End-of-Course/Campaign Reflections

For my campaign evaluation, I chose to explore the partnership of Penn State and RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) in light of the recent scandal with Jerry Sandusky. I felt this campaign was relevant and inspiring, and so far they have done a tremendous amount of work to put an end to child sexual abuse. The duo originally had a goal of raising $500,000, and surpassed that amount in less than a month's time. This is an incredible feat. They now have their sights set on $1,000,000 and I feel confident based on their current success that they will definitely be able to pull it off. In my evaluation, I looked at the social media efforts of the collaboration and overall, I was impressed. Both parties (RAINN's Facebook/Twitter pages and the pages for Proud Penn Stater) do an excellent job of posting relevant, interesting topics. They are also not obnoxiously posting dry facts and statistics like many nonprofits do. This is something I can really appreciate as a social media patron. We have learned from our textbooks that collaborations are usually excellent opportunities for cross-promotion of names and this evaluation serves as a prime example. Through the use of social media tactics, merchandise (t-shirts), and being active in the community, this partnership has really taken off and accomplished a lot in a little amount of time.

One main criticism that I had was the lack of engagement on YouTube. As we know, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google as of recent years. RAINN has a YouTube channel, but it really only features a few public service announcements from years ago with outdated celebrity endorsers. I would encourage the organization to get out in the Penn State community and capture raw footage of students, faculty, alumni, and other Penn State supporters working for the duo's efforts. Since the organization also has experience with public service announcements, it might also be nice to issue a new television campaign with prominent Penn State figures or a new set of celebrity endorsers relevant to the cause. Online presence is great, but we need to remember that there are still those individuals out there whose main means of obtaining information does not involve the internet or social media.

More information about RAINN and its efforts with Penn State can be found here.


Overall, I really enjoyed taking COMM 456. It was great to be involved in class projects that allowed me to be actively engaged in public relations, the career I wish to pursue. I think that I learned a wealth of information from Claiborne and the class projects and discussions that will aid me in my endeavors after college. I will be taking Stakeholder COMM in the Spring which is another PR class taught by Claiborne and I am excited to see what tasks are in store!

Friending and Funding & Governing Through Networks

Chapter ten opens with a story of a man named Scott Harrison who utilized friending to fund his creation, charity: water. It is apparent by the actions of this one man that the social aspect of "friending" ultimately leads to "funding" for an organization. Scott was able to utilize a number of personal characteristics to help him accomplish his goals such as:

• Being Transparent: operating an organization out in the open including annual reports, financial statements, and audit reports. Also includes how money is used by an organization and contact information for staff. All of this information should be available to the public via some sort of online medium (an organization's website, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Being Simple: an organization need to have a simple message and set of goals so as not to confuse the public. This is particularly true with social media outlets including status updates, tweets, etc.
• Listening, engaging, and building relationships: it is crucial for organizations to reach out and engage as many people as possible. This is made possible by listening to the thoughts and opinions of the public, and adpating to suit them.

Many of these aspects are reminiscent of topics I studied in a leadership seminar several semesters ago. Most of the curriculum focused on effective leadership and included characteristics like being a good listener, adapting to followers/subordinates, and building strong relationships with those who support you. This will lead not only to effective leadership, but success of the group as a whole. The same is true for nonprofit organizations.

In regards to funding, I thought it was important that the text pointed out that donors to the organization should be treated with respect. This includes an organization refraining from hounding people for money and not treating them like ATM machines. I think the success of many companies who depend on their donors for survival relies on these practices. No one likes to feel as if they are being harrassed for money, and more organizations would be wise to remember that.

Chapter 11 focuses on governance within organizations. The three boards discussed are the Rubber Stamp Board, Muddle-Through Board, and Fiduciary Board. There are a variety of characteristics held by each group that can be applicable to a variety of nonprofit organizations. Governance determines how recruits for support are gathered.

I thought that the aspects of governing a network of individuals was very interesting and relevant to the ever-changing face of job positions. Making sure that people who deal with social media actually know what they're doing is crucial to a company or organization's reputation. A very recent example of a social media slip-up happened last week with the South Africa branch of Durex Condoms (see this link). This is an ideal case study where governance of social media training fell through and the company had to scramble to pick up the pieces of their reputation.

