Harnessing the Power of Social Media for Women’s Rights

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah

Communications Officer, AWDF

Social Media 102

This presentation will:

• Highlight key opportunities that social media presents for women’s rights organisations

• Make recommendations on how to effectively utilise social media for women’s rights

• List good practice for using social media

The Social Media World

Money making potential?

Comic Relief’s “Twitrelief”

Twitrelief

• For RND 2011, Comic Relief decided to try raising money from twitter…

• They succeeded in raising:

£286,074.23

So what does it take…

… to raise money online through social media…

A lot of ‘offline’ work

• With the Comic Relief case study for e.g, the help of Emma Freud (a trustee) and Emma Kennedy (a celebrity) was indispensable

• Other key resources included dedicated staff time, collaboration with EBay and celebrity support

Twitrelief

• @twitrelief was however the main promotional tool used to publicise this fundraiser

• Comic Relief auctioned off a RT, mention and a follow

Communication opportunities?

AWDF’s mentions…

Social media in 2011

Prof Steven Van Belleghem…

• More than 1 billion people use Facebook

• Average Facebook session lasts 37 minutes

• Average Twitter session lasts 23 minutes

• 50% of social network users are connected to a brand

• Women typically outnumber men on social networks

Harnessing social media

• Decide which social media tools you are going to use

• Dedicate resources to social media – human & time are main costs

• Issue guidelines on social media for staff

• Remember media is ‘social’ and not ‘corporate’

Your website goes social

Your newsletter goes social

Social shares via newsletter

Social Media Analysis

Good practice/Tips

• Use 3rd party applications e.g. Hoot Suite, Tweetdeck and Uber Social

• Cross link

• Incorporate pictures with Facebook updates

• Respond to comments, mentions and DMs

• Maintain good grammar

• Only RT links you have read/agree with

Good practice/tips

• Update social media regularly

• Post relevant, useful or interesting content

• Remember ‘social media’ is a two-way or multi-way conversation flow

• Do not demand that others ‘follow back’

CCCD and Social Media

Monitoring Social Media

• What kind of content should women’s rights organisations have on their social media?

• What kind of comment should women’s rights organisations not have?

• Who is following you on twitter?

• Who are you retweeting?

• What are your privacy settings?

See you in the social space

• ‘Like’ www.facebook.com/africanwomensdevelopmentfund

• Follow @awdf01

• Subscribe to ‘TheAWDF’ on You Tube

• View our photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/awdf

Any Questions?