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The digital journey for London to Brighton Bike Ride, the British Heart Foundation’s flagship fundraising event and Europe’s biggest charity bike ride.
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Kate Brennan, Senior Digital Engagement Executive at the British Heart Foundation, talked about the challenges involved in supporting over 28,000 riders using social media and digital to help raise funds.
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Top tip from #L2B: make sure digital team are involved in leadership of big fundraising events, & plan for everything #NFPtweetup
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The content is mostly user-generated, so the question is generally an editorial one, of what and who to show off.
Of course, user generated content isn't cost-free content:
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… Important to note that it always takes more work than expected to get contributions and edit them #nfptweetup
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A six foot panda and the Tour de France?
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My favourite presentation of the evening. Adrian Cockle, Digital Innovation Manager for WWF International, talked about how luck, good circumstances, a silly conversation on Twitter led to a great fundraising/partnership opportunity.
Here's a link to the presentation slides, but as it's hard to follow on its own, here's my summary:
– A few years ago, Dan Martin (in blue) was neck-and-neck with a rival at the closing section of a stage of the Tour de France.– At this point, he was chased on to victory by a spectator dressed as a giant panda, which became a sort of mascot for the team.
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– Recently, Dan Martin was in a position to win a stage, and the team's coach tweeted that they needed a panda to take them on to victory:
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We need a panda, now. Anyone? Panda! Hurry the F up with the Panda!
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As a keen cyclist, Adrian was on twitter at this point, and saw the message. So he jumped on to WWF's main twitter account and sent over a message:
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@WWF much love for the spiritual Panda you sent today. We got the win. Without the Panda, it wouldn’t have happened.
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@WWF If you guys have any interest in some sort of partnership, I think it’d be a home run. Plus putting a Panda on the uniform!
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So why did this work? 1. It was funny 2. Quick 3. Timely (it was a live event) 4. Surprising 5. Relevant 6. Authentic #NFPtweetup
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This interaction was followed by further discussion and meetings, and led to WWF connecting with cyclists – who are a good fit for their cause.
WWF have been using the partnership for (in descending order of importance):
1. Awareness
2. Active fans
3. Fundraising -
What can we learn from this example?
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Louis Pasteur said ‘chance favours the prepared mind’. Probably applies to a prepared digital team too! #NFPtweetup @NFPtweetup @ade
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This wouldnt' have happened if Adrian wasn't empowered, trained and trusted to take advantage of this opportunity. If your organisation's conception of social media is risk management, then you can't expect things like this. Perhaps you could use the above as a case study to help show people in your organisation the power of twitter.
(Having said that, I don't think this was a risk at all. Had nothing happened with the original interaction, nothing would have been lost. Similarly, WWF had plenty of space to think about things internally after the initial public contact.)
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I think the most important learning point here is that twitter has brilliant potential for connecting with other people with shared interests, in a potentially serendipitous and awesome way.
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Running an org’s Twitter feed isn’t just about numbers, it’s about creating useful opportunities from the following you have #NFPtweetup
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Twitter is FULL of wonderful serendipities, coincidences, possibilities. And that’s why we all tweet. @ade busy proving this at #NFPtweetup
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