Advocacy Focused Social Media Strategy

In today’s world of interconnected technologies, nonprofit organizations are frequently faced with the dilemma of how to utilize social media to drive strategic constituent behaviors.  Many have adapted to virtual networks by implementing an organizational presence on Facebook.   But for advocacy-focused organizations looking to drive action and ultimately grow their supporter base, a production-ready solution never existed. 

Today, organizations can reach a portion of their supporter base with their housefile and Facebook page but cannot easily reach outside of this limited network of existing advocates.  Organizations need to tap into the extended social networks of advocates whose friend’s likely share their values and interests; individuals that are currently out of the organization’s reach. 

Recognizing social media’s potential to reach beyond their existing supporter network; The American Nurses Association (ANA) sought out a solution to help them strategically access these valuable social circles.  Their aim was to drive action and awareness through the Facebook community, ultimately growing a list of new advocates with social networks of their own.  They armed their most engaged members with a strategic toolset - encouraging each advocate to take action and recruit new advocates who can in turn, inspire further activism in their personal social networks and beyond.  

Tools to Reach and Inspire New Advocates

ANA found a seamless solution in Boundless Voices™ for Facebook from Charity Dynamics– the first Facebook application created exclusively to provide advocates with the tools they need to exponentially expand an organization’s advocacy reach.  The forward-thinking nature and comprehensive design of this application makes users aware of the latest alerts and priorities of the organization. It provides a personalized advocacy experience for each user with features designed to share their stories and priorities with friends in their social network. 

Advocates using Boundless Voices for Facebook encourage legislative action through Facebook while inspiring their entire social circle to take similar action.  The average user has 130 friends on Facebook.  Each time users takes action on an ANA issue using the application, these friends learn about the ANA mission and are encouraged to get involved.  As their friends respond to this content, ANA extends its reach even further in the social network to spread awareness and recruit new advocates.  True grassroots organization tools in action. 

Boundless Voices for Facebook keeps up-to-date with ANA’s active action alerts and encourages users to do the same.   The application is integrated with ANA’s online advocacy tool and automatically pulls new action alerts as they’re added to the website.  The impact feature tracks each time a user takes action on behalf of ANA and lets users know when new opportunities to take action become available.   No additional work is required by ANA staff to maintain the application with the latest issues and actions.

Results

Boundless Voices for Facebook is promoted in 3 ways to maximize adoption:  with a direct email to members, on the action center homepage, and at the confirmation page of each action alert.  American Nurses Association’s activists are enthusiastic about a tool that allows them to easily share their passion with their friends.  Immediately, 7.5% of email recipients installed the application.  The promotional email itself was forwarded by over 10% of recipients, further expanding the audience.   The most common way for an established advocate to add the application is at the confirmation page after taking an action alert – increasing the ease with which these advocates will take action in the future.

Endorsements shared between friends consistently see stronger results - and Boundless Voices for Facebook users are no exception. Of the posts sent through the application, a 25% click-through rate drives friends to take the alert and 27% of them are new to the organization.   In addition, 19% of posts received ‘likes’ or elicited comments from friends.  These simple interactions from friends introduce the viral nature of Facebook. For each individual interaction, whether a ‘like’ or a comment, the message spreads to a subsequent 130 friends-of-friends.

Many organizations looking to drive activity and sharing on Facebook, do so by posting details of new action alerts on the organization’s Facebook page.  ANA successfully uses this approach.  When combined with Boundless Voices, they’re seeing a 181% increase in actions taken and 144% increase in the number of new advocates brought in through Facebook.

 Today, Boundless Voices for Facebook is enabling American Nurses Association to bridge the gap between their immediate email housefile and the greater social network at large.  ANA’s message has already reached an audience two times removed from their own internal list of supporters increasing support of their mission and growing their PAC membership.  These powerful results demonstrate the impact of Boundless Voices for Facebook as an advocacy peer- to- peer marketing tool.