[Dr. Nora Barnes. Photo from her file]
I didn't hear Dr. Nora Barnes' keynote talk at the SNCR Symposium in Boston, last month. Other business took me out of the room. But for the next day-and-a-half, I regretted that. Just about evry attendee I met told me how interesting she had been.
A recognized consumer behavior expert, Dr. Barnes is chancellor professor of marketing and director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Additionally, she consults a diverse portfolio of clients that includes the National Pharmaceutical Council, the Board of Inquiry of the British Parliament, the US Distilled Spirits Council and Scotts Lawn Care. In all she and her students have provided marketing research for over 200 small businesses and in her spare time, she has pumped out over 125 articles for professional and academic journals.
She addressed none of that in her talk to SNCR Symposium attendees. There she told the audience comprised mostly of marketing professionals about an area that the private sector often overlooks: charities. Barnes and colleague Eric Mattson surveyed 76 of America's largest charities regarding social media and came up with a very surprising result. In terms of social media, the charities are well ahead of the private sector in engaging their communities.
Here are my questions and her answers:
Q1. You and your students generally consult businesses. What made you undertake this study of charities?
Actually, we studied businesses first. In the fall of 2006, Eric and I surveyed the Inc. 500, the fastest growing private businesses in the US. Our thought was that they might be the leading edge of social media adoption, and that turned out to be true.
While about 9% of the Fortune 500 were blogging, 19% of the Inc. 500 companies had a
corporate, public facing blog. We were excited and curious about what was happening in other sectors of the economy. The list of Forbes top 200 came out and we decided to survey them in the Spring of 2007.
Q2 Can you give me a quick summary of how familiar you found charities were with social media in general? What tools do they favor?
While these organizations are known for their nonprofit status and their fundraising campaigns, they demonstrate an acute awareness of the importance of Web 2.0 strategies in meeting their objectives.
Seventy-five percent of the charitable organizations studied are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. More than a third are blogging. Forty-six percent of those studied report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy.
The social media that is most familiar to the Forbes 200 charities is blogging with 62% of respondents claiming to be very familiar with it. It is interesting to note that US businesses as well as colleges and universities tended to be far less familiar with podcasting than the charities studied here. Charities are very likely to have video blogging, blogging, podcasting and social networking sites.
Q3 Can you generally describe how charities use social media? Is it primarily for fund raising?
It is NOT primarily for fund raising. The blogs serve many purposes. Many post about their work, tell stories about recent assistance provided or special events they have hosted. There are also blogs dedicated to patients, victims, their families etc. where those groups can talk to each other. The blogs are used as conversation mechanisms and to help create awareness.
Q4 You generally studied America's largest charities. How do you see social media applying to global NGOs and local fundraising drives?
I see social media as a realtime, multifaceted, audio and visual communications opportunity that connects with a constituency in a totally different way than we have become accustomed to. When social media tools are used effectively, they have credibility, passion and power.
These tools can be as effective in the hands of large corporations as they are for NGOs. In order to raise funds, people must understand what it is you do and must feel moved by it. Social
media tools provide a wonderful way to make that happen.
Q5 One of the surprises of your study was the finding that four times as many Forbes 200 charities use blogging as do Fortune 500 corporations. How do you account for this? Isn't the "conventional wisdom" that most non-profits lag in technology adoption?
I’m not sure about conventional wisdom, but I grew up on the East Coast where the sayings is “it’s very slow to turn a big boat around”. In my mind the Fortune 500 are the big boats. They
have a lot of forward momentum and need the help of quite a large staff to change direction.
Charities have worked in the trenches for a long time now and have, over time, become increasingly more sophisticated in their business plans and execution. They have evolved into very respectable business organizations that understand the value of changing direction
quickly. Typically their web sites contain video, podcasts and links to blogs. They appear to really understand the value of social media to their cause.
Q6 Yours was a spot survey, taken over a short period of time. What longterm trends do you detect? How will charities be using social media 2, 5 or 10 years hence?
I’ve always been reluctant to forecast consumer behavior since it is so very dependent of so many other social facets. I think it is safe to say that the American public has embraced the concept of social media and will continue to seek out ways to have meaningful, honest and timely conversations at all levels.
For those of us who have seen the power of these new technologies, it would be hard to retreat. My best guess is that all organizations will need to incorporate social media over the next few years to effectively compete in this environment with newly empowered consumers. Charities
appear to understand that and I think they will set the pace.
Q7 What lessons do you see for the private sector in your findings? What can business learn from your findings?
Businesses need to move forward with social media. Their hesitation is understandable, but all their concerns about lawsuits, managing feedback, measuring success, ROI etc. needs to be addressed and mitigated.
The parade is moving past them. Soon they will be spectators watching no one. There are now examples, research, workshops, best practices, case studies and more on how organizations are using social media. Businesses need to join the conversation or risk becoming
irrelevant.
Q8. What about academia? Not students but teaching institutions? How could they better use social media?
There are at least two issues here. First, higher ed is utilizing social media in its admissions process at almost the same rate as charities according to our latest study of 453 institutions of higher education in the US. About one third of the admissions offices have public facing blogs.
Some have several published by students, faculty and/or the administration. Again, this group is far more involved with social media than are the businesses we’ve studied. The shortcoming
here is in the actual implementation of their admissions blogs, however. We found that only about 60% allowed comments, many did not promote their blog or have plans for the future of their blogs. So while we are seeing adoption of social media in colleges and universities, the actual use may be less than optimal.
The second issue I see at academic institutions is that faculty who study social media and publish results on line, are having some difficulty getting recognized or rewarded for that work under the
traditional guidelines for tenure and promotion. Most schools still look for the traditional, hard copy, academic publication as well as citations in journals or books. For those of us who are linked, pinged, commented on, post or publish in online journals, there is
little or no credit. This creates a barrier for enlisting academic help in the research of social media.
Q9 Is there a next step to your study?
We have decided to circle back around and conduct what will be the first longitudinal study of its kind by taking a second look at the Inc. 500. That study is now a year old. It will be fun to do the
first statistically valid longitudinal study on social media adoption. The plan is to begin calling the new list of the Inc. 500 in February of 2008 with results in early spring.
Q10 Additional comments?
I often feel evangelical about social media. I not only see its power through my studies, but I feel it when I meet at conferences and workshops with others involved in this new communications arena. I have not seen so much excitement and passion about our ability to reach out to others around the globe as I see now. I am absolutely
re-energized about my research and the opportunity I have to work with
people who share a passion and vision for social media..
