Facebook is the 5th most trafficked site in the United States. Over 179,000 nonprofits utilize Facebook Causes but just how sticky is Facebook? You may be surprised to see some recent stats that question how successful Facebook is as an engagement tool.

An Evolving Platform
Is Facebook worth the time? Yes, I think so. Whereas Twitter is a conversation, Facebook is a broadcast channel.

Facebook has become the Walmart of the Internet. Where else are you potentially going to reach 200 million people? You won’t ever be able to reach all of them, but it provides another touchpoint in your online campaign to build relationships. You can establish a community among users with similar interests. It’s easier to build a community from an established supply of users than get those eyeballs to find your own web site or social network. Ultimately, you want those people on your site and getting your e-mails and tweets, and Facebook helps build that bridge.

Over the past five years, Facebook has evolved and will continue to evolve. Not only has the platform changed, but the lives of its users are changing. It’s not surprising that as new technologies and sites emerge and the Facebook generation ages, statistics surrounding the site will change. (To put it in perspective, the first generation to use Facebook as college freshman have now been in the workforce for one year.)

Platform Issues
As Allyson and other sources have noted, Facebook hasn’t raised much money for nonprofits. I would cite part of that problem as infrastructure. Causes have always sucked. What was originally a completely separate social network, Causes merged with Facebook when 3rd party apps were allowed. It still wasn’t perfect because individual users had to download the cause app and then search for your cause. It was cumbersome. In order to get a donation, it took 5-6 clicks. Those are terrible odds. Why not just direct people to your web site, which likely has a red “Donate Now” button on the homepage?

Facebook also didn’t help matters by not providing a good service for nonprofits and businesses until recently with fan pages, nor did they educate organizations about the difference between a profile and a fan page. Also factor in that fan pages only just got to join the feed with updates and status messages during the last rollout, and you have a situation where the tools never matched the potential.

The value is in the feed
The feed is Facebooks’ true value with apps following closely. The ability to simultaneously check up on everyone that you know and not be nosey appeals to a basic human need. Voyeurism and connecting are the main reasons why people enjoy Facebook. (Want to test that theory? Ask women about looking at wedding pictures on Facebook.)

Nonprofits have missed the boat by not taking advantage of invites to share events, fan pages, uploading photos of volunteers and events and keeping the status updates changed. (Hey! I’m guilty too.) People like to see and be seen. Facebook allows you to do that from the comfort of your office or living room.

Facebook also builds on the peer pressure principle. If your friend is going to nonprofit event, you’re more likely to go. How many times have you clicked on an FB invite just to see who is going? It’s also a vetting process. If your best friend or mother has is a friend of a nonprofit, you’re more likely to trust it. This is where marketers are trying to research. According to Brandweek:

Friendship data promise insights into not only the marketplace but also the corporation. Researchers can trace the hidden networks, identifying both the people who transmit valuable information and those who appear to block it—and how workers bypass them. By studying these patterns, managers can promote effective networkers and try to bring less communicative colleagues—outliers—into the flow.

While apps are valuable because they allow a 3rd party to tap into FB data, it’s still permission-based. It also depends on the feed. Who takes the time to go through the app directory anymore? There are too many. However, if you see a friend using something cool or are invited to add something, the chances are higher that you will.

The new business card
Facebook has also become the follow-up to business networking. Perhaps this is unusual, but I’ve friended more local opinion leaders and professional contacts lately than friends. It’s rude to not accept the friend invitation of a colleague that you just met lunch! At least locally, Facebook has become the new business card. Which fits into studies conducted at Facebook:

Studying this data, they determined that an average Facebook user with 500 friends actively follows the news on only 40 of them, communicates with 20, and keeps in close touch with about 10. Those with smaller networks follow even fewer. What can this teach advertisers? People don’t pay much attention to most of their online friends. By focusing campaigns on people who interact with each other, they’ll likely get better results.

I don’t connect with every business professional that I’m friends with every day on Facebook. However, I do engage these “relationships” when I need to send out information for work. Also, because I’m now friends with so many acquaintances, I make a concerted effort to keep my personal life off Facebook. Rather than write on a wall, I prefer to send a text. At least in my life, and I suspect in the lives of many others my age, Facebook has come full circle.

No single web tool or site will be the silver bullet in your online program. It takes time and effort to build relationships on every investment that your organization makes on the web (And every investment should be justified through research not popularity. Find a logical arguement why your organizations should engage a community before jumping in.) Just because the numbers are changing for Facebook doesn’t mean that you should delete your organization’s fan page. On the contrary. Facebook is a virtual town center. Don’t you want your organization to be part of the buzz?

Today, TechSoup has GrantStation on sale for $99 today. Normally, GrantStation retails for $599.

