Girls Inc. and it's Social Media Science

Girls Inc., the all-girls non-profit that I have blogged continuously about over the past 2 months, has truly impressed me by some regards, while surprising me in others. For this final report, let’s look at what tools Girls Inc. is using online, what tools Girls Inc. is NOT using (and should be using) online, and also what needs to be done for Girls Inc. to create as large a media awareness as possible.

 

Throughout this Blog Post I am going to post about the tools they are using, but also I will be paralleling any recommendations that I feel could help Girls Inc. (in ultimately broadening its online presence.)

 



With smiling face, Girls Inc. draws people to their website.

Website
The Girls Inc. website is incredibly developed, with history, highlights, general information, affiliate information, quotes.....should I go on? Ultimately, what I am trying to say is that the Girls Inc. website, if any true indicator of how Girls Inc. uses social media would signify an almost flawless approach, however we are much smarter than that- we can tell exactly, through looking at the current social media choices and social media trend/analytic tools, what Girls Inc. can do to improve its presence.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube:

Today on the Girls Inc. Facebook page there are 17,618 'likes' and 286 'people talking about this,' compared to the 17,292 on the 25th of February. The increase of 326 'likes' in a month signified growth, however growth that is not significant.

 

But...why? Why, if after monitoring, and we have realized that Girls Inc. posts daily, with interactive, fun quotes, is there Facebook approach not 100% successful. We realize because of this Social Media Monitoring Tracking that while Girls Inc. is using Facebook, they need to include most posts that REALLY draw people in, rather than just drawing people in to say 'great pic!' or 'Good Luck!' to a recent post.

The post towards to the right exemplifies how Girls Inc. has the potential to make a day as simple as Pi Day Exciting, while simultaneously relating these 'current events' to Girls Incorporated and its mission. This post got people excited, and after 5 days people were STILL talking about it, (3/14 to 3/19). This quote is a great example of how interactive the posts have the potential to be for Girls Inc.!

 

The issue here, however, is that Girls Inc. does not consistently post great questions like this on its Facebook page. While this post was so great, Girls Inc. did not interact with any of the great comments that 20 people made. They did not encourage their audience for participating, and instead just let people talk to each other.

 

While this is a technique, I think that Li and Bernoff of Groundswell would agree with me that this would have been a great opportunity to energize the audience further. Picture, while they say a lot, do not encourage the audience to write back, just to show support. Girls Inc. could be utilizing the opportunities that Facebook gives them: they could begin to encourage people to volunteer and donate more regularly, they could explain to their audience strategic and monetary goals they are trying to reach in an effort to get the audience involved.

 

 

Both Twitter and Facebook serve as a place for Girls Inc. to communicate with adults, funders, volunteers, donors, and new audience members, neither are a good way to communicate with the girls, or participants of Girls Inc.

 

The Twitter feed for Girls Inc. is also quite impressive. With constant tweets at least twice per day, Girls Inc. understands how crucial these 140 character messages really are. Girls Inc. continuously responds to other organizations tweets.

Girls Inc. is always tweeting about women's rights, and during this particular month women's history. Girls Inc. stays relevant on it's Twitter page by engaging  partnering organizations through responses from their questions.

Twitter not only reaches other adults, but entire organizations, which can in turn become interactive with the Girls Inc. Twitter feed. Girls Inc. uses hash tags, links, and directs messages towards particular followers.

Notice the Retweet, as well as @womenshistory, and #wmnhist
 



Girls Inc. invites you to Join its group!



LinkedIn is also a way that Girls Inc. targets professional adults. Girls Inc. has 1,083 people and organizations that have joined it's group. By joining the Girls Inc. Group, one can network with like professionals and organizations. By creating a network through LinkedIn, Girls Inc. can gear its followers towards its other social media channels, as well as encouraging them to donate and volunteer.

 

Now that we have a sense of how Girls Inc. has planned to target adults, we have to answer the question: How are they reaching kids?! Although it is fair that Girls Inc. NOT encourage all its participants to go online and always be 'plugged in,' it is important that they do not ignore that a lot of young teens and girls are going online anyway.

