Category Archives: Uncategorized

Social Marketing vs. Social Change Marketing

In an earlier post, I clarified how social marketing differentiates itself from social media marketing. Now, I am asking for your thoughts on how the term social marketing relates to the term social change marketing.

Social marketing, as we’ve discussed, has decades of theoretical history and practice. It is a term constantly evolving and defining itself. However, the field also faces a challenge: branding itself…especially since the onset of social media marketing.

Reading through social marketing texts and journals, the terms – social change, marketing for social change, and social change marketing are making increasing appearances, so I am curious on others’ thought about how the two terms relate.

A good summary of the two concepts, including how they relate to commercial marketing, is found in Dr. Stephen Dann’s slideshow titled:

“Social change marketing in the age of direct benefit marketing – where to from here?”

In this presentation, Dann asks the question: Where to from here? which provides information on how social marketing has grown and compares to commercial marketing and what this may mean for the future. Other signs of the concept of social change’s relationship to social marketing dates back to Prof. Alan Andreason’s book: Marketing Social Change. So, there is a history. On the web, Craig Lefebvre’s blog is titled On Social Marketing and Social Change, suggesting the relationship.

Thus, I am curious on your thoughts about the terms/concepts of social marketing versus social change marketing:

Can social marketing be renamed social change marketing?
Or, is social marketing one component of social change?
Or, is social marketing one piece of social change marketing? What’s the difference? Is there a difference?

It may seem like a matter of scrabble to some, but these discussions really engage me, and I hope the enthusiasm sparks interest as I think the relationship between the two terms is continuing to develop and will becoming increasingly important as we work to brand social marketing. =)

A Little Known Idea for Evaluation: User Interface Test

…does the concept User Interface ring a bell? What a User-Interface test?

As I hinted to in my last post, I think the evaluation step is maybe one of the most important steps a marketing plan can include, yet many lack. Doing evaluation, allows one to:

Reflect on the strengths of the campaigns
Document the process so there’s no reinventing the wheel for next time
Identify areas for improvement
Lets you gain and track client feedback
Find ‘lessons to learn from’
Calculate ROI and compare to previous years/cases

For best evaluation results, one should meet with a team, get outside feedback, talk to the client(s), key associates or other employees who had a hand in the project. Now, it the fun part. I want to introduce to you a great, but commonly unknown tool to add to your evaluation methods: the User Interface Test.

User Interface is a concept that describes how users interact with a website. If you’ve ever had any of the following questions, then conducting a User Interface test might be right up your alley:

What should be on the homepage?
Should the main graphic be video, a slideshow, a moving graphic, etc.?
Where should the ‘search’ button go?
Is our website easy to use?
How functional is our website?
What’s the message our users are getting?
What would make our website easier to use?
When someone first comes to our site, what’s the first thing they see?
What would get users to spend more time on our pages?
Does everything on our site communicate our message?
Does our content engage the reader?
What is someone expecting when they come to our site?
Is the site easy to use?
Is our site customize-able?
Does our site have a professional tone? or an appropriate tone?
Does our site speak relevance to those trafficking the site?
Does the design capture attention?
How do our users interact with our site?

If you find yourselves asking these questions and similar others, then a User Interface test could be right up your alley! To test your User Interface, you can use either quantitative or qualitative approaches. Four qualitative approaches are outlined below.

Time to Task: Tests ability for tester to complete an action to user’s satisfaction in a decent time.
Accuracy: Tests the accuracy of the website and the information found.
Emotional Response: Tests how the testee responds to their overall experience on the site or in conducting their tasks.
Recall/Repetition: Tests ability to recall the process it takes to find desired information. Also looks as how the testee’s ability to recall where he or she is on the website and how he or she arrived there.

To create quantitative results, one can have testee fill out forms measuring various categories on a scale of 1-5 (customization, professionalism or tone, design, organization, usefulness, relevance, and interactivity.)

Hope this little research tidbit, and way of evaluating your website comes in hand.

