Reflections on Idealware’s Facebook Launch
As you may know, we at Idealware launched our Facebook fan page on Wednesday, September 16. Now that we have been trying to nurture the page for over a week, I thought you might be interested in what we’ve seen (so far). A disclaimer before you continue: we are tracking results, but don’t really know what they mean yet, it has only been a week after all.
Before I dive into Facebook, let me take a quick second to introduce myself. I (Kaitlin LaCasse) am Idealware’s Communications and Social Media Specialist. At Idealware, I will be researching and writing on social media, and will also be taking the lead on our own social media and communications strategy. Neat facts about me: this is my first ever blog post ever, I did Teach for America in Texas for two years, and I’m excited for a New England winter. Ok, enough about me.
Some Facebook background…
Our target audience for Facebook is nonprofit staff or board members who are looking for help making software decisions. We are hoping to use Facebook as an outreach mechanism, to share resources (both Idealware’s and others), to help people navigate our resources (I would love to see questions like, “Hi Idealware, I’m looking into broadcast email software…do you have any resources on that?” and comments like, “The seminar this afternoon was great, but it would have been helpful to go a little more detail into X.”), to help figure out what resources are still needed (crowd sourcing), to announce new resources or upcoming events (Idealware’s and others), and to use the page as a living case study so that people can learn from our experience.
We have a six month strategic plan in place, and are intending to see that through with only minor adjustments so that we can better analyze what works and doesn’t works at the end. Results can take a while to happen, and understanding the implications takes even longer.
What happened week one?
At the launch of our Facebook, Laura and I invited all of our friends on Facebook to join, we tweeted about it, had a blog post announcing it, and also sent out personal emails to some partners and the board. I know of at least two RTs on Twitter about the launch. It took just over 24 hours to get the necessary 100 fans to receive a /Idealware url. As of Friday, September 25, we had 170 fans. (I know that this isn't a gauge for success, but after pressing refresh for 3 days straight, I was pretty excited).
We have had some interaction (by which I mean either a thumbs up or a comment by someone other than Idealware staff) on the page, which is good. My goal was to have interactions by 10 unique fans, we had 14. People reacted most (and commented back to each other) on a question I posed about thanking for RTs on Twitter (what is the proper etiquette anyway?). We had more response to that on Facebook than on Twitter, which is interesting. Not a big surprise, but the more self-promotional items like upcoming seminars didn’t garner any response.
Initial reflections and questions to ponder…
I suggested to all of my 690 friends on Facebook that they become fans, 50 joined so far and they continue to trickle in. This means that nearly 30% of our fans are also my friends on Facebook. I use Facebook for primarily for personal reasons, and was surprised at the folks that actually accepted the invitation. While some of those who became fans are in a position where they could benefit from Idealware’s services (my friends working for nonprofits), most are not. My 13-year-old cousin is extremely capable, but I’m not sure he is interested in helping nonprofits decide which software to use. In fact, some of my friends who I think really would benefit from our resources haven’t become fans yet, so I’m wondering if a different, more targeted approach might be better in the long run. I love my friends, and appreciate their support, but besides bolstering up our Fan page, will they engage with it? Does it matter? So far three have, but one of those, in the effort of full disclosure, only responded because I asked her to get the ball rolling.
Laura’s Facebook friends are almost entirely professional relationships, and quite a few of her friends also became fans. It will be interesting to see how our different networks interact and engage with the page.
So far, our fans on Facebook tend to be more supporters and partners than people who might use our resources. It will be interesting to see if that changes over time, and I think we will have to further hone our outreach approach to best reach our target audience. And, if we do get those people to be fans, we’ll need to make sure that our Facebook page is speaking to their needs.
Also, my goal of having a certain number of “interactions” is along the right idea, but I would like to tailor that even more. Is a thumbs up really an interaction? What does engagement look like? I’m hoping that with time, a close eye on what is happening, and some experimentation with different strategies will help us answer some of these questions…and more.
I don’t really know what all of this means yet, but I’m hoping that as we continue to track what is working or not on our page, we’ll have a better idea.
What do you think makes a fan a “good” fan – and does it matter? What does engagement on a fan page mean to you?
If you want to be part of our experiment and see how we are rolling out our Facebook strategy on a daily basis, visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/idealware.
Before I dive into Facebook, let me take a quick second to introduce myself. I (Kaitlin LaCasse) am Idealware’s Communications and Social Media Specialist. At Idealware, I will be researching and writing on social media, and will also be taking the lead on our own social media and communications strategy. Neat facts about me: this is my first ever blog post ever, I did Teach for America in Texas for two years, and I’m excited for a New England winter. Ok, enough about me.
