WHY DOES ONLINE CAMPAIGNING OFTEN FAIL TO LEAD TO OFFLINE COMMITMENT? Brian Lamb

Facebook 500 million users globally in July % of UK internet population has a social media profile, with Facebook being the most popular Facebook is the 3rd most popular brand online with 54% of internet users worldwide visiting it regularly Twitter By the end of % of the internet users in the US is estimated to be ‘tweeting’2 Average age of Twitter user: 39 years 20% of tweets contain a reference to brands or products: like to cross-promote things they feel passionate about YouTube YouTube is the ‘social video site’: it is the 6th most popular brand online - globally 47% of the world’s internet population watches videos on YouTube YouTube is Europe’s second largest search engine Mobile internet 90% of the UK adult population owns a mobile Currently 25% of UK adults use mobile internet By 2013 mobile phones will overtake PCs as the web access device worldwide3 Giving Markets 200 giving markets and counting Examples are Just Giving, Virgin Money Giving, The Big Arts Give, Kickstarter, See the Difference 46% of JustGiving’s donors come through Facebook

Benefits of Online  Reach  Speed  Levelling Effect  But its about people not technology  Avoid to much activity at the expense of depth  Keep Focused  Internet Time vs. Human Time

Remember the Activism Pyramid

Activism Online  Danger with social media is that it gives the impression that you can invert the activism pyramid such that small actions can have big impact  This can be true in some limited cases;  When you need instant support  Generating media coverage  Organising demonstrations  Leveraging profile of an issue  If you want sustainable campaigning however you need to realise that it often does is flatten the bottom of the Pyramid further  To convert online commitment into offline activism you need to ensure you have inrasfrasture to support on-going relationships

‘Campaigners are perhaps concerned to get the maximum number of people down a narrow funnel to take action, without ‘distractions’, but failing to properly inform people taking the action may undermine a campaign’s credibility.’ Funnel Effect?

‘We [the Obama campaign] used so much social media during the presidential campaign, but the initial relationship that allowed it to work was , it was the text-heavy, narrative-based s that kept people engaged. Our mantra has been, invest in your relationships online via .’ Thomas Gensemer, Blue State Digital still fundamental

Lessons  Social Media is a conversation not a broadcast  You have to give up a level of control  Use online to bring people together offline  Iron law of campaigning-the more demanding the action the greater likely impact  Take people up ladder of engagement-give them simple things to do at first  Online is just another means not an end

Useful Resources for Social Media FairSay.com: How to Campaign like Obama HowToCampaignLikeObama.pdf FairSay.com: eCampaigning Essentials ecampaigning-essentials FairSay.com: 2009 eCampaigning Review research/ecr09b/view The DigiActive Guide to Twitter for Activism twitter_guide/ Brian Lamb The Good Guide To Campaigning and Influencing NCVO Integrating Social Media NCVO

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