Get to Know Your Neighbor: Beth Kanter

Continuing my weekly “Blogger Neighborhood Series” and in honor of the great Mr. Rogers, who called us to “Get to know our neighbor,” Beth Kanter over at Beth’s Blog is the second neighbor featured in this series.

Blog Name: Beth’s Blog

Blog Topics: How nonprofits can use social media

About the Author:

Beth Kanter is a trainer, blogger, and consultant to nonprofits and individuals in effective use of social media. Her expertise is how to use new web tools (blogging, tagging, wikis, photo sharing, video blogging, screencasting, social networking sites, and virtual worlds, etc) to support nonprofits. She has worked on projects that include: training, curriculum development, research and evaluation. She is an experienced coach to “digital immigrants” in the personal mastery of these tools. She is a professional blogger and writes about the use of social media tools in the nonprofit sector for social change. (Borrowed from Kanter’s blog. For more information, click here.)

If you could live on any street, what would that street be named and why?

Learning and Reflection Street – it would be a street where you can take time to learn and reflect any what you curious about

Who would be your dream real-life neighbor?

Someone who understood reciprocity and wasn’t intrusive

Why do you blog?
I started blogging because I am a trainer and writer and wanted a place to write, so I could remember or figure out how to use technology tools. My blog is my journal – I’ve always kept a journal – but the difference is that everyone reads it.

What inspires you to blog?

When I’m trying to learn something new.

If you customized your own license plate, what would it say and why?

I don’t think I’d want to customized license plate ….

What’s your favorite blog post and why?

A colleague asked for advice. I wanted to get other people to participate, but it was sensitive so I created a simulation – a funny one.

See the link below to see how Beth combined creativty and humor to ask a very important question about how to react to potential online criticism towards your non-profit, company or organization. —> http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/02/transparency-so.html

What’s currently your favorite social media application our blogger community should utilize more?

That’s hard. But I’ve been enjoying Twitter of late. (You can follow Beth on Twitter @kanter)

Now, here’s a question for YOU: How has Beth Kanter’s work influenced you or your community?

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This continuous weekly series highlights different blogs and their respective bloggers in the blogosphere neighborhood. Following the great Mr. Rogers, who tells us to ‘Get to know your neighbor,’ this series introduces us to our blogger neighbors, making for a more unified, collaborative voice for the social sector. Like to nominate someone or be featured yourself? Contact me @ socialbutterfly4change@gmail.com.

Is everything marketing?

The other day I was having a conversation and someone made the remark that “Some people think everything is marketing!” This, as usual, got my brain thinking…..is everything marketing?

Backing up, you have to have a clear understanding of what marketing is and what marketing is not to make such a judgment. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as:

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of process for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

Now, let’s say you get that definition…and lets even go as far to say that you have some marketing experience and academic marketing background…is everything marketing?

What if you have none of these…what’s your perspective? What’s your view on marketing then and – is everything marketing?

I ask this question because of one observation I made the other day getting off the metro…

A homeless man stood need the escalator and asked for a quarter. Walking further along, I saw a homeless man sitting, with his cup on the sidewalk as he read a book. And it occurred to me, that the man by the escalator who asked for a quarter is smart – in a marketing way. But, I don’t think many people other metro goers would pick up on this…but this is why I found this man marketing-smart:

Place: He picked a prime location, where people are coming and going, so there is higher traffic and a greater chance that someone would give money
Price: He asked for a specific amount. If someone asks for money, nothing new. But, this was the first time I had heard a man ask for a specific amount, and I wondered if this saw a better return, a strategy so to speak that he had learned from experience.

So, I ask you…is this marketing? I would say yes. Is everything marketing?

From my perspective, because I’m so entrenched in my marketing world, I might say yes (though realistically and in academia, it is a big, no.) But, I would say that everything might be considered…strategic communication. My undergrad major is strategic communications. I think this might be a better way to approach the question…is everything marketing? No, but everything involves strategy.

This question is similar to other statements like…everyone is selling something or everything comes down to sales. I bet some of our corporate friends and corporate agencies would sure feel like its that way! In regards to how the infamous ‘Double-Ds,’ data and dollars, seem to drive many organizations.

