Last summer as I was watching The Voice an idea hit me. What if we put teams of people together to compete on developing and implementing a social media strategy. After a few months of bouncing the idea around I teamed up with Jake Aull and Terry Coniglio and The Change Challenge was born.

The Change Challenge was made up of 4 teams of 4 volunteers that supported  4 different sponsoring nonprofits. Led by myself, Terry, and Jake the teams received hands-on training on developing a social media strategy  and integrating social media into business processes. Ultimately The Change Challenge was a competition where each team was judged based on Creative Problem Solving, Goals Met, and a Sustainable Implementation.

A couple of weeks ago The 2011-2012 Change Challenge volunteers celebrated their incredible journey with an awards breakfast.

A special thanks to our judges:

• Dr. Naveen Donthu, Department of Marketing Chair, GA State University
• Jeannie Ericson, Executive Director, Integrated Media Association
• Cindy Cheatham, VP Consulting Services, GA Center for Nonprofits

Volunteers from The Change Challenge had the opportunity to present at SoCon12 and will be presenting at the CXO Forum and the GCN Summit.

Congratulations to the Trees Atlanta team for winning The 2011-2012 Change Challenge. 

Comments from the judges:

• “Goals were well defined and met.”
• “Their focus on a content calendar was key to creating a sustainable implementation.”
• “Everything they did seems very creative but logical and well thought-out”

The Change Challenge Trees Atlanta Team

Trees Atlanta team included: Abby Schwimmer, Kent Jones, Sara Cheshire, Elyse Klova, and their nonprofit sponsor Bethany Clark

Pictured below is Ashlee Lindo from the Adpative Learning Team and Tori Vogt from the Atlanta Mission Team

“I applaud the team for persevering through all their challenges. Their flexibility and creativity kept the idea alibe.” Judges comments related to the Atlanta Mission Team. 

“A lot of good came from the project in terms of understanding what kind of effort must go into a real social media campaign.” Judges comments related to the Adaptive Learning Team

Pictured below, the Emory Center for Injury Control team: Michael Mumper, Kirka Mugo, Dan Schlossberg, Kristina McInerny

“Really thought through where you want to go and the opportunities to expand” Judges comments related to the Emory Center for Injury Control Team.

This was an incredible experience and I sincerely appreciate and am still in awe of the dedication and hard work from everyone that was involved.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

Last week, all through my Google Alerts I kept seeing articles from around the web praising Gap’s social media guidelines as the model to follow. I saved a couple of the articles so that I could review them this weekend, take notes, and help my clients model the success that so many thought Gap had found.

I just read through Ragan’s highlights and learned that the actual policy is not public for me to review. However what Ragan is celebrating as the success of the policy is exactly what I tend to tell my clients does not work.

If you have heard me speak, you may have heard me tell this story, but here it goes again.

Throughout college, which took me 8 years, I worked at Bennigan’s as a waitress. Many people who are younger than me do not know what Bennigan’s is, but if you have seen the movie Office Space, this was me…

We were told that if we served alcohol to people who were under-age, the restaurant would get fined and could be closed down and we could lose our job.

Now let me relate that message to one of the messages in the Gap guidelines…

“These guidelines are important—because if you don’t follow them a few things could happen: your posts can get deleted, we could lose customers and investors, we could get in trouble, or, worst of all, you could even lose your job … So do the right thing, stick to the guidelines.”

Similar, right?

Here was the problem. As servers we got really busy. We were working for tips. And overall we were not real loyal to our company. So if we were too busy to check an I.D. we did not check an I.D.

In any corporate job your employees are looking out for themselves, trying to solve their problems, and more often than not seeking to establish their own voice online. They are not loyal to your brand.

So what should you do?

Stop thinking that your social media policy should focus on your corporate brand and start helping your staff consider their own personal brand.

In Florida, which is where I worked as a waitress, they decided to make each server individually licensed to sell alcohol. We each had to go through a certification training and if we were caught selling alcohol to someone under age or anyone who should have been cut off, WE as individuals could get fined, go to jail, and lose our license to sell alcohol.

We all started taking the time to check IDs which in turn benefited the restaurants.

If you focus your policy and training on helping your team to protect their personal brand and not focus so much on your corporate brand, your team will pay attention to what you have to say and will even appreciate your willingness to look out for their best interest. I call this the “brand you” campaign. I have been saying for years, and repeated it just recently, but if you want to protect your brand in the age of social media you have to go beyond your social media policy.

