Socializing the Green Message

Brian Clark HowardThe Daily Green

Hearst Digital Media@socialpyramid

@the_daily_greenfacebook.com/thedailygreen

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Why Socialize?

As Willie Sutton once said when asked why he robbed so many banks: "Because that's where the money is."

(Actually he didn't really say that, and later said he robbed banks "because I enjoyed it," but you get the idea.)

  So why socialize? Because that's where the people

are! (And also because it's fun.)

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Resistance Is Futile

“For companies, resistance to Social Media is futile.  Millions of people are creating content for the social Web.  Your competitors are already there.  Your customers have been there for a long time.  If your business isn’t putting itself out there, it ought to be.” BusinessWeek, 2/29/2009.

  (But don't worry if you aren't engaged

yet, there are lots of folks who can help. And a few of them are even older than 14.)

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The Social Revolution

Visiting social sites is the 4th most popular online activity, ahead of email.

2/3rd of global Internet users are on social media.  10 of the top 20 most visited sites are social ones. 25% of all U.S. page views are on Facebook, which has

350 million users. 10 million Facebook users become a fan of a brand

every day. (Forrester) 93% of social media users believe a brand should have

a social presence. Facebook now drives more traffic to Perez Hilton than

Google does. (Hitwise)

(Thanks to Matt Milner, Hearst Digital Media)

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What Are They Doing?

In 2008, 1 billion global users contributed content. 1 million articles are posted to social sites daily. 1 billion pieces of content are shared a week on FB. Every minute 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube The I Can Has Cheezburger? Network, entirely user

generated, serves 1 billion page views every four months. (Ben Huh)

Traffic on editor-free social news site Digg rivals NYT. (Thanks to Matt Milner, Hearst Digital Media)

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What Does This Look Like?

In real time: http://www.personalizemedia.com/garys-social-media-count

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But Where Do I Socialize?

On your sites of course!(comments, user profiles)

And on:  Facebook MySpace Twitter YouTube Digg StumbleUpon Flickr

Last.fm Metafilter Ning Sites Ustream Yahoo! Answers Amazon reviews …Literally hundreds of

major networks, and hundreds of thousands of smaller groups, bulletin boards (remember those?)

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But Which Ones Specifically? It's not always about whichever platform is the

biggest, or the flavor of the month. Some things to keep in mind:

  The skills you learn, and relationships you

build, are easily transferable from one platform to another.

Some niche communities might work particularly well for your brand, organization or mission. Designing a new green product? There are probably already people talking about it somewhere. (Consider starting one.)

You don't have to do everything and be everywhere at once, try something for a while and see how it goes.

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Green Content Does Well On…

Many places! 

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Specifically:

Care2. Founded in 1998, the site has 9 million members who socialize around environmental, human rights and other progressive causes. User-submitted social news component, petitions drives.

Digg (has a whole environment channel, especially receptive to news and smart commentary)

StumbeUpon (lifestyle and evergreen content does particularly well, especially photos)

Kirtsy (social news site for women. Not huge traffic driver but good conversations.)

(formerly) Hugg, the social news section of Treehugger. Discontinued, but was useful.

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Examples from The Daily Green

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Examples from The Daily Green

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Examples from The Daily Green

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But What Do I Say?

Ask questions (and answer back!) Share your unique knowledge and perspective. Share your sources (like New York Times reporters do

with Twitter Lists) Speak honestly and directly, with a "real person" voice,

not marketing-speak. Remember that what you say can last indefinitely. Use a service like http://namechk.com/to reserve your

handle across platforms. Twitter recently changed their central question from

"What are you doing?" to "What's happening?"

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There's Some Truth to This

DespairWear

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Listen!

"Twitter is a transparency engine. I've always said that our brand is what people say about us when we're not in the room, and this is the best tool for hearing what people are saying." Jason Kilar, president of Hulu, in Fast Company. He listens often. At least 20 times a day, sometimes every 20 minutes.

  "We tell our students that Twitter is not for

broadcasting, it's for listening." Sree Sreenivasan, professor of new media at Columbia University School of

Journalism

Image: creakyjoints.com

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Social Sites Are Powerful Tools

Social search functions. "Tell me all the people within a mile of here that are

hungry now." (Brian Wallace, Nowsourcing) Free software makes it easy to keep track of what

people are saying about you and to respond in real time (Cotweet, Hootsuite, etc)

Dell caught me falling asleep, oops Twitter search is integrated into Bing, Google is

experimenting with social search. Google and Bing are now looking at buzz on social

media to determine rankings for search.

orangecatblues.com

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How Much Is a Fan Worth?

