Case Study: Knight News Challenge 2008-09

Using social media to drive awareness & engagement (while

being lean but not mean) Susan Mernit

Seizing the Moment conferenceAugust 2009

How to use social media tools—Facebook, Twitter, Flickr & blogs—to create awareness for your project that will get you new audiences, deeper user engagement and more buzz—without a lot of cost: a case study.

Knight News Challenge (newschallenge.org): Annual competition awarding $5MM in funds to projects that support local news and discussion in specific geographic communities (3 yrs)Open competition, anyone can enter, products MUST be open sourceInternational reach, proposals sought from wide range of communities

Goals for 2008-09 challenge:Improve quality and diversity of applicationsImprove peer support and peer mentoring experiences at start of programStrengthen international applications, particularly in Asia

What we had to work with:Part time team of 3 people: 5 hours a week each for 2 months$2,500 events budgetFree social media tools

Results we achieved:47 % increase in traffic to newschallenge.org50% increase in unique visitors17,000 uniques at site last day of competition, 100% increase224 blog posts about program compared to 24 the previous yearVibrant community: 1,800 registrants for NC Garage

So how did we do that?

Made A Plan w/Measurable GoalsGoals:Increase awareness in tech & social media communitiesCreate viral buzz, blogosphereDiversify applicationsBuild community

Tactics:Orchestrate program of bloggingLocal meet-upsBuild Garage, peer review/mentoringMultiple Facebook groups & eventsEmail blasts across the worldOutreach to key influencersMultiple twitter accounts 2X day for 2 months

Executed plan, on a schedule

• Built 2 month, 3X a week schedule for blog posts; asked reviewers to blog

• Assigned main twitterer; retweeted, thanks others for retweets

• Active flickr groups;• #hashtag, #knc09• 2X week email blasts• 9 live meet ups across

US over 2 months• Video testimonials• Repeated contacts

w/influencers, bloggers

Budgeted time & money

• Time– Assigned staffers,

distributed time over week

– Minimized lingering, turned social media OFF

– Weekly call discussing roles, impact, goals for week

• Money– P/T social media

community manager for 2 months, 15 hours week

– Free spaces for meet-ups, soda & chips for snacks

– No hotel bills; planned with Knight travel

Results2,323 entries submitted60,000 mentions of “Knight News Challenge” on non-Knight sites in 2008; 110% increase from 20071,800 registrants, Garage; 50% applied400 attendees, live meet-ups; 50% applied700 links to mentions of the events indexed in Google, 30 photos on Flickr tagged Knight News Challenge meet up)Write ups NYT, Valleywag

Why did this work ?

Social Networks are growing VERY QUICKLYTwitter Facebook FriendFeed Flickr YouTube

Adults have joined FB & TwitterIn the past year, Twitter traffic has grown 3,700%; minutes spent on Facebook have increased 700% in the same time frame

In the U.S, total minutes spent on social networking sites have increased 83 percent year-over-year. Visitors aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 49 were the highest indexing age groups on Facebook, representing 27 percent and 23 percent as more likely to visit the site than the average user, respectively.

And it’s on our phones.Yes, even those crappy cell phones…

Web resources for follow-upSocial media for social action, Susan Mernit, white paper documenting social media outreach by The Knight News Challenge & others http://susanmernit.com/services/

Beth Kanter’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media-http://beth.typepad.com

Deanna Zandt, forthcoming book, Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking! (Barrett-Koehler) &her blog: http://deannazandt.com

Rebecca Leaman, Wild Apricot’s Non Profit Tech Blog, http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog

SocialBrite, social tools for social change, http://socialbrite.org

Real Time Resources to learn morePublic Media Collaborative, volunteer group dedicated to free and low cost training in social media—next training October 23, 2009, Oakland, CA (http://bit.ly/1UkVC)

Net Squared Net Tuesdays, monthly meet-ups at Tech Soup Global, San Francisco, next meeting, September 8, 2009, 6 PM,(http://www.netsquared.org)

Non profit boot camp, Craigslist Foundation http://craigslistfoundation.org/schedule.html

Thanks for listening!Susan Mernitmernit@gmail.comTwitter: susanmernit

Watch for Oakland Local, new community site coming in September, http://oaklandlocal.comNews for the people