You Can’t Tweet Your Way Out of This Dilemma
November 17, 2009 by Gail Hyman
Filed under Marketing, New on eJP
I had a number of conversations with professional and lay leaders in the Jewish philanthropic world over the past week that made me wonder if they had all attended the same high anxiety-over-technology-and-me session.
The good news is that lots of people who either wanted to ignore or minimize the importance of the rapid rise in social media, are now paying attention. The not-so-good news is that they are stressing over their own ignorance about how to effectively use the new tools, how to respond to pressures from some of their younger, hipper supporters to get proficient and get onboard, and most importantly worrying about where to find the talent to lead their newly important technology-driven marketing and communications efforts and make them look good.
The truth is there is no easy way through this ever-changing new world of communications. You have to admit what you don’t know, find someone or some way to learn how to get into the game, and become an avid advocate for developing the talent pool that will nimbly unleash the power of this valuable medium. And the sad truth is that some of the most talented young tech-savvy talent have left the Jewish community because there were no career advancing opportunities, few champions for their ideas, and little in the way of compensation to keep them inside the tent.
For too many years I have listened to nonprofit leaders dismiss marketing as a less-than-significant enterprise that devalues the mission of their particular cause. While I understand and appreciate that many people view their work as a mission not a product to be marketed, these missions needs to be effectively communicated in order to thrive.
Maybe the word “marketing” is distasteful. That is fine, so let’s call it education, or storytelling, or communication. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that now, thanks to the technology communications run-up, many more Jewish leaders are realizing that in order to be relevant – especially to the growing base of savvy, younger supporters – they must figure out this new set of communications channels and the ones yet to be created.
They and we must invest in developing a cadre of talented younger Jewish professionals who live in the social media world, are seekers of new channels and how to leverage them and who want to contribute to our Jewish communities so that they remain vibrant for them and their children.
So, if you really want to make an impact on both the relevance of your organization and contribute to the talent pool that will be needed to keep our community alive and thriving, let’s find a way to identify, nurture, compensate and position your young marketing talent to grow into leadership positions. This is an area ripe for someone’s philanthropic investment. Right now, there is a big gap between those in charge and those who can really deliver.
Gail Hyman is a marketing and communications professional who currently focuses her practice, Gail Hyman Consulting, on assisting Jewish nonprofit organizations increase their ranks of supporters and better leverage their communications in the Web 2.0 environment. Gail is a regular contributor to eJewish Philanthropy.
It may not seem dignified, but what I suggest to all bewildered older, less net savvy people, is to have a chat with pretty much any 13-14 year old on the street. Many Jewish organizations can do worse than to base their entire social media policies on the advice of a teen ager. The best part is, is that they’ll offer their “consultant services” to you for like, the price of a pizza and a coke. Take my advice OJC (organized Jewish community) and whatever happens will represent a seismic shift for the better compared to what’s going on at present. Seriously. Any 13 year old. Try it.
“And the sad truth is that some of the most talented young tech-savvy talent have left the Jewish community because there were no career advancing opportunities, few champions for their ideas, and little in the way of compensation to keep them inside the tent.”
This is SO true! I worked in the first dot com era in online tech and now in advertising in the social media sphere, and I just feel helpless in the community. Most JCC websites are crap, they look like they were made in 1996. And no Twitter integration? Or even basic online community engagement integration? And they just never listened to my advice to dump the Comic Sans font. They are marketing themselves as dated and old and useless and uncool by these tactics; I just gave up after awhile. I still feel sad about it though.
Sharon: Anyone truly talented and tech savvy would not be working for the Jewish Community. The remuneration, benefits and recreational drugs offered by the private sector are much better and Jewish non-profits can’t compete. One would have to be truly selfless and willing to sacrifice a lot in order to be an amazing coder or whatever willing to take a plunge in salary and prestige in order to lend their talents to a Jewish non-profit.
Is anyone really still using comic sans font? I think most Jewish non-profit Web sites today are at least adequate, but there’s definitely much out there that they are not taking advantage of. Lots of room for improvement.
I love the idea of creating a teen tech guru squad….ready to serve for a slice….let me think about how to activate that…..ideas? twitter? text? got some names?
ANY 13 year old. Seriously. I hear they hang out at Pizza parlors. Oh… and skate parks. And Mylie Cyrus concerts.
Gail – I agree completely with much of what you’ve said. I’ve observed that over the past year (I hypothesize a correlation with when The New York Times started writing about Facebook and Twitter three times a day) people have perked up and recognized there’s something going on. More than simply a new medium for marketing/communications, social media changes many of the basic rules of the game, and I believe any success with these tools has to include this mind-shift, not only a tutorial on how to use Facebook from a 13 year old (might be helpful, but not sufficient for success – another idea, however, that using a team of teenagers might engage the teens in Jewish communal work that will benefit us down the road… ACHARAI in Baltimore did this at their conference last year).