(as a disclaimer, I know the dangers of using absolutes like everything, never, always…but I wanted to use it for dramatic purposes….perhaps dare I say, to be strategic?)

What do you think?? Is everything marketing?

Blogger Outreach Series: Law Issues Part B, Privacy

Continuing in my blogger outreach series, this post will focus on law that addresses privacy in regard to bloggers and blog content.

Privacy: Currently, privacy is not included in the bill of rights, but as technology increases, it’s developing into quite the controversy. To protect yourself as a blogger and the subjects included in your posts, it is important to understand the law surrounding online privacy issues and the increasing issues involving privacy

There are 2 ways to approach privacy:

Your privacy as a Blogger AND
the privacy of the people involved in your blog’s content

To protect your privacy as a blogger, there are some different approaches with strengths and benefits. These include:

Blog Completely Anonymously

Create a Psuedo-name
Do not give away identifiers in the blog’s content
For COMPLETE anonymous blogging, try Invisiblog, Tor and Anonymizer. These are applications that help you create an anonymous blog where the creators and hosts of the blog won’t even have access to your information, can hide your IP address, and allows for anonymous editing of your blog.
Limit Your Audience
To avoid being found in search engines or in Google, install a ‘Robots Text File Generator’ into your blog’s architecture.
Set-up an alternative email address.
Update from a public computer.

Pros/Cons: Privacy protected. But, if you desire more traffic, hits or views, this could limit you. And, you don’t get credit for your hard work and time into up-keeping your blog.

Blog Anonymously, but control who knows who you are

Create an alias…but with talking with friends, family, co-workers, or online contacts, feel free to share that it is your blog. But, you don’t have to put your name on the blog. This allows you to control who can identify the blog as yours, and allows you to control to some degree who knows you have a blog.
This is the option this blog SocialButterfly has chosen for a variety of reasons. Eventually, I will more than likely reveal my true identify, but in the meantime, I am collecting feedback on what employers, friends, colleagues think of someone wearing a ‘blogger’ hat.

Pros/Cons: Allows you to get feedback on what others think of your blog and protects your privacy to some degree meaning that random unique visitors can’t identify you without first contacting you and YOU deciding to disclose your identity to them based on your interactions with them.

Blog Openly, but control the type of information visible

Put a picture of yourself on the home page, along with a concise bio about your background and why you are blogging.
Consider the blog as a way to extend your ‘personal brand.’ So, your communications about yourself need to help build and add credibility to your blog.
Allows creator to develop long-term personal connections and relationships with readers.

Pros/Cons: This allows you take full advantage of social media at its best. As a small business owner, it allows to you communicate with possible consumers and to extend your business’ message and purpose and connects consumers to you on a more personal level. Cons include that you are personally identifiable on the web. Anyone can find your blog, know its yours, and may judge you on your blog before meeting you or making a personal connection with you. This could also affect potential employers or current employers.

Blog Completely Openly

This is an open, anything goes approach to blogging.

Pros/Cons: Your belief in free speech is rightly communicated and your views are open, honest and shared. However, you may have to provide evidence and reasons why you say what you say. Basically, be prepared to back yourself up. Cons could include potential employers shying away from you, or wanting to fire you because of your blog.

Some more points to remember as a blogger are found here including laws on political speech, unionizing, whistleblowing, blogging when you work for the government, and legal off-duty activities. Blogging about work activities when you work for the government is actually protected under the First Amendment according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Lessons from Privacy for people involved in the blog’s content:

If you plan on posting images, videos, or audio of subjects you interview or interact with, gain their consent before posting this material – especially if the material contains minors.
Get parental consent if the content relates to minors, and blur the minors face or voice if possible since laws pertaining to minors are much more strict.
If you shoot film or take photographs, to be safe, make sure it is done on public property unless you have the participants consent. This will avoid trespassing and invasion of privacy issues.

As blogging increases, it is important to note that many people have different feelings about anonymous-related blogging and the laws continue to change as the technology matures. And as a disclaimer, I reiterate, I am not a lawyer.