Looking forward to using this resource.

The highlight of the day was the panel discussion featuring, “A Conversation with PR Living Legends” with Harold Burson, Burson-Marsteller, Bob Cohn, Cohn, Overstreet & Parrish and Ofield Dukes, Ofield Dukes & Associates.

I particularly enjoyed hearing Harold Burson’s remarks. This man is truly a legend. He helped pioneer the field of public relations and has been in practice since WWII. At one point, he mentioned “Eddie Bernays,” and all I could think was, “This man actually knew Edward Bernays?!?”

Burson remarked that from the mid-1970s to the late nineties, public relations was more “communications” than strategic counsel. The crux of the field was to disperse information and not help companies or organizations operate strategically.

He has a solid point there. In an era of financial downfalls, corporate social responsibility and social media, how a company is viewed and how it reaches out to communities is crucial. The PR field is best suited to step in here. The word “relations” is in our job titles for a reason. We should be experts in building relationships with stakeholders and holding conversations both on and online. We should advocate for transparancy and understand the power that consumers hold.

Burson believes that “public relations” has been vilified because of President Nixon’s use of the term in the Watergate tapes. I always knew that political “spin doctors” had a lot to do with the bad rep of my chosen profession, but I had not ever heard the Nixon connection. Immediately following the Watergate scandal, practitioners eliminated the words “public relations” and started using “communications.”

It’s not the first or the last time that PR has had bad PR. Rather than fighting back and educating, the industry ducked and allowed their jobs to be demoted to a glorified town crier.

Historically, PR got it’s start with Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays counseling industrialists over labor disputes. Ivy Lee worked with the Rockefellers and was able to avoid the violence seen in other industrial fields during that time period. These two men were at the proverbial “corporate table” or the C-suite. I’m glad that Burson sees us returning there.

First and foremost, the key to all social media is building a relationship not selling a product, promoting a cause or placing a story.

1. Blogger relations does not equal media relations.
Bloggers are individuals. They can post and write what they please and when they please. While respected bloggers will be honest, timely and accurate, there are no gatekeepers like traditional media. The best bloggers will rise to the top, join blogrolls or blog groups/associations (i.e. Blogher). These sites act somewhat to provide guidelines and standards for bloggers.

2. Bloggers are not one-size-fits-all.
Even when bloggers are grouped into niches (i.e.Mommybloggers, D-I-Y bloggers, political bloggers), blogging is very individualistic. When pitching them, read through his/her archives and get to know that person. Individually tailor your message to them. Do not use a blanket pitch.

3. E-mailing a press release is not blogger relations.
Do not cut and paste your press release. After you’ve taken the time to read a blog, craft a personalized email that introduces who you are, where you work and why you are contacting them.

4. Blogger relations is about building relationshops not getting a hit on the web.
When reaching out to bloggers, don’t just expect to get a post out of the pitch. Try to build a relationship with that person. When a blogger builds trust in your organization/brand/cause/product that will increase your social capital on the web. Blogger relations should be a long-term strategy.

Here’s a related post that I wrote last year about when your organization is mentioned in the blogosphere. Blogger relations works both ways.

There are much more detailed and knowledgeable posts on the topic of blogger relations:

A case study from Todd Defren at PR Squared.

“Brian Solis on Blogger Relations

Last week, I tried a mini-experiment with Twitter. Before I called all the local outlets, I sent out a tweet with a link to a press release posted on our blog. I don’t know if it worked since our event was a breakfast on a Wednesday morning, and everyone usually covers it. However, I did get feedback from one of the local news stations about my outreach to reporters.

How often in the traditional PR world has a reporter e-mailed you (in this case it was a producer who frequently tweets) and offered feedback on how to make the process easier? I’ve only been in the professional field for five years, but that’s never happened to me before, nor have I ever heard it happening. At professional development sessions or graduate classes, it was always advised to seek feedback from reporters, but who ever does it? I genuinely appreciated this individual taking time from his busy day and helping me do my job better. Why did this happen? Because I frequently “talk” to him and other media tweeple in Chattanooga about anything from politics to old TV shows. Twitter allows you to put a personality behind your professional skills.

Therein lies the power of social media. Services such as Twitter lower the barrier of entry in contacting people and establishing relationships.

Right now social media is hot and there are a lot of consultants out there trying to make a buck by selling a lot of fancy services. It’s pointless. Social media is no different from real conversations. You don’t need to create elaborate new strategies on how to reach social media users. Just think of social media as a very large townhall or church. Information spreads on the interwebs the same way that it does in real life. In fact watching a message get retweeted is a lot like playing the playground game of telephone.

In related news, the Bulldog Reporter ran a story today on Superior Social Media Pitches.