Klout Kollapse

Klout claims they are a way of measuring your influence on-line. My Klout score sits at 56-57 which is considered to be a very high score.

I recently took a three week vacation. While I did answer some emails, I enjoyed eating, drinking, exploring and visiting friends in Europe. My Facebook usage dropper right back and I almost completely stopped tweeting.

The effect on my Klout score has been dramatic. By the end of week one of my vacation, my klout score was 55. End of week two it had fallen to 54 and then 52 at the end of my vacation. It had a slight bounce in my first days back but after a week back at work, it is now 50.

I am interested to know whether it has any more room to fall or if this is it. Now to see if I can become influential again. Will people have missed me? (By the way 50 is still considered to be a very good score!)

Tuesday Tech: Farmers Start Tweeting

West Australia's Sunday Times report the phenomena of Australian farmers tweeting. In the wake of the animal abuses recorded in the industry last year, farmers are looking for a way to communicate their work to city residents. This could be one way to bridge the urban rural divide in Australia. 

Animal Rights advocates have been very good with Social Media whilst farmers have been largely silent. Now West Australian Rural Woman of the Year, Catherine Marriott, (@roseycatherine) will run workshops across the state to help farmers understand how to use the technology. 

I am now following Stepahnkis  Coombs  who will be tweeting live from a cattle muster. Follow me @martinjcowling as I follow her and/or follow her directly @ausagventures  I also follow @AnimalsAus

Other farmers to follow:

@farmersway, @territorycattle, @kelpiestockdogs, @ABCcoppin, @WAfarmers, @meatlivestock

On the animal rights "side":

@animalrights, @Animal_Law, @AnimalRightsCom, @Animal_Place, @Animals_Watch, @Animalforce

The Cowling Report Readership rises 30% in February

Thank you for your on going readership of this blog. In February, we increased the number of readers by a third. A lot of that growth was connected to a blog post on major, major changes to the Volunteer Centre funding arrangements in Australia.

While there were a lot of readers and a number of comments privately, not many commented on the blog.

I wonder why?

Other appreciated articles included:


Monday Motivation:Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address - Published Jan 2, 2012

An older one- No More Free Training? Published Sep 8, 2011

Tuesday Tech: Korman Social Media learnings - a great one for agencies to reflect on the potential perils of Social Media:  Feb 7, 2012,

My blog post on The Facebook timeline continues to be popular. I will be writing soon about the changes for organisational pages with Timeline. First this Tuesday, I need to talk about the Google privacy changes.

Have a great March,

Tuesday Tech: Korman Social Media learnings

The power of Social Media came to the fore this week with a three day campaign that resulted involving the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, (previously The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation).


Who are Komen

Komen, is the largest and most well known breast cancer organisation in the United States. After this week, it is even more well known. In 2010 it was rated the most trusted charity brand in the USA. The furore this week may have dented this. Its race for the cure is curently the world's largest fundraising activity. 

Background

Komen paid Planned Parenthood to provide 170,000 clinical breast examinations and over 6,000 mammogram referrals over the past five years. The services were provided to financially disadvantaged women across the USA. Planned Parenthood state they "delivers vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide" They are viewed as controversial by some, because Planned Parenthood is an organisation that also provides abortion services. 

Last Week

On January 31, 2012, Komen stopped its funding to Planned Parenthood. They announced this was the result of a congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood. The investigation it has been reported was instigated by anti abortion advocates. 


Komen say on their website: Are you a member of a social network and want to show your support for a world without breast cancer? Now you can! See how easy it is to communicate and interact with us...Feel free to share your personal stories, pictures and videos as well!

On this issue, people certainly engaged. Within hours, Twitter went crazy. See graph on the right. In seven days, there were 306 000 mentions of Komen. Crucially the phrases  #shameonkomen ,and #standwithpp appeared in large number. 


Huffington Post has a collection of the funniest Tweets in reaction to the situation. 


Komen's  Facebook page has had over  38 000 comments in a week from people supporting and opposing the decision.


 The head of Planned Parenthood on Friday said "I absolutely believe the exposure on Facebook and Twitter really drove a lot of coverage by mainstream media...I've never seen anything catch fire [like this.]"  (Los Angeles Times). 


The Silicon Valley Mercury quoted one supporter as saying  "It's almost like Occupy Susan G. Komen," 


People used social media to tell stories about how they, or someone they knew used Planned Parenthood's basic health services. And they expressed fury at the suggestion that politics may have played a role in Komen's decision.