I met with a wonderful lawyer for lunch last week. She requested the meeting because she is getting a lot of requests from clients regarding social media guidelines. She knew that her clients did not need to be spending big bucks for legal help to write social media guidelines, but she also knows that her clients need more than a document to protect them from the dangers that lurk on social media channels. It’s time, it’s actually past time, to go Beyond Social Media Guidelines.

In 7 years of talking about social media I have never thought that I would be the one to say, “There is too much information.”

In the early days of social media there were huge debates about the value of user-generated content vs the media (old media vs new media). Although I rarely participated in these debates I usually found myself on the side of new media. Even some of my early presentations illustrated how new media was just as valuable and trustworthy as old media, and maybe even more so because of the power of the network to call out anything false and for ongoing dialog that will expose the truth.

This was before Marketing and PR hijacked social media.

In 2006 and 2007 I gave a lot of presentations to Marketing and PR professionals. The question that I was asked at every presentation was “how do we control the message?” My answer was that you can’t. I was wrong.

I have watched as lots of money has been poured into social media campaigns to get people excited or inspired to spread the message to their friends thus using the power of the network to imply that the message was true. We can see this in political smear campaigns and branded marketing campaigns, which is to be expected. But the recent Kony2012 campaign is what recently got my attention and has made me quite concerned.

My first exposure to the Kony2012 campaign was when I read a headline in my Google Alerts that basically said a new social media campaign was about to be launched and I should not believe it. I did not read any further. Then my friends on Facebook started posting the video and expressing their heartfelt support for the campaign. I even learned that one of my connections was actually from Uganda and had first hand experiences with warlords. I thought back to the initial report that warned me to ignore this campaign and made a mental note to do more research. Then my teenage son came home and told me about the campaign. As we talked about it I mentioned the headline I read that said to ignore the campaign. He explained to me that everything, even a good campaign such as this, will have haters. Haters are gonna hate. That the haters side of story is there is nothing we can do, or it is not our problem and so forth. Typical apathy. I made another mental note to look into the campaign.

This morning my 11 year old son was on my laptop. When I was finally able to win the custody battle for my Mac I noticed that my son had not logged off the chat he was having with another 5th grader about the Kony video. At this point I knew I had to look into this.

But before I began my Kony research I decided to go through my Daily Google Alerts. My alerts were full of articles about the Kony2012 campaign. Most about how well the campaign has been executed. Social Media Today had a great post titled Ripoff or Revolution? which pointed out Grant Oyston’s Tumblr account  which was asking good questions about the Kony2012 campaign.

Then I came across the post How Kony2012 gets it wrong . There are a lot of good questions being asked about motives, message, and facts.

When it comes to wanting to do something good for mankind or to stop horrific evil, we can do little things every day. Those little things add up. But when those little things are part of a misdirected larger effort, then ultimately more harm is done.

Perhaps I was right many years ago in believing that social media brings out the truth because of the ability for others to respond. But what I have learned is that there is so much noise on the web that many people miss the responses. It takes time to research the validity of a story, which is why so much misinformation gets passed around. And unless a response to such a story is positioned in a way that it makes a person look good or feel good to share the other side of the story, the response will never gain the power from a strong network.  How can one feel good about telling their friends that they have been duped, that their good deed for the day may have caused more harm  than good? More importantly, how do we keep from getting cynical and apathetic?

More than ever, we all have a responsibility to do a little more than sign our name to a list or share a story with our friends. If we truly want to make a difference in our world, we need to get involved with the world even if it means taking a little time to learn more than one side of the story. There is a lot of information on the web that if we take the time to read more details and ask more questions, the truth should never get lost.

Related Posts:

KONY, Networked Nonprofits, and Transparency

by Timothy Moenk

Two weeks ago I wrote about two Metaverse scenarios explored in the Metaverse Roadmap project. I’m excited to say that the Metaverse Roadmap Overview document has been released into the wild! You can download it from here (it’s in pdf format). For those of you interested in a good read on the intersection of social media with 3d virtual worlds, mapping technologies, and the era of ubiquitous mobile devices, I highly recommend checking it out!

This week, I’ll be discussing the remaining two scenarios: Mirror Worlds, and Augmented Reality.

Mirror Worlds

A book called Mirror Worlds was written by David Gelernter in the early nineties that outlined the potential of computer simulations of our natural environments and the planet Earth itself. Fast forward a decade and a half, and we have a very clear example of what he was talking about in the form of Google Earth. Because of Web 2.0, the increasing preponderance of satellite imagery, and a number of other factors, maps are becoming more then abstract visualizations of space, but very tangible and malleable communications mediums. We now have the ability to infinitely annotate the physical world with data including text, photographs, video, and three dimensional models. This can be done behind a computer, or on the ground at the actual physical locations via mobile devices. While there is a lot of discussion and hype about the Virtual WorldMetaverse scenario right now, the disruptive technology behind the Mirror Worlds scenario will have much greater societal impact.

