As an online communicator with clients both in the corporate and non-profit sector I was interested in a post recently by Jennifer McClure of The New Communications Review discussing how the social web is a great place for philanthropic activity.

Jennifer’s blogpost highlighted new research “…funded by the Columbus Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation demonstrating that High dollar donors — especially 30-49 year-olds — use the social web, but have yet to be engaged by strong, trustworthy philanthropic organizations. This was among the key findings of the new research study, “Community Philanthropy 2.0,” conducted by Beth Kanter, Society for New Communications Research Fellow Geoff Livingston, and Qui Diaz of CRT/tanaka.”

The Community Philanthropy 2.0 research study examined the use of social media by non-profits and causes, as well as existing donors and Internet “savvy” users’ traditional and social media usage patterns. The research was designed to determine if and how social media can be used to engage and cultivate high dollar donors.

Key Findings

* The online world of charitable activity is highly social, but also fragmented. No dominant voice for charitable giving exists online, indicating the social web is still in an early phase of philanthropic activity.
* Online conversations rarely evolve into meaningful discussions about how nonprofits are achieving their missions and impacting society. Donors don’t advise other donors, and generally, philanthropic experts from foundations do not participate in these discussions.
* There is a need for a trusted source, and a lack of authoritative philanthropic conversations.
* The 30-49 age group represents the best fit to cultivate major donors using social media strategies,
* More than 50 percent of 30 – 49-year-old survey respondents are interested in the following topics:
• “Whether or not a nonprofit is successfully making an impact” (75%)
• “Learning about organizations that are actively working on issues and causes I care about” (62%)
• “Success stories and updates on the progress of nonprofits I support” (54%)
• “Information/updates on the issues and causes I care about” (54%)
• “Financial accountability and governance of nonprofits I support” (51%)
* 80 percent of the Internet-savvy respondents aged 30-49 reported that they would participate in social media with nonprofits if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 77 percent said they would participate if it came from a trusted source.
* Online community-oriented social media is a preferred tool over most other forms of online conversation.

Source/Credit: New Communications Review

I came across a great  presentation this morning -on my rss feed for the wonderful AppGap –  it is certainly worth a read.  What I thoroughly support in this presentation is the idea of breaking down the internal business silos between customer research, pr and crm – a position I put forward in a recent blog post entitled Social Media Why Its Not All About You  

If your social media agency can’t talk across the business silos (ie not just pr or a quick viral campaign) maximisation of the dollars you spend on Social Media will be reduced.

How many times have you heard marketers or pr professionals say:

- “Social Media is so hard to get over the line’  and -’Its hard to demonstrate the ROI of Social Media’ or

-’The CEO is just not on board with the Social Media idea’

These comments typically come from individuals that do not have the full business picture in mind when they are talking with their client.

As marketers we often think of Social Media as part of our own personal toolkit – albiet a growing and quickly developing one. Via Social Media we have the capacity to reach consumers,  with some prs still aiming to get a few messages across  (yes very old school) and ideally raise the brand profile and ultimately sell the item that we are marketing.

So what is wrong with that notion? After working in traditional media, online pr, market research 2.0 and knowledge management it is clearly evident that we need to recognise that Social Media touches all the above disciplines within a business including R&D and CRM.  As individuals within those disciplines we need to step outside our own areas and look at how we deliver business value across many areas of the business  – a much more wholistic approach.

So how is this relevant to you as a marketer? First understand that the Twitter account that you are trying to sell in for pr purposes can also be used for CRM and that means working with those relevant internally to support customers if complaints arise.  That branded Online Community that you are thinking about will provide ROI for many elements of your business including innovation and R&D. It is not just about your big shiny idea or your pr/marketing silo, or for that matter (and this is positive) the marketing budget.

Finally social media strategies can be devised and initially implemented by agencies but collaborative maintenance must come from the company itself.   What is maintenance? after the initial burst of creative activity is the hard yakka of continuing the conversation with your consumers, listening to them and embracing what you learn. If your social media marketing agency is simply selling you a one-off campaign and not educating you along the way they are doing you a disservice. Sure campaigns such as World’s Best Job have a finite time period but most customer engagement strategies should be for the long-term.

Social Media has the power to transform a company,  break down internal silos, deliver excellent ROI, engage with consumers and deliver more relevant products to the marketplace but we need to first recognise its not all about us.

About the Author: Jenni Beattie is the Director of Digital Democracy a Sydney based Social Media Consultancy . Enjoy the article?please subscribe to the RSS Feed .

Update May 9 Mashable produced an excellent article using Twitter for customer service well worth a read!