Social Media Tools Review: Bitly

by Rosemari

 

The problem

Long urls are cumbersome.  They disrupt precious white space in the body of an e-mail and are difficult to share, particularly in a world where character length of updates from sites like Twitter and Facebook matter.

How Bitly solves it (or attempts to solve it)

Bitly is a service used to shorten lengthy urls.  Additionally, if you register for a Bitly, you are able to track how many clicks your specific link retrieves and information about who is clicking on those specific pages. 

According to the “About” section of the Bitly website, “bitly helps you collect, organize, shorten and share links. We are currently reinventing how people discover and share content on the web.” Let’s see how this could apply to a real world scenario.

Scenario

For example, let’s say your organization wants people to check out the new a new video on your main website. You can send a social media update that lists your traditional url to get to your website in order to access the video. However, you will not have the capacity to determine if the traffic on your site is due to the video or another factor (perhaps people looking on the website for details regarding an upcoming event, etc.).  Bitly allows you to share a unique link that will show you the number of clicks specifically for the video.

Additionally, let’s say you are trying to determine who is the best spokesperson for your organization via social media. You can have various Bitly links being pushed to by different handles, including your agency handle, your CEO, and your community mobilizers, to determine what handle is most effective and which audiences are most interested in your video. 

Once you’ve pushed your link, you can track how many clicks occurred in various time frames (some options are “total,” “past hour,” “past 24 hours,” etc.). It also allows you to see the platform individuals using to click through (for example, Facebook, Twitter, Direct, etc.) to your video as well as the countries they are clicking from.  These types of benchmarks are similar to the metrics available using Google Analyzer.

Other features

Bitly offers free account that allows you to shorten and share, create custom hash tags, have an individual link statistics page and single tracking domains.  Bitly also offers a vanity account called BitlyEnterprise for $995 a month that offers additional features, such as multiple tracking domains, “end-to-end branding,” and no rate limits. Organizations and companies like Pespi and CSPAN have custom links such as pep.si and cs.pn. 

Social Media Tools Review: Hootsuite.com

Source: American University Social Media Club Facebook Wall

The problem

In a world in which you may follow hundreds of Twitter handles and Facebook profiles, it’s tough to organize the information in meaningful and accessible way.  Furthermore, when managing various accounts, it is nearly impossible to physically be in front of a screen in order to release my updates at appropriate intervals as to maximize their impact.

How HootSuite solves it (or attempts to solve it)

HootSuite provides a columned interface (called the dashboard) that allows viewing of multiple profiles and accounts across the social networks applications (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to ensure easy management. Also, it allows users to schedule updates, mange lists, and create analytics. 

Scenario

Professor Pallavi Kumar recently spoke on a panel at American University’s Social MediaSummit regarding Facebook and other social networking tools. She knew she had a short time to discuss a range new media strategy and tactics.

Professor Kumar used HootSuite to schedule her tweets before the panel.  She was able to craft tweets that included the key messages of her presentation, videos, and links to other relevant information.  Once she had assembled her tweets, she scheduled them for the duration of her presentation, about 15 tweets every five minutes. She announced her methodology before her comments and mentioned the conference hashtag so others interested in the conference (both present and remote) could follow her and easily retweet her messages.

With the power of HootSuite, she was able to focus her attention on her presentation (instead of fumbling with her phone on stage), get relevant and timely information to her audience (both on- and off-line), facilitate the sharing of that information by having her audience retweet it, and gain new followers. She notes that after the Summit, other professors have had similar results after imploring her technique.

Other features

HootSuite has a variety of options for vanity accounts, which include running customized analytics and adding individuals to collaborate on a single account.  Additionally, it creates its own link shortening system (like Bitly).  It also has HootSuite University, which for $21.00 a month individuals are able to get webinars, forums, support, and other training on how to maximize their social media experience using HootSuite.

Your Super Hero Cape

by Rosemari


Let’s face it: your initial idea or plan is probably pretty good. But, like any new idea, it’s risky. That’s okay (in fact, I think we need more risky, new ideas in this world). But, taking a big risk means you need some serious super powers on your side. And, like most super powers, they start with research.

My research professor at American University in Washington, D.C., Maria Ivancin, taught me that reach helps lessen the amount of risk you are getting yourself into. It helps strengthen your decisions. It helps you have a better chance of saving the world.


When it comes to online advocacy, monitoring tools for social media can contribute to your body of research through determining your reach, your level of engagement and how well you drive your web traffic home.