Some Facebook background…
Our target audience for Facebook is nonprofit staff or board members who are looking for help making software decisions. We are hoping to use Facebook as an outreach mechanism, to share resources (both Idealware’s and others), to help people navigate our resources (I would love to see questions like, “Hi Idealware, I’m looking into broadcast email software…do you have any resources on that?” and comments like, “The seminar this afternoon was great, but it would have been helpful to go a little more detail into X.”), to help figure out what resources are still needed (crowd sourcing), to announce new resources or upcoming events (Idealware’s and others), and to use the page as a living case study so that people can learn from our experience.
We have a six month strategic plan in place, and are intending to see that through with only minor adjustments so that we can better analyze what works and doesn’t works at the end. Results can take a while to happen, and understanding the implications takes even longer.
What happened week one?
At the launch of our Facebook, Laura and I invited all of our friends on Facebook to join, we tweeted about it, had a blog post announcing it, and also sent out personal emails to some partners and the board. I know of at least two RTs on Twitter about the launch. It took just over 24 hours to get the necessary 100 fans to receive a /Idealware url. As of Friday, September 25, we had 170 fans. (I know that this isn't a gauge for success, but after pressing refresh for 3 days straight, I was pretty excited).
We have had some interaction (by which I mean either a thumbs up or a comment by someone other than Idealware staff) on the page, which is good. My goal was to have interactions by 10 unique fans, we had 14. People reacted most (and commented back to each other) on a question I posed about thanking for RTs on Twitter (what is the proper etiquette anyway?). We had more response to that on Facebook than on Twitter, which is interesting. Not a big surprise, but the more self-promotional items like upcoming seminars didn’t garner any response.
Initial reflections and questions to ponder…
I suggested to all of my 690 friends on Facebook that they become fans, 50 joined so far and they continue to trickle in. This means that nearly 30% of our fans are also my friends on Facebook. I use Facebook for primarily for personal reasons, and was surprised at the folks that actually accepted the invitation. While some of those who became fans are in a position where they could benefit from Idealware’s services (my friends working for nonprofits), most are not. My 13-year-old cousin is extremely capable, but I’m not sure he is interested in helping nonprofits decide which software to use. In fact, some of my friends who I think really would benefit from our resources haven’t become fans yet, so I’m wondering if a different, more targeted approach might be better in the long run. I love my friends, and appreciate their support, but besides bolstering up our Fan page, will they engage with it? Does it matter? So far three have, but one of those, in the effort of full disclosure, only responded because I asked her to get the ball rolling.
Laura’s Facebook friends are almost entirely professional relationships, and quite a few of her friends also became fans. It will be interesting to see how our different networks interact and engage with the page.
So far, our fans on Facebook tend to be more supporters and partners than people who might use our resources. It will be interesting to see if that changes over time, and I think we will have to further hone our outreach approach to best reach our target audience. And, if we do get those people to be fans, we’ll need to make sure that our Facebook page is speaking to their needs.
Also, my goal of having a certain number of “interactions” is along the right idea, but I would like to tailor that even more. Is a thumbs up really an interaction? What does engagement look like? I’m hoping that with time, a close eye on what is happening, and some experimentation with different strategies will help us answer some of these questions…and more.
I don’t really know what all of this means yet, but I’m hoping that as we continue to track what is working or not on our page, we’ll have a better idea.
What do you think makes a fan a “good” fan – and does it matter? What does engagement on a fan page mean to you?
If you want to be part of our experiment and see how we are rolling out our Facebook strategy on a daily basis, visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/idealware.
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2 Comments:
Welcome Kaitlin!
Nice first post, sure. Your thoughts and open questions are pointing the right way.
Most of NP I know have gone into FB or Twitter just because everybody does, but none of them has real goals or strategy for these media.
I hope to hear from this subject on time to come.
BTW, I do believe that a thumbs up is an interaction (if not, what else do we have? ;-))
As you know, measuring the effects of social media is hard. You may not benefit from any of your fans, but all of their hundreds or thousands of friends may see that their friends (your fans) support you and may find ways to contribute. Or in this case, the benefit is reversed - since you're a service. So you're measuring your impact on facebook which is even harder to measure because some may simply glean some information, bring it to their nonprofit and never mention it to you - unlike a business which would benefit from increased profit.
Those 'thumbs up' could be someone walking away with information their going to bring back to their IT dept. Or it could just be trigger happy enthusiasm for your post.
Look for increasing visits to your home page - easier to do if you make fewer changes during your 6 month trial.
When you're dealing with constituents, send them a brief one question survey asking: How did you hear about Idealware... and include Facebook and Twitter as options.
After your 6 month trial... consider moving your facebook and twitter links on your website from the bottom of your About page to the top of your Home page. Better yet... include it at the top of every page. That should drastically increase your fan base. If you want to develop an atmosphere where people will really interact with each other about Idealware, make it easy for them to move from conversation to conversation... include a link to facebook and twitter at the top of your blog page, and link to blog posts on facebook and twitter.
This will also increase your Google ranking... ideally.
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