Talk:Fundraising 2010/Social Media

A bot can be developed to show fundraising milestones on Twitter. Emijrp 07:49, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea Dgultekin 22:28, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Progress

Hello, and follow up on social campaigns.

Moved from Theo's talk page:

Hi there. Excellent to hear from you. I'm extremely pleased that you're enthusiastic about the same sorts of ideas as I am.

You asked me whether I knew good people to approach to get things going. Unfortunately I'm afraid I don't really. I think I will have to rely on simply plugging the point anywhere where it seems valid to do so. I plan to attend any fundraising IRC meetings. I've also signed up to the fundraising e-mailing list. If it strikes me as an opportune moment to draw people's attention to the ideas then I will. I shall give it 48 hours and see if anyone contributes further to the Meta social media page and if it doesn't look very active I'll contact Philippe and see if he can move things forward. In the meantime, if you come up with anything then that would be great. I suggest we place everything on the correct pages of the Meta wiki so that everyone can take part in the conversation. --bodnotbod (talk) 17:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, got your message. Excellent work Theo! I had the IRC on my calendar but missed the alert to remind me to attend. D'oh! Sounds like you've done brilliantly. I spent some time today listening to a talk about YouTube for non-profits which I've linked to on the Meta page. I also looked at some stuff already on YouTube by and about Wikipedia/Wikimedia. I shall probably contribute more to Meta about video tomorrow and think about more ways to push things forward. Regards, --bodnotbod (talk) 22:52, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Moved from Bod's talk page:

Hi Bod!!!! great to have you on the fundraising team. you left some very interesting proposals on the social media page that I was thinking about myself, I would be really interested in discussing them further and developing a strategy to go about this. The collaboration that you mentioned with facebook and youtube would require the foundation's (official) approval and involvement, I think we should mention it to them early if we want them to look into it, your thoughts? As a backup I wanted to develop an editor submitted campaign that we can do without any official involvement, in case the foundation doesn't get approval on time. I want to look into a youtube video first, any ideas on how and where we can get volunteers who can do that? --Theo10011 (talk) 10:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

thanks for the reply Bod. I think we need to approach the foundation to see if anyone is interested in pursuing this, they might have an idea about a video montage like you suggested. At least we should see what philippe thinks about the idea, but like I said we're gonna need more volunteers to get some momentum. Also, I agree that we should move this discussion to the talk page of the social media page on meta if anyone wants to look or join in. thanks --Theo10011 (talk) 18:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Howdy both :) I know I talked some about this with you at the meeting Theo but Social Media is definitely something we're interested in pursuing. As I told you then I'm really glad that you guys (and it seems like a couple others from the meeting) are really interested because an active group of volunteers going after something focused like this is likely to have a lot more success in the end then the staff trying to do everything at once. I know you guys talked about the videos which I'm looking into. I think the interviews from Wikimania are still being edited but I'll poke someone to see what the status is. There are also some older videos already up on commons that you could look at: File:Edit_01-12-09_small.ogg is the video that is on the front page of the foundation wiki (there is also a big version) and there are more versions/languages in commons:Category:Inside_Wikimedia (I believe mostly subtitles).

If there are other specific things you think the Foundation needs to help on please let us know you can obviously leave a message here (if you don't get a response feel free to poke) or grab a hold of one of us via email or irc (my contact info is on my user page and I think all of the fundraising staff has basically done the same). Jalexander 19:27, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I just shot an email to the Communication folk to find out when that video will be available for us to use, I'll let ya know soon as I get a response. And I second Jalexander, poke us anytime. I'm going to be working primarily with social media so grab me whenever you have questions, suggestions, complaints, need an 'official go ahead' or a good banana bread recipe :) Dgultekin 22:20, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Twitter related plan

James, the Milestone for the Twitter bot wasn't my suggestion exactly, someone suggested it in the IRC meeting on Thursday, I think their intention was to leave "we have crossed an $X mark or X% goal of the fundraiser". I originally proposed a bot to cycle through some approved messages with links to the donation page, I was planning on using the messages that wont be getting used for the banner campaign-( I think all of them are shorter than 140 character so it shouldn't be a problem) we could also use some approved donor suggested messages to tweet, which would in turn be re-tweeted and linked to heavily by other Wikimedians, (I am hoping the staff would also re-tweet initially) and hopefully getting some famous Tweeters on board, especially related to IT and the open-source industry who have a large following. I am planning on writing a proper proposal for each venue we want to cover separately- what you have above is a rough draft of the Twitter proposal. once completed and others agree, I will write and present it to the staff for approval. So thats the Plan for twitter so far, let me know what you think.--Theo10011 23:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Are the donor names listed together the approved donor message? There should be a button or link on the donation page that allow people to tweet about it or post it on FB that they have donated to this cause. --Diagramma Della Verita 17:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

