What’s Next Now

I came across this news article from South Africa while reviewing a Tweetscan email I received this morning:

Social media to rescue Jail4Bail campaign?.

“With about two weeks left in the campaign, the funds were about half way to target. And that is when social media, represented by Rafiq Phillips , stepped in.

Phillips is what can best be explained as “super-connected”. He has even featured as the face of Web 2.0 on Carte Blanche. And he understands new media, specifically its viral opportunities. Phillips believed that if the right social media tools were mobilised, more funds could be raised and the campaign could reach the global market. He seems to be right.

Started small

What started as a couple of twitter messages to the 700-odd people that follow Phillips has culminated in Jail4Bail receiving prominent exposure…”

In the 1980’s I ran the fund raising operation for a local unit of the American Cancer Society.  We had our own version of this type of fundraiser.  We “arrested” prominent local officials and put them in “jails” that were set up as props in various shopping malls.  There, a volunteer “judge” would try and sentence the arrestees to jail, from which they had to raise “bail” by calling all their friends and getting pledges.  It was a great media event, receiving excellent local TV and newspaper coverage. 

Back then, the success of the event was contingent upon our being able to arrest people with fat Rolodexes.  In this article, we can see the power of crowdsourcing (leveraged mass-collaboration) through the use of Social Media tools can have.   If I were doing this today, I’d ask my volunteers to find out who they new who had the largest number of LinkedIn connections and put those people high on my list of people to arrest.

The article ends with a very good set of thinking points regarding social media:

if there is something worthwhile talking about, the local social media network can come together and independently still work as a team;

you cannot block yourself off from negative criticism, but you can respond to it pro actively;

there are no geographical boundaries to social media campaigns;

a successful social media discussion spreads fast, and on multitude platforms simultaneously

you have to let go of the message, and trust others with it;

getting your audience impassioned is a good tactic to ensure successful reaction;

be transparent when voicing your goals for the campaign

Many organizations are going to have a hard time getting over their loss of message control with Social Media driven events.  But they do have to get over it.  The crowd is becoming too organic and capable of acting independently for you to ignore it.  Your first challenge is the same as that of a herder, carefully corraling the crowd by continual reinforcement of your themes, strengths and messages.  Your second challenge is coming to terms in advance with the fact that sometimes you will not be in control of results.