Better Community Engagement

It’s a wonderful problem to have – I need to take a break from regular blogging as it’s been generating too much work for me!

I’ve always enjoyed keeping many irons in the fire but with a new role with my full-time employer that’s busier than ever, I’ve been forced to choose a few to pull back on as I’ve reached a point where they are pushing me to the limits and I’m missing my free time!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the posts. I’m still very passionate on the topic and I will leave them up so you still have access to the information.

My services are also still available, I’m just pulling back on promoting them so I don’t generate too much interest. Please still feel free to get in touch if you’re interested.

I posted a couple of weeks ago on the 9 big mistakes I made in my first press release and it kicked off some good discussion both on and offline. One question that brought up a really good point was this one:

“Should you include pics in a press release or is it likely to cause problems if it makes the file larger etc?”

At the time I replied:

“It’s something I’ve done in the past but I’ve since been advised against it. There are a few reasons for that:

1. When you’ve only got 3 seconds of attention from the you want them reading that first line not looking at pictures

2. Chances are the photo provided won’t be that good by their standards which makes you look amateur and reduces credibility

3. File size as you mentioned.. not much upsets a journo more than slow emails… So if they don’t run your story I guess then is a good time for a 20mb photo to slow them down haha

4. Newspapers don’t want to run the same photo as their competition so they won’t run it by default.

The best way to get photos out is by putting a line at the bottom of the release along the lines of “For visual opportunities or to request exclusive photos please contact…”

Finally I would say all this applies to old media, however new media may break with some of those conventions depending on who it is, how big the organisation is and because it’s borderless. In the case of you targeting a niche blog with a large global audience, that’s probably based a long way from you, a high quality photo (or youtube link) maybe appropriate. To be honest I don’t have an answer for you on that aspect just yet however I am working on something that will test it and form my opinion.”

After posting that comment I was speaking to a colleague who runs the newsroom where I work. He’s recently transitioned his operation from single-media output (radio) to multi-media output (radio and online with text, pictures, audio, video, maps & presentations).

Being halfway between old and new media, he said he read the comment and didn’t necessarily agree that leaving out the picture was a good idea. Reason being that he’s got a small team that traditionally only had to worry about audio. With the expansion of content needs, they now often rely on the good work of people at the scene, police and even sales staff that happen to be driving past. Citizen Journalism as it’s been dubbed. They get photos from phones, CCTV footage and things from youtube all the time and therefore sometimes a photo won’t hurt at all.

Does this make things a little clearer? Probably not!

I guess it all boils down to making sure the photo adds to the release, and that it is sized appropriately so it doesn’t slow the journalist down. Here are some tips for cleaning up shots and making sure they are formatted correctly.

Ever had a bunch of stuff to get rid of but it sits around for ages because it’s too good to just throw out? Me too.

The best course of action is to call the Salvos, Savers or the Vinnies. It’s nice to support them, they have the best op shops getting around and it’s the easiest option.

And that really is the point isn’t it, they’ve made it easy by coming to you and thus they get a lot more donations than the little op shop round the corner that’s had the same brown jacket and doilies in the window for years.

Fundraising is very similar. Two organisations with an identical cause, number of members and promotional strategy will bring in a different income based on how easy or hard it is for a person to donate when they are in the moment.

Thats not a revelation, but I though you might like to know about a couple of services that have popped up recently and make it ridiculously easy for people to donate to a cause.

Chip In gives you a little widget that you can embed on the donation page of your website. It 3 steps to setup and basically 1 step for someone to donate.

Crowdrise takes a different approach coming from the social angle. You set up a page on their site and share it with friends who donate there.

Kick Starter – This one isn’t really for NFP groups but I thought I’d throw it in there as an interesting example of crowd funding. It’s a site where you outline your idea for a product you want to make and how much you need to make it happen. If the amount is reached you then create the product as promised and the people that donated either get the item for free or get a discount on their purchase based on how much they gave. The idea being if enough people like an idea, they will breath life into it and get it.

Sounds like a crazy concept that couldn’t work and I probably would have written it off myself if there wasn’t already thousands of people using it. (some making millions!!) It just shows that there are plenty people out there ready and waiting for you to make it easy for them to donate to something they are passionate about.

This is a story about a hedge fund analyst that reinvented education in the course of teaching his cousin mathematics using freely available web technologies.