For more information on electronic privacy issues, see EPIC, the electronic privacy information center.

**If you are an expert in this area, please contact me as I’d be curious on your thoughts and feedback on this post. Thanks! **

Non-Profit Blog Exchange: Virtual Event

For the Non-Profit Blog Exchange’s 8th Virtual Event, top bloggers in social marketing and non-profit communications are writing posts about each other’s blogs and posts. This is SocialButterfly’s inaugural debut in the Non-Profit Blog Exchange, so insightful feedback is always appreciated.

My blog in focus is Nancy E. Schwartz’ blog Getting Attention. Operating since May 2007, the blog acts ‘as a resource of ideas, tactics and tips for nonprofit communicators.’

Ms. Schwartz is founder of Nancy Schwartz & Company, a marketing and communications firm for non-profits and foundation clients. She also manages her blog Getting Attention and Getting Attention’s e-newsletter.

I had come across Ms. Schwartz’ blog previously when she participated in a round of the Carnival for Non Profit Consultants on Dec. 3, 2007. To be transparent, I am a fan of her blog and the information it provides. The site is easy to navigate, is practical, insightful and offers a variety of content on various topics within the social marketing and non-profit communications world.

I’d like to respond to a specific post of Ms. Schwartz titled: Leverage Prez Hopefuls’ Understanding of Women to Increase Your Nonprofit Marketing Impact. Having just come from a seminar at the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum on Women in Politics, this topic is currently on my mind.

In her post, Ms. Schwartz analyzed the current political debate combined with a New York Times article about how gender influences politics to formulate some non-profit marketing insights on the female target.

Her insights are great and helpful. It’s the premises that catch my attention. Take the first premise: Women vote to protect their interests (men vote because they enjoy politics). However, I know lots of men who are concerned with protecting their interests and just as many women (such as those who gathered at the Women in Politics seminar tonight) who are passionate about politics.

Let’s look at another premise: Women network organically so they already have a network or two in place. One of tonight’s speakers, a Virginia state legislator veteran would also attest, that she learned how to fund raise and garner support from observing the ‘good old boys’ network.

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree and find Ms. Schwartz’ marketing insights on women helpful. I also admire how she took a very popular current event and made it relevant to us non-profiteers. I am just reflecting a lot on women, gender, politics and how they relate. My faithful readers will observe that I am big into concepts and terms and how they relate, ;). It’s the academic in me.

So, in closing, let me leave you with this New York Times article from Feb. 10, 2008 titled: When Women Rule. The author of this article poses the question: Can a woman leader be both liked and perceived as qualified and effective? According to this author and others, a woman leader can either be liked or perceived as competent…but not both. You can see how this ties into the article on female target marketing and women politics.

My thoughts on this were phrased well by Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan tonight at the Sewall-Belmont seminar when Carnahan voiced, with enthusiasm and motivation (paraphrased from memory):

“Is running for a political office hard? Yes. Is it hard for anyone? Yes. Is it harder for women and minorities? Yes. Is it unfair? Yes. But let’s get to the ground running.”

Thus, using Ms. Schwartz’ demonstration of creating relevance from an important topic to us marketers and nonprofiteers….let’s hit the ground running with our social marketing and non-profit communication skills and talents all you fellow SocialButterflies!

…to change lives and the quality of life for all!

Greenwashing: What is it, how do we evaluate it, and what does it mean?

This post provides some answers to these questions and some points to ponder.

First, the term greenwashing is taken from the term whitewashing. Whitewashing means to hide, cover or conceal unpleasant facts or details, especially in a political context or to manipulate. According to the Greenwashing Index, Greenwashing is:

“It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.”

Knowing this information, enter in the Greenwashing Index, promoted by EnviroMedia Social Marketing and University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. The purpose of the Greenwashing Index is “to educate consumers about how to “read” an ad and encourage them to decide for themselves if what they’re seeing is greenwashing.” The index hopes to curb the growth of greenwashing and encourage real environmental responsibility and change.

