Social Media and Networking

What Facebook subscriptions mean for organizations

September 18, 2011 by Ted Fickes

This post originally appeared on Frogloop.

On Wednesday, Facebook rolled out a subscribe feature that should be of interest to nonprofits because it may make it easier for organizations to interact with people on a personal level.

Most organizations have a branded page that Facebook users can like. When they like your organization’s page your updates appear in their news stream. But branded pages face a big hurdle: it is tough to connect at that personal level that helps define the Facebook experience.

The subscribe feature opens the door to Facebook users being able to follow updates from people they don’t know without becoming friends. This means that your organization’s executive director, board president, communications director or on the ground leader can post to Facebook (hopefully with a personal voice) make those updates available to people they don’t know.

Manage Facebook subscriptions — Choose "Subscriptions" on the left side menu of your profile to manage subscribers and enable your subscription options.

There are two parts to the subscribe process. First, you as a personal profile owner need to allow subscriptions. Click the subscriptions button on the left side of your profile page.

You’ll then see the screen that allows you to permit subscribers. Click Allow Subscribers. Here you will also be able to manage who can comment on your posts seen by subscribers.

Click "Allow Subscribers" to let people subscribe to your public posts on Facebook.

If comments are â€œonâ€ then any subscriber can comment. If comments are â€œoffâ€ then only friends of friends can comment. You canâ€™t, however, turn comments off completely. You can also manage what notifications you receive about new subscribers.

Subscribers will now see your public posts. Your posts are probably set by default to be seen only by friends. You can change this for specific posts using the dropdown button next to the Post button.

How does one become a subscriber?

Once you make public posts available for subscription anyone can subscribe. When Facebook users visit your page they will see a subscribe button at the top of the page next to the â€œAdd Friendâ€ button. If you’re already friends with someone you won’t see the subscribe button (because you’re already seeing their posts).

Subscribe to a user's public posts by clicking the Subscribe button next to the Add Friend button.

A couple things to keep in mind: you don’t have to allow subscribers to your feed to subscribe to others and subscribers can control the amount and type of updates they see.

The options for which updated you want to see as a subscriber are not very clear. Subscribers can see “all,” “most” or “only important” updates. Facebook needs to do a better job at explaining what this means in real terms.

How will people know they can subscribe to your Facebook updates? Facebook is actively suggesting people that you might want to subscribe to with ads in the right sidebar.

Some of these ads are filled with somewhat random people and others are people that your friends have subscribed to with the names of your friends shown. This, plus automated status updates when you turn on subscriptions and subscribe to someone’s updates should boost overall use of the subscribe feature.

So who is going to use this and how can it help organizations?

In the near term, subscriptions will be picked up by bloggers and others that pretty much do their work in and around social networks. Some of the early chatter about Facebook subscriptions is that it is a hat-tip to celebrity. Stars and people that are well known in social media and technology will probably get some added reach with this but, as Mashable notes, there are possibilities for journalists, parents and teachers, and even average users. There is an upside for nonprofits as well.

Many organizations have leaders or staff with a personal brand on Facebook that is already being used on behalf of their organization and its work. An example would be Phil Radford, Executive Director of Greenpeace USA. Phil’s Facebook page shows that he has just under 2,300 friends, much of what he posts is only visible to friends but much of what he posts on Facebook is about Greenpeace and the issues on which the organization works. These posts are of interest to Phil’s friends but are not really directed at personal life events. But because they come from Phil (and not a huge organization on its branded Facebook page) they are a little more personal.

A leader and/or strong social media voice for an organizationâ€™s cause could turn on subscriptions and post their work and issue-related updates publicly, making them available to the streams of bloggers, reporters, politicians, activists and countless other interested citizens. This provides a level of personal interaction around issues and the organization that just isn’t possible by following an organization itself.

One potential downside: If you’re making your posts available to an audience of subscribers (and not just “friends”) then you make yourself more accessible. This is great in social media but increases the likelihood that you’ll be engaged by people that disagree with you. This is, of course, a primary concern organizations have with blogging and creating social media pages: what if someone disagrees with us and people see that? Facebook seems to have thought about this possibility and lets you manage who can comment (anyone that subscribes or just friends of friends). You canâ€™t turn commenting off completely, however.

It’s likely that Facebook will fiddle with the subscriber feature and we’ll see some fine-tuning of comments and subscribe process. Maybe it won’t get used much and will go away but that seems unlikely. This is a clear shot at Google+ type interactivity, for one thing.

We’re interested to see what organizations do with subscriptions and would love to know what you think.ï»¿

Smartphones driving mobile email and web use amongst key nonprofit audiences in 2011

August 17, 2011 by Ted Fickes

Nonprofits and small businesses that count on communicating with members, donors and customers with their website and email list (which would be, yeah, pretty much all organizations) are trying to figure out if, how and why they should focus on mobile platforms.

A recent report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project titled Smartphone Adoption and Usage provides data that makes a strong case that organizations should be working smartphone platforms into their communications resource and strategy plans. Now.

About 40% of American adults own a smartphone

Smartphone use on the rise. Even Santa has a smartphone. — About 40% of American adults have a smartphone. Even Santa (though not exactly sure of his nationality). Cartoon courtesy Geek And Poke: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com

We all recognize that cell phone use is pervasive. But there are dozens if not hundreds of varieties of phones and the majority do not readily access the internet.