 

YouTube is a great way to reach this audience...but Girls Inc. has not uploaded a current video in the last 6 months! Young kids love to watch videos, because videos tell a thousand words without having to actually read even 1!

With 38 videos since 2008, and 56,788 total views Girls Inc. does have an active YouTube Channel. The issue is that the channel is not current! No comments can be made to these videos, so it is literally a place for curious audience members to see exactly what Girls Inc. is doing with its programs. While some videos have only 200 views, others have close to 1,200.

I suggest that Girls Inc. National discuss with all the Girls Inc. Affiliates the necessity to post videos online. Many of the girls that are involved in the Girls Inc. programs end up at some point or another creating an educational video,  or music video, or promotional video. The issue is that Girls Inc. National has total control over the YouTube Channel for Girls Inc. Girls Inc. national must be responsible for contacting the affiliates and requesting videos, so that they can continuously be posting online, and be taking advantage of the amazing opportunities they  have.

 

 

Trends and Analytics

 

Addictomatic, Social Mention, Google Trends, and IceRocket are great tools to measure the current success of Girls Inc., and the way that they choose to use social media to market themselves.

The Addictomatic search for Girls Inc. proves, most significantly, that Girls Inc. does not have a Flickr feed, and similarly does not have a Pinterest feed. 

The Search Engine Journal says that between January and February of 2012 Pinterest grew a HUGE 85%. It's clientele base is 65% female. Because of these reasons, I think it critical that Girls Inc. create a Girls Inc. channel. Girls Inc. has TONS of pictures online because all of the affiliates have pictures. Below you can see that littered between other photos of miscellaneous photos of 'girls' are Girls Inc. photos. By centralizing these photos in one place, Girls Inc. could engage the groundswell!

 

 

 

If Girls Inc. were to, for example, offer the Affiliates a small incentive for sending Girls Inc. National, weekly, their favorite photo of the week, then Girls Inc. could continually build up photos using this great online technology, rather than ignoring it's potential.

 

 

3.21.13

2.19.13

Social Mention proves that from February 1st to March 23rd, Girls Inc. numbers have increased slightly, but stayed relatively consistent. Strength, however has varied from 1% to 50%, generally decreasing. Strength measures how many people are talking about Girls Inc., which is very important to consider when assessing the current social media strategy.

The top graphic shows that most recently the strength was 25%, sentiment 3:1, with a passion of 28%, and a reach of 46%. While people are talking about Girls Inc., more people need to express positive feedback about the programs! With a sentiment of only 67:281:25 of positive:neutral:negative on March 21st, there was still an increase of 33 in positive sentiment, with a decrease in negative sentiment of 7!

It's great to see these numbers changing, mostly in the positive direction, however generally 45% and 46% reach are not that high. A sentiment of 3:1 is generally low.

SocialMention also highlights videos. This search was surprising because it turned up rather raunchy videos, that certainly had nothing to do with Girls Inc. The search term is generally low, and it is important that Girls Inc. get more YouTube videos up that energize the audience to balance how the negative videos that come up when you have a title including 'girls.'

Google Trends was critical to examine for Girls Inc. Google Trends shows, how over time, Girls Inc. experienced most online interest in 2005. Now, what exactly happened in 2005 you ask?

Well...at the time the American Girl Doll Company funded Girls Inc.. Girls Inc. supports Roe v. Wade, and general abortion rights. Let's just say that there were many American Girl Doll supporters that do not agree with Girls Inc. philosophy, and started a ruckus.

People were complaining, others were defending, but regardless people were looking into Girls Inc. The spike the Girls Inc. received at the time was overwhelming, and since then has not been reached. Since then, the numbers have just decreased, all the way until its lowest of 7 in October 2012.

 

Clearly aware that something was wrong, the strategic plan came at a necessary time and has only helped Girls Inc.'s increase in interest. Look at the past three months, and how interest is increasing consistently! March 17-23 have the highest interest over time!

