Social Media and Relay For Life

Social Media and Relay For Life
Cancer Society of New Zealand
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
5/20/2013
What is Social Media?
What exactly is social media? Is it just Facebook or Pinterest or Twitter or ....?
To simplify the answer let’s look at the picture below. This picture compares the
current social media tools with traditional methods used for communication.
For example:
1. Facebook is the address book in which we keep all our contacts and their
details including friends, family and business
2. LinkedIn is the box of business cards or professional connections
3. Twitter is the little sticky notes which helps us to remember or share
information
4. Pinterest is the notice board where we pin things we like
Social media is a virtual version of the practical tools that we all use in our
everyday life.
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Why Do We Use Social Media?
Why do we use social media? To connect with our friends, family or followers? To
exert influence over others? To simply stay connected? The infographic below show
the five main reasons why people use social media. It also explains the basic
reasons behind our actions.
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Fact and Reality
The fact is, our organisation is dependent on people and their support—and it’s
hard to stay away from social media. That’s because the number of people using
social media is simply too big to ignore.
Factors contributing to the use social media are:
§
§
§
It’s the next generation of word of mouth
It provides transparency
It opens up conversation
The reality is—it is time consuming to manage any social media site. Therefore, it
is important to consider the following:
1. Whatever is started needs to be sustained (and sustainable).
2. Visit other similar pages to get ideas of the stories; make it easy by
collaborating on ideas, examples, etc.
3. It’s important to post rules of engagement and deal with things
transparently.
4. Identify and develop ambassadors who can speak to the organisation’s
impact
5. Recruit a Relay For Life Publicity Chair who can manage online
communications (or manage a subcommittee for online support)
6. Again – don’t start what you can’t sustain.
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Role of Social Media within Relay For Life
Relay For Life is one of the biggest fundraising and community engagement events
for the Cancer Society of New Zealand. To keep people involved it’s important to
share information regularly.
Below are the points to keep in mind while sharing information on any social media
network:
1. Avoid "doom and gloom" stories. Focus on positive stories which people will
be encouraged to share online.
2. Videos are a great way to tell stories and engage with audiences in a way
that you can't through print.
3. Use news stories and recent events as hooks to bring people to your
content. Engage with other online communities as well as focusing on your
own and never lose sight of the core values of Cancer Society of New
Zealand.
4. Be social in a professional way. Maintain personal and professional
boundaries. For further details refer to Cancer Society Social Media
guideline (see appendix 1).
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Who Else is Using Social Media?
Below are few snap shots of the different Relay communities’ Facebook page:
Below are the snap shots of the other organisations using Facebook:
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Top Tips for Using Social Media
1. Use social media to share ways in which our work is meeting local needs
2. Use visual stories
3. Use social media year-round
4. Create a volunteer social media group
5. Leave gaps and be vulnerable
6. Harness the amazing energy of others
7. Keep social media usage visual
8. Invest in good design
9. Humanise
10. Share
11. Become a trusted member of your community
12. Develop from within
13. Tell your story
14. Make it easy for people to share their stories
15. Tell true before and after stories
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Summary
In summary:
1) Social media is an important part of our work. It helps us tell and share
stories and engage with our supporters.
2) Maintaining social media networks is time-consuming. We need to create a
strategy to sustain regular communication with our supporters.
3) We need to identify and develop local ambassadors who can speak to our
organisation’s impact.
4) Any social media network requires clear rules of engagement. These need to
be easy to use and transparent to/for all users.
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
Appendix: 1
Cancer Society (CSNZ) Relay For Life Social Media Guidelines
Who do these guidelines relate to?
Volunteers and staff who:
· Maintain and/or contribute to a Relay For Life profile page on one of the
social media/ networking sites (eg Facebook)
· Actively blog or micro-blog (eg Twitter) for their community Relay.
· Contribute Relay-related comments, reviews, content, video footage or
photographs to social networks, websites or blogs on either a personal or
professional basis.
Key principles:
Be transparent
Be honest about who you are and your role within the Cancer Society and Relay For
Life while remembering to be careful about disclosing personal information.
Get your facts right
If you’re writing about the Cancer Society or Relay For Life, seek advice from our
experts to make sure that all details are correct.
Don’t lie.
Aside from the legal implications, people will only be interested in what you have
to say if they trust you to provide sound information.
Admit mistakes.
The people who are reading what you have to say will think better of you when you
act quickly to post a correction to the original comment.
Photographs
·
In most cases, you need permission to publish an individual’s photograph. In
general, photos can be used if a person is at an event and informed that a
photographer is present or gives consent to have their image taken for
Cancer Society use.
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
·
·
·
Choose your images thoughtfully and carefully.
Publish photographs/pictures that reflect professionally on the Cancer
Society and Relay For Life.
If in doubt, please seek advice from your staff partner or Communications
staff (please see contacts on last page).
Respect the law
·
·
·
·
Individuals can be held personally responsible for defamatory or libelous
comment, or for infringing the copyright or trademarks of any organisation.
Respect the confidentiality of the Cancer Society of New Zealand, as well as
volunteers, staff and clients always.
Don’t post other people’s material without getting permission. Better still,
link to the original source.
Respect the Cancer Society’s and Relay For Life’s trademarked names and
use brand images correctly, as outlined in the style guide.
Off-limits information
·
·
·
·
·
·
Confidential information (seek guidance from your staff partner if you are
unsure of whether something is confidential).
Financial information.
Current legal proceedings.
Personal information (anyone’s information - and take care with yours).
Offensive, pornographic or indecent content.
Anything that may bring the Cancer Society’s or Relay’s name into disrepute
or goes against our public messages.
Correct behaviour
·
·
·
Respect other people.
Don’t write things that you wouldn’t be prepared to say in person.
Exercise judgment in deciding which peers, contacts, industry figures and
clients it is prudent to link to.
Advertising/Endorsement of products
The Cancer Society does not accept paid advertising or endorse products on its
social media sites.
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh
You can acknowledge event sponsors when posting an event and a link to their
website. However, by their very nature, social media sites are a public medium
and domain so people are free to post what they like on our site – within reason.
Post disclaimers on all sites to counteract this.
Related Documents
New Zealand Privacy Act 1993
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0028/latest/DLM296639.htm
New Zealand Copyright Act 1994
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____1228.aspx#P6_276
New Zealand Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007
(Although this legislation refers to commercial electronic messages it may
sometimes apply to Cancer Society messages). Please consult the Act.
http://www.dia.govt.nz/Pubforms.nsf/URL/BusinessGuide.pdf/$file/BusinessGuid
e.pdf
NB: Please refer any cancer-related questions and concerns/posts to the Cancer
Information Helpline 0800 CANCER (0800 226 237)
For further information, please contact:
Lynne St.Clair-Chapman, National Communications Manager
DDI: (04) 494 7195
Mobile: 027 444 4150
Email: lynne@cancer.org.nz
Prepared by: Pallak Manan Singh