When did World Vision first get involved in social media?
World Vision started using social media before I joined. We had a guy called Adam Valvasori involved with our youth team and he was pushing the boundaries in terms of online engagement. World Vision has always taken the approach that we're a middle-market brand that engages with middle Australia. We deal with international social justice and poverty issues and we thought that many people who are online care about these issues and would want to engage with us and with each other. Initially this was through Stir (our youth site) and creating a presence on MySpace. Our first major success was on YouTube. A few years ago we created a video called Teenage Affluenza. That got featured on the front of Facebook and went viral around the world!
We operate on two levels – raising money in Australia to support our work in developing countries and then secondly to engage Australians on the issues that we care about and we hope they care about too. The Teenage Affluenza video is definitely an example of the latter. In the past we had been a pioneer with a lot of activities in traditional media. We were the first charity ever to buy TV ad space. We had dedicated TV specials. Of course that's now very, very expensive so we need to look at other options. If we're looking at engaging then it's about getting those one-to-one conversations with people directly.
What are you doing at the moment?
Still in the youth space we're doing a lot of YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Twitter (of course). Those are really about trying to meet people where they're at. They can talk to us in their space rather than making them come into our territory. We want them to be comfortable and to care about their issues in their own environment. Right now our strategy is maturing. We now have a conscious digital strategy rather than just responding to things – and that's across the whole organisation rather than just in the youth space.
We want to do three things:
- How do we engage with Australians in the conversation?
- How do we talk to them directly about the issues we see around the world?
- How do we give them the opportunity to act on that (either financially or non-financially)?
What changes does this require of World Vision? Has there been any resistance?
It turns our whole messaging and engagement approach upside down. World Vision is over 40 years old, we are set up to do business in a certain way and what worked for us in the past will likely not work for us in the future. We have been very oriented around direct mail and TV ads and the phone lines ringing but now it's all moving online. One of the things we want to do is pull back the orange curtain. We want people to understand what we do and how we do it, we want to take them on that journey.
Things that were previously overlooked internally have to change. If you want to have one message out there then that's easy if it's just press releases but if you have many people talking externally the you need to make sure that your messaging is right. That doesn't mean sticking to the party line or being a broken record. It means being honest if you don't know something and referring them on or saying you'll get back to them.
Who else do you see doing this well?
I don't think anyone is doing it great at the moment. Most of the people doing it successfully are being opportunistic and being first in. Charity:water are doing Twestival which will probably be successful but we'll have to see how sustainable that is. Most of the older charities are struggling because it is a new part of the world for them. Sean from The Uncultured Project has a big following on YouTube – how does he make sure that what he is doing is sustainable and can he join the activist audience with the need for financial support for international development. A lot of non-profits are simply using social networks as a feed. I think that is the wrong thing to do and that will simply alienate people who would rather be engaging with you.
So there's plenty of opportunities then?
There are opportunities if you take the time to do it well. There are also a lot of opportunities to alienate people if you do it badly. You have an outlet to speak about a lot of different things but every time you go off message then you risk alienating people. The other thing is that word of mouth spreads so quickly online. If you upset one person then it'll move quickly. On the other hand, you hear the discontent early so you can deal with problems as they arise.
How do you avoid alienating people?
If someone asks you a question and your organisation isn't comfortable talking about it then you respond accordingly and give the reasons why. You need to be careful about all your relationships online – who you are engaging with, how you are engaging. You still need to be genuine, polite and you shouldn't pretend to be something that you are not. Being genuine is key.
What's next?
For World Vision it is moving to a new platform that allows people to engage with us on the issues that matter to us. It's a new World Vision. It's not just what people see on the ads. Yes we do child sponsorship, yes we help starving children in Africa but we also have a team setting up satellite internet connections allowing people to communicate with each other. We are involved with peace-building, we have rapid response teams that can be in any part of the world in 48 hours. We want to release those stories and have people engage with us around those stories. And if they care about those things then we want them to be able to do something about that. That may be advocacy, raising awareness or it may be donating money.
For me the key thing is to stay sane and help lead the organisation through that process – because everything's evolving. We can't just focus on what we need now, we have to plan for what we will need in 18 months. We cannot afford to be left behind because if we don't make money, it isn't just “we didn't turn a profit” - there are people around the world who could starve. We have to make people see the real stories and if they share in those stories and their urgency then we can make change happen.
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