What I'm looking forward to at IOF North conference on using internet, email and social media
I'm getting up at the arse crack of dawn tomorrow to travel on the 6:54 from Preston to York. Why? Because I'm going to meet fellow marketers/communicators working in the third sector who want to know more about using the internet, email and social media.
It's hosted by the Institute of Fundraising North and there's a great line-up of speakers. The agenda seems very web 2.0 heavy and social media heavy and I'm looking forward to seeing what some respected experts have to say. We've even got someone joining us live via web link from San Francisco to speak about the power of social networks in online fundraising!
Why am I going? I want to answer these questions:
How can I put together a social media strategy for the organisation I work for
What should be involved in this social media strategy, what tools should be used
Who in the organisation should be using what tools and just as importantly who shouldn't!
I'm hoping to find out what other charities and third sector organisations have been doing with social media. Are we ahead of the curve at UCLan or are we lagging behind?
We're currently working on our communications strategy, this involves implementing CRM and lots of email marketing. I'll be playing close attention during Howard Lake's session on 'The story so far: Charity websites & email - the good, the bad and just don't go there!'. Hopefully this will give me an idea of what will work and what doesn't.
While the conference is ultimately about fundraising, coming from a membership I'm going to substitute where possible the 'fundraising' aspect for 'engagement'. A lot of the tools used online involve calls to action, and instead of donating via credit card it might be that signing a petition could be inserted instead.
Hopefully I'll be able to answer some of the questions I have tomorrow, meet some people who are already doing some of it, or even tell people about what we're doing!
You can follow the events via twitter by using search.twitter to follow #iofnorth - I for one will be tweeting from ed_walker86 so feel free to follow me as I'll be tweeting as long as my laptop battery lasts (or I can get a charge).