Tweet Smarter, Not Harder: Methodology and Impact of a Social Media Project to Encourage Savings

Barbara O’Neill, Andrew Zumwalt, Rebecca Travnichek, Michael Gutter

eXtension Financial Security for All (FSA)Community of Practice

Workshop Objective

Discuss pilot test of the FSA

CoP’s ability to implement and

evaluate a national social media

financial education project.

Program Description

– National grant-funded social media outreach project to promote savings

• $1,200 mini-grant for America Saves Week 2011

– Greatly elevated the social media capacity of the FSA CoP

– Use a triangulation (multiple methods) evaluation approach

Definition of Social Media

Digital networks (blogs, Facebook, Farmville, Twitter, wikis, YouTube) that enable people to:

– Organize

– Socialize

– Learn

– Play

– Participate in e-Commerce transactions

IF FACEBOOK WERE A COUNTRY, IT WOULD BE THE THIRD LARGEST. THERE ARE

MORE FACEBOOK USERS THAN PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE WORLD’S SECOND MOST POPULAR SEARCH ENGINE IS

YOUTUBE.

MORE THAN 75 MILLION PEOPLE WERE ON TWITTER in 2009 (and

over 200 million in December 2010) AND IT IS GROWING

FASTER THAN ANY OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE,

ESPECIALLY AMONG 50-SOMETHINGS

Four-Step Project Methodology

• FSA CoP social media capacity needs assessment (survey)

• FSA CoP capacity–building training

• Program implementation and delivery

• Triangulated impact evaluation assessment

CoP Capacity Survey Topics

• Social media tools used

• Frequency of use

• Description of content posted

• Number of friends/followers

• Social media impact evaluation methods

Use of Social Media by FSA CoP

Frequency of Social Media Use by Extension Family Economics Educators (N =45)

Social Media Site Almost Daily Frequently Sometimes Rarely Never

Facebook 42% 20% 22% 9% 7%

Twitter 7% 14% 2% 39% 39%

YouTube 5% 25% 48% 16% 7%

Blog (any) 5% 5% 35% 7% 49%

Linked In 2% 11% 20% 27% 39%

Flickr 0% 0% 7% 19% 74%

Plaxo 0% 0% 7% 0% 93%

My Space 0% 0% 0% 9% 91%

Digg 0% 0% 0% 5% 95%

Subsequent FSA CoP Social Media Webinar

How to Use and Evaluate Social Media in Financial Education

Duration: 01:28:44

URL for Viewing: https://connect.extension.iastate.edu/p52944724/

FSA CoP Social Media Webinar Topics

• How to use Twitter

• How to use Facebook

• How to assess social media outreach and influence

Project Implementation

• 70 Facebook messages and 70 tweets

– Saving, debt/expense reduction, America Saves, ASW

• 94 project cooperators

– From eXtension, Saves campaigns, military, others

• One of first financial education social media projects EVER with a focused evaluation methodology

Sample Facebook Messages• Save your loose change! According to America Saves, saving fifty cents a day

over the course of a year will allow you to save nearly 40% of a $500 emergency fund. Remember, small changes equal big savings! For more information, visit http://bit.ly/fHbGQy.

• Do you keep track of your spending?  The America Saves program suggests that you review your purchases using credit and debit card receipts, bank statements, and/or online records. Then, ask yourself if you should reallocate some of this spending to an emergency savings account. For more savings tips, visit: http://bit.ly/fLuD29.

• Need help establishing a budget? America Saves offers this great tip: Beginning on the first day of a new month, track everything you purchase. Then, review your list at the end of the month. It will be much easier to make a budget once you see where your money is going. For more savings tips, visit: http://bit.ly/fLuD29.

• Want to save money? Take advantage of discounts and/or incentive programs provided through your employer. Many companies offer discounted rates for computers, fitness center memberships, movie tickets, hotels, cellular services, and more. Talk to your human resources representative to see what perks your company offers. For more savings tips, visit: http://bit.ly/fLuD29.

Sample Tweets• Save loose change. Saving $1 + change/day allows u 2 save $500/yr.

Small changes=big savings! For more info, http://bit.ly/ASaves #eXasw

• Do u track your spending? America Saves says 2 review monthly purchases & put $ into savings. For more info, http://bit.ly/ASaves #eXasw

• Save >$2/day buying coffee vs. latte. In 1 year, you could “find” $500 to save. Wake up & smell the coffee! http://bit.ly/ASEnroll #eXasw

• Keep your car engine tuned & tires inflated to proper pressure to save >$100/yr in gas, says America Saves: http://bit.ly/ASTips #eXasw

• Consider nixing cable movies. This saves >$500/yr. Use local $1 movie kiosks instead. For more saving info, http://bit.ly/ASaves #eXasw

• Avoid expensive purchases on impulse. Think it over for 24 hours. Avoid buyer’s remorse & save $$. More tips: http://bit.ly/ASTips #eXasw

Triangulation (Multiple Methods) Evaluation Approach

• Unique Twitter hashtag: #eXasw

• Follow-up follower/friend survey

• Follow-up project participant survey

• bit.ly analytics to determine number of clicks on unique embedded links

• Pre- and post-ASW Twitter influence metrics

Quantitative Impact Data

• 1,190 tweets were recorded with #eXasw

• Several thousand Facebook messages

• 877 clicks from Facebook messages

• 275 clicks from tweets

• 36 of 94 cooperators reported a total of 8,163 followers/friends; estimate of 15,000 reached

Follower/Friend Survey Results

• N = 45; 32% “very helpful” and 57% “helpful”

• 48% visited ASW links; 25% planned to

• 11% joined AS; 32% planned to; 18% were already in AS; 39% had not joined

• Mostly positive comments about messages

• A few negative comments about “overkill”

Follower/Friend Survey Comments

• “Keep up the good work,”

• “These tips are timely and beneficial. I appreciate the effort to help us help ourselves,”

• “The tweets made me think about the ways we are managing our money,”

• “I welcome any and all suggestions for increasing my financial well-being.”

• One respondent complained about a lack of money to save

• There was one solicitation by a commercial firm

Monitoring Twitter Impacthttp://klout.com

Monitoring Twitter Impacthttp://www.peerindex.net

Professional Collaborator Survey Results

• N = 36; average of 226 followers/friends

• 17/22 Klout scores increased

– Average increased from 11.22 and 19.68

• 5/19 PeerIndex scores increased

– Average score increased from 4.94 to 11.52

• Mostly positive comments; Some negative comments about “overkill”

Professional Collaborator Survey Comments

• “Very good idea to get the word out”

• “We hope to re-use the messages posting one each day”

• “I hope to continue to use the tweets I was unable to use during ASW”

• “Wish I had ready made tweets every day”

• “Very good idea, think we could try to keep this up”

• “This was great. It was easy to do”

• “I really appreciated this project to help me get going with Twitter”

• Nine of 10 (91%) respondents said that they would participate in another SM financial education project

Future Directions• Apply for funding in 2012

• Seek funding for a larger scale project

• Stretch message delivery out over a longer time period with fewer messages per day

• Do a character count on Facebook messages

• Seek a larger number of project participants with high Twitter influence scores

• Develop metrics to measure Facebook impact

Project Summary

• Social media is good method for increasing awareness but poor method for action

– “Conversion ratio” of followers/friends who joined America Saves was < 1%

• Many small aggregated impacts are impressive

• Project built SM skills of the FSA CoP

• SM messages can be repurposed as radio scripts, newsletter fillers, and text messages

Comments? Questions?

Our project methodology can very easily be replicated by other eXtension CoPs

Consider getting funding so that a few CoP members can produce content for many to use

Best wishes!