By Evelyn Ostrovsky
What do cupcakes, the American Red Cross, and best practices have in common? Clever ways to encourage participation, of course.
A few weeks ago, we were lucky to have Wendy Harman, the Red Cross’s Social Media Manager, join a CEC webinar on innovative approaches to social media. At the event, Wendy shared some great stories about how the organization overcame a “crippling fear” of social media and learned to motivate supporters to spread the Red Cross’s message through their personal social networks.
(At this point, you might be asking, “So where do cupcakes figure in to this equation?” Well, they were our small way of saying thanks to the lovely Wendy—and perhaps of motivating other communicators to participate in a future CEC panel! Ahem.)
Admittedly, there are (allegedly) better ways than the “cupcake method” to motivate people to support your company. The Red Cross provides a great example of these techniques, which I think are highly transferable across all types of organizations. As a matter of fact, it sounds like Wendy’s team read a page right out of our study—Mobilizing the Workforce, to be exact.
Last year, CEC looked at the factors that motivate people to engage virtually with peers. Although we were primarily focused on internal social media participation, the Red Cross has taken these principles to heart (pun intended) in designing their external communication strategy:
1. Humanize virtual connections—Put a face to the cause
2. Simplify contribution—Make it easy
3. Increase personal relevance—Contribute on your own terms
4. Create social norms around support—Get everyone doing it
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CEC members: in case you missed it, check out our best practice examples and easy-to-use solutions around Principles to Drive Participation and facilitating information exchange inside (and outside) your organization. You can also check out the replay of this webinar with Wendy.
Now I’d be curious to hear form you. Do you think that these tactics would work in your own external communications? Why or why not?
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