Your "fans" on Facebook and other social sites are your brand advocates. Some marketers estimate the value of a fan as 10 times an email address. Why? This is permission-based marketing with:

built-in viral component analytics a killer demographic low cost stickiness and ease of use third party applications personal data collectionAdvertisers are very interested in social

(Thanks to Matt Milner, Hearst Digital Media)

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Cool, But How Do I Get Fans?

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Tips Set up a clear page and build links to it from all your

properties. List it on business cards, email footers, stationery and

everywhere else that's legal. Network with like-minded organizations, fan them and

comment on their stuff. Respond to messages and post friendly notes to

people, about their birthdays or whatever feels comfortable.

Consider buying low-cost Facebook ads.

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Social Posting Tips

Try to use a consistent, personable voice. There are no rules in terms of how many people are

participating. Sometimes creating a virtual brand identity works (Max

Gladwell, Danielle Brigida as Ranger Rick, Dan Honigman as Colonel Tribune).

Sometimes it's good to identify individuals with extra initials (Guy Kawasaki’s interns).

Timing is important. You can use tools to improve that, including scheduling and search.

The "10/1 Rule" of self promotion.

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Serve Man (aka Your Community or Customers)

"Technology itself isn't interesting to most people. What they care about is what they can do with it. They care about expressing themselves and sharing their work, thoughts and feelings" – Jeff Howe, Wired journalist and author of Crowdsourcing

"The cardinal rule of crowdsourcing is ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community." –Jeff Howe

Give people something of value: exclusive coupons, giveaways, insider information, special access, rewards programs. Make them feel special.

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General Green Rules

Be as transparent as possible: people are wary of greenwashers.

Be ready to back up unregulated claims like "natural," "hypoallergenic" or "sustainable" with concrete data and explanations.

Be mindful of your entire supply chain and lifecycle.

Third-party certifications improve trust. Be wary of appearing like you just came to the

table (hey guys, we just stopped using Styrofoam cups, isn't that awesome!)

Also be wary of back-dating greenness (hey guys, we've always been green here because our product is sourced from the Earth!)

Don't offend the hardcore base or toe dippers.

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Viral Videos That Worked

(at least on some level)Oddball humor: Organic Rap (Terressentials)Music: The Bottle BoxSatire: Mirth For EarthStar Wars: Derrick Jensen's Brilliant "

If Star Wars Was Made by Environmentalists"

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Viral Video Tips

Production values can be low. Gimmicks are good

(Will it Blend?, Where the Hell Is Matt?, Treadmill Choreography)

Referencing e-culture and memes is good. (bacon, Star Wars, talking cats)

Keep it short (2 minutes is best.) Give something useful or entertaining. If it works better as print, photos or something else do

that instead. Would you watch it?

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Do I Need a Guru?

Let’s consult this video

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Gurus can:

Help you develop strategy. Introduce you to power users. Show you how to optimize content and messaging. Let others off the hook for actually engaging. Be expensive (and possibly black hat).

You can also pay people a la carte for "linkbait" content, social promotion, YouTube seeding, etc.  

Remember, social media is a thriving barter economy, and a and an honest question go a long way.

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UGC: Get Your Users to Create Stuff for You

The fastest growing sites, by far, are based on user-generated content (UGC).

Not just YouTube, but "content" is what people post to Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and Yelp reviews, blog comments, etc.

Keep requests simple and make it as easy to contribute as possible.

Be wary of asking users to work too hard. Reward users for participating, with feedback, thank

yous, incentive programs, top submitter boards, etc.

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Successful Examples of UGC

Photos work well for The Daily Green, then tips, then recipes (participation drops the harder the request is).

Threadless (crowdsourced t-shirt desigs) Spot.Us (crowdsourced funding for journalism) Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (crowdsourced

birdwatching data) Eli Lilly's Innocentive

Photo: Nycole Klein to TDG

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Don't Be Afraid

After hardcore environmentalists submitted biting satirical ads to GM's SUV video submission site, the company decided to respond to their critics and start a dialogue. (Chris Anderson's The Long Tail)

You can't fully control your brand or message, so your best bet is to join the conversation!

Photo: Brian Clark Howard

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Thank You!

Brian Clark HowardThe Daily GreenHearst Digital Media@socialpyramid@the_daily_greenfacebook.com/thedailygreenbhoward@hearst.com

Photo: Brian Clark Howard