leverage this social-network platform around events, if they’re not already, because there is both an existing audi- ence and a growing audience there.
JP Twitter is increasingly gaining a foothold as a real-time megaphone and background conversation for live events — think [of] recent efforts with NASCAR, the Arab Spring, President Obama’s use of Twitter for live events. Twitter and hashtags are tailor-made to create and grow the conversation that is happening live, on the Internet, thereby increasing the value for everyone involved (more voices, more ideas, more opinions, more insight) and the reach of the conversation.
What are the overall implications of the benchmark report for meeting and convention planners?
JP Face-to-face events are part of the relationship-building process for organizations and their key audiences. Social networks are another part of that relationship-building process that takes place in small bits over a long period of time. The key is to combine the two to maximize the value. Using social networks around your events helps to round out the engagement and community building before and after the event, to augment the great networking that happens at the event. Second, the biggest users of Linke-
dIn are associations — i.e., the nonprofit vertical sector that uses meetings and conferences as part of their basic mis- sion and service provision. Think about where you are convening and engaging your supporters — they are assembling on LinkedIn with their “professional
persona,” as opposed to Facebook with their “personal persona.” Think about how socializing happens within the professional networking scope at your events and on LinkedIn.
What correlation do you see between an organization’s budget and its ability to reach an audience via social networking?
HR Smaller is, well, smaller. Though small nonprofits are investing in social media like the big guys, the numbers do look different when it comes to audience sizes. The average number of Facebook fans from survey respondents at large organizations was roughly 2.5 times higher than the average for smaller nonprofits. That doesn’t mean that smaller nonprofits aren’t succeeding. Respondents to the survey indicated that the top two methods for promoting social-media channels are “Placement on Our Website” (82 percent) and “Emailing Our List” (65 percent). Smaller nonprofits tend to have less web traffic and smaller email lists, leading to smaller social networks.
Do you think a live event will be hindered without the use of social-networking sites?
JP I think the greatest lost opportunity when you don’t use social as part of an event is missing the chance to extend the reach and footprint of the event beyond the physical space. Second, as is true of social for any organization — electronic word of mouth is efficient for marketing your event.
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Sarah Beauchamp is an assistant editor of Convene.
AUGUST 2012 PCMA CONVENE 37 +
BREAKOUT
On the House According to Common Knowledge’s Jeff Patrick, about 13 percent of nonprofits are building their own private social networks, known as “house” networks. They differ from public, commercial social networks like Twitter and Facebook because they generally require membership or subscription fees.
“The professional associations are most likely to deploy and grow a house network,” Patrick said, because “the owning association wants to facilitate professional networking among its members, but often there is a need for a password-protected or private- community feature.”
House networks ensure that an organization is able to control who has access to its content and services. But commercial sites have their advantages, too.
“The value of using public social networks is that you aren’t just limited to your in-house list,” said NTEN’s Holly Ross. “Each tweet or Facebook post has the potential of reaching exponentially more contacts when your followers and fans share the information with their networks.”
ON THE WEB To access the 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report, visit nonprofitsocialnetwork survey.com.