Just read Mango-OMC’s press release called Social Media – the power and the pain. Now, I see Gerhard “Jail4Bail” Pieterse says he distances himself from it, although I think it might be out of loyalty rather than denial. I mean, how do you tell people that supported you so vocally that they FAIL? I can understand that, but lets consider the cold hard facts and figures. Traditional media (sadly, I might add) kicked online’s butt! As Jason stated:
That’s a joke right? I actually can’t believe that only 0.32% of all the money raised came from online.
Now, I know Catherine, so I don’t doubt for one second that the figures are accurate. I do think that maybe one could have looked at a different channel to obtain revenue apart from ONLY looking at an SMS strategy, but doubt that it would have made a huge difference. Look at blogger bake-off which only raised US$2899 thus far, although I think if everyone answered the call, which we tried, it might have been higher… Nevertheless, online is not a good option for fund raising by the looks of it.
There might be a number of reasons for it and I wouldn’t like to even start speculating.
I do think that it did not fail completely. It succeeded on a different level, adding a completely different kind of value. I think people should stop looking at Social Media as a silver bullet and they should sure as hell stop advocating that it is. On WebSuccessDiva’s blog (Social Media Marketing is not a One-Size-Fits-All Solution for Online Marketing) she says:
Not all audiences are accessible through social media marketing channels.
True words that! I personally think the expectations for Social Media and Jail4Bail was all crooked and wrong. I almost got a feeling that it was used as a race. “We, Social Media, are going to kick Traditional Media’s ASS!”. At least, that is how it came across most of the time.
I stick to my guns. Yes, it works and works well if applied for the right reasons and with the correct goal in mind. It could work even better if that “I’m more hip than you and therefore more superior” attitude gets dropped and by embracing Traditional Media to compliment it. It should be a package deal (As noted by Nicole Capper, i think?). As long as Traditional Media people see Social Media as a threat or Social Media laughs at Traditional Media while chanting “Your medium is dying!”, we’re shooting ourselves and our clients in the foot. Ten fold over.
See Social Media for what it is. A means of communicating and creating awareness. Not a means for fund raising. We experimented, failed and learned. Next time, we’ll do it better!
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JBagley 3:31 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Great post Stii – and you are 100% right – Social Media (why the hell do we capitalise it??) is a great way of communicating, creating awareness and building communities. Should it be the only medium used when trying to generate cash for worthy causes? Hell no.
Jono 3:36 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Nice post.
And I agree with you regarding that we should look at SM for what it is.
There is enormous power here to get feedback, debate, comment and shape opinion – and that is more difficult to measure than fund raising figures.
Melissa 3:38 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Good work Stii….As you quoted – not all audiences are accessible through SM (in fact in SA not many at all.) SM needs to work together with offline marketing efforts and as Jason says it’s about building communities, communities that you can then leverage or tap into later (which is why once off SM competitions or campaigns often fall flat.)
I still think that in SA the online community is verrry small and we’re all talking to social media savvy people about social media which makes no real sense in terms of widening the brand footprint and accessing the real brand fans.
It’s a good example though and a lesson for next time, it’s how we all learn :)
(LOVE the Es Tea Double Eye btw :)
pamsykes 3:41 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Great post Stii, thanks! I’m still going to try a fundraising campaign of my own incorporating social media, but more as an awareness-raising and organising tool to complement traditional PR and events. And let’s not forget that actually, email is a social medium too…
simonB 3:43 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Great post stii – I could not agree more with you on this one. Another reason I see for social media failure is because so many companies think they can run social media “campaigns”. Social media should be a lifestyle not a campaign.
David Perel 3:45 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Nice one Stii,
I would like to hazard a guess as to why online fund raising didn’t work.
The horrible term and business model we call ‘Freeism’. Many online peeps expect everything for free these days, so when they see that they have to pay for something – what ever it is, a good cause or a cool program – they think ‘Huh?! Why should I be paying? Isn’t the internet for free?’
So unfortunately the internet is possibly turning into it’s own worst enemy in some cases.
Stii 3:51 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Hey guys, thanks for the comments. Good to see the feeling is quite positive in the end!
@Jason I reckon I see it as a thing with a name, therefore capitalise it… lol, good question though!
@Pam We love to see how that works out for you!
@David Very valid and good point. It could well be amongst other things.
