As part of our series of "before" profiles in our Social Citizens Makeover, today we would like you to meet Emily Waugh, 30, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Emily loves spending time with animals, so when she saw a local rescue group at her local PetSmart [2], she jumped on the opportunity to volunteer with them. That was 2000. Nine years later, she is still active in promoting the wellbeing of animals and finding homes for the thousands of healthy, adoptable animals that die in Oklahoma City shelters each year.
Emily has been working with various rescue groups since that day in the PetSmart, but she was excited to be a part of an umbrella organization, like the Central Oklahoma Humane Society [3] (OK Humane), that has the ability to bring small groups together to pool their resources and make a greater impact. In addition to enjoying working with the other passionate volunteers and the staff at OK Humane, Emily says her volunteer work there is extremely satisfying because she can already see how her time and social media skills are directly affecting the treatment of animals in her community.
Emily and the humane society already use diverse methods to reach their audiences. To supplement the OK Humane website, which shares organizational information and opportunities to get involved, Emily maintains the OK Humane blog [4], which gets lots of traffic because of the topical and controversial issues discussed. An active Twitter user [5], Emily says she has been able to use it to exchange ideas, recruit new volunteers, and promote animals for adoption. She recognizes, however, that the majority of OK Humane’s volunteer and donor base is not on Twitter, so she needs other social media tools to effectively reach all her constituents. She also maintains Facebook [6] and MySpace [7] pages for the humane society, but finds that both of the sites have limitations.
She writes a monthly email newsletter which goes out to all adopters, donors, and other constituents. Weekly local television appearances and regular adoption events are also in their communications arsenal. “I'm a huge fan of social media, but I believe you can't forget the ‘traditional’ ways of meeting and connecting with people, either!” says Emily.
With all the different ways she communicates with people, Emily knows her message is being heard by some – around 6,000 website visitors per month and about 400 Twitter followers, to name a few. But Emily is not satisfied. She says, “Considering that I encounter people every single day in this city who have no idea we exist…my work is far from done; I'm not reaching nearly as many as I'd like to.” One of her biggest challenges is managing all these forms of communication herself, on top of her full-time job, so she could use the Social Actions consultant to help her learn to invest her limited time for the most significant results.
Comments
WAY TO GO, EM! YOU ARE SO AWESOME!!
We are all very proud to have you represent OK Humane. :)
Hi Emily,
Congratulations on winning the Social Citizens Makeover contest. I have enjoyed working with you over the last few weeks to develop a few social media recommendations. I have pasted below the plan we discussed on the most recent conference call. Please let me know what you think of this plan by adding a comment to this blog entry.
I'm suggesting we take a Google Analytics centered approach to your makeover, specifically as it relates to your efforts to win organizational support for the social media programs you are pursuing.
Here's a list of Social Actions' social media recommendations.
- Setup Google Analytics on the blog, as well as the OK Humane Society websites
- Identify the metrics that are going to resonate with the board responsible for endorsing your social media work (Let's think through what these metrics will be. The obvious metrics would be unique visitors to the specific pages that the organization wants people to visit, and proof that the people reaching those pages are coming through your social media outreach)
- Compile hard data on the effectiveness of your efforts to date
- Launch your own personal blog on helping animal groups use social media
- Launch the personal blog ahead of your Humane Society Expo (great opportunity to draw attention to it)
- Prompt people on your blog and Twitter for ideas on how OK Humane Society and other animal groups can be using social media even more effectively.
- Reduce your workload and then based on your analysis of the social media programs that are already working, do more of them
- Articulate your own goals for the position, and share them with the board
Your vision for the work you are doing combined with some tried and true metrics will help convince the board that an investment in social media is worthwhile.
Please let me know if you have any questions about these recommendations by responding to this blog entry. We'll setup a call for next week to work through the nitty-gritty of making the most of Google Analytics and your new blog on social media for animal groups.
All the best,
Peter
Peter Deitz
Social Actions
Peter, your advice has been invaluable so far and I look forward to getting our hands dirty in Google Analytics! I have GA set up on the blog and our web sites, but am currently not tracking conversion funnels or any goals; that's what you can help me define. This will give me hard data to take to our staff.
I have launched my blog and am putting the finishing touches on the design before the HSUS conference next week. I hope to write a couple more posts before my presentation on Wednesday. You can see the blog so far here: http://www.thesocialanimal.com [9]. I am REALLY excited about becoming a resource to the animal welfare community at large about how we can all utilize social media more effectively to save animals' lives.
It's wise, also, to look at what is working and what's not, so that I can reduce my workload. Right now I'm doing EVERYTHING and that is probably not the best strategy. Just to develop and articulate a strategy would help right now, rather than just doing everything I can as much as I can.
Thanks again for your help, Peter--and I look forward to exploring this further with you!
Emily Waugh
Hi Emily, Your 'Social Animal' blog is brilliant. Well done. I love the name and header. With the right exposure, you should be able to get your ideas and social media experimentation storytelling in front of quite a few staffers at animal welfare organizations. In sharing your experience, you'll be doing the entire sector quite a service. Let me know how the conference worked out. Let's also connect next week to review your Google Analytics configuration. We can setup a few goals and dive deeper into the rich stats that Google provides.
By the way, I recently came across these links (provided by Google) on how to make the most of Analytics.
Instructions on How to Setup Goals:
http://bit.ly/5V3yL [10]
Instructions on How to Create Automated Email Reports on Key Metrics:
http://bit.ly/12oYxu [11]
YouTube video on Getting the Most from Analytics:
http://bit.ly/MsgWx [12]
YouTube video on Which Reports to Look at First and What They Mean:
http://bit.ly/2O5u4h [13]
Thanks, Peter! I'll check these links out in preparation for our conversation next week and will continue to post at my blog, www.thesocialanimal.com [9].
Emily
Emily congratulations on the launch of www.thesocialanimal.com [9] - it's amazing to see what you've developed with the tools in a short amount of time!
Keep up the great work - I'm excited to continue to watch your progress...KDS