Crowds & Loops

The reading from Chapter 8 pertains to the impact that crowds have on networked nonprofit organizations. One method of organizing both large and small crowds to work for the good of an organization is called crowdsourcing. The text lists four distinct categories of crowdsourcing:

• Collective intelligence/crowd wisdom: refers to a "cloud' of information that each member of a group can contribute to. Data may be "mashed up" and organized into a slew of different uses for the collective group. When I worked for the Chamber, all board members, interns, and the executive director had access to our online marketing site, Vertical Response. Therefore, we were able to all contribute ideas, key dates, and upcoming events to send out to members in the form of eBlasts. These items were all cross-checked for accuracy and distributed to mass amounts of people, which increased our presence in the community
• Crowd creation: refers to the act of crowds creating original works of knowledge or art; For our class projects with Safe Harbor, we each utilized social mediums in a variety of ways to promote events. An example of this would be our promotion of the Chick-fil-A fundraiser via an event invitation on Facebook. Closer to the event, we tweeted the event as a reminder for the community to participate. By including outside members through these promotions, the ideas and goals of an organization can reach out to even larger groups of people.
• Crowd voting: refers to having crowds vote on their favorite ideas, artwork, essays, people, etc. During my internship with the Chamber of Commerce, I was lucky enough to participate in the planning and execution of the annual awards banquet. We formulated several awards categories and distributed it to members to make nominations and vote. This was beneficial not only in that it gave members a chance to recoginize outstanding business leaders in the community, but it also increased involvement and allowed them to have their voice heard. Though this differs from a poll (as is mentioned in the book), there was still alot of positive feedback and participation from members of the Chamber. In turn, we ended up hosting a fantastic awards dinner with high attendance from both Chamber members and other individuals in the community.
• Crowd funding: refers to the "collective pocketbook and encouraging groups to fund an effort that benefits many people. This category is also relevant to our class' work with Safe Harbor. I was involved with the Homecoming project, and one of our main tasks was setting up a booth on Bowman Field during game day to raise awareness about domestic violence to fans walking around and looking at the floats. As a group, we had little to no budget to work with, so we had to get really creative and resourceful. Luckily we were able to utilize Julie from Safe Harbor for display banners and educational pamphlets to hand out to patrons. We also got creative and made our own signs promoting the Facebook and Twitter campaigns we decided to host. Finally, we offered a raffle for a football signed by Clemson football players if an individual decided to make a donation or participate in one or both social media campaigns. Surprisingly, we earned a substantial amount of donations and were even able to reimburse ourselves for supplies!

Chapter 8 also discusses the importance of microplanning with crowds. The text describes microplanning as an "iterative process of small experiements that lets organizations change, scale, or scrap them easily, quickly, and inexpensively." Microplanning is not to be confused with being unplanned. Rather, it allows for organizations to begin easily and leave plans open and and changeable to crowds. This breathing room allots for more change over time, ending in a more adaptable group. I feel that a majority of the success our class groups have experience from our work with Safe Harbor is due to our openness to new ideas and change. This may also relate to our overall ability to have reached out to large groups of individuals on campus and in the Clemson community, and increase domestic violence awareness.


Moving on..


The information found in Chapter 9 pertains to learning loops. That is, the need for organizations to have a strong hold of their central goals and objectives of using social media before even considering to begin a project. The text notes that it is imperative for organizations to reach out to a specific target audience before attempting to take on the whole world via social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more. Microplanning comes into play again with the process of learning loops, and may include small periods during the day in which organizations allot time to focus on social media campaigns. There is also the aspect of measuring the success of a campaign. As the book notes, it is very simple for an organization to make these measurements incorrectly. As an intern at the Chamber, I was in charge of social media campaigns on Facebook and Twitter. When I started, the Chamber had a limited number of followers on Facebook and no Twitter account at all. I think I definitely underestimated the task of gaining fans and followers, especially since I was required to submit a montly report on the success of the pages. I was also dealing with board members who were not actively involved with social media outlets, so there was also a need for education there. I started by seeking out all of our members who had Facebook and/or Twitter accounts and expressing our support of their pages. In turn, most of them reciprocated by becoming actively involved with our pages. Where I fell short was by assuming that the individuals who decided to follow or like us in return would automatically become actively involved in our social media activity. I found that stats were actually quite low in regards to interactions and feedback. Therefore, I utilized a number of multimedia tools; videos from Business After Hours and Ribbon Cutting events, pictures relevant to the community, and small blurbs that would get viewers involved. The result was greater interactions and higher response from our fans and followers, but it took virtually a whole summer of interning to reach that point. I think alot of people fail to realize that a social media campaign is like any other campaign or project; it requires planning and a lot of thought to be executed correctly and yield success.