JBagley 3:55 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
One other thing I just thought of after reading David Perel’s comment is this whole “I have a blog, so let me blog about the cause instead of actually donating”. People think that because they blogged about something “good”, its worth about R300-R500 (depending on how much you value a blog post). Sure, awareness is great, getting your cause higher up in the SERPS is great, throwing t-shirts is also great, but really, take out R100 from your pocket and donate it. Trust me, that R100 goes way further than your blog post. (Think about this also, how many of your RSS readers went and donated after you blogged about it? Probably none.)
I’ve done the blog post thing before, so I’m not innocent, but I’m not going to do it again. Sure, I’ll blog about the good causes, but I will definitely also donate some hard earned cash too.
Andre 4:09 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Very good post,it definitely made me rethink some of my latest efforts.
I also have to agree with simonB that Social Media is a lifestyle not a campaign,truer words could not be written
Cluckhoff 4:26 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
Thank you Stii :)
@Jason, your last comment is spot on. I would love to know how many people that heard about the campaign online, actually donated cold hard cash. Cash that is sorely needed.
We are incredibly grateful to all the online support for this campaign. People who had no vested interest donated their time and expertise pro bono, which is truly amazing and demonstrates the power of community.
Initially the campaign only targeted offline channels with limited online engagement due to budgetary constraints. When it did go online with full force, we managed and facilitated as best we could.
From the offline campaign we saw definite spikes in donations which is why we pushed it so hard. I believe online offers the ability to transcend geographic boundaries and to raise awareness at key levels, but it remains hard to track in monetary terms at this stage. We will however continue to implement integrated campaigns and as more and more South Africans gain online access, these figures will shift and change and surprise us in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine.
We have learnt a lot from this campaign and hope to apply this knowledge in the future.
Stii 4:41 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
@Jason & @Catherine spot on! To be honest, thats exactly how i felt! I added my blog post, gator topic and felt “Gosh, I’ve more than done my bit!” When what I should actually have done was to give dosh as well. Well spotted @obox.
Chris M 6:40 pm on November 26, 2008 Permalink |
I agree to an extend. The #jail4bail online management was powered by what turned into really annoying spam, which was unfortunate, but it happened. This naturally puts people off, when it comes to creating awareness, online is brilliant, as @JBagley said, but when it comes to actually raising money, it’s all about interaction and engagement, people won’t just give money because they saw a Facebook profile picture change, they’ll give money if they’re engaged with.
When it came to the blogger bakeoff, I ran a online campaign, which engaged with the readers and a good amount of money was raised in a really short space of time, doubled onto this was awareness at the same time, which we all know, trickles forth for a long time. I was given big kudos from Quirk and the client, so what I’ve said is not my opinion only.
Now, this isn’t about what I did vs what someone else did, the fact of the matter is that to convert online most successfully, you still need to engage with the potential donators (in this case).
Gerhard Pieteres aka Jail4Bail 2:38 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
I sincerely thank every single person who supported #jail4bail in any way.
Let me start by saying I fully agree and support a multi disciplinary integrated approach to any PR, marketing campaign.
I lived jail4bail for 74 days and if we want to speculate I think I would be able to contribute to the debate. We are all speculating, with out a proper case study including research protocols, variables and factoring in ALL relevant information to be able to come to meaningful conclusion.
Jail4bail should be seen as phase 1 (Bayside Centre) and phase 2 (Canal Walk)
Can we ignore the fact that jail4bail started with:
• online media partners,
• blog posts dating back to 19 June, Ideate
• Autism Western Cape Face Book events (invited more than 1500 people)
• More than 500 SMS’s sent (Yes, I do consider SMS’s as online)
• 1000’s of e-mails sent (Yes, I do consider e-mail as online)
to think of a few examples 02:15 in the morning.
How do one measure what percentage the above contributed as an example.
The point is this without proper case study we cannot come to a meaningful conclusion.
Jail4Bail still lives on I think its AWSOME and hope that even this debate will create awareness around Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Endragon 9:06 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
http://aspie.co.za/wordpress/?p=25
Since we’re debating.
// En
Stii 10:32 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
Chris, I would say that ± $3000 is a long way off target which is $1 000 000. Long way. To be exact, only 0.3% of the target has been achieved. I don’t mean to disrespect anyone’s efforts or anything, but the point is that by the looks of things raising cash online is much more challenging than what one would think! It is a fantastic and interesting initiative, and I’m sure it created awareness, but when money is needed awareness don’t pay. It is that simple really. I have to add, this might in the long run bare fruits, but then it should be ran as a long term project, not as a fund raising drive for a couple of months.
