As researchers, we all know how important an online presence can be (and are likely far more aware of our privacy settings than the average user). We often turn to social media to find out information about our prospects - Linked In is of particular use. We also use social media to make recommendations on how to engage prospects - Twitter feeds, Blogs or public Facebook accounts often give detailed information on interests and friends.
At Carleton, although we had been using these resources on and off in research, Advancement had not yet decided out how to store the information (in our database in a pullable and searchable fashion), nor had we yet developed a comprehensive policy or strategy on how to use social media in a larger sense within Advancement (for not only research, but also communications, development and alumni engagement). We decided to go ahead with Blackbaud’s new Social Influencer Append to help us develop all of these aspects and bring some rigor, and additional utility, to Carleton’s engagement in the social media sphere.
The product is fairly simple. It takes the email addresses of your constituents and scans them through multiple social media networks to see whether that email address has a presence. The networks scanned include: Twitter, Facebook, Linked In (the top three social networks), but also Google+, MySpace, Flickr and “other” (which could include blogs, for example). It then gives each constituent a Social Influencer Score that translates into their Social Influencer Rank. These ranks are:
- “Key Influencer”
- Exists on all 3 major networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and generate significant discussions
- High impact and call-to-action ratio - rapid acceleration of ideas and crisis management
- Social Score of 51-73
- “Engagers”
- Exist on all three major networks (Facebook, Twitter and Linked In) and generate unique posts and shares
- Has significant influence on actions of others through collaboration and sharing of information
- Social Score of 30-50
- “Multi-Channel Consumers”
- Have known active presence on at least two major networks
- Well versed in social media use and have potential to engage in specific campaigns
- Social Score of 12-29
- “Standard Consumers”
- Are on one known network
- Look to Engagers and Key Influencers to share message with them - a target audience rather than a driver of information
- Social Score of 10
- “Unidentified” (with social score over 0)
- Social Score of 2-9
- Have some engagement in Social Media but not on the three major networks (Facebook, Twitter and Linked In)
Blackbaud claims a standard breakdown of a database into the following percentages: Key Influencers 1%; Engagers 5%, Multichannel Consumers 45%; Standard Consumer 49%. Carleton had: Key Influencers 1%; Engagers 7%; Multichannel Consumers 54%; Standard Consumers 38%. Carleton had 30% of its submitted records come back with some sort of social media presence.
The first thing we did was put the new accounts into our database for pulls. We created new email types for each social media account type. We also added their social influencer score and rank to the external ratings part of the database and then pulled the demographic and personal data for all scores over 0. Each rank was analyzed separately and then the entire data set was analysed together. We got some very interesting data. For example, Carleton’s social media users tend to be in the 25-45 age group, tend to be graduates of Arts or Public Affairs, and tend not to be donors. We also discovered that far and above the favoured social media for our grads is Twitter (29% of our grads with a public social media presence have a Twitter account). We were able to use the data gathered to help shape our still emerging social media strategy.
Some of the recommendations that came out of this exercise included:
- assigning Key Influencers to fundraisers or other Advancement staff for personal engagement as ambassadors of Carleton
- share relevant sublists with University Communications to help with the dissemination of corporate or faculty messages
- evaluate those with high social influencer scores to help boost volunteering, event attendance and online giving campaigns.
We also identified that there was even more we could do with the data (that hasn’t been done yet):
- cross reference those with high social influencer scores by industry they are in and engage for specific campaign themes
- establish reciprocal relationships with social media users – follow them on Twitter, invite them to participate in our Facebook group, etc.
The entire analysis and added data has certainly given us a lot to consider for our fundraising, for our communications, for our alumni events and, of course, for research.
I’ve always considered it to be an important part of a researcher’s job to be a technology guru. When I heard about this new product of Blackbaud’s, I immediately saw a lot of potential and recommended that we purchase it. After all, even if you had, say, a student dedicated to gathering this data, it would have taken months of solid work to get close to the data we got from this, not to mention the expense of enhanced memberships in each of the social media networks. What we got out of the data, as outlined above, was well worth the cost for us. It may not be right for your shop but I do hope that this peak into how we used this new product is thought-provoking and helps all of you be tech gurus in your own shops.
Shelly Steenhorst-Baker
Shelly is the Director of Prospect Research and Pipeline Development at the University of Calgary since August 2012. Previously, the Manager, Research and Records of Carleton University, Shelly has over 5 years in fundraising research. She is very active in APRA Canada, as a regional rep, a mentor and the co-editor of The Scoop.