Media Trust is spending the day at The Museum of London talking about communications in a digital world. Follow our live blogging below, tweets (MT conf) and on Storify. View the story “Communications for a Digital World #mtconf” on Storify]
Susanna Reid, BBC News Anchor and Chair of today’s conference, by way of introduction, says “Digital communications allow such fantastic interaction and means that by the time I need to interview a minister I may have dozens of case studies to use as examples, which makes our jobs so much easier.”
Jon Snow is up next and he is talking about how NGO’s have more content than they know. The opportunities are there as consumers of media still get the bulk of their news from radio and TV. The Today programme gets 6 million listeners a day and each day they need illustrative content.Media are more and more agents of what charities do. You should be making contact as it’s never been easier to find out who you need to talk to.
Lets talk digital: Jon Snow says it’s important to see the scale of Twitter – you have to rationalise what you do and how many you follow…but it is a fantastic device. It’s not really about 140 characters and more about the possibilities for dissemination, which are endless.
Tweets need to be about material that is in the ether already e.g.The current Europe crisis – send case studies of people impacted. Send to social affairs editors like Channel 4′s Jackie Long. Chime with whats out there and it will get picked up.
Social media is an addiction, but if you channel your energy in the right way for the project your working on, you will be rewarded says Snow.
Jon Snow is very involved with the New Horizons Youth Centre. On the worst days of the summer riots 250 young people visited the centre, and none were involved in rioting because they felt they had a stake in something greater than themselves. Part of your day and part of your week is about communicating this even in an age of cuts.
Next up Dan Sutch, from Nominet Trust
Nominet commissioned a report to find out how they could make the best use of our resources with the internet. Have a look at ww.sidekickschool.org – Nominet is trialling new ways of delivering services and the Side Kick School is their vehicle.
John Taylor, writer of the report takes us through his research:
Nominet looked at a breadth of organisations, from delivering services entirely online to more traditional, but very innovative like British Heart Foundation. Charity sector is slower to adopt innovation in technology. The web is now the cooperative web. A new way of doing things. We need change managers and acceptance of change within organisations.
And crucially there is a question around charities being able to deal with digital information? They must ensure that they know how to deal with data.
Digital Communications with Matt Howarth, Reason Digital, a social enterprise helping charities with their digital work.
Some facts and figures coming up…watch out as it may feel like you’re being hammered with them – but hang on in there, they make a good point.
Charities are needing to, cut print cost, deliver services digital, give supporters the tools and boost individual giving and these stats explain why digital is so important.
- 20% of charity emails get opened
- 10% percent of the world population have a Facebook account
- 56% of charity shops sell online
- 86% of young people will go online rather than asking a family or friend
- 91% of UK adults own a mobile phone
- 50% uk population owns a smartphone
- Red nose day 1/5 donations came through mobiles
- 1 in 7 of public made a donation by text last month
- Average online donation is £30.
Matt has some key trend for 2012 that he thinks we should all take notice of:
Responsive design: Apps that adapt to where the person is browsing, e.g. on a mobile. Digital giving is dramatically changing. 34% would switch to another org if they can’t donate online. Digital giving is becoming just giving.
Slacktavisim: people love to be seen to be interested in charities, but getting people to volunteer is still hard. However if we spin the way we look at people who use social media are more engaged…If we view them as the start of the relationship. Find ways to get people onto journeys. Build the relationship to get them active.
Gamification – another tool that charities are using to engage. My Farm by National Trust.
- 40% of online have signed petition.
- 15% have urged somone to get in touch with their MP.
- Organisations are arising from social media e.g. 37 degrees,UK Uncut.
Incurable Optimism afternoon session with MND, Case studies of great content and vehicles. PR Manager, Mel- The aim of our campaign was to raise awareness, give new supporters and bring in new people to the organisation. MND had very little experience of social media and took the plunge in Jun 2010 with a campaign that would have:
- Human interest that would generate media coverage
- A campaign that would work well on and off line
- Something that could spread optimism.
MND came across Patrick aged 39 an artist and committed to campaigning. He challenged himself to paint 100 incurable optimists before he lost the ability to paint.
A powerful advert was teased before the launch of the advert. MND secured London Underground space and they set up a high quality blog with space for people to post messages of support. This meant that MND could access new supporters. The blog cross populated with MND Facebook page.The team mapped who was following and could make offline approaches to build relationships.
MND achieved a large amount of coverage. So much so that they replicated the campaign in 2011. They found a new ‘character’ and used posters for Alastair, a musician. They achieved some fantastic traffic flows and support as well as some great coverage.
Campaign raised £90,000 and an increase of 2% in total awareness raised.
Nick Torday – Sift Groups, an agency assisting charities with online and digital campaigns.
Nick’s checklist for online campaigns:
- Digital cuts across areas of an organisation.
- Call to action activism – ‘clicktivism’
- Influencing policy and public opinion
- fundraising – sometimes a secondary objective, your creating engagement and a narrative you can then build to the ask
- Promotion of an event that your generating content for.
- Ideas
- Audience first/message second
- Contact cards and punchy messaging and inclusive
- Ensure low barriers to entry
- Don’t get hung up on VIRAL!
- Portable content is vital – it can shared across different platforms
- what are you going to do with response, capture excitement and move it on.
What come out the other end of the digital machine? DATA. Capture email addresses and build on that knowledge and understanding. PR traction will be there with a great digital campaign. Brand and relationships can also be built over a long running campaign, to be nurtured. If you’re lucky, you’ll achieve fundraising targets, but again this needs to be secondary.
Case Study: Scope did a fantastic campaign, sending volunteers round London, physically tagging anything that was not accessible for people with disabilities. At the same time they were being geotagged online. As they went around the city there activity spelt out ‘EQUALITY’ across the map. Followed by a film crew they made a film of the day and it ran on London Tonight at the end of the day.
- Community – existing groups and harnessing them as well as creating new ones.
- Content – video is an important medium by showing rather than telling. You have also got to consider user generated content.
- Conversation – planning is key.Shape existing conversations as well as stimulating and continuing them.
- speed – the demand for speed is increasing 60% increase in demand for bandwidth every year. By 2020 we’ll be looking at 1gig speeds.
- Mobility – The PC as primary access point to the internet is dying swiftly.”
- White paper by the spring – take measures that will help growth in digital industries.
- Media regulation
- Parents and customers can have protection online.
- Social – 1/4 of time spent online is spent on social sites. Push has gone, and people are participating on their own terms.
- Local – 1 in 5 desk top searches are local – 1 in 3 mobile searches are local. 69% of mob wifi users are willing to share their location. People have access to local information so you need to think about who they are, where they are and what you want from them.
- Mobile – 5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide. 20 million connecting to internet on phones. Google is getting 15% of its searches from mobiles. Google Wallet – use your mobile to swipe like an Oyster card. ‘It’s not too late to be early.’
- Video – goes across both social and local as well as mobile.
- Mark gives a little plug for Google+
