Maximising social media During Dying Matters Awareness Week What is social media?
Social media = websites that use user-generated content. While traditional media is controlled by editors, social media allows users to dictate the agenda. Is social media important?
What are the challenges?
1. Which social media sites to target/lack of know-how 2. Lack of resource 3. Finding your voice
1. Most popular sites
Source: ‘About That First Tweet’, Unity Trust Bank. Survey of 186 charities and social enterprises UK-wide with annual turnover of less than £5million (79% with a turnover under £1million) Which sites for which activities?
YOUR AIM SUGGESTED CHANNEL To get people to sign up to a Facebook, Twitter campaign/pledge To attract donations Facebook, Twitter To show progress/demonstrate impact Flickr, Facebook, YouTube To alert people to events or activities Upcoming, Meetup, Twitter To build communities Facebook, My Space, Bebo, Twitter Web feedback forms - e.g Survey To get feedback Monkey To recruit volunteers Facebook, Twitter To recruit staff LinkedIn To showcase work/grab attention Pinterest, Instagram What Dying Matters uses
1. You don’t need a presence on every social media platform. 2. Choose the outlets that are popular with your intended 3. audience.
4. By finding the right platforms to reach your target audience 5. you can limit the time spent on social media. Awareness Week social media impact How we did 2011/2012 New followers
400 350 300 250
200 New followers 150 100 50 0 2011 2011 Twitter 2012 2012 Twitter Facebook Facebook Number of tweets before, during and after Awareness Week 2012
Hashtag High Point The hashtag #DyingMatters was used more than 300 times on the first day of 2012 Dying Matters Awareness Week Awareness Week social media impact
5000 4500 4000 3500 3000 Number of views 2500 2000 Number of videos 1500 1000 Astonishing fact: our 500 YouTube views went up 0 3,000+ % year-on-year YouTube 2011 YouTube 2012 Awareness Week social media impact Traffic to Dyingmatters.org
50000
40000
30000 Unique visitors
20000 Total page impressions 10000 46% of our 2012 0 referral traffic 2011 2012 was generated by social media, Unique users up 60% year-on-year with Facebook Page impressions up 230% year-on-year leading the way. Find your voice
• Connect with people in a real way. • Don’t broadcast – communicate. • Reach out to your community. • Show people the real you. • Go off agenda occasionally. • Celebrate individuals. • Be careful what you post – and check your grammar. • Don’t overthink it! Measuring your impact
• Twitter Counter – predicts how many followers you will reach by when.
• Future Tweets – lets you schedule release of tweets.
• Topsy – unlike most other hashtag tracking services, this allows long-term analysis FREE.
Final Tweet competition What would you say if you had one last tweet?
• Being launched soon!
• Results announced during Awareness Week
• Hashtag = #FinalTweet
• Promotion through partner organisations, writing clubs and the media “Money • Winning and shortlisted tweets will be published can’t buy in a Dying Matters produced collection. you life.”
"I'm "My wallpaper and I are fighting a "Am I dying or is this going my birthday?" duel to the death. One or the other away of us has to go." tonight."
”Goodnight my darlings, "That was a great “I must go in, the I'll see you tomorrow." game of golf, fog is rising.” fellers." Final Chapters 2012
• Launched to push against the taboos of talking about death, dying and bereavement.
• Attracted nearly 1,400 entries.
• High profile awards event.
• Christopher Owen, an actor and writer, won with ‘An Honourable Life’.
• Winning entries have been printed in a book, Final Chapters, RRP £6.00, available from the National Council for Palliative Care website shop: shop.ncpc.org.uk/public/shop/ 5 top tips for supporting Awareness Week
1. Use the hashtag #DyingMatters if you’re tweeting generally, #FinalTweet if you’re tweeting about or entering our competition.
2. Clearly state what you want people to do. Don’t say “tweet about this campaign”– give them the wording.
3. Include personal stories and case studies - great way to give your campaign an emotional edge.
4. Post regularly but don’t overload your followers – you’ll risk alienating them.
5. Running an event? Post images on Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest.
Social media – it IS big, but it isn’t scary
#DyingMatters