As the Facebook and Twitter world went crazy, the mainstream media world followed.  This was followed by a major increase in donations for Planned Parenthood (three million dollars in new donations) and threats to cut, reduce and end donations and sponsorship at Komen. Three resignations occurred at Komen and Komen affiliates distanced themselves from the decision.

Outcome
The uproar eventually led to Friday February 3, 2012's about face announcement from the Susan G. Komen Board of Directors  apologising "to the American public for recent decisions" and said Komen "will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants." Komen said it will amend criteria to "make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political".


Three days it took. And a massive social media firestorm.  

I am not entering into the politics or the right and wrong, I am fascinated by the power of Social Media in this situation and the way Komen reacted. 


Komen's lack of response on Social Media


Komen on their website regarding  social Media say: We will keep you posted on the latest discussions, news, upcoming events, pictures, videos, and more!  However..


What did they say about the situation on the blog  http://blog.komen.org/? Nothing. No warning it was happening, no 
explanation. No response. Their most recent two week old post was  on the 2012 Susan G. Komen Bahamas Race for the Cure

On their Facebook page, Komen didn't comment on the situation on January 31 instead announcing a new sponsor: Energizer .

Wednesday February 1, the silence continued and then on  Thursday February 2 there were a flurry of defensive sounding posts justifying the change.  

On Friday February 3 came the official (and still defensive) sounding statement: The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Worse,  there were suggestions that initially the Social Media team were deleting critical or negative comments.

In Twitter world  there was no acknowledgement of the controversy on @komenforthecure.  On Wednesday, Komen tweeted six times. Two were links to a video statement from Komen founder  Brinker  three were stats, and one was a reply about the Komen Facebook page. 

On Thursday, there were 42 Tweets from Komen, all were statements not interactions or responses. On Friday, Komen finally began replying to tweets but the "damage" was done.




Learnings for Not for Profits

1. Be careful what you wish for: Be ready fot the consequences, if you say to your world, as Komen did. Feel free to share your personal stories, pictures and videos as well! 
2. Explain controversial decisions carefully
3. You need to monitor your Social Media all the time. 
4. Any spike in traffic needs to be prepared for, monitored and responded to in hours not days
5. Pro actively respond to criticisms- don't ignore them
6. Don't ignore what people are saying
7. Avoid being defensive
8. Always tell the truth in a situation (I m not suggesting anyone misled people in this case)
9. Dont delete criticism unless the criticism are libellous or full of expletives- and even then think carefully about it

Tuesday Tech: Qantas Social Media #fail

This week's Tuesday Tech was going to be on the changes to Google+ which will be of interest to Not for Profits. After the extraordinary gaffe that Qantas the Australian airline committed on Twitter,  that is now next week's blog. There is so much to learn from Qantas fatal actions so I am republishing (and adapting_ this post from my travel blog: Wild about Travel. 


It all started innocently. Last week Qantas began a new social media campaign called “Qantas Luxury”. From my view it seems to be an attempt to to win back the hearts and minds of Australians concerned about Qantas. The airline has been battered by four issues in the last year particularly:

1. a series of  incidents which have suggested to some that the airline appears to be less safe than it once was
2. a decision to shift more of the airline’s resources offshore
3. some of the most acrimonious relations between the company and the unions ever which has led to months of ongoing industrial conflict
4. the recent grounding of the airline by the CEO Alan Joyce which stranded 10s of thousands of people around the world

On Tuesday at 9am Australia Eastern Summer Time, the Qantas PR department sent these Tweets:

The first Twitter response said : ‘Planes that arrive intact and on time because they’re staffed and maintained by properly-paid, Australia-based personnel.


Then the Tweets poured in. Within two hours, #qantasluxury was sitting on 13 tweets a minute. By the end of the day, some commentators are claimed they had reached 51 tweets a minute. Within 24 hours, the hashtag #qantasluxury had 1.5 million impressions. Most of the Tweets were negative toward Qantas.


The chief executive of Qantas, Alan Joyce on October 31 after the grounding said “I think the Qantas brand is an amazingly resilient brand, and predicted it would bounce back. These tweets suggest the bounce back may take a long time…


PuppyOnTheRadio: BREAKING NEWS: Qantas introduce #QantasLuxury class. Same as standard class, but the plane leaves the ground.


corinne_grant: it’s a few weeks ago, but I wrote this break-up letter to Qantas. Seems pertinent again today. thehoopla.com.au/dear-qantas-me/ #qantasluxury #myarse


GrogsGamut:  #QantasLuxury is that safe feeling that comes from knowing your pilots are wearing the correct coloured ties [a reference to the suspension of pilots for wearing a red tie protesting Qantas management decisions]


jeremysear : Quick note to corporate Australia: when you’re in the middle of crushing your workforce, don’t start a twitter promotion. #QantasLuxury


rgcooke: Can’t wait to see the Air Crash Investigations episode on the #qantasluxury hashtag disaster.