I found these two articles that relate to Facebook and Twitter presence of organizations.. Enjoy!

9 tips for a successful Facebook presence

Avoid these 10 time-wasting tweets

Methods for Building Relationships and Trust: Reflections from Chapters 5 and 6

Chapter 5 offers a lot of information about ways that an organization can open up and foster beneficial relationships. It is noted that listening is the foundation for success in any organization when building relationships is the goal. I thought the authors made an excellent point when they said that an organization should never talk at their audience. Instead, it is important to get on the level of audience members and find out their individual questions, interests, and concerns. By doing this, trust is instilled in the organization and its fan base is sustained and even increased in size. Today, one of the best ways that companies and organizations can listen to their audiences is via social media. Virtually all major companies are utilizing outlets like Facebook and Twitter to promote their products and services to consumers.This is due in part to the fact that it is inexpensive advertising and can reach out to massive amounts of people at once. By "liking," or "following" these organizations on social media outlets, friends of friends and followers of followers will also see activity associated with supporting various pages and thus, increase supporters and consumers. It's a genius idea, especially considering social media is clearly not going anywhere.

Engaging the public can also have a positive effect for organizations online. I think it relates to virutally any kind of leader-follower scenario in that by making followers feel included, loyalty to a company/organization/product will flourish. It is also a great way for organizations to say thanks to their supporters, which is also a nice touch. There are a number of businesses I can think of in Clemson alone that engage their supporters via social media. This includes everything from fast food restaurants to retail stores. They offer specials or encourage feedback from customers about topics as simple as what they did over the weekend. Criticism is also accepted and harped on so as to improve products or services. I think by creating this sense of involvement, companies increase their success.

Chapter 6 discusses the need for nonprofit organizations to have transparency. According to the text, this involves, "engaging more honestly and openly with the networked world." This includes the three categories of transparency that nonprofits can be categorized as:

• Fortress: Very exclusive; build walls to keep "invaders" out. Self-protection to insure that secrets are kept. Very much an "us vs. them" mentality. This is not a good mindset to have because it leads to paranoia within the group, which can ultimately be detrimental to the organization itself.
• Transactional: provide services to the public, selected by the public, based on cost. These individuals are continuously crunching numbers and making comparisons based on who attended what function or who donated x amount of money to an organization. This is not the only way in which the organization can function, but it should be known that transactions are the basis for prime focus in organizations that adopt this mode of transparency.
• Transparent: The opposite of a fortress; a "glass house" though there is still a wall present. These organizations are compared to sponges in the text because they are straightforward in their intentions and plans, people are allowed to come and go as they please, and members are enriched in the process.

By inhibiting more transparency within, an organization can break down those walls that may discourage increased support from the outside world. This can in turn increase revenues collected and information posted by individuals everywhere. One quote I really liked from this chapter was on page 83: "The future of an organization has to be as transparent as the past." This pertains to planning for future methods of success such as reaching out to more people. It also relates to learning from the past-what worked and what didnt, and what new ideas could be utilized to increase the success of the organization

Just for Giggles...

Also, I wanted to add this little gem since we have discussed apprehension towards Facebook. My mother complains all the time that Facebook is too complicated for her because of its ever-changing nature. That's why I deemed this appropriate to the topic:

Enjoy!

Social Culture & The Dragonfly Effect

Chapter 4 of the text pertains to the transformation that many organizations make towards the status of a social culture. This is a shift that takes a great deal of patience and practice to perfect. This phenomenon is revolutionary in that it views values and operations of organizations in a whole new light. Page 43 of the book lists these characteristics as those that define social culture organizations:

• Social Media is used to engage in 2-way conversations about the work of the organization with people inside and outside the organization.
• Mistakes are embraced rather than dwelled on. Risks-no matter how calculated-are taken.
• Learning and reflection are rewarded.
• A "try it and fix it as we go" mentality is utilized - emphasizes failing fast.
• Overcome organizational inertia ("We've always done it this way" through open and robust discussions
• Understand/appreciate that informality and individuality to not indicate a lack of caring, professionalism, or quality.
• Trust staff members to make decisions/respond to situations rapidly, rather than attempt check-off and approval processes that take up precious time.

