Explaining Open Social to Your Executive Director

The buzz has been going full blast about Google's Open Social API, from TechCrunch to ZDNET.  The nonprofit technology community is aksing: "What will Google Open Social mean for nonprofits?"

Allan Benamer answers: Not much because the average nonprofit does not have the infrastructure and skill sets that would allow for rapid adoption for new technology.   Michelle Murrain concurs "Most nonprofits haven’t even begun to take advantage of the Web 2.0 world in general, let alone the bleeding edge of OpenSocial." Allan also offers an analysis of the nonprofit micro-philanthropy applications, but says it is too early to speculate where things will be in the next 21 days or next few months.  One thing is clear, nonprofit techies will be watching, playing, and thinking about it.

Charlene Li has an analysis of the impact.  She notes that in the short-term Facebook isn't threatened -- for now. Application developers are going to go to where the heat is, and that heat is red hot at Facebook  But longer term, this may change.

What I am curious is how nonprofit marketing staffers are explaining this to their executive directors.  And, maybe this is only of concern to relatively small number of early adopters in the nonprofit sector.   Still, I'd love to know the answers to these questions:

• How do you explain to your executive director?
• If you are the Internet marketing person or responsible for your organization's web strategy, how does this impact your strategy?

What is Openness?

While some headlines might proclaim that Open Source is meaningless in the nonprofit sector, the issues as Holly Ross of NTEN says, "The  question isn't really about open source, but about openness."   

So, how do you explain Open Social  to your executive director?

Jeremiah Owyang to the rescue with this excellent post!

We’ve hit a milestone on how the web is becoming amorphous, data is about to be shared easily and quickly in a fluid way. Google and several other social networks in the alliance launched OpenSocial on Nov 1st. Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook are not part of the announcement (yet).

We’ve hit a milestone on how the web is becoming amorphous, data is about to be shared easily and quickly in a fluid way. Google and several other social networks in the alliance launched OpenSocial on Nov 1st. Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook are not part of the announcement (yet).

Four months ago, Facebook allowed third party companies to build mini-applications in their site, this is similar in concept, but now includes many other players.

‘Platform’ or ‘Container’ where your mini-application can extend to: MySpace, Bebo, SixApart, Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.

I like Christopher Penn's example:

Think for a moment what this means. You write an OpenSocial App for LinkedIn and it will run on Vox or LiveJournal. It will run on MySpace. It will run on Plaxo. Google’s OpenSocial API will give you the ability to cross social network platforms easily as a developer, and if you have the choice of writing for Facebook alone or writing for 12 platforms at once, including the most populous network on the planet, where will you allocate scarce development resources?

 

Here's the important concept that nonprofit marketers who are integrating the social web already know and need to explain to their executive directors:

Web Marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site. Let go of the concept of ‘driving traffic to your website’ as a sole measurement of success. The web, it’s message, and your battles are now fought on the open and distributed web. Trusted decisions between prospects and customers are made on these social communities and networks, savvy executives need to go there.

He also gives us the top line opportunities:

• Efficient development
• Harness existing communities
• Open standards help long term
• Your existing applications become social

The last point is a projection from Owyang about the future of organizational web sites - - that social networking features (friends and connections) will be integrated into organizational/corporate web sites. He notes, "We’re not there yet, but start planning on how that will look." 

And, of course the challenges:

• Unproven
• Open data opens risks
• Inconsistencies may emerge
• Cultural differences
• Future authority not known

The bottom line:   Although we’re at the unproven starting point, the opportunity is promising, companies wanting to extend their online presence should consider the distributed web (OpenSocial) into their 2008 web strategy planning.

The Here and Now Marketing Implications for Nonprofits

David Geilhufe said on an NTEN list earlier this week:  "Watch out for Google's Facebook killing strategy, OpenSocial. The technology here will better allow nonprofits to form relationships with constituents, independent of the social network on which the initial relationship is created.

It is unclear how long before that is actually in the hands of marketers and how much longer it  will take to get into the hands of nonprofit marketers

At podcamp, I attended a session led by Christopher Penn, who is a master at social networking and media strategie and is the CTO for Student Loan Network.   He shared his current thinking about Open Social and how it influences the here and now:

OpenSocial means something different to marketers, though. OpenSocial will immediately increase the value of each of the participating networks to marketers. Here’s an example.

In context, I have very different friends and friend data on LinkedIn and Plaxo. My friends in turn have different friends and contexts on the various services. OpenSocial will let me aggregate all of my friend data across networks to a data store, and I can then get a better idea of what’s on my networks.