The index measures and scores advertising claims based on the following five criteria:

The ad misleads with words.
The ad misleads with visuals and/or graphics.
The ad makes a green claim that is vague or seemingly unprovable.
The ad overstates or exaggerates how green the product/company/service actually is.
The ad leaves out or masks important information, making the green claim sound better than it is.

To detect greenwashing, Sourcewatch offers the following tips:

Follow the money trail.
Follow the membership trail.
Follow the paper trail.
Look for skeletons in the company’s closet.
Test for access to information.
Test for international consistency.
Check how they handle their critics.
Test for consistency over time.

As my previous post mentioned, the FTC began a workshop of hearings yesterday a year early about the growing buzz and concerns regarding green marketing. To listen to the FTC hearings about the, click here. The workshops could results in updating the FTC’s green guides, which outlines the FCC’s laws regarding environmental claims for advertiser, marketers and consumers. These guidelines were originally created in 1992. Though the green guides were updated in 1998, they haven’t been changed since.

Now the final piece: What does this mean to us….as social marketers?

Personally, I think evaluation tools are great, despite the lack of them and the lack of priority in evaluation processes. The evaluation step is one too many organization and marketing directors overlook or skip. I see the Greenwashing Index as another great evaluations tool for us, and I offer up the suggestion that perhaps we should have more such evaluation tools to help keep the private sector accountable and responsible. Doing such, I think, would increase our success in our social marketing endeavors.

More on evaluation procedures and steps in the next post. =)

(Ad Council and IAA) Survey Says: More Social Marketing!

At this past week’s International Advertising Association’s World Congress in Washington D.C, the Ad Council and IAA revealed results from the Ad Council IAA Member Survey on Social Advertising Programs. For all social marketers out there, the results are on our side.

Among the Key Findings, the following figures were given in support of social marketing:

57% of respondents felt their country should implement MORE social marketing campaigns than it currently has.
61% said their country NEEDS HELP developing social marketing campaigns.
90% of respondents expressed interest in sharing and learning MORE about research and creative materials for social marketing campaigns in other countries.

As I was in attendance during this conference, you can imagine how STOKED I was about this. I had to pinch myself. Here I was at the IAA World Congress, and did I hear right: We are talking about social marketing. The real social marketing. Not social media. I could barely contain myself. Then, it happens again, and then again. And then I realize, the IAA is trying to educate and send a message to the ad community: invest in social marketing!

But where were we social marketers? our experts in the field? our voice? Absent. Here was a chance to share our passion, knowledge, excitement and message with the very industry that we can work with….and we weren’t there. So, here is my message for this post. Social marketing is great and wonderful. But we can’t stay in our bubble. We’ve reached out to the non-profit community, but all advertisers aren’t bad. There are big movers and shakers who want to do good and see the value in doing goog. We need to integrate ourselves with them….not be divisive.

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These results were shared with the Advertising industry during the IAA presentation for the 1st Social Responsibility advertising awards. These awards were presented with cooperation between IAA and ACT Responsible. The Grand Prix winner was “Signature” for Amnesty International by TBWA/Paris. To see the rest of the recipients, go here.

(This was a web-based survey through Zoomerang among IAA members from December 13, 2007 to February 11, 2008. 204 completed surveys were received from member respondents in six continents. Respondents included respondents from advertisers, ad agencies, media outlets, research companies, trade associations and universities.)

Defining Green, Including the FTC

Nowadays, when someone says Green, what’s the first thing that pops in your mind?

…a color? a movement? a cause? a political party? earth? environmentalists? global warming? a marketing tactic? Al Gore? Recycling?

Being a full supporter of going green, I still want to stand back, observe and ask the question: In today’s world, how do we, you, define the word green?

…Even the FTC is struggling to answer this very question. Today, the FTC held its first green marketing workshop to discuss its green advertising regulations a YEAR early because of the growing buzz…and concern! Check out this article for more information about the meeting.

