The growing popularity of the social network web site Facebook is important in understanding how these type of sites can be effective in supporting peer based or social network fundraising. Facebook and other social network sites include new forms of online communication and interaction that allow individuals to define, organize, interact and monitor their social network.
Originally focused on a university audience, Facebook is now growing rapidly beyond this target market. It may still be used primarily by university students and recently graduated students, although the fact that over 500K people using Facebook have joined a group titled ‘Toronto, Ontario’ indicates that either Facebook is becoming significant and reaching a critical mass, or that Toronto has become a very popular city to identify with.
The basic features of Facebook include the ability to; setup a personal profile that identifies your interests, preferences and current status, build a list of your friends, join groups that you identify with or have interest, send private or public messages, give gifts and profile and organize events. These are very common features of most social network sites. Possibly the key feature of Facebook is the news feed, that provides an ongoing list of what your friends are doing; what groups they have joined, who has become friends with whom, where someone is at a given time, a birthday, a change in marital status. This news feed is a powerful medium and a new type of social communication tool and it is important in that it is based within an individual’s social network, as opposed to a web space for shared interest or work related information.
A salient feature of social network sites has been the separation of social activity and commercial activity. Conventionally, users share content and interact, and the web site utilizes part of the web page for text or banner advertisements. Users may talk about commercial products or organizations, but this is viewed as personal opinion, passion or interest, and not directed by the organization. For example, Artez has noted that already many participants in charity events will publish in Facebook a link to their personal donation page.
For a fee, Facebook has now opened up their social network site to organizations wishing to setup a Facebook group. This allows organizations to promote their brand, interact directly with users or supporters of their organization or brand, and basically participate in the online social interaction of Facebook users who join their group. Is this crossing a line? Will these groups be adopted by users and effective for the organizations? This is more subtle in the way that context based and text Google ads are more subtle compared to banner ads.
While Facebook does not integrate shopping carts, donation pages, event registration, it does allow people to define, organize and engage with their social network in a virtual way. If there is a social component to a fundraising campaign or event, and online fundraising is a key element, then it’s important to understand new developments with online social network sites, and Facebook is well defined software that has interesting features that should be reviewed.
The counter argument to the growing enthusiasm over Facebook is that; 1. It’s the current "hot" restaurant that will be around in a few years, but not as popular when a new hot restaurant appears, 2. It’s limited in its interest to those over 30, 3. It’s just one of many emerging online communication tools that I need to be aware of, 4. It’s risky in that it introduces new social behaviours and will take time to establish norms. These are all concerns that need to be considered and monitored as Facebook grows and matures.
Online fundraising tools such as the Artez platform were developed based on supporting peer groups and fundraising within social networks and have been effective in enabling and empowering individuals to raise funds for the charities they support. They can be viewed as social network sites for personal fundraising. Beyond Facebook there are social network sites each with a focus on a certain type of social activity; finding friends, dating, networking to advance a career, sharing content, and sharing specific interests.
The challenge and opportunity is tied to participating in the digital social networks of the organization’s constituents. The important concept is participation. At Artez we are taking a twofold approach. First, we are building features that allow personal fundraisers to add their content from sites such as Flickr and YouTube. Our Personal Event Template currently includes this feature. Second, we are building widgets that allow personal fundraisers to publish an image, content and link to their personal fundraising page. One example of this is the fundraising thermometer that individuals will be available to publish on their blog, web site or social network site. And finally, we are looking at how communication tools could be integrated within our products to support interaction between donor and fundraiser.
Whether it’s Facebook, Friendster or LinkedIn, social network sites are becoming more important, and developing a strategy to participate in the digital life of constituents through these sites will become vital to an effective online fundraising strategy.
For more Artez.com articles about Facebook: Click the Facebook tag!
