Case Study: Knight News Challenge

Case Study: Knight News Challenge 2008‐09 

Using social media to drive awareness & engagement (while 

being lean but not mean)   Susan Mernit 

Seizing the Moment conference August 2009 

How to use social media tools—Facebook, TwiMer, Flickr & blogs—to create awareness for your project that will get you new audiences, deeper user engagement and more buzz—without a lot of cost: a case study. 

Knight News Challenge (newschallenge.org):   Annual compeQQon awarding $5MM in funds to projects that support local news and discussion in specific geographic communiQes (3 yrs)  Open compeQQon, anyone can enter, products MUST be open source  InternaQonal reach, proposals sought from wide range of communiQes 

Goals for 2008‐09 challenge:  Improve quality and diversity of applicaQons  Improve peer support and peer mentoring experiences at start of program  Strengthen internaQonal applicaQons, parQcularly in Asia  What we had to work with: 

 Part Qme team of 3 people: 5 hours a week each for 2 months  $2,500 events budget  Free social media tools 

Results we achieved:  47 % increase in traffic to newschallenge.org  50% increase in unique visitors  17,000 uniques at site last day of compeQQon, 100% increase  224 blog posts about program compared to 24 the previous year  Vibrant community: 1,800 registrants for NC Garage 

So how did we do that? 

Made A Plan w/Measurable Goals Goals:  Increase awareness in tech & social media communities  Create viral buzz, blogosphere  Diversify applications  Build community

Tactics:  Orchestrate program of blogging  Local meet-ups  Build Garage, peer review/mentoring  Multiple Facebook groups & events  Email blasts across the world  Outreach to key influencers  Multiple twitter accounts 2X day for 2 months

Executed plan, on a schedule 

•  Built 2 month, 3X a week schedule for blog posts; asked reviewers to blog 

•  Assigned main twiMerer; retweeted, thanks others for retweets 

•  AcQve flickr groups; •  #hashtag, #knc09 •  2X week email blasts •  9 live meet ups across US over 2 months 

•  Video tesQmonials •  Repeated contacts w/influencers, bloggers 

Budgeted Qme & money 

•  Time –  Assigned staffers, distributed Qme over week 

– Minimized lingering, turned social media OFF 

– Weekly call discussing roles, impact, goals for week 

•  Money –  P/T social media community manager for 2 months, 15 hours week 

–  Free spaces for meet‐ups, soda & chips for snacks 

–  No hotel bills; planned with Knight travel 

Results  2,323 entries submitted  60,000 mentions of “Knight News Challenge” on non-Knight sites in 2008; 110% increase from 2007  1,800 registrants, Garage; 50% applied  400 attendees, live meet-ups; 50% applied  700 links to mentions of the events indexed in Google, 30 photos on Flickr tagged Knight News Challenge meet up)  Write ups NYT, Valleywag

Why did this work ?

Social Networks are growing VERY QUICKLY 

Twitter Facebook FriendFeed Flickr YouTube

Adults have joined FB & TwiMer In the past year, Twitter traffic has grown 3,700%; minutes spent on Facebook have increased 700% in the same time frame

In the U.S, total minutes spent on social networking sites have increased 83 percent year‐over‐year. Visitors aged 25 to 34 and 35 to 49 were the highest indexing age groups on Facebook, represenQng 27 percent and 23 percent as more likely to visit the site than the average user, respecQvely.

And it’s on our phones. Yes, even those crappy cell phones…

Web resources for follow‐up  Social media for social action, Susan Mernit, white paper documenting social media outreach by The Knight News Challenge & others http://susanmernit.com/services/

 Beth Kanter’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media-http://beth.typepad.com

 Deanna Zandt, forthcoming book, Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking! (Barrett-Koehler) &her blog: http://deannazandt.com

 Rebecca Leaman, Wild Apricot’s Non Profit Tech Blog, http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog

 SocialBrite, social tools for social change, http://socialbrite.org

Real Time Resources to learn more  Public Media Collaborative, volunteer group dedicated to free and low cost training in social media—next training October 23, 2009, Oakland, CA (http://bit.ly/1UkVC)

 Net Squared Net Tuesdays, monthly meet-ups at Tech Soup Global, San Francisco, next meeting, September 8, 2009, 6 PM,(http://www.netsquared.org)

 Non profit boot camp, Craigslist Foundation http://craigslistfoundation.org/schedule.html

Thanks for listening! Susan Mernit [email protected] Twitter: susanmernit

Watch for Oakland Local, new community site coming in September, http://oaklandlocal.com News for the people