Stii 10:41 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
Gerhard, I get what you’re saying and agree with all that, but if we look at the bottom line, we cannot compare. As I said, it contributed on a different level, but was disappointing on the bottom line. Most of us (at least, for me this holds true) was looking at how we would compare against Traditional Media and hoping that a point would be made. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
Maybe I’m being short sighted by only looking at the bottom line and not taking every single factor into account. Mea culpa, I had my eye on the bottom line so therefore I see it as I do.
Let me be clear, you are right in saying:
“The point is this without proper case study we cannot come to a meaningful conclusion.”
I do agree with you. It is an awesome initiative, contrary to what Endragon et al has to say. I wouldn’t sweat that too much. You’ll always have the nay-sayers.
David Perel 10:44 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
Reading most comments here, I have to agree with most of you.
But Stii mentions something, ‘this might in the long run bare fruits’.
I think Mike Stopforth said the other day that the hype of social media has died down and the dust has settled. I don’t agree, I still think that we haven’t even begun to see the potential of social media and the effects of running 100% online campaigns.
I feel that a lot of these campaigns are brilliant but are still premature. The whole world hasn’t grappled onto the idea of online marketing / fund raising yet.
As more and more peeps get hold of the culture then things will start to bare fruit, it is still early early early days. Think of how much money TV was making a couple of years ago. That didn’t take five years to build (which is basically the age of social media) it took FIFTY years.
Can you imagine the WWW is 50 years? Just imagine it in 10 years, or even 5 years from now. I reckon 5 years from now campaigns such as Blogger Bakeoff and Jail4Bail will be able to get most of their funding from the online world.
If you think how many philanthropists are old, surely the majority of them are not 100% clued up on the web. Wait till that happens, wait till the younger generation billionaire phil’ies leverage social media. BOOM.
Chris M 10:45 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
@Stii – I totally get that, I calculated that the campaign raised around R150-R200/hour, which is a damn good rate for a donation system. The campaign was closed afterwards and not carried on with, should more time have been put in, at that rate it would have raised a substantial amount, what you think?
Stii 11:02 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
@Chris – You’re right, it absolutely would’ve, but why was it closed if it worked so well? Dare I say “time constraints”? ;-)
Chris M 11:03 am on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
“gaters eat my tim>-’—”
ChrisR 4:52 pm on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
This bit is possibly grammatically incorrect –
“Now, I know Catherine, so I don’t doubt for one second that the figures are inaccurate.”
I suspect you mean accurate?
Stii 5:15 pm on November 27, 2008 Permalink |
Hehe, thanks ChrisR. You’re right and I changed it. Damn dutch-engrish…
Sarah Blake 2:53 pm on November 28, 2008 Permalink |
Thanks Stii for the great post, and to all the commenters: those comments are making for interesting reading as well. When it comes to fundraising, charities worldwide are in trouble: traditional methods are showing diminishing return, and “new” methods (i.e. anything online) are very challenging. In fact, according to Hitwise UK, only 0.038% of all web visits go to charities. As much as any organisation, charities and non-profits need to embrace online, and need to find ways to use these channels to further their causes. The simple fact of the matter is that so few people do donate, whether online or offline, so we’re all looking at creative ways to attract and engage new supporters.
I am a big believer in integrating offline and online, but this always works best (fundraising-wise) when you are fundraising in a localised area. Breadline Africa’s donor base is currently very UK based, and one of the challenges was to find a medium to connect to new supporters worldwide, while being based in southern Africa. That was part of the rationale behind the Worldwide Blogger Bake Off.
We are busy setting up visits for the Cape Town bloggers to some of the container projects. We are actually seeing a fair amount of input from overseas bloggers (which, to be honest, is part of the aim), but, yes, we are far behind on fundraising targets.
It’s a medium that has to be tested, and I completely agree with simonB that Social Media should not be seen as a campaign channel, but instead as a lifestyle channel. But, I think that it is good to see non-profits testing the waters. It’s only in trying that we find out what works, and what doesn’t.
Jail4Bail: Does Social Media have no power or have some PRs gone sour? | Web AddiCT(s); 5:43 pm on November 30, 2008 Permalink |
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