These three pillars – reach, engagement, and driving web traffic home – are broken down by Alan Rosenblatt (my Online Advocacy professor and general social media guru) in Measuring the Impact of Your Social Media Program and the Rules of Social Media Engagement. Describing the nuts and bolts of each category, he walks through tools like bit.ly and movements like #FollowFriday.


Each time you are able to better monitor impact of the work you are doing. And every impact monitored is like increasing your super powers. It reduces the risk of your project and increases it’s overall awesomeness. So, before jumping into social media, be sure that you got the best super powers you can muster.

Three Things Online Advocacy Can Learn from Dating

by Rosemari


The Scaled Ask

You meet a guy. He asks out you. You enjoy your date. Your curiosity is piqued. You go out again. And, little by little, through text messages, e-mails, calls, and face-to-face interaction, your relationship develops and grows.

Strangely enough, this is also often how good advocacy campaigns should start.  It’s not about getting a commitment from the first interaction, but instead about cultivating relationships a step at a time.

For instance, Colin Delaney outlines some best practices from the Obama campaign, noting that it implored “the ‘scaled ask,’ encouraging newbies to step deeper and deeper into the Obama waters – first they might show up to phone-bank, and a few weeks later they found themselves devoting 30 hours per week to managing a volunteer team.” 

Size Matters

Who are we kidding? Whether in dating or in advocacy, size totally matters. But, that doesn’t mean that you should disregard how you use it.

In terms of online advocacy, when it comes to e-mail lists it’s the bigger the better.  The more people you reach, the more action you are likely to inspire. However, it’s also true that how your list matters – regardless of size. As Delaney observes, every interaction matters. Maybe even more than size.

So, collect your e-mail addresses with vigor and gusto. But don’t leave it at that. You may have a bigger list than the other campaign, but unless you know how to work you’re your robust size will be a distant memory.

It’s About Trust

Things are getting more intense. You’re investing more into the relationship that ever before and that’s scary. We’ve all been at that stage in a relationship. What calms your nerves and helps you remember your priorities? Trust.

Great campaigns understand this.  They respect their supporters and trust them to do great, quality work.  Delany describes why and how this worked for Obama’s 2008 campaign, “Take your people seriously and they’ll return the favor…The Obama organization achieved both a scale and a level of effectiveness unlike any electoral campaign we’ve ever seen, and all because of one basic idea: that you can trust people to work on your behalf if you give them the tools and the training.”

Hooking Up With Mobile Platforms

 by Rosemari 


Last week, plans fell through and my friend Lauren and I found ourselves in front of a movie theater. “I just bought a Groupon for free movie tickets, but it’s in my e-mail” she said.  After a few minutes of fumbling with my iPhone, we went to the kiosk and had Bridesmaids tickets in our hands without spending a cent. 

Phones are revolutionizing not only what we do, but also the way we do it. So, what does that mean for those looking to save the world? 

MobileActive.org’s Using Mobile Phones in Advocacy Campaigns report provide some great case studies as to how mobile phones should be integrated into advocacy campaigns, citing Greenpeace Argentina’s 2005 efforts that mobilized more than 4,500 individuals and passed a key waste reduction campaign. 

This kind of mobilization inspired the California text service called the HookUp. HookUp, instead of having a clear call to action boasted in advocacy mobile platforms, uses texting to cultivate a long-term relationship, more one-dimensional relationship.

Targeted at adolescents, the HookUp texts weekly tips regarding sexual health to its 4,400+ unduplicated subscribers. Additionally, the HookUp aims to link subscribers with reproductive health services in their area.  Subscribers can text “CLINIC+[zip code]” and be texted information to the nearest sexual health clinic. 

Examples of recent texts include,

HookupWeeklyTip: Most STIs don’t show symptoms. Get you and your partner tested today. Txt CLINIC + ur zip for clinics. www.teensource.org Txt stop to end. (May 4, 2011)

or

HookupWeeklyTip: Think condoms are a hassle? Try pushing a baby stroller to class! Txt CLINIC + ur zip for clinics. www.teensource.org Txt stop to end.  (May 18, 2011)

Sounds cool, right? But does it really work?

According to a recent subscriber survey, one third of the subscribers have requested clinic referrals.  However, there has yet to be an evaluation as to whether or not young adults actually accessed these clinics (and if the clinic staff where training and capable of seeing teens for reproductive healthcare). 

What’s even better is that nearly half (44 percent) said that they made “positive changes in their sexual behaviors, such as asking a partner about their sexual history.” And one in three of the subscribers surveyed noted “increased knowledge and awareness of sexual health, such as the fact that the birth control pill does not protect against STDs.”

