by Kari Dunn Saratovsky on 9 Mar 2009
Last week as Mark Zuckerberg began to unveil the features of the now highly anticipated Facebook redesign (the second in less than a year), I posed the following question on my Twitter feed: “Interested to see if the new facebook redesign helps or hurts NPOs and their causes. Hope it helps, any ideas?”
Well, a couple of ideas filtered through, but it was Brian Reich’s that caught my eye. Brian is the Director of Community and Partnerships at iFOCOS and the brains behind the highly successful WeMedia event that took place in Miami last week. Brian basically said that my questions was, “the wrong way to think.” He continued, “Redesign doesn't change anything. NPOs need to embrace what makes Facebook great. Need to be more social, community oriented. Can't rely on tools. NPOs are missing the point still in my experience.”
Brian's comment certainly got me thinking, but I’m not convinced nonprofits are completely missing the point. I think they are still trying to understand how to make sense of this new and highly open way of engaging with their audience. When Facebook rolled out some of its new features last year, the revised format placed a greater emphasis on news feeds and conversations – and it attempted to declutter our personal profiles.
In the coming days and weeks we’ll watch as Facebook rolls out a similar update for organizations and businesses. For those who may be unfamiliar, pages are the main way that many non-profits maintain a presence on Facebook, and the new design means doing some rethinking about how to best use Facebook to reach donors, and advocates. So, what should nonprofits be looking for so they aren’t "missing the point?" You can learn more about the details here, and you can check out how one major nonprofit (the Red Cross) is leveraging the new design here, but I'll try to extract a few of the highlights.
The new interface means more sharing and communicating. This will allow donors, activists, volunteers and constituents to engage in real, substantive ongoing conversations. The applications which were such a central part of the Facebook user experience a year ago, will diminish as the authentic voice of the nonprofits and their constituents will have the opportunity to take a more active role. Gone are the days of being limited to only sharing your message with your immediate fans or supporters. Updates to an organization's Wall or other discussion sat idle and were never broadcast – in other words, if your fans and supporters didn’t return to your page, they would never know a new discussion was happening. Now, they won’t have to go to your page to interact, they will see updates in their newsfeeds and participate as part of your community.
As Jo Miles from Beaconfire Communications so aptly points out, “This is the “social” in social media. Engaging supporters in your mission will now mean engaging them in conversation, and starting a flow of ideas. You can learn from them as much as they can learn from you. If you interact with them frequently, they’ll be in the habit of listening, and will probably be more active, more engaged, and more excited when you ask them to get involved.”
Jo also points out that this new and more social interface is not with out it’s share of challenges, especially for those who are not comfortable being subjected to scrutiny and criticism by supporters and opponents. And let's face it who likes to be subjected to that? But that’s all part of the good, the bad, and the ugly of living in this new social reality.
Personally, I'm excited to begin interacting with my causes and fan pages in a new and hopefuly more engaging way. The past redesign focused on the individual user, and it's no secret that the power of "we" has greatly taken over the power of the individual as of late.
So, let us know what steps your organization or nonprofit is taking to adapt to the new opportunities on Facebook. How is your organization embracing -- or at least attempting to adapt to the new open design, and what suggestions do you have for others who are looking to make the leap?
Comments
I recently created a Facebook Page for an organization I volunteer with. It was both amazingly easy AND open to the web at large. I was impressed with how it combined both public and Facebook-only features.
As a new user, I'm curious how the npo's interact outside of the single "region network" restrictions. I'm looking at Portland's Japanese Garden, which is portland region only.
Very good article. I was recently blogging on The Netflix Prize, which deals with the quality of the recommendation. However, conclusions are drawn primarily off of user ratings. People don't seem to bother rating on facebook, I know I don't. I wonder what correlations exist there...
Post new comment