the donor names should be included with a few cherry-picked messages, the only constraint is the 140 character limit including the hash-tag and the link to the donate page. we can also consider mentioning or thanking large benefactors on twitter and Facebook with a Live feed of sorts. I like the idea of tweeting or face-booking about the donations from the main donation page, we will have to look into that since its not in our capacity as volunteers to implement.--Theo10011 17:52, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I know there are some privacy issues with posting donor names to twitter, so we should tread lightly when recognizing or thanking donors unless they publicly tweet their donation. (we did a lot of this during last year's fundraiser). I think the milestone bot is a fantastic idea, and I know that staff would be more than willing to RT messages and milestones. I'll work on further compiling a list of famous tweeters and IT folk here, please add whoever you think would be a good prospect to approach Dgultekin 22:27, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Denize, I understand that their might be privacy issues with making Benefactors name public, I do recall there some promoted messages last year with donations along with the donated amount. Also, I wanted to use the some of the messages that are not going to get used, cycle through most of the proposed messages that are any good, the question is should that be done with the same account as the milestone bot or a separate one.--Theo10011 19:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to use the same handle as the milestone bot, people are more likely to follow and pay attention to one account, and it avoids issues of redundancy and clutter. It'll be useful to have one account where we can thank donors, send out fundraising messages more frequently than @Wikipedia, and have fundraiser volunteers directly interact with prospective donors/Wikimedians to answer questions etc. --Dgultekin 23:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed.--Theo10011 00:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Twitter Handle: Theo10011 and I were talking about what we should call said twitter handle. Let's get some suggestions here, ideally it would be one that we could kick into action for every annual fundraiser, and have it RT things posted to @Wikipedia throughout the rest of the year. --Dgultekin 23:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I think we already own @WikimediaDonate and that it was created for something like this last year, but I could be wrong. That handle is also pretty long (15 characters) which means that all of our messages need to be shorter if people are going to retweet them. I guess it could be worse... the alternative is the epic-long WikimediaFundraising. :P Cbrown1023 talk 13:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Good point, I had the same concerns....thats why I was thinking more along the lines of @Wikigive or @wikidonate. I think "Wiki" has enough recognition to stand alone, -pedia wouldnt be as inclusive and -media would be misleading without "foundation" or "Fundraising" with it. theres also @wmgive or @wmfdonate if we want to shorten it further. wikimediadonate from last year has a single tweet and 10 followers (5 of which are our own people), the account seems like it was barely used. --Theo10011 17:21, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think I'd prever "wmfdonate". "wmdonate" doesn't seem specific enough, and "wikigive" or "wikidonate" seems like it would add too much confusion in other areas. (We have enough trouble with people thinking all Wikiwhatever things are us, we should probably try not to confuse them more.) Cbrown1023 talk 20:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Agreed.--Theo10011 20:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Also agreed, Cbrown1023 do you know who created/has access to @Wikimediadonate? I don't recall setting it up for last years fundraiser. --Dgultekin 19:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just making things up (my memory lies sometimes) and we don't own it, but I'd ask Tomek or Rand first. Cbrown1023 talk 23:57, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, "wmfdonate" sounds great to me. I'll get on my developer hat for this. —I-20the highway 00:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you guys for real? "wmfdonate"? How cryptic, corporate and unfriendly. It would be a huge mistake. Twitter is about everyone being equal, two-way conversations, and faces. Use @Wikipedia, and keep the followers we gain for future use. "wmfdonate" sounds like spam, needs too much explanation, and is not as recognisable a brand mark as Wikipedia and the puzzle globe. Pretzels 02:24, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

We went with @wikicontribute, as it'll be a handle dedicated to the contribute campaign. We didn't want to use @Wikipedia as we had issues with saturating the handle with fundraising messages last year. But as always, we're open to suggestions. --Deniz (WMF) 17:46, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

• Burn, baby, burn! —I-20the highway 00:34, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Watch out world, I-20the highway is now microblogging! --Deniz (WMF) 23:18, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposals

Moved from Social Media content page for organization

Mass donation appeal in conjunction with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year

A mass donation appeal will be spread across social media and message banner during the three weeks period between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. Based on previous year donation statistics , the total contribution during this period doubled compared to the beginning and end of the 4 months fundraising period. The focus of the message is about sharing the gift of knowledge with a small donation. --Diagramma Della Verita 17:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposals for YouTube-based fundraising

I absolutely believe that we should get at least one video up on YouTube for the fundraiser. YouTube provides special services for non-profits and we should definitely take advantage of that.

