Case Study: Knight News Challenge 2008‐09 

Using social media to drive awareness & engagement (while 

being lean but not mean)   Susan Mernit 

Social Media for Social AcFon October2009 

How to use social media tools—Facebook, TwiNer, Flickr & blogs—to create awareness for your project that will get you new audiences, deeper user engagement and more buzz—without a lot of cost: a case study. 

Knight News Challenge (newschallenge.org):   Annual compeFFon awarding $5MM in funds to projects that support local news and discussion in specific geographic communiFes (3 yrs)  Open compeFFon, anyone can enter, products MUST be open source  InternaFonal reach, proposals sought from wide range of communiFes 

Goals for 2008‐09 challenge:  Improve quality and diversity of applicaFons  Improve peer support and peer mentoring experiences at start of program  Strengthen internaFonal applicaFons, parFcularly in Asia  What we had to work with: 

 Part Fme team of 3 people: 5 hours a week each for 2 months  $2,500 events budget  Free social media tools 

Results we achieved:  47 % increase in traffic to newschallenge.org  50% increase in unique visitors  17,000 uniques at site last day of compeFFon, 100% increase  224 blog posts about program compared to 24 the previous year  Vibrant community: 1,800 registrants for NC Garage 

So how did we do that? 

Made A Plan w/Measurable Goals Goals:  Increase awareness in tech & social media communities  Create viral buzz, blogosphere  Diversify applications  Build community

Tactics:  Orchestrate program of blogging  Local meet-ups  Build Garage, peer review/mentoring  Multiple Facebook groups & events  Email blasts across the world  Outreach to key influencers  Multiple twitter accounts 2X day for 2 months

Executed plan, on a schedule 

•  Built 2 month, 3X a week schedule for blog posts; asked reviewers to blog 

•  Assigned main twiNerer; retweeted, thanks others for retweets 

•  AcFve flickr groups; •  #hashtag, #knc09 •  2X week email blasts •  9 live meet ups across US over 2 months 

•  Video tesFmonials •  Repeated contacts w/influencers, bloggers 

Budgeted Fme & money 

•  Time –  Assigned staffers, distributed Fme over week 

– Minimized lingering, turned social media OFF 

– Weekly call discussing roles, impact, goals for week 

•  Money –  P/T social media community manager for 2 months, 15 hours week 

–  Free spaces for meet‐ups, soda & chips for snacks 

–  No hotel bills; planned with Knight travel 

Results  2,323 entries submitted  60,000 mentions of “Knight News Challenge” on non-Knight sites in 2008; 110% increase from 2007  1,800 registrants, Garage; 50% applied  400 attendees, live meet-ups; 50% applied  700 links to mentions of the events indexed in Google, 30 photos on Flickr tagged Knight News Challenge meet up)  Write ups NYT, Valleywag

Why did this work ?

Social Networks are growing VERY QUICKLY 

Twitter Facebook FriendFeed Flickr YouTube

Adults have joined FB & TwiNer In the past year, Twitter traffic has grown 3,700%; minutes spent on Facebook have increased 700% in the same time frame

In the U.S, total minutes spent on social networking sites have increased 83 percent year‐over‐year. Visitors aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 49 were the highest indexing age groups on Facebook, represenQng 27 percent and 23 percent as more likely to visit the site than the average user, respecQvely.

RecommendaFons for Success 

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PLAN A SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN  Delegate bloggers, writers, editors to Twitter, cross-link  Develop strong presence on Facebook  Live tweets some events

Make one staffer accountable; provide support and tools a la @andycarvin @ NPR.org

What to measure •  Increase in traffic       

•  Increase uniques     

•  Increase frequency of visits •  Increase followers & fans •  Increase bloggers (new pipeline) •  Re‐tweets •  @replies to staffers 

•  Links to your  content 

Tools to use to measure 

Web traffic 

•  Google analyFcs –  How to videos 

Social Media 

•  Bit.ly: measures clicks •  TwiNercounter •  Count registraFons •  Count comments 

Real Time Resources to learn more  Public Media Collaborative, volunteer group dedicated to free and low cost training in social media—jpin the FB group(http://bit.ly/1UkVC)

 Net Squared Net Tuesdays, monthly meet-ups at Tech Soup Global, San Francisco, next meeting (http://www.netsquared.org)

 Non profit boot camp, Craigslist Foundation http://craigslistfoundation.org/schedule.html

Web resources for follow‐up  Social media for social action, Susan Mernit, white paper documenting social media outreach by The Knight News Challenge & others http://susanmernit.com/services/

 Beth Kanter’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media-http://beth.typepad.com

 Deanna Zandt, forthcoming book, Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking! (Barrett-Koehler) &her blog: http://deannazandt.com

 Rebecca Leaman, Wild Apricot’s Non Profit Tech Blog, http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog

 SocialBrite, social tools for social change, http://socialbrite.org

Thanks for listening! Susan Mernit susan@oaklandlocal.com Twitter: susanmernit

Oakland Local http://oaklandlocal.com News for the people