Most of the major pieces of the Mirror World scenario are already in place. Our mobile devices are beginning to become geospatially aware and it’s only a matter of time before most mobile phones are equipped with gps capabilities. Google Earth/Maps is a cornerstone technology that is enabling these developments to move forward, and Google is taking leadership in developing open standards for embedding geospatial data throughout the web. Here are some examples of the impact that Mirror Worlds are beginning to have today:

Yahoo’s Flickr photosharing service has a feature that enables you to geotag your photographs. Essentially, this allows you to put your photographs on the world map in the exact spot they were taken. This is a very powerful tool for citizen journalism, and it’s only going to get easier and faster. With gps enabled mobile devices, geotagging will happen automatically. Uploading also occurs on the spot, which means Yahoo’s world map will be constantly populated with real time photographs taken by people across the world.

Google Earth has been absolutely indispensable for nonprofits, government organizations, and scientists. Whereas similar technology has been available to them for years, it’s been extremely expensive and wasn’t nearly as collaborative as what is available now due to the nature of open software standards and social media. The ability to collect data, visualize it, and compare it to other data geospatially is becoming affordable to even the smallest of organizations.  The impact that Google Earth has had in our ability to deal with natural disasters, educate on global issues, etc has led Google to recently announce a new initiative called Google Earth Outreach. The main objective for this program is to give support to the nonprofit community so they can maximize the potential of Google Earth to accomplish their global (and local!!!) missions. I highly recommend checking out this page to explore different examples of how Google Earth is being used to make social impact.

Combined with social media, place becomes a powerful way to communicate. Using the Flickr example from before, each photograph becomes a conversation thread for that location. Imagine walking past a restaurant and pulling out your mobile device (without pressing a button) to see which of your friends have been there before, and also if anyone has written any reviews. It’s not so far fetched that people might even leave digital messages for you at specific locations. This is already happening amongst early adopters, and will likely become common place nearly overnight (especially amongst the youth) when gps enabled devices reach ubiquity.

Commercially, Mirror Worlds are largely untapped. The largest developments there so far lie in basic advertising around locations, but there is huge potential to tap into the social aspect of Mirror Worlds to present how brands relate to people and places within society. Being able to appropriately build relationships with people around key places and times will take marketing to a whole new level!

Augmented Reality

This scenario is in some ways a bit more futuristic then the Virtual Worlds, Lifelogging, and Mirror Worlds Scenarios, and represents a blending of elements from each into the physical world. In fact, some of the examples of Mirror Worlds I’ve given above are also examples of Augmentation.

One popular vision of Augmented Reality lies in utilizing heads-up displays to visually overlay 3d data over our perception of the physical environment. (Think what the Terminator sees when he looks at the world!) For the most part, I don’t see people in the mainstream wearing goggles for this type of application. At first glance, this is a niche technology for industrial purposes. However, there is work currently being done to embed this type of technology into our car windshields. Combined with mapping technology, our paths will be projected out in front of us (in a similar style to Google Street View) within the next decade or two.

The most important aspect of Augmentation is really about understanding context. Our environments are full of information, but most of this information isn’t digital yet. As we increasingly use smart devices that connect to the web and introduce sensors such as RFID and teens with camera phones into our environments, there will be much more information for us to work with and contextualize. As the web becomes something that is all around us rather then something just inside the computer screen, the goal behind Augmented Reality is to make it easy to understand and visualize all this information at the appropriate times.

One of the most powerful examples of Augmentation that is often overlooked, is the friends list on social networking sites. This form of Augmentation makes it easy for us to see not only our relationships, but the relationships between other people in the network. As members of our network interact with each other, we can then visually gauge the quality of those relationships as well. By having all this data out there in a way that we can understand, we’re also beginning to interact with each other in new ways. In much the same way, as our environments become even more connected to the web and our mobile devices more capable, we will begin to interact with our environments in new and more intelligent ways.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is at the top of the list of favorite movies for every person in my house. It is at the top of my husband’s list. So when I saw the teaser for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 2 I was excited to send it to him.

This 10 second teaser is enough to make anyone think that there is a sequel coming. We were so excited! We were planning on making it a family day off and theme an entire day around the new movie.

Today I saw a video that was over 2 min and I thought it was more of the movie trailer…and that is when the disappointment set in.

I had to break it to my husband that it was just a car commercial. I am not sure how long it will take him to get over it. And the lingering feelings toward Honda are not positive.

