the victor has seemed almost pre-ordained, as each Noel found the winner of that year’s  “X-Factor” show sitting atop the heap. And up until a few weeks ago, this year’s winner, Joe McElderry, must have been feeling pretty good about his chances to repeat the cycle.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the quorum…

Jon Morter is a part-time DJ and rock fan from Essex. In 2008, on a whim, he tried to gather online support to make Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” that year’s Christmas #1. He failed, but was intrigued enough by the response he got to try again this year – opting this time, to promote Rage Against the Machine’s expletive-filled 1992 track “Killing in the Name.”

His plan? A coordinated social media effort to generate an extreme uptick in sales during the one week it would matter.

Jon started a Facebook group dedicated to his cause and quickly started to see the power of a motivated ”brand community.” The group grew exponentially – in both awareness and support – simply by nature of the message (and the media). Then on December 15^th, successful comedian Peter Serafinowicz rallied his more than 268,000 Twitter followers to act. With Peter’s goose, Morter’s no-budget awareness effort snowballed into a popular campaign that eventually gathered the support of thousands of fans, former X-Factor winners and even Sir Paul McCartney.

When the smoke cleared, more than 500,000 copies of a 17-year-old song were sold over the course of a single week – and “Killing in the Name” was the new Christmas #1. Rage Against the Machine, the unknowing benefactors of the achievement, even pledged to give all profits from their single to charity.

Does this mean that Social Media is always going to be more effective than the traditional marketing machine that drives “X-factor?”

Of course not. Morter’s campaign played off a brand built via traditional media, and no doubt was juiced by many mentions in the traditional media.

Yet this story does highlight the communication power of the exponential networks of friends and followers to which almost all of us are now attached.

Harness the power of social media. Register for your free presentation today and find out how you can use social media to build your brand and business.

“Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can’t just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement.”

–MarketingVOX

Case in point: Purchase College. This premier member of the State University of New York system had what many might consider an enviable situation – it was experiencing very little difficulty in recruiting students.

The challenge was in student retention.

As part of the SUNY system, Purchase College attracted many students expecting a “typical” SUNY experience – something you definitely won’t find at the distinctly different Purchase College. Even internally, Purchase had become a college of two minds, a unique combination of both arts conservatory and liberal arts/sciences mainstay.

In order to get more of the right students to apply and have fewer of the wrong ones enroll, Purchase College needed to start talking about itself in a more authentic and direct way – allowing prospective students to “self-select.”

Through our Mine & Dine and BrandAmp products, Media Logic quickly worked to uncover, identify and create a unified vision. Media Logic provided the necessary forum for leaders from across the campus community to come together and resolve the tension between the school’s “arts” side and its “liberal arts” side.

Under Media Logic’s guidance, Purchase College created a brand that was far more than the sum of its parts. Essential to the branding process were qualitative research, a geo-demographic analysis, predictive modeling and a comprehensive recruitment and retention plan. We were able to determine that Purchase’s ultimate value came not solely from its programs, but from the unique mindset and culture of the students themselves.

The entire campus – from faculty and students to administrators and alumni – embraced the new brand as an authentic reflection of who they really were. It was integrated into all recruitment communications, and guidelines were established to extend it across the entire college.

After the launch of the new brand, applications increased more than 60%. Selectivity was also up 16% (more than 30% for liberal arts), and persistence has risen by 10% and 12%, respectively.

In mid-September, Hansen’s Beverage – a Corona, California-based beverage company – issued a simple legal missive to Rock Art Brewery of Morrisville, Vt. It wanted Rock Art Brewery to cease and desist the use of its “Vermonster” beer product label, as well as any effort to trademark the name nationally. You see, Hansen’s owns the Monster energy drink brand and, of course, there’d be a lot confusion between the two products:

Did you, uh, sense my dripping sarcasm? It seems pretty obvious that the two products appear to be visually quite different. So you can imagine Rock Art brewer and co-owner Matt Nadeau’s surprise when his legal adviser told him, “Not so fast.” Those unfamiliar with trademark and intellectual property law were as stunned as Nadeau was when he learned that Hansen’s could drain him in court – even though he was absolutely not infringing on their trademark. The legal advice to Nadeau: Get a new name for Vermonster and keep your business.

But then a funny thing happened on the way to Vermonster changing its name: Nadeau said no. The word “no” and some resilience lead to conversations with customers, which led to a forum post on BeerAdvocate, a community of passionate if not zealous beer aficionados. Forum posts led to Twitter posts. Twitter posts lead to #hashtags. Soon, a Facebook Group page was started by an upset fan and supporter of the Rock Art Brewery. Fans and supporters of Rock Art took to emailing Hansen’s and posting messages and pictures on the Monster Energy Drink Facebook fan page.

While the Rock Art Brewery community was rallying on various social networks, Matt worked on a video with Green River Pictures to tell his story of why he was not willing to just give in. Since that video posted to YouTube on Oct.14^th, it has been viewed over 75,000 times. All of the social media attention aroused interest from the local newspaper and on Vermont television. This combination of noise began to put enormous pressure on the folks at Hansen’s Beverage, who were refusing to give ground on the issue based on the notion that they might someday get into the business of selling beer.

