LightThread – IT, Business and Marketing Strategy

Social Media and Natural Disaster Communication & Relief

The earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12 has again highlighted the increasing role of social media channels in major emergencies.  Like the 2009 earthquake in China or the Southern California wildfires, information on Haiti is being disseminated through Twitter and Facebook, among other new media sources.  In many ways these aren’t channels that replace traditional methods of communication.  Rather think about them as channels that can be used to transmit information directly from those who are experiencing the catastrophe in real time, to those who can do things to help in real time, without editing or delay.  In addition many traditional news organizations like The New York Times, CNN.com and National Public Radio also use Twitter to publicize their usual news stories and provide up-to-date information.

Lisa Qualls, LightThread’s chief development officer and current president of social media club, Kansas City, was recently interviewed by Action News on the topic.

These new channels have advantages and disadvantages.  The information that is sent is fast and real-time. Because it is unfiltered it can also be misleading and incomplete.  Balancing traditional and social information sources provides the best comprehensive approach whether one is mobilizing help, sending information to sources of aid, or simply keeping up to date on what is happening somewhere.

Besides communication social media is also being used to raise funds for disaster relief.  Celebrities are using social media to publicize their giving efforts and Wyclef Jean’s use of Twitter through his Yele Foundation has been widely publicized.  More traditional disaster relief organizations offering the ability to share their messages of giving through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and texting are also relatively new.  Two examples of the latter include mGive and The Mobile Giving Foundation which are both communicating and facilitating contributions to the Red Cross for Haiti disaster relief.

Although convenient, these methods are sometimes not as quick as they seem, nor as easy.  For example, the Salvation Army found that although they had received $50,000 for Haiti Relief from Canadian citizens by Thursday, two days after the disaster, three times the amount was originally sent to them through text messages, but only a third of those texting confirmed the donation with the required follow up texts; also, the process for depositing the money in Red Cross bank accounts can take up to 90 days.

A final concern associated with the newness and rapidity of social media effected contributions to disaster relief is its use by the unscrupulous to run disaster relief scams.  The following tips have been offered by the FBI to assist consumers in detecting Haiti disaster relief scams:

WordPress vs. Tumblr – A Simple Overview

The ever evolving world of blog platforms can be confusing so we try to help our clients understand the basic differences between the options they are considering.  Sometimes discussions regarding platform benefits seem to gbe geared toward programmers making it frustrating and hard to understand for someone who doesn’t make a living writing code. Therefore, we created this quick and easy overview to help our non-techy friends grasp the “so what?” of both platforms. We would love to hear from you on what we need to add or simplify even further.

Functionality & Control

WordPress can easily replace your current website if you choose. WordPress is a Content Management System that has an easy to use back-end that allows page, plug-in, widget and sidebar updates to be made by the non-technical. WordPress can support multi-page navigation and serve as a robust and comprehensive website with database management and control.  Wordpress is hosted on a server that is user controlled allowing better control over stats and personalization.

Cost and Usability

Tumblr is typically cheaper less expensive to implement as it does not require the installation and configuration that WordPress does. Tumblr offers an extremely user friendly dashboard that makes updating posts easy for text and media alike.  Tumblr is also easy to update from mobile device.

Design, Customization and Integration

With WordPress you can create different layouts for internal pages, posts and your homepage.  Tumblr on the other hand is limited with one type of page layout that must be applied on every page on the site. WordPress supports widgets/plug-ins that can easily be added/customized without hard coding vs. Tumblr that must be custom coded for plug-in functionality. WordPress allows you to include native calendars and contact pages which mean you can update them all from the same WordPress back-end. Tumblr can support calendar and contact pages but only from third party sites that requires a separate log-in from the Tumblr back-end.

Search Engine Optimization, Ads and Performance

WordPress is very friendly with the search engines and can be easily optimized with various plug-ins added to the back-end. WordPress can also easily support Ad’s which can be placed in different places on different pages as you choose.  Wordpress also has cleaner code in the back-end which allows for faster performance providing a better user experience.

We hope to hear even more benefits from you!

What you need to know BEFORE creating a Social Media Strategy

We are preparing to meet with a potential new client who happens to be in the franchise business.  They are evaluating overhauling their brand to address some PR challenges they have faced the past year. Before we can help them, we need to learn more about them. In order to brainstorm social media strategy options, we need to establish a baseline of performance, process, and expectations.

We put together the following agenda list for our first meeting together. If you are thinking about creating a social media strategy, you may want to consider answering these questions first. Please keep in mind this list was created for a company who is recruiting franchises so if this is not applicable to you then please replace “franchise” with “customer.”  Also, the list was created for a specific client in mind, depending on certain factors the questions may be altered. If you’re not sure what to do once you have your answers, then please give us a call, we would love to help you!

1.  Messaging

• What is the message you are trying to convey?
• What is the brand identity you want created? What are your brand attributes?
• When people hear (your company name), what do you want those people to think?
• Is your primary purpose to recruit new franchises, engage with existing franchises or make the general public aware of the company services?

2.  Resource availability

• What resources are used today for marketing and customer/franchise service?
• Do you have a resource(s) available to write blog posts, update facebook (I saw that there last update was in November), comment on forums?
• Do you resources fully understand the online landscape? Are they aware of how to identify, engage and manage top influencers?
• Do you have the tools and metrics available to monitor and measure progress?

3. Customer engagement

• How do you address customer/franchise service today? Do you have an 800 number? Email?
• Are you prepared to appropriately engage with negative sentiment?
• Do you have a process to respond digitally to requests/comments?
• What is your expectation regarding timely responses?

4. Marketing

• What marketing are you doing today?
• What is your marketing mix?
• Are you participating in online marketing such as Pay Per Click, Banner Ads, Facebook ads, etc?
• What marketing support do you provide to Franchises?
• Do you offer promotions/discounts/contests? If so, how often?
• Do you sponsor anything?

5. Franchise/Recruitment Support

• Do you include online marketing as part of the marketing support to Franchises?
• Do you offer a specific site/resource portal/discussion board for Franchises?
• How are you targeting/recruiting Franchises?
• How often do you pro-actively check-in with Franchises?

We hope this helps give you a jump start to considering how you can adopt social media in to your business model. As always feel free to give us a call if you want to learn more.

Cheers,
Lisa