Using social networks for social change: Facebook, MySpace and more
By
ivan Edited on
Jul 14, 2022 12 min read
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Summary
Some successful approaches for nonprofits in using social media for membership development, advocacy and fundraising.
I spoke at the
2008 Democracy in Action Community Conference
about the Genocide Intervention Network’s use of social networking and social
media to achieve our goals in advocacy, fundraising and membership development.
Using Social Networks for Social Change: Facebook, MySpace and More
I had planned to present a slideshow along with my talk, but in fact, technical
difficulties prevented me from doing so. The
presentation posted on Slideshare
is thus a recreation of that talk, with the audio keyed to the slides. (Update
July 14, 2022: Some years back, Slideshare deleted all audio from presentations.
At some point I recovered the audio, but in the intervening time I appear to
have lost it again. Apologies!) For those of you who prefer things in textual
form, I’ll write out most of it below, but I encourage you to at least page
through the slides for the pictures.
Many of the points I make in the presentation draw on things I’ve written on
this site; I’ve linked to some of these articles in the body of the presentation
below.
The
Genocide Intervention Network
is an organization that I helped form in college, and where I worked as director
of communications and Internet strategy coordinator from 2004–2008. The mission
of the organization is to empower members with tools to prevent and stop
genocide.
The idea of “empowerment” is key to the organization’s mission, and
undergirds our approach to social networks and social media. GI-Net wants
members who can
think for themselves,
and consequently social networking is a key method by which the organization
helps train supporters to speak for themselves, for us, and for an anti-genocide
movement.
Many groups use social networks for mobilizing – getting members out to an
evnt, getting people to sign a petition, getting people to donate for a cause.
GI-Net focuses on organizing – creating an educated constituency of people
who can motivate others.
When we first arrived on
Facebook
in 2005, for example, there were already dozens of groups about the genocide in
Darfur, Sudan. So it was much more about giving supporters tools to take
effective action than it was about convincing people to join our cause. Social
networks are an integral part of an organizing strategy, because communication
and engagement are what they’re all about.
Weaving Your Social Web
The dynamics and demographics of each social network are different – what may
make sense on MySpace could be seen as annoying on Facebook. If you have a
specific niche, you might try focused networks like
BlackPlanet,
Eons,
GLEE,
WiserEarth
or The Hub(Update, Aug. 18, 2010:
The Hub has been retired).
For a sociological study of these different kinds of networks, check out the
writings of danah boyd. Interestingly,
many nonprofit professionals see Facebook as the “more interesting” or “more
useful” social network as compared to MySpace, and that’s largely because,
indeed, Facebook is designed to appeal to the predominant class and educational
backgrounds of these folks. Depending on an organization’s constituency,
however, MySpace might actually be a better way to reach your supporters. Don’t
decide where to organize online based on which site you or your executive
director personally think is most appealing.
When you’re determining which network(s) to organize on, the key thing to
remember is that you don’t have to be everywhere. In fact, it’s often better
if you start with just one – get your bearings, try out some different
approaches, and become thoughtfully engaged with your community of supporters
there. You need to make a commitment to each network you join; there’s nothing
worse (or more unprofessional looking) than a clearly-abandoned organizational
profile, where messages go unanswered and spam comments go unmoderated.
Social Media and Social Networks
Social media (e.g. YouTube and Flickr) often integrate particularly well with
social networks (e.g. Facebook and MySpace), as a way to help engage members and
heighten interest. Why not simply upload your own images and host your own
videos? The “social” in social media ensures that, if you post your media with
useful titles, descriptions and keywords, other people may well discover you who
wouldn’t otherwise have encountered you – and you’ll draw them further into
your social web.
Using Videos on MySpace
When we first put our profile up on
MySpace,
we were getting one or two friend requests a day, and that’s not too bad for
just starting off. As soon as we put up a short video about the organization –
posted via YouTube, in the
hopes of drawing in people from that site as well – our friend requests went up
to 10–15 per day. Supporters could embed the videos in their own profiles
themselves. That’s the advantage of social media in social networks: People
are drawn to photos and video, and the nature of social networking allows them
to easily share them with friends.
Keys to Success on Social Networks
It’s about member engagement.
You might notice there’s only one key: Facilitating conversations between and
among your supporters. Ultimately, getting an excited base of supporters
begins with having them talk to each other about what they’re doing around an
issue.
It’s really not a billboard. You need to cultivate relationships with your
supporters.
The Money Thing
Social networks are not going to replace your development director. Even when
you do raise money, it’s usually more about member engagement than it is about a
significant revenue stream. GI-Net’s experience with Causes, a platform on
Facebook and MySpace, was that “fundraisers” were actually a great way to give
supporters something concrete to work toward – but that it hasn’t been a very
significant source of donations. Nonetheless, the social aspect to it ensures
that members who do participate become even more engaged and are often willing
to help spearhead the next advocacy campaign.
The top Cause on Facebook had, as of June 2008, more than 3 million members but
only raised about $50,000; the vast majority of nonprofits using Causes hadn’t
raised more than a few hundred dollars. Innovative fundraising campaigns using
social networks may bear fruit financially, but member engagement is almost
always going to be the primary goal in the end.
Let Your People Speak…
Causes is also a good illustration of another point: You need to let your
supporters speak for you on social networks. GI-Net set up an “official” Cause
on Facebook, but a member-created Cause benefiting us has more than twice the
number of supporters. We could have tried to shut down the unofficial group in
an effort to control our message, but instead we reached out to the creator –
who was more than willing to send out alerts anyway – and found ways to engage
our supporters while still recognizing their own creativity.
