Ken Goldstein, MPPA

Ken Goldstein has been working in nonprofits and local government agencies from Santa Cruz, to Sacramento, and back to Silicon Valley, since 1989. He's been staff, volunteer, board member, executive director, and, since 2003, a consultant to local nonprofit organizations. For more on Ken's background, click here. If you are interested in retaining Ken's services, you may contact him at ken at goldstein.net.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Social Media Training for Supporters

Here's an interesting item for those of us obsessed with social media. On the Jerry Brown for CA Governor YouTube channel, along with posting various interviews, campaign ads, biographical bits, and so on, the campaign has now posted a "Social Media Webisode" -- a short training video on how Jerry's supporters can help get the word out. The first webisode is on promoting the Brown campaign via Facebook:



This is a great example of using social media, and a brilliant strategy. Faced with a challenger who has so far spent over $119 million of her personal fortune, making hers the most expensive campaign for statewide office ever anywhere, Brown has not only made good use of social media to get his message out, he is harnessing the full power of social media by turning supporters into advocates.

Far too many of the social media campaigns that I see, whether political or for products or nonprofit organizations, treat facebook, twitter, etc., as one-way broadcast mediums. They neither engage the audience in dialogue nor tap into the extended networks of each of their followers. Brown 2010 has now done both. That the video is well-produced and gets to the point in barely over 90 seconds also helps.

Is your organization simply pushing random updates to your followers without thinking about how they will use it, or explaining how they can help your cause by re-tweeting, "liking," and commenting? When a supporter posts something to your facebook wall, or asks you a question with an @tweet, how long does it take for you to respond? Do you respond?

Whether or not you support Jerry Brown for Governor, or even live in California, take a look at the training video and imagine how you might be able to train your followers to be an army of advocates for your cause and for your organization.

1 comment:

  1. This is so true. In fact, I'm currently using both Facebook and Twitter to find people to support my cause. And yes, you are right, sometimes, these social marketers forget that it takes more than the initial contact to get going. You have to get interactive at some point.

    You can check out my site here:

    Buy Me a Nikon

    ReplyDelete