I want to comment on your choice of words in redefining marketing. You write, “so let’s call it education, or storytelling, or communication”. In all of these, the flow of content and expression is still in one direction (teacher lecturing to student, storyteller to audience, etc.) What’s really different about social media is that the “audience” (constituents, beneficiaries, participants, whatever) are empowered to speak, connect and organize themselves. Thus, any success in this arena requires engagement, conversation, and… LISTENING.
Surely this whole set of skills, perspectives and strategies feels overwhelming. It should. We’re in the midst of a communications revolution – but let’s embrace it. Darim runs “Social Media Boot Camps” in local communities to cover all of these elements – in English, and with support.
I also recommend that employers look for these skills in EVERY hire — from the new admin assistant to the CEO — and to promote these voices. One CEO I know holds brown bag “Facebook Friday” lunches where the younger staff just gives guided tours of their personal and professional worlds online. Easy way to help share knowledge, find your best (internal) talent, and strengthen your workplace community.
Excellent insight, as always, from Gail Hyman.
It’s important to keep in mind that you can LEARN how to use Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, etc. Sure, it helps to be right out of college where all of this is second nature. But there are many resources out there to put you on the new media/social media map if you are willing to overcome the fears and hesitation.
http://www.weizmann-usa.org
http://www.facebook.com/WeizmannUSA
twitter.com/WeizmannInst
I promise you Lisa, let any random 13 year old run the social networking campaigns for just about any major Jewish organization and you will see an immediate and significant increase in performance in said organization’s ability to communicate their message to a wider audience. Guaranteed. They may not use fancy shmancy marketing terms, but they innately understand new media in a way that, well, that shows that the emperor has no clothes. The point is, it’s not that complicated. The biggest hindrance faced by these Jewish orgs is not a lack of ability. We’re not talking brain surgery here. The biggest obstacle is simply fear and as we all know, 13 year olds are fearless. I despise the obfuscation that surrounds these issues. 140 characters people. We’re not sending a man to the moon. Go to your people where they are and talk to them. Duh.
Thanks Gail for this post (and Dan too!) — I’m always happy to talk social networking!
Very briefly: I don’t think you need to stalk Miley Cyrus or Jonas Brothers concerts to find tech talent. Each and every one of us can become Twitter gurus, if we want to dedicate some time to figuring it out — and if we have something to say. For the most part, this is all so new that there aren’t any wrong answers — or at least not many. Open an account, check out the scene, and start messaging. It’s really not brain surgery. And, it’s very diffciult in 140 characters to cause much damage. As someone who has made a few headlines for tweeting some things that I hadn’t planned on making headlines with, let me assure you that I survived & lived to tweet another day. You can too.
I just read an excellent blogpost by my pal Esther Kustanowitz that I commend to everyone on this subject. She is right-on-the-mark: http://estherkustanowitz.typepad.com/myurbankvetch2005/2009/11/manifesto.html
Wow. William Daroff weighs in! Awesome! But you yourself are an example of both good and less good uses of twitter by large Jewish organizations. Good in the sense that despite the fact that you are a high ranking member of the organized Jewish community – the Vice President for Public Policy and Director of the Washington office of UJC/JAFINA – you are still approachable and always communicative. The less good? Despite chatting with you on twitter and in person, I still don’t really know what it is you do, and more importantly, what it is the Washington office of JAFINA does. Do you lobby the US govt. on behalf of my US constituents? Do you promote policies that encourage a deeper bond between the US and Israel? Is there some way we can help? Is there some way Jewlicious readers can get involved? Also, and this has been discussed before, who decided that you should represent American Jews in Washington? How do we know that the policies you are pursuing are representative of US Jewry? What does JAFINA do anyway? Don’t you guys like, feed the hungry and care for the ill? What does that have to do with political issues and foreign policy??
The questions asked above are mostly rhetorical (or maybe not). The point is that as your constituents, to one extent or another, we can communicate with an individual or we can communicate with some sort of artificial organizational entity. Both methods of communication have their plusses and minuses, which should an organizational entity choose?
What does the 13 year old have to say? I called my cousin’s daughter, lets call her Kessem. I asked her the question and she sighed as if she was talking to a dim wit. Her advice? Combine the two. Huh? “Like when I twitter the Jonas Brothers, I know they’re not really responding to me. They’re busy being rock stars and doing important rock star stuff. But conversation is still one on one and whatever loser they hired to tweet for them will let them know the important stuff – like that a lot of kids in Israel really want to see them live!”
What Kessem suggested is the creation of a friendly and approachable twitter persona that represents a Jewish organization, writes informative and interesting tweets and engages folks in conversation. This persona will be directed by the powers that be regarding what information to disseminate, and will also be responsible for providing the feedback culled from its conversations.
This way the presence is continuous, and the connection is never broken. I mean if William were to leave JAFINA’s Washington DC office, would his successor be as charming and net savvy? Will I have the same level of access? I don’t know. But a lot is left to chance that way, no?
In any case, I hope I got my point across. Always ask 13 year olds. Now I have to buy Kessem a pizza and a coke. And have a serious conversation with her about her awful taste in music. Friggin Jonas Brothers… hard to believe we share DNA.