The whole point of the social experience is the coveted “recommendation from a
friend.” Forcing your members to send out only board-approved talking points
won’t inspire much loyalty, and probably won’t be very persuasive to their
friends. Nonprofits have to be willing to
lose some of their message
control in exchange for member loyalty. Trust me – it’s worth the trade-off.
…And Then Listen to What They Say
On our MySpace profile, we have a prominent newsletter-signup form at the top of
the screen. But we don’t simply cut-and-paste our blast emails directly to the
MySpace crowd. For one of our MySpace blogs, we said the following:
Are you active in your community on anti-genocide issues? Raising money for
civilian protection in Darfur – educating your neighbors about the mass
atrocities in Burma – working to pass divestment from Sudan in your state?
Leave us a comment and describe what you’re doing!
We want you in our top friends!
In the coming weeks, we’ll be rotating in all of our MySpace friends who are
active on anti-genocide issues into our top friends. You’ve been supporting
us, now we want to support you!
On MySpace, putting someone in your “top friends” is a way of showing thanks and
respect, and it was an easy thing to do. We heard from a dozen different local
activists who were all featured, some of whom ended up being key leaders on
future advocacy campaigns. Show your supporters that you’re listening to them,
and they’ll reward you!
This approach – what’s sometimes called “user-generated content” – is a
fantastic way to converse with supporters on social networks. Ask people for
their stories, photos, videos or other creative work, and then feature some or
all of that content. You’ll end up with more dedicated members who are willing
to take the next step; after having been engaged on a small issue (“take a
picture of your fundraiser for Darfur”) they’ll be willing to lead on a larger
one (“help organize a local visit to your member of Congress”).
Success Story 1: Using Online Student Pressure to Pass Legislation
In 2005, there was an anti-genocide bill that was being held up by a Senate
committee chair. Using Facebook, GI-Net identified and reached out to students
in that senator’s home state.
Instead of having the students contact the senator directly, we guided the
students in a process of using the website
OpenSecrets.org to determine the senator’s top
campaign donors. The students called those donors and asked them to contact
the senator and say that standing up against genocide is a moral imperative, and
that the senator should move the bill.
The result: Two weeks later, the bill was passed by the committee, was approved
by the full Senate, and eventually was signed into law.
Success Story 2: A Photo Petition Puts Students at the Heart of a Congressional Briefing
GI-Net’s student division, STAND, initiated a campaign
called “Picture a World Without Genocide,” in which they encouraged high school
students to submit photos via Facebook and MySpace of their activism on Darfur.
Hundreds of pictures were collected and compiled into a large poster spelling
out the word “Darfur.”
We presented this poster at a Capitol Hill briefing, in conjunction with a
report we were releasing about congressional action on Darfur. We had prepared
the report, and originally we were going to do a traditional press conference in
which we called out Congress for their inaction.
We decided to couple the release of this report with this visible manifestation
of student activism, as a way to keep our members engaged. In the weeks
following the event, the numbers of co-sponsors for key legislation increased
substantially – and because students had been “part of the action,” they were
able to claim part of the victory.
In fact, even if no new co-sponsors had signed on, the action still would have
been a great way to activate supporters, so it was really a no-lose campaign for
us.
A Worldwide Photo Gallery in 24 Hours
When coordinated rallies focusing on Darfur were set up by the
Save Darfur Coalition
(of which GI-Net is a part), we encouraged our members to take part – and take
pictures. Then we had them upload their images to the photosharing site
Flickr, along with a special
tag, or keyword, for that event. Using Flickr’s own system, we could then pull
images with that tag onto GI-Net’s website in a constantly-updated, rotating
gallery of Darfur activism the day after the event.
Total time on our part? About 15 minutes to write the email to our members, and
10 minutes to put the gallery on our website.
Success Story 3: How Social Networks Can Coordinate a Fundraising Drive
STAND’s annual “DarfurFast” encourages students on one day to refrain from one
luxury item, and donate the proceeds to GI-Net’s Darfur protection program. We
engage people around the campaign on several different channels, including
Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal and
Twitter.
Social networks were a key way to keep supporters engaged – as well as inviting
friends on campus to take part in the real-world upcoming events. The key is
that the person-to-person networks already existed in the form of chapters and
campus networks; online social networks simply facilitated an easier
invitation to friends.
So, we raised more than $500,000 over the course of three years with this event;
2007 saw participation from 450 high schools and 300 colleges. But it’s very
unlikely we would have ever raised that kind of money via Facebook et al. alone
– the online social networks simply supplemented the on-the-ground organizing
we (and campus leaders) had already been doing. In fact, online social networks
are probably most strategically useful when the event is offline, allowing
supporters to quickly spread the word well ahead of time.
It’s worth mentioning that many of these methods worked particularly well
because they centered on students, who are most active on these networks,
generally have easy access to computers and are more likely to have free time.
While GI-Net has a constituency far beyond students alone (and sometimes reaches
those constituencies directly through networks like Eons), you shouldn’t
necessarily expect these kinds of returns from everyone. As noted above,
working-class communities, communities of color, folks with less formal
education and various kinds of “marginalized” groups interact with online social
networks very differently, often because of stronger real-world social networks.
The best organizing strategy activates people through all their social
connections, whether online or offline.
Final Thoughts
Engaging supporters on social networks is long-term. Don’t expect
immediate results.
It takes effort. You need to be willing to communicate, in both
directions, with your supporters.
If you want your members to spread your message, you have to trust them.
Feedback in the comments below is welcome! And once again, let me encourage you
to take a look at the
Slideshare version
(or PDF) for illustrations of
what’s been discussed. Thanks for reading!
Additional Resources
Check out these writers for great ideas on how nonprofits can use social
networks to their greatest potential:
Heather Mansfield
writes about best practices for nonprofit use of social networks
Beth Kanter writes about innovative ways
nonprofits are using social media