Personally I would like to see a video montage of people saying "I use Wikipedia because..." and then editing all the best video submissions together to create one compelling video. If it is too late to achieve this then WMF staff should have a go at creating a montage talking about the project; this is surely achievable. I'm assuming the WMF has video hardware? --Bodnotbod 09:38, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

YouTube has held a competition for best non-profit video. You can see the winners here. Very inspiring. I think the video that came in 4th place is amazing. We have perhaps left it too late to equal that, but let's still reach high. By the way, I am very much aware that although I am pushing for video I am unlikely to be able to offer material help with producing any. I am largely confined to my home and do not have access to any video equipment. So I can do no more than try to encourage others to reach this goal of a fundraising video. --Bodnotbod 14:07, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Here is a highly informative "webinar" about how a non-profit organisation should use YouTube. View in full screen for best results as some of the slides show the YouTube user interface; it's hard to see properly in the default viewing window. I really do recommend it to everyone interested in seeing the WMF use YouTube. --Bodnotbod 17:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The videos shot at Wikimania this year will be available mid September, getting some of those up on YouTube will be a great tool. I checked out the nonprofit page on YouTube as well, I think we should set something up there. I'll look into getting that started, as well as getting our accounts on Vimeo set up. I think the first 'Inside Wikimedia' video from a few years back is a good launching point. --Dgultekin 22:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Jalexander also suggested that, the thing is its already been on youtube for more than a year [1] along with 2 others on the foundation's youtube page. Personally I think they arent very well produced and have an amateurish-dated look (especially the music, much better copyright-free options available), which might be understandable for the time but desperately needs to be updated. Theo10011 00:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There are only three videos uploaded on the Foundation Youtube page. The video uploaded four months ago only has fewer than 400 views. The audience group on Youtube, for the video "Inside Wikimedia" and "Free Access To All Human Knowledge" are male above 30, while the audience group for the "Wikipedia: Verifiability and Neutral point of view" is male 13-17. Perhaps this explain the video style of viewers. Youths are more concern about the content while the older ones are interested in knowing the behind scenes and financial info. The gender clearly reflects an average Wikipedia user, "...is a young man in a wealthy country who's probably a grad student — somebody who's smart, literate, engaged in the world of ideas, thinking, learning, writing all the time". The problem with Youtube fundraising is that the videos aren't shared or viewed. Probably we could write a note on all WP community pages or village pumps to share the video. Alternatively, link it on a banner. --Diagramma Della Verita 12:51, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Diagramma, we've been gathering info on assets already available on these sites. Your analysis is interesting, I am writing a proposal to the foundation on some sort of involvement for youtube. I wanted to suggest an update to the foundation videos already on youtube, they look like average corporate films, I think we need to update those to start with. We can also consider something funny community oriented to accompany those, the intention would be to have popular content that could go viral. Cross-linking between them is a given, we'll link to the videos between twitter, facebook etc. heavily and internally through the projects, this is one of the main point of this campaign.Theo10011 21:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposals for Facebook-based fundraising

Facebook now uses our content. Surely this gives us some options in using Facebook to get the message out? I don't have a Facebook account so I'm afraid I have no idea how visible our content is on Facebook. But if we were able to get our banners onto the Facebook 'mirror' of our content that would be fantastic. --Bodnotbod 09:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

We could start a cause to support Wikimedia & Wikipedia on Facebook. Donations can be directed directly to Fundraising page. Last year, fundraising included buttons and changing profile image on FB as a sign of support but it didn't really work well. Since 70% of FB users are outside United States, the target audience are not primarily English speaking users. --Diagramma Della Verita 17:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

There already is a "Wikimedia cause" and a "keep Wikipedia free cause" on FaceBook [2] [3] with quiet a few members and donations already collected. Would it be wise to start another cause? something along the lines of "Wikimedia Fundraiser 2010", it would be interesting but I think it would require a lot of other ideas and work to get a good following like the other two. I was considering to somehow focus on outreach and remind everyone about some facts about Wikipedia and that the fundraiser is underway. Also, something along the lines of "Wikipedia Supporters" or "Wikipedia Benefactors" group for those who donate to the campaign could be considered. I think we need some more fresh ideas for Facebook in particular.Theo10011 17:48, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I think setting up a "I supported Wikipedia"group on Facebook is a good idea, it'll give donors a bit of recognition and a virtual pat on the back. I don't think we should create a new Facebook cause for this years fundraiser, but instead simply re-brand/revitalize the existing ones to avoid redundancy and having to build a following. A Wikipedia awareness/facts campaign is a great idea, lets work on it. --Dgultekin 22:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there a way to insert an ad (yes, an ad) into the Facebook content specifically directed at viewers? Has anyone contacted Facebook for some technical magic/ideas?  ℳono  23:48, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