 



IceRocket is a great tool to use for Girls Inc. Monitoring because it lets me search for things specifically. By searching by Tweets as well as Blogs I can tell how Girls Inc. is creating conversation.

I found through the Twitter search something similar to that with Social Mention. Girls Inc. needs to talk more and use @GirlsInc. By talking with each other Girls Inc. affiliates will create more buzz about Girls Inc. National. Proper hash tags are critical and somewhat ignored. Ultimately, Girls Inc. needs to focus on themselves through Twitter as well as communicating with others. Some Tweets are certainly surrounded around Girls Inc., while others involve curse words, and things that are totally inappropriate.

 

It is critical that Girls Inc. utilize blogs. I think that often times non-profits put blogs by the way-side because they can be considered time consuming, etc. Girls Inc. can't be one of these non-profits! The overall percentage varies from .003% to .007%, and Blog posts tend to not be written at all Sundays, but are plentifully written throughout the week, mostly on Wednesdays.

With only 1,779 posts total, the organization should continue to talk. The affiliates need to write blogs are actively, and write about the positive aspects of Girls Inc. Use key words that highlight Girls Inc.! Girls Inc. has a great opportunity to increase brand awareness, and tap into the power of the Girls Inc. employees!

 

"Tap the power of the groundswell of ideas among the people who know best how your business runs,

your employees" (pg. 234).

 

Tone, Message and Feedback

 

Girls Inc.'s Tone is positive, and extremely encouraging. They want people to be excited about girls all over north America receiving great opportunities. They truly internalize the ultimate goal of strengthing girls, mentally, physically, and emotionally. 

 

 

This is great, however the feedback that Girls Inc. gives back is minimal. No posts on the Facebook page are from Girls Inc. responding to people that communicated with them, even though they have had great opportunities. Think about the 'Day of Pi' picture towards the beginning of this post.

 

Girls Inc. could have shown the authors who commented how excited they were about their posts. Outside authors are unique authors and can create much of the buzz, becoming committed to the cause. Girls Inc. has a committed preexisting following that they need to energize in order to gain MORE audience members, as in the thought process of Li and Bernoff.

Throughout the past two months, I have been tracking Girls Inc. National. It has been an interesting process and I have found out a lot! I have found out that while Girls Inc. uses social media, they use it relatively well, they do not fully take advantage of all channels.

I have found out that if girls Inc. were to create buzz around popular events that perhaps they could increase interest over specific amounts of time, like during the Summer and Spring.

 

Conclusion!

Ultimately, I have realized that Girls Inc. has the same Strong, Smart and Bold(sm) mission online as they do offline. The mission is central and ingrained into Girls Inc., which is only positive. All Girls Inc. has to do is manage online social technologies, understand their demographics, and energize the current audience to gain a larger audience.

Well, maybe not all...but enough of a start in this ever changing Web 2.0 World.

 

 

 

 

The Culture of the Groundswell: Saying Adieu to Li and Bernoff

I think we all know how I am going to feel about Li and Bernoff's last four chapters in Groundswell, but how did YOU feel?

I loved the way that Li and Bernoff outlined everything that they had discussed throughout the Book, like the chapters on Listening, Talking To, Empowering, and Energizing. But they continued...they continued to explain what to do as a company or non-profit that's starting with nothing or starting with a little. They talk about what do you when you have reached a minimal level of success with your social media platform, and also what to do in order to keep that success maintained.

Case Studies

Some of the things that I found particularly great, though, was Li and Bernoff's explanation of the Dove campaign for Real Beauty. I have been waiting for them to talk about this, and couldn't wait for them to finally get to it. It is such a great example of how using the Internet successfully can lead to incredible growth, and brand awareness! Li and Bernoff discuss the affect of this video campaign, "...he built in measurable results by offering free trials on the site. With 3 million visits to dovenight.com, the company was able to show it would put digital media at the center of an ad campaign. This was a turning point in Unilever's recognition of the power of online" (pg. 219).

