Where are you on the social media learning curve?

6 easy ways to start Tweeting

Have you started Tweeting? Have you started and then stopped? No worries. Everyone needs a nudge sometimes.

The idea for this post came from a nudge I gave one of my clients. He set himself up with a Twitter account a few months ago. But instead of diving in, he started by following some people, businesses and organizations and watched their Twitter behaviour. He was trying to learn “the right way” to use Twitter.

I think learning the etiquette of a platform is really important and I even encouraged him to spend an afternoon looking at people’s feeds, finding out his likes and dislikes about how people use the tool and watching interactions between people. But eventually, you just have to give it a try and see what happens. There is no “right way”, but the more you use it, the more you know what’s right for you (more on that in another post.)

Anyway, a couple of months went by and I noticed that my client was still just watching the tweets go by. I nudged him to “get in the conversation.” He really appreciated the advice I gave him to get him going, so I’m sharing it with you.

Stop being precious – just tweet! What ever you write will disappear on people’s feeds in no time and the more you tweet the faster things disappear on your profile page too.

Painters who wait for the perfect idea never paint anything. The ones who paint every day produce enough work (good and bad) that through simple odds they are going to create a ton of great work, and the boring stuff soon fades into the background. Stop waiting for your perfect tweet!

6 Easy Ways to Start Tweeting (or End Tweeter’s Block)

1. Ask questions – Use a question to get people thinking about something, or to genuinely ask for input.
   Tweet: Who tells people they can’t make mistakes? No one. So why do we think that?
2. Offer an answer – think about the articles on your blog as answers to questions. Pose the question on Twitter with a link to the article as your answer.
   Tweet: Does exercise really boost brain power?  Yes, the research is in http://ow.ly/2k4g3
3. Make a funny quip out of a reminder – remind people about something, but make it light and fun.
   Tweet: “It’s 3:00. Do you know where your water glass is?”
4. Retweet something – it is so easy to just share something interesting you read in your feed (and promote someone else in the process).
5. Share little moments – something about your work life or your home life to give people a glimpse of what’s up with you. Don’t bother with every detail of your day, but little moments here and there help people feel connected.
   Tweet: “Daddy, Mommy is so funny. She told the neighbours she has a 40 year old baby.” Yes, my friend’s 5-year old just said that to him. Hehehe.
6. Share research – if you look something up online share the link. Why not? You’ve done the work. Share it.
   Tweet: cool picture guide to making great coffee with a French Press http://coffeegeek.com/guides/presspot

Bottom lone: JUST TWEET SOMETHING.

My client and I have since talked a fair amount about strategies he can use to make the most of his Twitter time. He uses it pretty regularly now to sign people up for his newsletter, send them to his bog and website, or just to stay connected and visible.

If you are using Twitter as part of a campaign strategy and you find yourself getting blocked, refocus on the thoughts or actions you would ideally like to spark in people. Drift happens. Re-focusing on your goals can get you through just about any campaign blocks.

If you are still stuck, use the list above. In 15 minutes or less, find a way to use each strategy to communicate something that supports your campaign goal. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have written 6 tweets and guess what, you’ll have broken your Tweeter’s block.

Tweet on.

Engage people with Campaign IT Strategy

Last month, while trying to answer the questions “What is a Campaign?” and “How do I get people to join?” I teased you with only 1 of the Five I’s of campaign strategy. I promised that I would deliver the rest this month.

I’m going to do one better. Well, two better actually.

The first 5 I’s listed here are the classic steps to move people through a campaign. The final I and the T I’ve added. I think they are critical for any type of campaign (marketing, election, outreach, fund raising, etc) but I would argue that they are especially critical if you are mounting an online campaign.

Every campaign starts with people and grows with people. Here’s how.

1. Identify: Research is the cornerstone of a campaign. Who wants what you want? Look around and see who’s really around you. How close are they? Where are pockets of new people who have demonstrated an interest in what you do? Be specific. The more specifically you identify people, and targeted groups of people, the more power you have to reach them.

2. Interest: Think about what it will take to attain and maintain the interest of the people you have identified. And think about how you will know if you have captured their interest. Some identifiers are: people don’t hang up on you, people sign up for your e-newsletters, someone asks you to repeat yourself, online search and activity data.

3. Inform: Get people the information that they need to support you, and connect it to the interest they have demonstrated. Use websites, social networking updates, newsletters, meetings, proposals, fliers, events, ads – once someone has demonstrated an interest it is just polite to keep them well-informed, and it keeps them engaged.

I’m a big fan of e-newsletters because you can continuously feed interested people valuable information that keeps them engaged AND you can track their interest with online stats.

