There’s no doubt that social media can trip us up. Who hasn’t been too quick to hit “send” only to later wish to take back that email, tweet, or Facebook post?

Recently the American Red Cross demonstrated the right way to respond when something goes amiss after a staff member accidentally posted a personal tweet to the American Red Cross’ Twitter account.

In this case, the American Red Cross made handling the situation look easy. Less obvious was that social media didn’t always come easily to the American Red Cross — preparation and strategy planning was the secret to its seamless late-night response to a rogue tweet.

In 2009, Beth Kanter profiled the American Red Cross’ development of a social media strategy and its resulting handbook. Beth wrote:

“The American Red Cross initiated its social media strategy after Hurricane Katrina. The organization knew there were negative blog posts about its disaster relief efforts, but had no capacity to respond, let alone track.”

The American Red Cross has come a long way. In the spirit of transparency and sharing, it has made its short and sweet Online Communications Guidelines and Social Media Handbook available online.

The organization’s approach is to use common sense guidelines, not command-and-control policies and procedures. The list of “dos and don’ts” contains only one “don’t”: don’t reveal confidential information.

The “dos” include:

• Be transparent
• Be accurate
• Be considerate
• Be generous
• Respect work commitments

What’s striking is that these guidelines aren’t specific to social media. They are wise, common sense principles for all areas of our professional lives.

As we at the LightBox Collaborative work with nonprofit organizations and foundations on social media guidelines and strategies, we first ask to see any existing statement of values or code of conduct. Through our process, the organization often realizes that its existing guidelines are already as applicable to social media as any other communication, needing only minor additions and tweaks to cover social media situations.

Once organizations realize professional behavior will serve them well in social media, they can take a more positive, empowered approach — rather than one that is fear-based and tightly controlled. During research on social media and foundations I co-authored, many foundation communicators reported that once their organizations got started with social media, the fears about negative comments and loss of control never materialized.

As the American Red Cross demonstrated, common sense, humor, and transparency go a long way in social media. So does a healthy dose of preparation. Being thoughtful about strategy frees up our time and energy to be smart and creative with social media.

Now that’s something we can all follow, share, and like!

. . .

Cynthia Scheiderer is a LightBox Collaborator with a flair for asking the right questions – and discovering answers that work.

(image courtesy Flickr user hufse, Creative Commons)

Figuring out the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts is usually pretty straightforward and simple. You just calculate how much you earned as a result of how much you invested. In the financial sense, ROI is not a hard concept—it’s formulaic and quantitative.

But, for do-gooders, ROI has always been tough to measure because the objective of our work isn’t always expressed in easily-counted dollars. In virtual mediums like Facebook and Twitter, ROI seems even more difficult to calculate because the territory and tools are less familiar.

Before you set out to monitor and measure your social media returns, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you want to accomplish through social media. You have to know where your organization is now and set the bar for where you want to be in the future.

Maybe you’re trying to boost awareness of your cause. How? By driving more traffic to your website? By getting more followers on Facebook? Getting more subscribers to your newsletter?

Perhaps you’re trying to bring in more donations. How? By spreading the invitation to your fundraiser far and wide? Developing relationships with online influencers who can promote your fundraising campaign? Building relationships with potential future donors?

The comforting news is, once you’ve figured out your social media goals, the handiest tools for measuring the impact of your virtual efforts are also free and easy to use.

• Google Analytics – Every nonprofit needs a tool to track who’s visiting their website, where they came from, and what they’re clicking. Google Analytics can show you how people interact with your site and which of your online marketing initiatives are effective.
• Twinfluence – Your twitter influence tells you how many of your followers are actually listening to what you’re tweeting. Its metrics can help you understand the rate at which the reach of your message is growing.
• Facebook Insights – Probably the easiest, cheapest, and most accurate way to see how your Facebook page measures up. Facebook does the calculations for you. All you need to do is watch for how you’re performing against your goals.

Remember, it takes time to build your social media momentum. Give yourself several months to share and tweet (and retweet!), and look for growth trends over that time.

With the data on your virtual impact in hand, you’re ready to evaluate what you accomplished so far.

1. What benchmarks have we hit?
2. How much longer until we reach our goals?
3. Which tactics have worked?
4. Were the tactics that worked also strategic?
5. Which tactics didn’t work, and why? Are they worth fixing?
6. Are our goals still reachable? Do we need new tactics to get there?

Congratulations, you’ve calculated your online ROI!

(image courtesy Flickr user awinn233, Creative Commons)