It’s interesting how the choice of diction creates images or perceptions in our minds. Green, or going green, is becoming a mantra for environmental movements and going green is the new trend of ’08…or was it the trend of ’07? Even the AMA (American Marketing Association) has adopted the movement and now acknowledges the concept ‘green marketing.’ GreenBiz, a green conscious information resources that tracks companies eco-friendliness, offers green marketing as one of their hot topics by offering features about the various shades of green that run in-style among us marketers.

However what does being green really mean? In 2006, this same question was asked in an article written by Brandweek titled: Companies Find It’s Not Easy Marketing Green. In the article, the authors state quote:

“Spiraling fuel prices and global warming fears have increasingly put environmental issues on the front page and in advertising efforts. But as more companies adopt these campaigns, consumers are growing increasingly confused over what it means to be “green,” making it harder to create effective environmental marketing efforts, according to a recently released study by Landor Associates, New York.

“Is it about the environment, organic food or ‘good-for-you’ living? … It could be about all of those things,” said Allen Adamson, managing director at Landor. “It is easy to say you are green, but consumers are skeptical. And because everyone wants to jump on the green bandwagon, all of a sudden it is noisy in this space, and it is hard to break through.”

The article continues offering statistics on how consumers are weary of the increasing levels of products, services and companies who claim to be green. Though it is an older article, the trend seems to escalate still today, just do a Google search for ‘green marketing’ and it becomes clear that the term continues to grow discussion, especially since the FTC even took notice.

So, how do we as social marketing break through the clutter?
What does this trend mean for us?
And, what does the word ‘green’ mean to you?

Feel free to share your thoughts. This discussion will be continued in my next post. =)

To get a sneak peak about the next post, read this article about greenwashing…

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

As a part of my blog, I am launching a “Blogger Neighborhood Series.”This continuous weekly series highlights different blogs and their respective bloggers in the blogosphere neighborhood. Following the great Mr. Rogers, who tells us to ‘Get to know your neighbor,’ this series introduces us to our blogger neighbors, making for a more unified, collaborative voice for the social sector. Each week a different blog/blogger will be featured. We begin with our friends over at Osocio, with its founder Marc.

Blog Name: Osocio

Blog Topics: Social Advertising and non-profit campaigns from around the globe.

About the Author: Osocio is made by nine professionals, all working in the advertising and marketing industry. The people behind Osocio are not important, it’s all about the work that is shown

If you could live on any street, what would that street be named? Howtogetoutofherelane =)

Who would be your dream real-life neighbor? I would live between Lance Armstrong for a daily cycle ride and Nick Cave for daily inspiration and for borrowing his suit now and then. 🙂

Why do you blog? It all started as a personal collection, from founder Marc, that highlights the social advertising arena. The blog form was just a coincidence. It could be any form and depends on how you define a blog and a website. Osocio is a showcase which encourages comments and interaction.

What inspires you to blog? My own curiosity. And my way to fight against indifference.

If you customized your own license plate, what would it say and why?
I hate driving.

What’s currently your favorite social media application our blogger community should utilize more? Twitter. You can follow Osocio at @osocio.

What’s your favorite blog post and why?

As a libra it’s hard to choose, so I take three:

http://osocio.org/message/de_mond_gesnoerd

I was totally surprised by the perfect use of the media in this one. It was one of the first ever posted on Houtlust, the preamble of Osocio, and is written in Dutch. The artwork shows a dessident from Belarus. The mouth covered with tape explains all.

http://osocio.org/message/holy_shit

I’m used to all kind of shock-advertising, but this one from Brazil is one of the few which makes me really cry, especially the last mentioned video.

http://osocio.org/message/in_my_language/

A real eye opener. It’s about an autistic women, and we can learn from her that there are many ways to communicate.

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As a huge fan of social advertising myself, here is one of my favorites in terms of how its powerful message combines with the video’s images. Titled: Stop the Bullet.

Come back every Thursday to see whose been nominated as the next Blogger Neighbor you need to know 😉

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As a fan of social advertising, here is one of my favorites in how the message and video combine to share a powerful message. Titled: Stop the Bullet.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk01MXx6IfE&hl=en]