Converting Facebook followers into Campaigners James White, Campaigns Officer, Guide Dogs.

Converting Facebook followers into CampaignersJames White, Campaigns Officer, Guide Dogs

Who am I?• Campaigns Officer at Guide Dogs since

February 2011

• Used to work in sales, so I like targets

• I attended Spark 2011, after which I started to think about creating a widget

• I am not a programmer!

The Campaign• Talking Buses

• Audio Visual next stop and final destination announcements on all buses across the UK (like on new trains, trams, London Buses etc)

• Campaign started in 2009

• Decided to focus on Norman Baker in March

What were we doing?

• We would post a message on Facebook about our Talking Buses Campaign.

• We were then asking people to leave Facebook and complete the following on our website…

Why wasn’t this working?• People would prefer not to leave the

comfort of Facebook.

• Even if they did, the form was fairly boring to look at, and there are lots of fields to fill in.

The case against• Cost?

• Most people on our Facebook page seem to just like cute dogs!

• Easy? Time to create? Not that many working examples to learn from

• I am a keen user of technology, but not technically minded

The case for• Not actually that expensive

• There were around 9,000 people who “Liked” our page on Facebook

• Overcomes the problem of people having to leave Facebook to take an action

• Eye catching/New/Shiny/Exciting

• Try anything once!

How did we do it? • Worked with our Social Media team and a

third party design company

• Quickly settled on a design

• Worked out which fields were vital to us

• Showed the design company how to access the Engaging Networks stylesheets.

• Job Done!

What to do with it…

• Very simple to add it on Facebook as a tab down the left hand navigation so it is there all the time

• Usual mentions in the Newsfeed

Spreading the word• @guidedogs included a bit.ly link in

Tweets about Talking Buses/party conferences etc

• Other charities placed it on their own Facebook pages – thanks to Whizz Kidz, Action for Blind People, Action on Hearing Loss and others.

Results (as of 14/10)

• 281 people have completed the widget in a couple of months.

• 247 were brand new (87%)

• 125 are happy to be contacted in future (44%)

Improvements?

• We weren’t allowed to put it here…

Improvements?

• We haven’t used it as the landing page on Facebook (so it would be the first thing people would see).

Improvements?

• We haven’t asked people to tell their friends/participate in other actions etc.

Contact Details

• T: @tweetfromchaff

• M: 0755 443 8268

• E: [email protected]

• Facebook: Guide Dogs Campaigns

• Any questions?