This is changing quickly, however. The Pew report found that 35% of adults surveyed said they own a smartphone while 39% say they have a phone that operates on a smartphone platform (Blackberry, Android, iPhone, Windows, Palm). Forty-two percent answered yes to one of the two questions (do you use a smartphone and/or does your phone use a smartphone platform).

Smartphones most highly used by audiences critical to nonprofits

Smartphones are highly used in age groups that most nonprofits try hard to reach: people 30 to 50 years old, middle or upper income and well-educated. A couple relevant nuggets of data:

45% of 30 to 49 year olds have a smartphone (and 52% of 18-29 year olds);
Smartphones are used by 59% of Americans with household incomes of $75,000 or more (use drops as income drops: 22% of Americans w/ household income under $30k use smartphone); and
48% of college grads have smartphone.

We suspect that smartphone use in typically white-collar demographics may be driven by people using employer-provided phones but this wasn’t covered in the Pew report.

Smartphone use strong amongst minorities

Lest one think that smartphones are the domain of wealthy white guys, 44% of black and latino adults are smartphone owners compared with 30% of whites. This tracks, perhaps, with a general trend of smartphone adoption being highest in urban and suburban areas. In some cases, minorities have been earlier adopters of text messaging and relied upon cell phones (and now smartphones) for general phone communications and internet access.

Smartphone users are checking email and browsing the web

Not surprisingly, people are doing much more than making phone calls with their smartphones. Organizations should consider, however, the frequency with which users access the web and check email on their phones. As smartphones become a more fundamental way for people to perform online tasks, the organizations that provide the best user experience with mobile web and email will be best able to communicate.

In typical day, 68% of all smartphone users go online with their phone (access internet or check email). Amongst 30-49 year old smartphone owners, 71% access the internet daily with their phone (meaning that about 1/3 of all 30-49 year old Americans check email or access the internet on a smartphone each day). Interesting to note that a full quarter of smartphone users do most of the online work with their phone:

25% of all smartphone owners (regardless of whether or not they use the internet on their device) do most of their online browsing on their mobile phone.

Of all smartphone users, younger and lower income users are more likely to access the internet mostly with their phone. These people, especially low income users, are less likely to have other computers and/or broadband at home.

Next steps for organizations

This report is far from the only one indicating that mobile web and email use is rising to the point of being a standard way that people get online. Recent articles from ReturnPath, Campaign Monitor, Comscore and Nielsen are worth a look.

Many organizations look at mobile and start thinking about SMS/text messaging and apps. Both cool and have their place but the place to start might be where most people, as data indicates, are already at: browsing the web and checking email on their phones.

Start by optimizing your email for mobile devices. We took a look at that a couple weeks back with some tips and resources. If your organization is working on or looking ahead to a website redesign then work mobile into the mix. It’s not necessary to create a separate mobile site though that’s possible. Minimally, work with a team that understands how to optimize code so that it presents well on mobile devices. Make it a point of discussion in the project.

It’s time to get going, though. The opportunity costs are rising. Don’t assume that your audience will just wait until they get home to read your email or check out your web pages.

Email Newsletter Boost: Five Ways (plus one) to Pump it Up

July 8, 2011 by Ted Fickes

Bike pump by Flickr user mhall209 — Pump up your newsletter (not just your tires). Photo by Flickr user mhall209.

In the last couple years I’ve had many conversations about email campaign strategy that invariably veer towards the oft-dreaded topic of “email newsletters.” In most cases staff hate their newsletter, have trouble defining why they put together the newsletter (which is often a heavy lift internally) and report open and clickthrough and other action rates that are headed nowhere but down. The 2011 E-Benchmarks report from M+R and NTEN report an average clickthrough rate of 2% for email newsletters.

Done with intention and skill, email newsletters are a good opportunity to provide a consistent drumbeat of conversation about your work and people that is needed to consistently engage and build relationships. Notice use of the word “conversation” above. Most email newsletters are mimicking old print brochures, magazines and newsletters that couldn’t be interactive, responsive or timely. This is most often boring. Take some time to play around with interaction. Ask people questions, work in a poll or quiz, have an action opportunity but make it unique to the newsletter – something special the reader can look forward to each month.

We’re going to expand a bit upon that last newsletter idea here with five ways to ramp up the email newsletter. Inspiration for this comes from a great recent post by Matt Krautstrunk over on the Blue Sky Factory blog – well worth checking out.

Let’s first define email newsletter. A newsletter is the regularly scheduled informational piece. Usually it goes out monthly but could be weekly or bi-weekly or some other at least sorta regular pace. The newsletter is distinct from time-sensitive action alerts, fundraising appeals and similar communications. This doesn’t mean that a newsletter shouldn’t be timely and responsive to current events but that isn’t typically its role.

Personality

I don’t know about you but just the word newsletter screams out “blah, blah, blah.” Dull. Mundane. Filler. The sort of thing that if it came to me via paper would go straight to the recycling bin. And consider the fact that it is 100 times easier to click delete or just ignore an email than it is to bring a piece of mail all the way from the mailbox to the recycling.