My favorite thing about mobile technology is that it can be both timely and relevant. Whether you’re in front of the movie theater, trying to access your free tickets, or at a rally, trying to get involved, or in front of your boyfriend, trying to figure out where to get an STD test, you can immediately get hooked up.


by Rosemari

Hollaback!

by Rosemari 

Hollaback is a cool digital platform that combines online and mobile technology in hopes to end street harassment.



Yet another example of how mobile technology can provide a virtual voice for those who couldn't "holla back" IRL (in real life). 


I can't imagine how many inappropriate remarks I would have collected if I had been keeping track of every time I was harassed on the street since I was, say, 15 years old. I'm so glad that today's 15 year old (and everyone else) can track it and take action.  

Online Advertising: The David and Goliath of our time?

by Rosemari


“If we had to do it over again,” reflects Josh Koster in his article Long-Tail Nanotargetting about Al Franken’s online advertising budget in 2008, “we would have spent more on Google and Facebook and much less on local newspaper placements.”

The power of online advertising is the honed by the ability to pinpoint your target audience. Online advertising not only allows you to get the most bang for your buck, it also gives you a greater opportunity to engage with individuals who have the most potential to buy your product, vote for your candidate, support your cause, listen to your band’s music, attend your event, and organize your rally.

You may not have the biggest budget or the widest audience, but it the right online tools and savvy, you can make a serious impact. The power of microtargeting online can be the catalyst for a David-and-Goliath style smack down. And that’s super exciting. 

Peter Greenberger’s article The Digital Playbook: Can online ads move polls numbers, draws similar conclusions based on a case study from RESOVE: The National Infertility Association. Grennberger’s article compared the impressive ROI RESOLVE’s online approach had to their public service announcement (PSA) for the same campaign that lamentably left their target audience with no measurable impact. 

Koster’s anecdote about removing Lou Dobbs from CNN’s roster was particularly inspiring and a testament to the importance of online strategy for impacts in mainstream media and our society at large. It made me feel like the playing field had finally been leveled.  The best ideas (and not the biggest budget) win! Or do they?

Before I get out my pom-poms, Koster reminds me, “like all digital success stories, [Al Fraken’s] case study is not about reinventing the wheel, but about modernizing a strategy that has always worked.” And while David may be the first jump on the online advertising bandwagon, history tells us that Goliath is not far behind.

Participatory Consumers On and Offline: We should demand more

by Rosemari 


In my former life, I often organized large-scale events for local government. During the planning, my boss would always suggest that one of the top administrators give the opening remarks at these events. I think she wanted them to see the great work we were doing and make sure that they felt important.  She wanted to feed into their notions of own power and prestige.

However, the old school approach of power and prestige is changing. And I would argue that this change has, for the most part, started online. Online, consumers are interactive, participatory, and often the key determiners of what power and prestige looks like.  Online, it’s not enough that you have a seemingly important job if you don’t have anything to say or can’t say it in an intriguing and engaging way.

Digital politics guru Alan Rosenblatt (my professor at American University’s School of Communication), discusses how this new level of participation raises the bar and creates potential among consumers in his four part series titled Dimensions of a Digitally Networked Campaign for Politics Magazine.  He writes,

“Because activists and voters can talk to each other, produce and share their own media content, create local and national counter-campaigns (even from within a campaign’s own website or social network page), they can take the campaign in directions all of their own making.”

And as online consumers are able to transform campaigns for advocacy, I think that consumers should be able to call for the same level of engagement, critique, and quality offfline.  The point that my former supervisor missed is missed by many organizations both on- and offline.

Offline, your title shouldn’t matter if you are too afraid to be authentic in your opening remarks. Or if your public speaking are worse than an unironic Ben Stein calling roll in Ferris Bueller. Online, Colin Delany provides sobering (but much needed) advice about how to avoid getting caught up the old methods of what’s important to the consumer in his nitty gritty primer Politics 101:

“If your site structure looks like your organization tree, stop to think about someone coming to your site who’s never heard of you before. Not only do they not care about the welcome message from your president (unless he or she is famous, hot, unusually charismatic or is a candidate for office), the information they’re trying to find is probably buried somewhere deep in your press section, if it exists at all.”

Furthermore, we need to understand the responsibility we have when we create both on and offline platforms. When we provide these soapboxes it’s important that we keep the target audience on the forefront of every programming decision we make. Understanding how empowered and participatory consumers are taking their online power offline can guide us through those decisions.

While it’s easy to want to tout our programs to the brass, like my former supervisor wanted, it’s not worth it or useful. Consumers demand more. And so should we.