7 Tips for Successful Social Network Campaigns

It's a well-established Web 2.0 trend that people are gathering themselves into online social networks. Mobilizing these individuals and communities into action, however, is still an emergent practice. At N-TEN's 2007 Nonprofit Technology Conference, folks gathered to share best practices on how to not only effectively spread a message using social networks, but also drive people to take action. These seven tips are worth noting:

1. Meet people where they are. Why do rock bands put more effort into creating a MySpace persona and presence than they do into building their own web site? It's because MySpace is where the people are, and it's easier to work with an established community than to create a new one from scratch.
2. Leverage network partners. Care2 built its network of 7 million members by giving both organizations and individuals many ways to engage. Because of this cross-organization network, the Humane Society was able to reach out to not only its own members, but also to members of other organizations that would be interested in mobilizing around Katrina relief.
3. Be everywhere you can be, but prioritize. Different social networks have different demographics, so be very deliberate in choosing which networks to reach out to. In addition, the best campaigns will integrate both online and offline strategies towards achieving a unified goal. 
4. Keep on top of your member acquisition costs. Figure out the most cost-effective way to aggregate your community. e.g., is it cheaper to buy a list and convert .01% of them into activists for your campaign, or to hire an intern to work on creating an active social network persona? Care2 found that their acquisition cost per friend on MySpace is about $12/friend. And if 50% of those people opted in to a mailing list, then the cost per opt-in activist lead is $24. Given that highly targeted lists can cost $7 - 15 per raw lead, that final $24 can make sense.
5. Be prepared for the big moment. Typically it takes time for a message to percolate when it doesn't have a supporting marketing budget. But whatever your effort is, there will come a moment that puts you in the news. Will you be able to retain all of the people that show up at your door? For nonprofits, a example scenario is the Red Cross web site after Hurricane Katrina hit. For a consumer Internet vendor, it could be a great mention in digg.
6. Let the community take over your message. The best thing that you can do is to lose control of your message, and to let other people take it over as their own. Scott Goodstein of Catalyst Campaigns shared the story of how 1-800-SUICIDE made up for a large fundraising deficit due to cancelled government grant. The organization took a concise message and its small, 2500-person e-mail list to MySpace. Musicians touched by the issue joined the group --- as did their own enormous mailing lists. MySpace ended up being a great vehicle, and other major web sites were able to jump in and build in a natural, viral way.
7. Keep calls to action simple. If you're able to tap into a community using a simple call to action, that community can end up doing a lot of work for your campaign. Calls to action also need to make sense within the context of the forum in which a message is being heard. For example, don't ask a user to make a phone call while watching your YouTube video on MySpace - ask her to tell a friend about it.

In my experience, the toughest item on this list is #6 - it's tough for traditional marketing and outreach staff to let go of control over their messages. Faith in the community, however, is rewarded more often than not, and even large consumer products vendors are taking notice.