More importantly - perhaps most important of all - I’ll be able to get common reference data across networks. This means, simply, that I will be able to cross reference data from one network to another. If a contact has a mailing address on LinkedIn, but is missing a ZIP code, and they have the ZIP on Plaxo, I will be able to aggregate the disparate pieces of data to develop a complete profile. Marketer’s dream? Heck yes.

What’s your marketing strategy for OpenSocial? Mine is to continue building and growing my presence on individual networks, targeting them for their demographics, and as the first OpenSocial developer applications come out, I’ll aggregate all the data together.

If you’re doing a targeted campaign, such as social network marketing, OpenSocial will make this process easier and faster. You’ll be able to amplify your marketing power across many networks, rather than just one, much in the same way TubeMogul lets you post your videos to 9 different video sharing sites at once.

But what if your organization is just getting started, what is the advice?

It is tempting to say that most nonprofits should just say no and ignore social networking.  Maybe look at some unsuccessful social networking efforts and proclaim it not worth your time. And certainly, if there are basic infrastructure and capacity needs challenging a nonprofit, certainly setting up a profile on a social networking isn't a magic bullet.   

But for those who have dipped their toes into the social networking river and have not seen results, I wonder if efforts that are not successful have not understood the key concept that Owyang states above:

Web Marketing no longer is limited to your corporate site. Let go of the concept of ‘driving traffic to your website’ as a sole measurement of success. The web, it’s message, and your battles are now fought on the open and distributed web. Trusted decisions between prospects and customers are made on these social communities and networks, savvy executives need to go there.

How can a nonprofit begin to implement a social networking strategy that is successful over time that does not waste resources?

1. Start with a small, low risk experiment on a social networking site.
2. Identify what you key success metric is
3. Enter one site at time based on how well the demographics fits with your targeted audience.
4. Don't sit set up the profile and abandon it - it isn't a billboard.  It means being part of the community and that means some investment of time.    Look at the cost/benefit of your time.  If won't invest the time, don't bother.
5. Give your experiment enough time.  A month is probably too short. 
6. Write down what works to grow your presence and profile on these sites.
7. Don't just friend collect, build relationships

What would you add to this list?

More References on Open Social (via Jeremiah)

Starting point:The official OpenSocial Webpage

Video: OpenSocial hosted an event on the opening night, this hour long video has demos of code and applications

What matters: Forrester colleague Charlene Li breaks down what is likely to happen, and why you should care

Developers: Ted, CEO of Dogster compares and contrasts the announcement.

Thinking Bigger: Six Apart sees the forest, this is development for the whole web, not just Google.

Opinions: There are many, many voices on Techmeme if you want more color

Update:  Why Google Turned into a Social Butterfly, NYTIMES

Comments

[Elizabeth]

Thanks, Beth. This is very very helpful, and provides a wonderful extension and resource for two different conversations I had today.

[steve garfield]

Thanks Beth. Is Open Social a possible solution to the constant add me as a friend loop I'm in on each new social network that I join?

[Nancy E. Schwartz]

Hi Beth, Thanks for pulling together these critical points to process on how nonprofits can/should utilize social networks, even as the network concept itself gets increasingly complex.

I agree completely with your advice on how nonprofits should (and that's a must, not an option) tiptoe into social networks. I can't tell you how often nonprofit marketers come to me asking how to approach social networks when they already suffer from a lack of resources -- both human and financial.

Experimentation -- small, focused and dedicated -- is the way to start.

[Tompkins Spann]

Great write up Beth!

The OpenSocial launch *is* truly exciting. I believe that in a short span of time we may all look back on this event as the tipping point for social media to finally become part of every marketer's strategy.

In a way, one might compare this event to the adoption of SMTP as the de facto email standard. SMTP spawned email marketing as a viable biz-to-consumer/org-to-constituent practice where previously the task of successfully emailing individuals across the variety of ISP's was not feasible.

Prior to OpenSocial if a nonprofit wanted to factor social networks into their campaign strategy they were likely daunted by the variability (and closed access) with the different platforms (e.g. MySpace, Facebook, Orkut). Now with OpenSocial marketers can design an online campaign with social networking channels and fret less about the differences between platforms and focus on the opportunities.

This opens the floodgates for leveraging the amazing viral potential of social networks for advocacy, fundraising and event registrations for thousands of nonprofit organizations.