The great thing about this video is that it will always be current. Just the other day I showed it to a group of middle school girls in order to initiate a conversation about women's representations in the media. It will always be relevant, and something to talk about. This video created a lot of external groundswell, and people are still talking!

In the same conversation, Li and Bernoff talk about Home Depot (pg. 252), and how they went from having awful online reviews to embracing and communicating with the groundswell. Because of a new CEO who had the foresight to embrace the groundswell, Home Depot saw a significant change in positive online activity! With an active Twitter Page and people tracking online Blogs, Home Depot has now learned how to use what people are talking about to their advantage. Their active Twitter feed outlines how they actually respond to the questions people are asking. They ask questions of their audience that get them excited:

• @HomeDepot: If you had an outdoor #hottub, which would be more important: Waterproof speakers or more jets?

The last case study that was great to read about the Best Buy's 'Blue Shirt Nation' (pg. 235). A really important aspect of these last four chapters is the internal groundswell. It's notable that while external groundswell is incredibally important for brand awareness and learning about product design, customers wants and needs, etc., internal groundswell is just as important because it tracks what the employees are saying, and creates an employee culture separate from within the stores.

A screen shot of Blue Shirt Nation: Webisodes Begin.

Best Buy's employee, Ashley (pg. 233), and other employees can talk about their experiences at work: what customers are asking, what customers are confused with, what employees are confused with, what employees have suggestions about, etc.

Blue Shirt Nation for Best Buy employees creates a culture, which is the other topic for this exciting blog about Li and Bernoff's Groundswell...

 

 

Culture and Social Technologies

A social media band wagon...

In order to attain social maturity, a culture must be built around the social technologies of a product, service, or non-profit. People discuss culture and communication simultaneously, in the sense that cultural clashes can define particular acts of communication, however a cultural conversation with regards to social media is different and just as important.

By creating social media platforms with a message that transcend through all different forms of social media, a company/non-profit can create and thrive in an online culture!

"But creating a culture that embraces individuals' opinions can be a long journey" (pg. 256). The authors explain how cultural issues are often the first set of common challenges that companies face. Let a culture develop and embrace the culture, and while this will not be an easy process, giving up will only lead to failure in a Web 2.0 world!

They continue with the last 3:

• The problem of perspective: it's best to start small and grow with reasonable expectations.
• The organization issue: Centralized Model-> quick progress vs. Distributed Model-> requires more patience and moves more slowly but shows permanent gains.
• The common risks of social application: Organizations can no longer hide behind the truth in their services and products, they must face the facts, and listen/respond to what people are saying.

Centralized vs. Distributed...

The culture developed by Best Buy's Blue Shirt Nation is immeasurable, however it is fair to say that 12 great ideas have come from the employee conversations. It is about the culture that is created and the culture that can be fostered. Culture is something that Li and Bernoff discuss throughout the book, however they write with particular emphasis towards that last 4 chapters.

In it's Full Glory!

Organizations must learn how to transform with the times and listen to the groundswell. It is about creating a platform for employees, CEO's, and consumers to communicate with each other in an effort to ultimately get results. While social media is not necessarily just used for profit, it is extremely helpful for for-profits to learn how to use social media.

In Summary...

It is hard to sum up everything that Li and Bernoff have to say without going through this each piece one by one. Ultimately, I draw from this book 4 themes:

• Listen to the audience, Talk to the Audience, Empower the Audience, and Energize the Audience
• Each organization's social media strategy is going to be different and that's okay: it is about knowing who your audience is, what they want to hear, and THEN what technologies reach them
• Create a dialogue; a conversation: ultimately by creating a culture one re-harnesses current members, and then will inevitably reach new members once the already invested are talking
• Never give up, start slow and smart, and always track yourself through measurables, one can only grow when they see where they have been successful and unsuccessful, and then grow from the mistakes in order to sustain social media success!

Thanks Ms. Charlene Li and Mr. Josh Bernoff for writing such an excellent book, and something that has truly changed my feelings about social media marketing whether for non-profits or for-profits!