His name is Salman Khan and in 2004 he started making video tutorials to help out his little cousin Nadia. When other relatives and friends also sought his tutoring out, he decided it would be more practical and beneficial to distribute the tutorials on YouTube.

By 2009 his videos were attracting an average of more than 20,000 hits each and he decided it was time to quit the day job and focus on this full time!

Students and teachers from around the world have praised Khan for his 3000 (and counting) concise and practical videos.

He outlined his mission as to “accelerate learning for students of all ages. With this in mind, we want to share our content with whoever may find it useful.”

His “free school” has since expanded to cover topics such as English and history, and his video’s are even being used to teach those in isolated areas of Africa and Asia.

He once said: “With so little effort on my own part, I can empower an unlimited amount of people for all time. I can’t imagine a better use of my time.”

In this TED Video he talks about the benefits of students being able to go back and review points until they fully understand them, without fear of judgement or embarrassment.

In some school’s it’s somewhat completely reversed the role of teachers, with children watching the videos at home and then coming in to school to complete what was once the homework, with the teacher there to mentor them and ensure a fully understanding of the concepts… as he outlines in the video, this is having impressive results with students that were previously falling behind.

These stories are alway great because they show what one person can achieve when assited by amazing, free web technologies. In fact this year Time Magazine named Salman Khan one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

What’s the take away point here? I’m a big advocate of filming key parts of events and guest speakers. Then to make them available to attendants and the rest of the world for future reference. It’s really easy and can only be a good thing!

You can read more on Kahn Academy here or from Wikipedia, which was the main source of information for this article.

With file storage being so cheap these days I’m a bit of a file hoarder, however recently it reached the point where I was struggling to find the essentials. So over Easter I did a digital spring clean (Nerdy I know..) and in the course of the clean out I came across the first press release I ever sent out.

Before I deleted it I thought I’d have a read through and make note of what I’ve since learnt about working with the media and share it so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes. Boy was I shocked!

Bad Headline/Subject Line
To say that the person on the receiving end of your email is busy is a severe understatement. In the radio world a journalist either has less than 55 minutes to write their next bulletin or is reading the news. TV and papers have similar pressures. One thing that is certain is they do not have time to look at emails that don’t look interesting. If you use a generic sounding subject line that doesn’t capture what the email is about, it will be deleted before it’s even opened. I’d say my email was promptly deleted.

Bad Timing
I sent this one out at night after work. It’s a common thing to do when you’re a volunteer with a full time job. Unfortunately that won’t help you if you want to get some coverage.

Think about it, everyone has gone home… and it’s going to be at the bottom of the pile when someone does get in to work the next morning to read it.

I should have better catered the timing to the outlets I most wanted the attention of. Sending it in the daylight hours would have been a good start!

OLDs
This is a classic mistake and yes I too fell victim to it. The NEWs has to be NEW. In this case I was talking about the outcomes of a public event that happened over the weekend. I didn’t send the release out until late Monday which means it wouldn’t have run anywhere until Tuesday. By then whether you like it or not, it’s too late to be news, it’s olds.

In a media addicted world, 24 hours makes a big difference so I should have got a release out as soon as the event wrapped up

Long, Pointless Opener
So even if I had a great subject line and the journalist read on, they’d still have their finger on the delete key.

You have their attention for the first two *short* sentences so you better tell them the who, what, where, when and why they should care enough to keep reading. Instead I waffled on with some broad motherhood statement about how great the organisation I was representing was, without mentioning the actual reason I was getting in contact with them in the first place…. Delete!

Drifting from First Person to Third Person.
Confusing this will turn a press release into a letter to the editor. The latter won’t be run as news.

I should have realised that a letter reads like it was written by me and contains opinions whereas a press release is an official statement made by your organisation. It’s in the third person and while opinions from people within the organisation are fine, they need to be contained within quotations and credited.

Not Targeted
This release was really only relevant to a handful of outlets in Melbourne and yet I went and sent it off to hundreds of national contacts… big mistake.

You know that guy that you friended on Facebook that keeps posting annoying and irrelevant comments. Does it bug you so much that they’ve lost all credibility in your eyes? This is a bit like that.

A list of media contacts is your best friend when sending a release, however I should have treaded with more care and considered my target.

Luckily once wouldn’t have mattered but repeatedly contacting irrelevant contacts for the sake of it will damage credibility.

Too Long
Keep it to a page… mine was two!

Horrible formatting
Stick to one clean conservative font like Helvetica.