RustyAway: #qantasluxury Alan Joyce giving his ill-gotten pay rise to charity and then resigning.


SoBohring: Not having to worry about the safety demonstration, because you can’t crash if your flight never leaves


Qantas soon had a Social Media #epicfail on their hands!


I think, at this point, they needed to acknowledge the seriousness of the complaints and make an apology to the public. Qantas needed to tell the public that they understand that the grounding of an airline was not going to be compensated for by a few pairs of pyjamas. Instead Qantas tweeted:


@QantasAirways At this rate our #QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge.


Ah, yes it will. The sensible thing next would be for the CEO to respond publicly promising that the issues in the tweets will be read and addressed. Then following that up with doing just that. There is enough unambiguous material in the Tweets to help the airline understand how the public feels. Instead Mr Joyce has “gone to ground”, vanishing from public view. He has done this amidst allegations that the action to ground the planes was preplanned. In addition, there is legal action by the pilots’ union alleging their lockout was an over reaction to wearing the wrong colour ties (no planes were cancelled by the pilots’ actions).


Joyce has now declined an invitation to appear before an Australian  senate inquiry into the Qantas Sale Act citing unavailability. This is despite his earlier assurances under oath that he was ”happy to defend [the decision to ground the airline] and talk about it in any forum, anywhere, because it was the right call”.


If the first sensible thing is not followed, then the next sensible action would be to sack Mr Joyce. Despite Amanda Vanstone suggesting he is a nominee for Australian of the year, Mr Joyce has lost the confidence of his flight crews, pilots, frequent flyers and the general public. To restore that confidence, he needs to be the Board’s Sacrificial lamb.


The twitter feed for  #qantasluxury is here: https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23QantasLuxury


You can also find tweets with a mis spelled version of Qantas (the airline does not have a U in its name). https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23QuantasLuxury


In the meantime, one of my favourites:


RT @kiwi_kali: #qantasluxury Somewhere in Qantas HQ a middle aged manager is yelling at a Gen Y social media “expert” to make it stop. / LOL

Tuesday Tech: What is Klout?

Tweeting, blogging, Facebooking you probably know. So what is Klouting?  Well its actually just Klout!

Klout is designed to measure a person's "influence" on Social Networking sites.  Klout looks at how many people follow your blogs, tweets and facebook posts and what they do with them. So Klout looks at how many retweets, likes and shares done by others in response to an "influencer's"  messages. tweets and posts.

Based on those interactions, Klout calculates a score out of 100, based on 35 variables. My score is currently 64.35. How does that compare with others? The CEO and co founder of Klout, Joe Fernandez says that “It’s really, really hard for a normal person to get a score above 70." That has give me an incentive!

There are five accounts on Klout with scores above 90. They include Justin Bieber at 98 and Lady Gaga at 91. There are apparently two or three others with scores above 90. One wonders that the world is being influenced by Gaga and Bieber?! President Obama’s Klout score was at 87, with the White House Twitter account coming in at 80.

The variables measure your influence on Facebook and Twitter in three categories

• True Reach- the number of people you influence I found out that on average 504 people respond to my messages. Not quite world domination but Klout says: You have a larger network than most people
• Amplification Probability -how much you influence these people- your effect on an audience
• Network Score- how many Influencers you influence- having influenctial people you connect with means, that your message will go far. This is again a score out of 100-mine is currently 62

What does this mean for a Not for Profit?

1. If you are using Facebook or Twitter or both, find out who you influence. Sign up for Klout to see how many people you are influencing and who they are
2. Find out what messages they are responding to.  This could help your organisation work out if your messages are reaching your desired audience. My most influencing messages include: Facebook, Television, Adelaide, Training, Nonprofit and Social Media
3. Benchmark your own organisation and identify what your target score is
4. Get me in to do training on Social Media. Seriously? Are you going to choose someone with a Klout score of 11 or one that is over 40? I have a great Social Media training course.
5. Engage with top influencers: Find the supporters of your cause who have the highest Klout scores they are your most influential followers. By sharing information with those people, they will promote your cause, issues and messages through their networks extending your reach
6. Recognise people who have influenced your agency in a particular topic by "giving them Klout". This is symbolised by K+. 