That all changed when an investor in Hansen’s Beverage contacted Nadeau wanting to get right to the source. Nadeau spoke with the investor and simply asked to speak to the CEO of Hansen’s with the intention of coming to a reasonable conclusion. What exactly sparked that investor call is unknown, but it certainly was fostered by the combination of community activism creating momentum and interest from established newsprint, TV and radio outlets. That call with Hansen’s CEO was arranged and the two sides began to work out a mutually agreeable solution. At the end of the day, both sides were able to come to a solution outside of a court, likely much to the chagrin of a lawyer or several thousand.

So what should you take away from all of this? First, communities are powerful and highly engaged when presented with a passionate cause. Given the proper tools (which with modern technology are easily accessible) they will demand and expect a reasonable explanation and solution. We also see that those horribly pigeonholed traditional media are not so dead, after all. In fact, this story provides an excellent example of how new media and established media converge to make a complete impact. The social media flurry is not unimportant, but social media being plugged into established local media in Vermont will reach the interest level of larger news institutions such as the AP, The Boston Globe and The New York Times. That is what collectively pushed the story into the realm of something Hansen’s had to address head on.

Other take aways? Well, for starters, social networks are a serious place and if you are going to be there as a company, you really need to consider why you are there and who is speaking for you. In this case, as the conversation came to Monster Energy Drink’s Facebook fan page, a fairly significant conversational faux pas occurred. There was a flurry of dissatisfaction being posted on that page, but one of the earliest posts was met with the comment from the page administrator: “Nobody cares, get a life.” To be fair to the folks at Monster, and the individual responsible for posting and deleting that comment, nothing could have prepared them for what they faced in the last couple of weeks.

Here’s a “must” inclusion in the social networking handbook for brands: Listen first and then think twice before responding. Over at the Radian6 blog, Lauren had a very good post on how to handle negative comments recently. She follows that up with another interesting look regarding how to sort out responding to brand mentions in the social space.

There are several ways that the negative comments being posted to the Monster Energy Drink fan page and on Twitter could have been handled. I dare say we have a great tool to facilitate that discussion, and to arrive at strategies for not only how to manage your brand in the social space, but also to address these unanticipated events in a proactive and “social” manner. Don’t wait for the problem to come knocking at your door via a well-intentioned fan page or Twitter account meant for simple customer engagement. You need to be equally prepared to address the conversation that happens away from your community space. A well-informed and engaged community manager at Monster or Hansen’s with his ear to the ground should have been able to pick up on the storm that was brewing (pun intended) at BeerAdvocate. At worst, they could have been asking internally whether legal had this right much earlier in the timeline.

The offense utilizes enormous linemen to form a protective barrier around the quarterback and a giant plow for running backs – keeping the defense at bay.

The defense emphasizes lane discipline, containing the opposing team within a complex matrix of position players to prevent it from advancing up the field.

With all its emphasis on control and discipline, is it any wonder why the NFL can’t quite understand social media? Like a rain-slicked fumble flopping about the red zone turf, the league just can’t seem to get a handle on it.

When the season began in August, Official League Policy dictated that no players, coaches, reporters or even spectators could utilize social media to comment in real time about practices and games. Obviously, this proved impossible to police, potentially illegal and extremely detrimental to media and fan relations – and the league backed down.

Some individual teams set policies forbidding their players and coaches from using social media such as Twitter and Facebook at all. As in, ever. On the field, or off. As their “employers,” this was well within the teams’ rights. But once again, nature found a way (to reference that great football movie, Jurassic Park). Players continued to tweet and post, and most teams decided that it would be impossible and ineffective to punish them.

In the meantime, these organizations and individuals have built enormous followings on popular platforms – the Steelers have a Facebook fan page with more than 400,000 fans, Chad Ochocinco’s Twitter page has more than 369,712 followers. These are fantastic opportunities for “customer outreach” and engagement marketing – yet another feather in the cap of this multi-billion dollar sport that continues to rule the fall/winter airwaves.

Of course, with this many “employees” who have a free agent mentality, there are bound to be negative consequences to their authentic conversation, too – some playful, others regrettable. A Vikings player reportedly tweeted something like “ZZZZZZ boring. Coach talking.” during a team meeting, and found himself doing a few extra laps that day. A Chiefs player recently posted a defamatory remark about gays on his Twitter page, and was banned from the team’s facilities while punishments were considered. He has since been released from the team.

But the communication/brand benefits of social media for the NFL – and really, any organization – clearly far outweigh the risks.

I was able to chat briefly with Sports Illustrated’s NFL columnist Peter King last summer when he was in town to visit Giants’ training camp. Nice, approachable guy. I commended him for being so social media forward (he has over 180,000 Twitter followers), and he laughed. “You know what,” he said, “I have no choice. If I don’t do that, people are going to stop reading my column. It’s just what you have to do.”

Indeed. Like a quarterback down by four points with seconds to go, the NFL just needs to let it fly.

Harness the power of social media. Register for your free presentation today and find out how you can use social media to build your brand and business.