Overall it is a great commercial, but the release of the teaser back fired on Honda, at least in this family. What do you think?

What do you need to run a successful social media campaign? Time and money.

You need time to research the web, get to know the people you want to connect with, develop your message, and build relationships based on mutual trust and values.

You need money for advertising, landing pages, applications, multimedia, and any other flashy gizmos.

There are very few organizations that have very much time or money to dedicate to a social media campaign. Oftentimes they wil contribute what resources they can, watch their campaign flap around like a fish out of water and then declare defeat.

If you have little time and money, it is best to double up on one and go little to none on the other. There are many free sites and tools available and most campaigns can be run without spending money on advertising, landing pages and so forth. However you will need to double or maybe triple the time you spend creating content, engaging in dialog, and promoting your efforts throughout social networks. You will also need to allocate time upfront to develop realistic goals and milestones that map to your actions and results on a weekly basis.

If your boss knocks on your door and tells you there is an event happening next week that he wants you to promote via social media, and you do not already have an engaged community you can work with, ask for a big check. You can be successful in social media within a short period of time if you are able to buy some attention. This is more than buying advertising space, you will need to get some creative folks involved as well.

If you find yourself without time or money and with a demanding boss who wants to see this social media stuff work, no need to fret. Set up appropriate expectations. What can you get done in a week and how does the value of what you accomplish relate to the ROI of traditional communications. For example can you find the right people are twitter to mention your initiative? Can you align with a partner who has a large Facebook fan base? Can you make your initiative news worthy and get the attention of the media? When it comes time to report your results, highlight how social media outperformed the expected results of traditional communications. For example your Cost Per Impression in social media vs traditional advertising might be much lower. Also explain how social media efforts can be even more successful give more time or more money.

However, if you start spending the time upfront to build and nurture your community the majority of your work will be done when you boss ask you to work miracles without a wand.

- to be prepared is half the victory.
Miguel de Cervantes

2. Mix in something cute. In 2011 it was a cute kid, this year it is puppy dogs.

3. Release the ad before Super Bowl Sunday.

4. Brand the song not the car….?

I wrote this post in October of 2006. Five years later I think it still serves as a good reminder.

“Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses – for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it…” -Herman Melville

To define Social Networks, it is appropriate to turn to Wikipedia. Despite the ongoing debate regarding the accuracy of wikipedia, it is the approriate source to turn to because it is built by a social network of people who willingly share their knowledge and insights for the common good of raising awareness and understanding.

The wikipedia definition I find appropriate is: “Social network analysis (related to network theory) has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology, anthropology, geography, social psychology, information science and organizational studies, as well as a popular topic of speculation and study. Research in a number of academic fields have shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.”

Put simply, Social Networks are about how individuals communicate and interact with each other in their quest to reach a certain goal.

Well, it seems simple until you look up the definition of communication. There seems to be an unlimited amount of studies and types of communication as well as communication barriers.

Yet people have a great longing to be heard and to connect with other people who understand them and share similar interests. Perhaps that is why there seems to be an unlimited amount of social network sites popping up and being populated at an unprecedent speed.

Seth Godin has created a great chart (link has since died) that monitors the growth of the top social sites. For those who are seeking to profit from such sites, watching  Seth’s chart may feel like watching stocks being traded.

But have your consumers and clients gathered on these sites just so that they can become an easy target for advertising?

A little over a year ago, I started to observe that people are tired of being sold to, but everyone is longing for a connection. I wrote an article titled “Technology Redefines the Role of Sales and Advertising” which was the catalyst that launched this company.

What I was discovering and have since discovered is that the Internet has evolved in such a way that we are able to find and connect with people of like minds and like interest. Through simple searches and peer to peer connections people are discovering vast amounts of information, entertainment, and inspiration that is relevant to them. They are developing trusting relationships with people from all over the world and communicating ideas, sharing secrets, and getting advice.

Those of us in marketing (myself included) exclaimed, “wow! focus groups, behavior targeting, improved metrics, and word of mouth marketing on steriods.” But these sites were not originally created to segment us into groups of target audiences. These sites are intended to be a community.

As stated in The Cluetrain Manifesto, “The Internet became a place where people could talk to other people without constraint.”

For the most part, those participating in online social networks welcome the targeted ads. It helps pay for the space they are playing in and they can discover new services and products of which they talk about and share ideas and stories about.

The question is, are the advertisers listening? There is a great conversation going on, and it may be relevant to you. You can join in if you follow the rules of authenticity and sincere interest.

The marketplace has never really been B2B or B2C, it has always been about p2p, people to people and the relationships and trust they develop. The Internet is bringing us back to that reality.