Social Networking Strategies: The Limits of Cutting and Pasting
Don't be fooled into thinking strategies for online engagement can be cut and pasted from one platform to the next.
Google+, the social network launched by Google nearly 5 months ago, has recently opened up the platform to organizations and brands with a profile type akin to the options for individuals and Pages on Facebook. Many early adopters in the nonprofit community were already working hard (despite announcements from Google that they would police use and roll-out an organization-specific profile option) to start building a space for their organization’s profile on the new social network since it originally launched. Those same early adopters and others have now jumped right in to create an official profile for their organization in Google+, with many sharing some concerns or complaints about the options and functionality available.
In a sector where we are always trying to do more with less, we can’t be fooled into thinking our strategies for engagement on online networks can be cut and pasted from one space to the next. Here are a few reasons why using multiple social networking platforms doesn’t just mean you repeat your effort.
Community First
Who is using the platform? Is your community largely tech-savvy early adopters? So far, the demographics of Google+ skew toward American males working in technology. By last month, the user ratio between male and female had come up to about 70/30 and the country with the second highest number of users was India at about 13 percent. One of the core principles in community engagement is to use the tools your community is using. If your community meets offline at a local watering hole to share opinions and make plans, don’t bother setting up a Twitter account with the purpose of influencing them. But if they congregate online, on a community news site or blog network, join them in conversation there.
It’s the same with any platform. Pay attention to your community. If they are using the tool, then join them. If they’re not, it’s OK to wait—especially if time and energy are scarce.
The Price of Early Adoption
Organizations that joined Facebook early on endured the “price of early adoption”—they were the guinea pigs for a platform that was still figuring out just what to do with this form of user. Just as Facebook experienced users putting an organizational profile into the system designed for individuals, Google+ attempted to swiftly moderate nonindividual profiles and publicized an application form for first-round brand profiles once the functionality was available. Now that it is here and organizations are jumping in to create their profile on Google+, they’ll need to work through the kinks.
Changes, new functionality, and platform iterations will continue indefinitely—for better or worse. The difference is that in these early stages, changes could mean your investment literally disappears or you need to start over. As many have already complained, you cannot (for the moment, at least) share access to a brand page on Google+. If your current social media plan and strategy calls for staff transparency and shares responsibility across staff, Google+ may not work at the level you need just yet.
Apples and Oranges
Ultimately, though Facebook and Google+ (or any other networking platform for that matter) are both social networking tools, there are important differences. MySpace, Friendster, FriendFeed, Diaspora, Bebo, and others all offer plenty of fuel to the argument that comparing two social platforms has to go beyond the functionality of messaging, commenting, and connecting to your friends. The differences between the platforms are real and important to consider when deciding whether or not it’s a place where you can advance your goals—whether they’re engagement, communication, fundraising, or anything else.
For example, if your organization currently uses Facebook as a major channel for fundraising, you are probably actually using Causes—an application that runs within Facebook—for the management of the campaigns, communications, and donations. That’s an important clarification because it means that your strategy doesn’t use “Facebook” as the tactical level of implementation, and you can’t simply duplicate that on Google+ now. If, instead, you use a private group on Facebook to organize volunteers or champions who are instrumental to your fundraising efforts, but your activity, communications, and donations are taking place elsewhere, then creating a similar strategy for Google+ could work. It’s integral to the success of online efforts to recognize just where these various tools and platforms compare and where they are dramatically different.
What do you think? Are you using Google+ now and have you set up a profile for your organization? Please share the link and your thoughts about the experience so far!
Amy Sample Ward’s passion for nonprofit technology has lead her to involvement with NTEN, NetSquared, and a host of other organizations. She shares many of her thoughts on nonprofit technology news and evolutions on her blog.
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COMMENTS
BY Preston Neal, Principal Consultant, Herring Consul
ON November 22, 2011 12:25 PM
Amy,
Thank you very much for this helpful perspective on matching social networking tools to your audience. It is definitely important to put your time and efforts into the social spaces where your audience is most likely to engage with you.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Preston Neal
BY Judith Sol-Dyess
ON November 22, 2011 08:16 PM
Thanks for this article Amy. I find it frustrating that only one person can have access to Google+ business pages for now. That is incredibly unrealistic for anyone running an org greater than… one?! I know they will address this, but it essentially forces us to scramble to figure out how to manage a new channel in a very primitive way, knowing they will change it anyway. It would be good if we could at least secure the pages without making them public (to my knowledge you can’t really do that). And you’re right, not all channels can be “cut and paste” efforts!
BY Amy Sample Ward
ON November 23, 2011 08:31 AM
Hi Preston-
Thanks for your message! I really appreciate hearing that the focus on potential audience engagement rings true for you. Have a great Thanksgiving!
BY Amy Sample Ward
ON November 23, 2011 08:34 AM
Hi Judith-
Thanks for weighing in here! I totally agree that the current limits on the Pages are frustrating, and that they are things Google will probably change (and are probably working on changes for right now). I do hope, though, that organizations are still using a staff person’s account for the 1-person access, and NOT a generic info@ or staff@ email address. I bring this up because once they do make changes so multiple staff can be associated with the page, then the primary account will be a generic email and I’m doubtful that will have long-standing value for the organization and be a confusing profile visible to the world.
I’d love to hear if you are finding other pros or cons to your use of Google+; please share!
BY Celeste W
ON December 3, 2011 08:42 PM
Thanks for your thoughts, Amy. I am a fan. I don’t understand why a generic email would be such a liability as you explain in your comment on November 23. Can you share how it might hurt an organization? Secondly, given that so few are using Google Plus, is there not an argument for a nonprofit to cross posti from Facebook, for example, just to help with SEO search? (Does it help with SEO search—I thought I read that somewhere.)
I tend to think that few normal (smallish) nonprofits have the capacity to have different voices and to post different types of content on different channels, and that for such organizations, cross posting content may actually be a favor to those who frequent one channel, but not the other.