Love your feedback, reactions and thoughts on Klout. In the meantime, expect lots of posts with Lady Gaga mentioned in them!
Please do mention to others this blog. We keep growing in readership and I want to keep it that way!
Also, are you following me on Twitter? martinjcowling

Tuesday Technology: My Travel Blog

I am really pleased to announce that I have been asked by Boarding area.com to join their stable of blogs. Boarding area believe they have the "best" travel blogs available online. In asking me, they told me they liked my content and my reader numbers. Very affirming.

My travel blog: Wild about Travel can now be found at: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/wildabouttravel/

I am feeling very chuffed! It says I do know something about Social Media. :) I started Wild about Travel as a hobby. It has grown from that with over a 100 people reading it every day!

Come and join me!

Update

I have been very busy this last week! Somehow I managed to publish three drafts yesterday instead of a completed post!

Am in the middle of a major report for a client due next week. I am very excited by it.

Finally, I have some amazing news about my other blog: Wild about travel. 

Keep you posted.

Tuesday Tech: Social Media Training for Communities

This cartoon seems to sum up our world right now!

Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you are comfortable Social Media user. Many agencies and individuals aren't. Over the last two years, I have been presenting two Social Media workshops. One is an introduction to the key Social Media tools and how to use them. The other is looking at strategy.

Reactions to it have been overwhelmingly positive:

"I am a regular Facebook user and you have taught me so much more."

I have had one woman, however, attack me for recommending agencies look at Facebook: "I hate Facebook and all it represents. I don't understand why you would tell anyone to use it"

I also often get "why would anyone want to use social media?"  when the reality is 1000 million people+ are on it! I dont aim to convert people to Social Media but I do get people to an understanding of something that they may know a little or a lot about and get agencies realistically looking at the pros and cons of the Social Media space.

I am starting to work on my 2012 Calendar and I would love to be sharing more Social Media workshops. If you are looking for Social Media Training, I would love to be involved. If you are not, I heartily recommend you consider arranging some! Check out more at: http://www.pfts.com.au/training.htm

Stop trying to reach your Facebook fans

Your Facebook fans like you. They would not have become a fan of you, your not for profit, cause or issue if they didnt like you*

This is a learning I have recently had based on some research from Fast Company who suggest that we need to target the friends of our fans..."through messages that are shareable, and promotions that require voting, checking in, or other interactivity"


"Friends of fans represent about the most untapped potential in Facebook marketing," says ComScore VP of Marketing Solutions, Graham Mudd. 

Now I need to work out how to implement this on our People First Facebook. Creative hat on!




*There is of course an exception to this. When you make people so angry they friend/like your page in order to find a place to vent!

Whats a Social Media Expert?

This is a follow on from a December blog post: Completely Unqualified Trainer -Youre Hired where I complained about a Social Media Trainer who I believed had no qualifications to train on the subject. She is not the only one. I have been to a few conferences and seen lots of "so called" Social Media "experts" featured on the program.

I am rewriting my training notes for Social Media today (fourth major rewrite in 18 months- field moves quickly!). As I did so, I found a great quiz  which sorts out what to look for in a Social Media expert. It is very funny but makes some good posts.

I finished the Quiz did it and I am pleased to say I would have no trouble walking (see Question 7). In fact, I can hold my head up respectably! I am also excited to say in the third month of The Cowling Report, we have seen the number of people connecting with my posts rising dramatically! Thank you!

"To tell you the truth Volunteering Sucks"

How would your charity feel if one of your volunteers posted the above comment on a public blog  following a call by your charity for people to volunteer? What would you do?

Here's the full post.

"I already volunteer 3 times a week just to get back on my feet after long illness, and to tell you the truth it sucks. The permanent staff think nothing of you, you get asked to take on their workload and all for nothing, trouble is i cannot find any work out there so the volunteering keeps me going."

This message on an article response on 1 February 2011 @ 9:19PM is now in cyberspace ...forever. It can be searched-and found. It can be forwarded. It can be agreed with. It can be copied and pasted. It can be read by several million people including potential volunteers, donors and sponsors of that agency.

There are two issues here:


1. The Volunteer Feeling
 How many of your volunteers would feel this? Would you know how many feel this way? Have you asked them? What can you do to overcome a situation where your paid staff were perceived to be treating volunteers in this way? How can you repair the damage done to that volunteer?

