There’s been an intensive look at the state of social media in the Third Sector going on at the Not For Profit Social Media Conference in London this week and the hashtag’s been #nfpsm for anyone who wants to check it out.
Here’s me and Steve talking a little about this, with many thanks to the marvellous David Wilcox who never eases to amaze me about the things he can do with an ipad. Thanks and appreciation go to everyone who put on and was a part of the making of the forum into a significant stock-taking event, both at the venue and online.
It certainly was a conference full of friends. Steve Bridger did a fabulous keynote and Lucy Buck and Kirsty Stephenson spoke about how the Child’s i Foundation’s campaign to save Joey was so successful through its approach to using social media.
Standing back and taking a look at how the whole thing rolled, it’s encouraging to see how much social media’s being adopted and it was also obvious there’s still a long way to go. The journey from managing social media to being a social organisation, packed with social leaders able to inspire, support and solve big problems collaboratively, is full of opportunity as well as some substantial challenges.
On the opportunity side, much of what’s being done now is largely proprietary and off-the shelf; there’s a road map to follow which is comforting but that also contains the danger of being a bit ‘me too’ in terms of social brand marketing.
NFP’s now have a great basis on which to build on what they’re doing by developing truly differentiated social brand strategies and identities as part of the way they do things. They can develop social values and social cultures capable of creating communities of purpose, belonging and compelling points of difference.
On the challenge side, the scope to welcome, accommodate and adapt to marketing activity coming in from outside the organisation and to embrace the experiences of supporters and volunteers into ongoing product, service and process design has yet to be started in earnest.
Organisations do find it hard to adapt to and embrace all the experiences of those connected with NFPs at the moment much beyond listening and in that sense there’s still a hangover from the old days and sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ to grapple with. I look forward to the day when, for example, community participants in Not for Profits come to these events and talk directly and spontaneously about the difference that their one is making, to them.
Ultimately we think there’s no inside or outside in a social organisation. Yet the architecture of participation at this point is not quite the collaborative dialogue it’s capable of becoming. It’s still about target audiences instead of target moments. Job descriptions remain fixed, corporate reputations struggle with how to accommodate and integrate personal profiles into their own, the scope to build on the kind of affinity that can reshape organisational structure so it’s more fluid is limited. Hopping over the walls of internal departments to contribute to initiatives is often regarded as too provocative and challenging to the status quo.
Making meaning by being better connected at a deep and more intimate social level is a big ask for many brands. Old sector divisions and boundary lines between commercial and not for profit are clearly evident too, just the name of the Third Sector Conference also suggests that. We do rely and need these labels and definitions to a degree as things to hang our hats on of course, but the question around how much these labels help or hinder organisations should be asked as part of where this all goes from here.
Doing the work on business modelling that we do, we know there’s a point to taking another look at the whole way Not for Profits view themselves. To be socially successful as user-centric organisations there isn’t one that shouldn’t be thinking about how they can make their core purpose come alive in the minds of the people who are connected to them as ‘not only for profit’ and ‘beyond profit’ organisations whatever they do, so that they’re fully effective. NFP’s can be social businesses in the pursuit of big important causes. For NFP’s there’s an irony in that being well-meaning isn’t necessarily the whole social story. The organisation, its processes and protocols, overarching strategy and social brand positioning, have to be fit for purpose too.
Adding a social media overlay to a brand won’t make it resonate and make a difference to people at a netroots level, and perhaps that’s the cautionary note of the conference. There’s developing revenue streams and network effects in tandem with partners and advocates to think about, different types of relationships and social technology to embed at deep levels, new ways of working to raise the effectiveness, efficiency and value of social knowledge flows and streams of activity. What happens next in terms of commitment, making the business case and the appetite for being social’s going to be crucial.
