Into the Void of Social Media

September 29, 2010 1:58 PM

Social Media Groupies: I need ideas and input for implementing a process for creating and maintaining content for a fundraiser.

I'm starting some research into how some of the Pros use social media for their business, but my case is a bit different. I'm in charge of a large ($250k +) fundraising event that will take place in March 2011 in my city.

Previously at this event, my organization has never tried using new methods of reaching guests, or emailing them to build excitement about auction items or to keep them engaged after it ended. I want to change that.

My goals at the moment are to:
1.) Create, manage and distribute blog, Twitter and Flickr content leading up to the event that will build excitement;
2.) Get as much Facebook, Flickr and Twitter involvement from our guests at this event as I possibly can to give it a different edge;
3.) Create buy-in from the guests to sign up for email newsletters post event, or (more importantly) to enroll/commit to monthly donations online;
4.) Do this year round, so that we continue to maintain relationships with these people rather than just let them fall off the radar after the event ends.

Any thoughts, guidance or helpful reading materials are welcomed from the Hive Mind.

posted by glaucon to Work & Money (2 answers total)

Best answer: I'm not really sure what you're asking here - there doesn't seem to be a question.

The plan looks fine; here's some feedback:

#2 Unless you're attracting a very wired crowd, people are usually more focused on being at the even than tweeting that they're at the event. Even when I go to really tech-heavy conferences, the number of people tweeting (while noisy and oft-retweeted by online observers) is low compared to the total number of attendees.

If you really care about this, make sure the event itself has a Twitter account that is staffed on the day by a clueful soul.

The converse of this is that if you build buzz for an event through social media engagement, you setup an expectation about that engagement. If someone tweets @yourevent what time is the break for lunch? and you have abandoned your twitter account for the day to staff the actual event, that's really not good. I have failed here when organisaing events and now always assign someone as the Twitter/Facebook babysitter for the day as their only job.

#1 We could be here all day. Push blog posts to FB and Twitter, obviously, but make sure you have a good ratio of content of interest that isn't just blog posts.

#3 No. Start building the list and doing mailings now. Assign budget and do it properly with Mail Chimp (don't like) or Campaign Monitor (love love love). Do not blow your brand with a poor mailing strategy executed from Outlook. Do not over-saturate your brand with frequent mailings - maybe once a month now, twice a month after Christmas, and weekly in the last three weeks. [Self link: List Building 101] Consider flat monthly pricing - it's new and dear God is it cheap for the volume.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:37 PM on September 29, 2010

Response by poster: Thank you so much DarlingBri. In rereading I realized it was a bit less question than I had thought.

I really appreciate your input - especially the FB abd Twitter babysitter.
posted by glaucon at 5:43 AM on September 30, 2010