We are currently experimenting with Facebook ads (that word still resonates poorly with many of us). The advantages of Facebook ads is how specifically we can target them, not only by location age and interests, but even education, school, major, and friends' interests. --Deniz (WMF) 19:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Facebook ads? Wikimedia asks for donation to be free from ads but wouldn't it be contradicting with what we're doing by paying ads to get donation. I'm not against the idea of ads unless its free.. --Diagramma Della Verita 07:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe that keeping Wikipedia free from ads, and running notices on Facebook about our non-profit status and fundraiser are at odds with each other. We want to keep Wikipedia ad-free because of implications it may have on our neutrality. We have a lofty fundraising goal this year, and need to explore all of our options to tap unreached potential donors, many of them (students in particular) aren't even aware we are a user-supported charity. -Deniz (WMF) 00:00, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't social media focus on user centric rather than ads. It's the community that drive social media in a ripple effect not ads. How could we ensure that the potential of the ads clicked will lead to donation and deliver the message? If the ads are only accidental clicks and the directed page is only viewed for less than few seconds, wouldn't it be a liability? --Diagramma Della Verita 16:23, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The social media committee isn't focused on the ads, we will still be user centric as you noted. Our job is to further the conversation about the projects and engage readers and editors. We have someone optimizing messages for Facebook now, to make sure that as many click-throughs as possible lead to a donation. (With our Jimmy banners, less than 0.45% of people who see the banner actually donate. I don't see how it would be a liability, it's an opportunity for us to spread our message past the pages of our projects. For many Facebook users, the ad they see will be the first time they realize we are donation-funded; increasing awareness is an important aspect of any fundraising campaign. --Deniz (WMF) 17:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The fact that WP as the top ten most visited website is placing ads on another website seems unreasonable. More importantly, the ads isn't for traffic, but delivering the message and leading to donation. Wouldn't it be better if there is a different form of collaboration with FB in terms of applications etc.? I guess that requires more brainstorming. Hope to see positive results from FB ads. --Diagramma Della Verita 06:48, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Ideas for Flickr and an Image related campaign

I have been looking for creative ways to go about an image related campaign. We need creative, funny content interesting enough to go viral. Someone suggested a funny story accompanied with images as a stream on flickr. the suggestion related to sort of a wiki fairytale filled with Wiki-trolls, wiki-ogres, wiki-knights, Lolcats, server kitties etc. , the majority of which would be an inside joke for the community accompanied by funny, cute pics from the commons. It can mix some internet slangs and popular memes(leeroy, amberlamps, tron guy). All which would end with help us fight the good fight............is it a direction worth considering, thoughts? Theo10011 21:48, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I think it's kind of impossible to create content that you intend to go viral, unless, as Philippe pointed out, it involves someone getting hit or falling. I think a good way to utilize Flickr would be to create albums of quality photos of Volunteers/Wikimedians, events like Wikimania, meetups and photo scavenger hunts, of course photos from commons and wiki-humor photos could be included. (Some good categories of photos that could be considered are here and here.) It would be a great way to share the culture and core (the community) of the Wikimedia Foundation with people who are less familiar with the movement. I think putting a face to the community who make the world's free encyclopedia possible would resinate better with potential donors than Leeroy Jenkins, but hey, I may be wrong :) --Dgultekin 23:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, great idea and I see your point. It was just a thought. We should def. upload the faces of wikipedia, perhaps a collage of all the people we can gather and work that into the other campaigns. we might have to double check the licensing issue first since the content on commons would be CC or others and Flickr or similar service might be different, we might need some looking into the cross-licensing aspect first.Theo10011 23:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Time magazine has recently featured (months ago) a mosaic cover of 1,295 Facebook profile photos. This similar approach could be done using FB user photos as a medium. On the licensing issue, I guess simply agreeing on FB that you would like your profile picture to be used in the fundraising campaign should suffice. --Diagramma Della Verita 10:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Facebook worries me with their privacy issues and licensing issues. What about doing this with commons photos instead? We could use Wikimedian/meetup categories. --Deniz (WMF) 21:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

References