For example, we will be keeping NDP supporters in Oak Bay-Gordon Head informed about the issues and events that they responded to during the election. We will also use the e-newsletters to identify people who can be moved to get involved.

4. Involve: This is where things shift. This is where people start doing something for you. A person can demonstrate their involvement in your campaign by inviting you to speak at an event, by making the effort to come to your office to meet, by volunteering, introducing you to people,  using your service, forwarding an email, opening up a discussion by posting a comment on a blog or retweeting an update on twitter. When people get involved, they are active in your community. Some people will inform themselves with information available and  contact you to ask you how they can get involved, but some people need to be asked.

Once you have identified, interested and informed people, it should be quite natural for you to offer to build that relationship by asking them to get involved.

5.    Invest: When you know someone is ready to buy in, make your ask. Ask for their vote, their donation, their purchase, whatever the ultimate goal is – ask. But make sure you’ve done everything you could to ensure that the only natural response will be “yes”, in other words make sure you have successfully moved them through the previous 4 steps.

Bonus Steps

6.    Inspire: Once people know you, and they have invested in you, encourage them to inspire others to move through the cycle. Donors  become canvassers. Voters drive other voters to the polls. And happy customers sell their friends on your product or service. And so the movement grows. But inspiring people to grow a movement takes really deep engagement,  so don’t skip steps.

Ask them explicitly to inspire others. Teach them how to effectively inspire others. Set up systems that make it easy for them to inspire others.  And don’t fall into the trap of thinking that things just “become” viral these days.

7.    Thank: Always say thank you. Don’t ever stop. If someone gives you the gift of breathing life into your organization, or your cause by sharing a little bit of their life with you, they deserve your appreciation. This is totally non-negotiable. Say thank you. A lot.

Why I said yes to Jessica Van der Veen’s political campaign

It’s pretty easy to get me to say yes – if the right person, asks me the right thing, at the right time (the golden rule of fund raising, sales and generally getting what you want in this world).

To illustrate this, I’m going to gush about some campaign work I said “yes” to this spring.

For 4 weeks, I had the privilege of writing for a candidate who ran in BC’s provincial election. I produced an email campaign designed to support her live campaign and we enjoyed solid results:

• online donation spikes

• strong event attendance

• people thanking the candidate for reaching out and making them part of her campaign.

Now, most of what I did, I did from home. Like usual, I had a couple of in person meetings in Victoria, emailed or phoned her staff daily, and wove narratives and arguments to engage her Oak Bay-Gordon Head community from the comfort and calmness of my Gabriola home.

But the last days of her campaign were different. I went to Victoria and camped out with her team for the final push.

With the newsletters written and cued, I was able to say, “Just point me where you need me.” And they did.

I got to help prep Jess for a call-in radio show, to co-write speeches, I went door to door to get out the vote, and on election night, I stood magic-marker-in-hand in the campaign office, capturing poll results as they were phoned in. I loved all of it.

Being a member of Jessica’s campaign team made me feel like I was contributing – not to a party, but to a system that makes it possible for a friend – a woman I admire – to run for office, and to a system that makes it possible for me to help. That’s why I joined her campaign, because I could.

That, and because Jess asked me.

Which reminds me of a classic campaign rule – it is so simple that we sometimes forget it – don’t forget to ask.

What is a campaign? And how do you get people to join you?

What do you think of when you hear the word campaign?

Political? Social justice? Fund raising? Military? Marketing? Save the whales? Sales?
All of the above?

campaign |kam’pān|
noun

a series of operations intended to achieve a particular objective, confined to a particular area, for a specified amount of time and involving a specified form of engagement.

campaign |kam’pān|
verb

to work in an organized and active way toward a goal

Campaigns are dance between people, stories, desires, deeds and time.

When I got my first job in fund raising, I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea of soliciting donations because, gulp someone might say “no”.

Luckily I had a great mentor who put me at ease with this simple statement, “If you are afraid someone will say ‘no’ don’t ask. When you know they are going to say ‘yes’ – ask!”

So how do you know if someone is ready to say yes?

• You know them (their story, desires, abilities & deeds)
• they know you (your story, desires, abilities & deeds)
• you can match their needs with your deeds
• the timing is right (no rushing)
• they are empowered and enabled to act

Moving people to action in any kind of campaign (well OK, maybe not military) requires moving them through: The 5 I’s

1. Identify Find people you know (because you know their their story, desires, abilities and deeds) will take an interest. These are your potential donors, target market, likely voters, etc. Finding them takes time, research and relationship building, but your campaign is no where without these people. (Hint: start with the people who know and love you – lowest hanging fruit.)

For the rest of the 5 I’s, tune in next month – I know I’m terrible. Email me if you (or our campaign) really can’t wait