I think these aspects are an effective and rational way to approach the logistics of nonprofit organizations. I think it pertains especially to the rising generation of individuals (our generation, to be exact) that will be heading said organizations in the near future. My particular favorite characteristic from the list above is the fifth bullet point (overcome the "we've always done it this way" mentality). I can relate this to a plethora of different situations. In a leadership seminar class I took last spring, we examined this notion in regards to effective leadership. It has become absolutely necessary for members of organizations not to get stuck in routine practices that are outdated and useless. It is also crucial for these members to engage in "open and robust" discussions. This causes morale of the group to be high, a feeling of involvement amongst members, and a greater likelihood for creative thinking to be brought to the table. As the book also illustrates beginning on page 47, change for an existing organization is never easy. Many organizations can get hung up on the thought of potentially losing control, or "vertigo." I thought of Sara's example in class when she told us about the difficulties she faced trying to introduce social media to the company. This may have been due to a fear of looking unprofessional. For example, MANY Facebook users do not uphold their most endearing qualities when posting on their or others' pages. I think that these are the aspects of Facebook and Twitter that have given social media bad reputation amongst organizations, leading to a hesitance to use them. However, I also think that as the Millineal generation moves into the forefront, these apprehensions will subside because it is obvious that the rise of social media has only just begun.

We also discussed The Dragonfly Effect in class. This is a novel that explores the use of social media and how it can lead to social change. What I found fascinating about the naming of the book was that it relates to the anatomical features of an actual dragonfly; all four wings can move separately to maneuver its body in different ways. I thought it was really unique that the authors used this analogy to relate the model of the book itself:

These are all crucial aspects of social media practices, and if used correctly, have been proven to propel an organization in to the spotlight of an online presence. These are the methods that we have utilized with Safe Harbor, as well as other organizations we have encountered while interns or employees at a variety of companies/businesses. By mastering these core skills now, I think we will be much more effective at directing our knowledge of social media towards public relations related fields.

Social Networks for Networked Nonprofits

The information in the reading from chapter 3 focuses primarily on defining social networks and how they pertain to/make up a networked nonprofit organization. According to the book, the main social networks of focus are:

• Personal (family, friends, neighbors, congregants, hobbyists)
• Professional (colleagues, individuals who work at collegial agencies, funders, government agencies, associations, etc.)
• Self-organized (Facebook friends, Twitter followers, etc.)
• Networks of People (created by specific nonprofit organizations: members chosen from databases and are connected via online social networks, websites, etc.)

Prior to reading this chapter, I was not fully aware of the different dynamics of social networks. I think it is much easier to understand when applied to a real-life situation, so I compared the factors that make up social networks (nodes and ties) to the building blocks of our class projects with Safe Harbor.

• Hubs: "The larger nodes within networks; the people or organizations that have lots of connections." Aka: Julie and the rest of the staff at Safe Harbor. Each staff member would be able to help us out with establishing connections in the upstate to sponsor or support our projects/events. They also have provided us with a plethora of information and educational materials to use at events.
• Core: "the inner cluster of people who do most of the work on any project or effort." Aka: each particular group that is planning and executing a project. There was the Homecoming group, the Guest Speaker group, and now the remaining groups' projects to be carried out over the course of the rest of the semester.
• Clusters: "groups of people who are connected to one another, but who have few connections to the rest of the network." An example of a cluster that comes to my mind would be the different individuals working in the College of Architecture, Art & Humanities that all aided in spreading the word about our Homecoming project. There were a number of individuals within that college that worked to get our press release out, and include information about the event on the college's website. They would be considered colleagues because they probably all work somewhat closely together on a day to day basis. However, they are not particularly close with our class. They just aided in our project process.

I think by understanding each of these factors in a way that relates to our class projects, we can more clearly understand how vital they are to impacting the success of our endeavors.