My formatting wasn’t the worst I’ve seen but still overdone with the use of bold, italics and underline.

Just because you can capitalise and bold your text, change fonts, underline and adjust sizes, and make it colourful doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Any normal published book or professionally designed and printed brochure is proof of this rule.

What I should have realised is that a well written document that follows the correct structure (a reverse pyramid – see this excellent explaination) will communicate the important information much better. Over styling is just a distraction.

No Contact Details
I went to the effort of writing a big two page document but my phone number was nowhere to be seen! Silly silly.

Sure they have your email but going back to how busy journalists are, they need your number just in case. It’s likely they will want to speak to you if they’re interested in running the story but it’s also as likely that they will move on rather than trying to chase you via email if they don’t have easy access to a phone number.

So I guess you’re wondering if my poor attempt at a press release got any bites? No. Not a single response.

Luckily I learnt quickly from some great mentors and now work in the industry which gives me the benefit of knowing what it’s like for the people on both sides of the fence.

Let me know if you found this insightful or have other tips and tricks that you use when writing a release. I’d like to cover each of these topics in more detail soon so any feedback would be lovely!

It was interesting having a look at the Rip Curl this week. I wanted an update so I did what most people now do when they need an answer, I googled it.

First result was live.ripcurl.com. I clicked it, and the site offered me more than I could chew. Amazing photos, articles, videos and a broadcast quality live stream.

I’ve been on about video on this blog a lot lately because this is it, this is where we’re at. You’ll notice in the story above I went straight to the source. No Television station, no Newspaper, no Radio, not even another website. Ripcurl had full control over the promotion and delivery of their event. They are a surf brand, and now also able to be the broadcaster. Very different from a few years back.

Now lets think about you and your group. Are you in control of the message? And is it the best it could be?

Since Obama’s first election campaign so many groups have been buzzing about the power of stories. There are talks you can go to that analyse how he personalised his speeches and made a connection with the people he was targeting. Video is the best format for this and lucky for you, TV quality equipment and the same distribution channels are rapidly becoming well within the reach of the average person.

You are a broadcaster. Tell your story.

I’m going to leave you with 2 very cool things I found out about this week. One is an interesting story of a regular family that’s had their youtube video become the most popular amateur video of all time… and it’s made them half a million dollars – Charlie Bit My Finger’ Has Earned $500,000 in 5 Years

“Speaking to ABC’s Nightline, the boy’s father said the whole thing started when he posted the video in 2007 for his son’s godfather in Colorado. The video captured a few million views within its few months.

Once the video reached 50 million views, the family began raking in cash from YouTube ads and television spots. With more than 436 million views, the video has become a pop culture phenomenon. The only video watched more on YouTube is the official theme of the 2010 World Cup.”

The second thing is the Frugal Film Maker. This guys is incredible. He shows you how to turn average video into amazing video on a budget by being suprisingly resourceful. His videos run you through how to make home-made accessories and rig and as he demonstrates this, he also illustrates [quite conveniently for the purpose of this post...] my point that anyone can be a broadcaster.

Have fun telling your story and Happy Easter!

[By the way as part of Easter fun I'll be taking a short break next week, but I'll be back posting the following week - Thursday 19th April.]

Was keen to be the Social Media for Not for Profit Conference in Melbourne this week but I’m traveling for work at the moment.

Here’s an overview of the event from their site: “Social media is playing an increasingly significant impact on the way we communicate. With the growing popularity of social media and its expanding reach potential, organisations are increasingly turning towards social media channels, particularly within the Not for Profit (NfP) sector. Not For Profits are utilising social media platforms to engage in the interactive nature of online social networks and create meaningful relationships with followers, and to develop an innovative approach to marketing and fundraising, all within the limited budget available to many NfP organisations.”

Of course being away hasn’t stopped me from monitoring the live coverage provided by the attendants on Twitter. Here are some of the top points that I picked up. If you want more detail just search the tag #SMNFP

- 90% Facebook fans observe, 9% comment, 1% create

- Managing your SM presence is like being a host at the dinner party – read the personalities at the table and guide the conversation.

- SM is an ecosystem – the whole org works at it together – sales, marketing, legal, the board.

- Youtube is the worlds 2nd largest search engine

- 78% of people trust peer recommendations. 14% trust advertisements. The magic of social media!