2. Agency Reputation
A lot of people dismiss the damage that a comment like this could do to your agency.  If the writer had said: I already volunteer 3 times a week for (insert your charity name) and to tell you the truth it sucks, you could probably handle it one way and many readers would dismiss it as one person venting. If other volunteers forwarded it and/or added their agreement to it, then you have a real problem online. Would you know how to handle it?

I am going to do a blatant plug here. This didn't start as a marketing post for me but now its going to be! I run two relevant workshops. One is for volunteer managers on working with employees and the other is a Social Media workshop. Both have had rave reviews from participants and I would love to share them with you or your colleagues or anyone you think might need them. More information is at: http://www.pfts.com.au/training.htm

Okay, blatant plug over-Love your comments on how would you deal with this situation? 

Completely Unqualified Trainer? You're Hired.

I recently got an invitation to a Social Media webinar.  Being a resourceful Gen Xer I immediately googled the presenter:-

• They had a web page but was dull and out of date
• They were not on Linked in
• They did not have a Facebook page
• They didn't have a Myspace or Hi5
• Flickr? No. Yelp? No.
• Blog? No
• Had they advised agencies on how to use Social Media? No

Their entire Social Media presence was four weeks on Twitter; 19 tweets and 11 followers.

My Question is: what makes Social Media so easy that anyone thinks they can teach on it? I feel cheeky sometimes teaching on it. I am still learning a lot about what makes it tick and work. I certainly know what  doesn't work!

This is my beef with a lot of things in the community sector. Because we are tight with dollars (we don't have any), we get people who are not qualified to train and teach our staff.

When I fly a plane, I want someone as a pilot who has been taught by pilots.
When I have surgery, has the doctor been taught by someone who knew medicine?
Yet in the community sector it seems the attitude is: "if you are a cheap or free trainer, we will hire you, regardless of skill, knowledge or commitment to the sector".

Two years ago, we lost a contract to another company. No big deal. That's business. I was disappointed but not devastated. The other company put a bid in that was much cheaper than ours. What made my blood boil, is that at the very first training session, the trainers stood up and said "this is the first time we have ever trained". Period. Neither had ever trained before. Wait for it -theres more. They then said "be patient we have never worked in this field".  Some of the attendees were furious but others shrugged their shoulders and said "its cheap!"

A woman said to me "I wish we could get you for training but you are outside our budget. I said "whats your current training like?" She said (and I quote): "Its complete and utter Cr*p. That's why I would like your company but we will never change".

Now, before I am accused of sour grapes, let me tell you I am very happy with the amount of work I get. I would like more, of course! That's not my motivation for this post. I also hasten to say that 93% of clients tell me we are excellent value for money and we have done a number of deals to deliver free training to people.  I am genuinely distressed at the wastage and loss of potential. When the overwhelming feedback we get at our company is "this is the best training I have ever been to", that says more about the state of training than it does about our work (no offence to my brilliant trainers).

Poor training costs money! Two examples:

• we applied to write some training materials but didn't get the contract as we were undercut 33% on price. The difference was the other group had never worked in the community sector and didn't know the field. The materials they produced were so bad that the client hired us to review and re write them having paid the first contractor as well
• we were asked to come in an "untrain" and then "re-train"  a community group after another trainer had given a staff group a terrible presentation. Firstly, it very was dull. The presentation came alive when the facilitator gave such wrong information that a "riot" occurred. Some staff walked out and some stayed and argued. The management shut the training down

 I would like to encourage agencies to build in a sensible budget for training. When applying for project funding, include the staff development costs in it. and I would like to encourage  request demand agencies not engage bad trainers!

Off to tweet about this blog!

Welcome to The Cowling Report

I speak to about 10 000 people a year in Workshops and Seminars globally and write for our monthly People First E-News which goes to 6000 readers monthly. Got the Facebook but I have resisted having my own blog for ages. I am now entering the Blog World thanks to encouragement from three other bloggers:-

 Jayne Cravens (author of the Coyote Communications Blog)





DJ Cronin (author of the Blog: A musing on Volunteer Management)






Sue Hine (author of:  Management4Volunteers Blog)


I also want to acknowledge the urging of  three of the world's leading experts in Volunteer Management to get writing

Betty Stallings of Building Better Skills. Yes, Betty, the book is coming!

Susan J Ellis,  Energize Inc, Everyone Ready and E-Volunteerism

 

and Andy Fryar of OzVPM, 

My hope is that this will be a  no holds barred full and frank discussion about working in the community sector for or with Volunteers, and/or Boards and/or Management. Please do communicate your feedback as we move ahead!