Social Networking as a Managed Service

I recently met with a client of ours, a well known nonprofit in San Diego, to discuss "all things technology." The services we provide to them today are generally related to their corporate network; remote monitoring, server maintenance, and assorted hardware and software troubleshooting. They have a really nice website and we've never talked much about whether they needed our help in that area. But in the course of the conversation I asked why they didn't have a Twitter account. My customer looked at me and said, to my surprise, "we really need your help with that. It's just too much."

Being part of a technology-based organization, I tend to take some things for granted. We have a staff of 20 and most know to some degree HTML, various CMSs, social networking, and all the desktop apps. Staff have Twitter accounts, we have a Facebook account, and even our own social networking site with thousands of users just in San Diego. I casually suggest to our service clients that they consider using social networking tools as part of their marketing strategy. But I never follow up. That's because I never considered it a managed service or one that we could provide. The conversation I had that day made me realize how wrong I was about that.

Social networking and the array of related on-line tools used for marketing can be just as complicated as managing file servers, mail servers, and security. As I write this, a Tweet pops up telling me that Google is starting a certification program for AdSense. To me this all points to social marketing as a managed service.

The app that tipped the scales, I think, is Twitter, which landed shortly after FaceBook started to catch fire as a great marketing tool. Since it arrived on the heals of Facebook, and because it was promoted heavily as a marketing tool-for-the-stars, many of our clients viewed it as “just another social networking site.” The general attitude seems to be that it's just too much to try and figure out.

Where have I heard that before?

The Accidental Marketer

Nonprofits have a word for the person whose job is not to provide tech support but they do it anyway. They're called the “Accidental Techie”. This person can be in-house staff with a technical background, a volunteer, an intern, or even a family member. Rarely do nonprofits receive funding or have budgets for full-time staff or even hardware and software upgrades for that matter, so the support job often falls to whoever is available and willing. Clearly this is not the best solution, and is one of the reasons SDFF was created. We’ve seen plenty of Linux, Windows 2000, and Exchange Servers deployed and then abandoned by boyfriends and cousins.

Likewise, most nonprofits can’t afford, nor do they need, full-time marketing staff, even though marketing is a crucial component of their fund-raising efforts. Fortunately, nonprofits have been able to get by, for the most part, with the “Accidental Marketer” sending the occassional enewsletter, press release, or postcard. Social media tools change that, and it will be very difficult for most nonprofits to keep up. They can't afford not to.

As a service, the managed “suite” includes the org's website, at least one blog, and the major social networking resources (Facebook and Twitter). The devil, though, is in the details, which includes:

• The plan


• Comprehensive


• Strategic


• Frequently monitored and updated

• Multiple contributors


• Trained staff


• Multiple social media accounts


• Search engine optimization


• Search engine account management
  
  
  • Google
  
  
  • Bing
  
  
  • Yahoo


• Social networking account management
  
  
  • Facebook
  
  
  • Twitter
  
  
  • Verticals


• Bookmarking account management


• Analytics


• Search advertising


• Reports and Metrics


• Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes


• Frequent attention!

Nonprofits need to be as efficient as any other business does in their marketing and fund-raising (selling) efforts. But the tools have changed. They are powerful and require more time than the Accidental Marketer has to learn, use, and follow effectively. For small to medium-sized nonprofits (not to mention regular for-profit businesses), social marketing should be considered as a managed service.

Next: And you thought you already knew your customers!

The Social Enterprise: SDFF Part I

Some time last year I was introduced to the term "social enterprise". This is an organization, I suppose it could be a for-profit but most often a nonprofit, whose mission is to serve the community but also to earn income that helps sustain the organization. It took a while for me to grasp the term social enterprise until I realized that that was what my organization had become over the last several years, whether we called it that or not.

I was "loaned" to SDFF in 2000 while working for SAIC, a large, for-profit and employee-owned engineering and contracting company based in San Diego. Honestly, I didn't know much about nonprofits other than the few networking groups I had joined and participated in over the years (I actually started one called the San Diego Digital Media Association prior to the advent of the Netscape browser but I'll save that story for later).

SDFF's mission is/was to close the digital divide in San Diego. We accomplish this by taking computers that the County of San Diego is replacing, refurbishing them, and donating them to SD nonprofits, schools, and families. For the first several years, that's all we did; give away computers. But having a technical and particularly services background, it made sense to me that we should offer technical services and any other kind of service that fit with our mission, for a fee. Our Board at the time wasn't completely interested, but things changed.

Catching Up

It's only been four years since we updated our blog. Obviously we've been busy and the blog ended up on the backburner. Since our last post here in 2006, our organization has grown from six employees to more than 20. One of the main reasons I added this post and updated the blog is because we are becoming much more active in eMarketing initiatives and particulary the use of online tools and social networking technologies to promote our business and those of our clients.

So what has changed at SDFF? First and foremost, we have evolved significantly into a "social enterprise." According to the Social Enterprise Alliance, a social enterprise is:

'An organization or venture that achieves its primary social or environmental mission using business methods. The social needs addressed by social enterprises and the business models they use are as diverse as human ingenuity. Social enterprises build a more just, sustainable world by applying market-based strategies to today's social problems.'

Our enterprising efforts include:

1. Technical services - this department provides professional technical services
on various contracts to more than 25 nonprofits in San Diego, and the number is
expected to grow significantly as our services and abilities mature. This
department completely sustains itself.

2. Hardware services and recycling - this department also sustains itself through revenues generated from computer refurbishing, recycling, and repair services. Our programs and the number of PCs we distribute are expected to grow significantly over the next couple of years, and we expect the hardware deparment to continue providing valuable services to the community.

3. Community Technoloyg Programs - this department features programs such as DiverseCity Tech, eLearn2earn, the San Diego Broadband Initiative, and our various training and employment services. Each program offers far more than should be covered in a blog, and they have all garnished exceptional funding support in the last few years, enabling us to continue offering services a no-cost or very low cost to nonprofits and families.

Expect to see frequent updates to this blog but not so much in the way of "advertising" or press releases. The focus will be on trends, developments, and decisions, both internal and external, that affect our organization and those of our clients and partners.