- Great point – don’t choose the tools first decide on what your goals are 1st then choose the tool that compliments

- Develop content specifically for social media, instead of for web (which you link to social media).

So from the perspective of getting attention using new media strategies, Kony 2012 takes the cake.

I was going to write all about it this week however a blogger I follow named Richenda has written an article all about it and it’s better than what I would have come up with so I’m sending you over to her… (as long as you promise to come back)

3 factors that made the world pay attention to Kony 2012

Enjoy!

So here are a few new media idea starters that can be weaved into face-to-face sessions like a conference, blue-sky meeting, training, etc. This is following on from last week’s post about the importance of keeping up with the technology available to you to communicate better.

1. Butcher’s paper is still a great tool during a session but often by the time the notes get transcribed and sent off to everyone, the excitement has worn off. Instead, why not setup a wordpress blog and post digital photos of the paper as they go up on the wall. It will take 15 – 30 mins but it’s well worth it as you can put the address up at the end of the session and people can head straight to it while they’re excited.

2. Film your speakers! If there is an important speaker or trainer coming to town why not shoot a video and send it off to youtube so the people that couldn’t make it can see it and the people that could make it can watch it again because it was so damn good!

3. Use web video as a resource. There are thousands upon thousands of expert speakers and training sessions that have been filmed and shared on an uncountable range of topics. It’s crazy to think with a little bit of googling around you could find a free video of an expert that you wouldn’t usually have access to because of cost or distance.

My Aunty posted on the about page of this site with the following  comment:

“I am intensely interested in the whole question of community engagement. While excited about the numerous ways of contacting others and providing information, I am wondering about the other side of engagement – the response and mutuality of working together.”

It’s a great conversation starter and yet it’s so far gone unanswered (SORRY AUNTY!!) but largely because I thought it was worth saving the topic to write an article on.

The comment highlights something important about my about page: It doesn’t go far enough into explaining the reason for this site.

Essentially this site came out of an observation that I made over a few years of involvement in the community sector following a few years working in marketing & communications in the private sector.

The observation is this: We’re generally quite good at engaging people once we’re in front of them, however there is a massive gap in the communication and promotion of our efforts in-between which undermines the effectiveness of these efforts overall.

Here is where I think community groups and governments should take advantage of the research that corporations have poured billions into. They’ve developed excellent strategies to effectively get in touch with people about their products & services and I ask.. why can’t we do the same.

The second reason this is so important is because of the rapidly shifting goal posts. With the internet’s relatively recent evolution into a social communication medium, there has been a monumental shift in the way people find and share their information. This has presented companies, governments and NFP groups alike with unprecedented challenges as they struggle to keep up.

A testament to this is the painful death of printed newspapers that we’re watching at the moment.

“FAIRFAX Media has ramped up its cost-cutting after posting a 41 per cent fall in net profit to $96.7 million for the six months to December and warning of more difficult times ahead, with January revenues down 7.5 per cent on last year.”

“In what has become a stump speech, Mr Hywood again emphasised that Fairfax was in a period of transition from being a print-based publisher primarily dependent on classified advertising to a “diversified multi-platform media company”.

“Fairfax is a technologically agnostic company. We are no longer a newspaper company,” he said. “It’s all about content. It’s all about creativity. It’s all about what we put up on those distribution vehicles.” Taken from The Australian on March 7th 2012

The same forces are also what keep me employed full-time at the moment. I’m part of a small digital team working very hard on the transition on a traditional radio business into a multimedia business.

Okay so I’ve ranted a little about how the sky is falling for traditional media, how people really love Facebook, and how corporations are really good at selling us stuff.. but how does this relate to community engagement. Well in essence with a majority of the community moving online (according to Nielsen in 2011, 9 out of 10 australians are online and 1 in every 4 minutes online was spent on Facebook) and more and more commercial noise out there everyday, knowing how to cut through and reach your community is a critical skill that directly affects how many people you will engage with and how deeply.

So in short.. Better Community Engagement is a site for those who are interested in learning the most up-to-date communication tips and tricks, taken from something I live and breathe everyday both personally and professionally.

While I hope to bring in practical engagement experts in the future, as a general rule my posts will always focus on the gap I feel I can help fill, having a technological slant on modern communication strategies, and keeping in mind what is accessible to, and achievable for volunteers and groups with a small budget.

Hope that helps.. next week I’m going to post some ideas on how to weave some of these things I’ve been talking about through your projects. See you next week!