Cool Green Science: The Nature Conservancy Blog

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Cool Green Science The Nature Conservancy Blog

• 6.30.09 Dave Connell Amy Ganderson

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Agenda

• What is Cool Green Science
• Why We Blog
• How We Blog
• How (some of us) Dont Blog
• Social media overview
• Integrating your blog with social media
• Measuring your success
• Q A

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What is Cool Green Science

• Thoughts of Conservancy Staff and Scientists
• Group blog of 18 contributors
• Scientists
• Policymakers
• Interesting staff
• Conservancy news and views
• Environmental topics of the moment

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Why We Blog

• Increased audience
• Two-way/community interaction
• Blog
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Position staff as thought leaders
• Policy
• Science
• Its (supposedly) easy
• Its liberating

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How We Blog

• Three (somewhat random) tips that have worked for
  us
• Developing personalities/followings
• Doing a daily must-read digest
• Being decidedly non-niche

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Our Blogger Code

• One post every two weeks
• Get supervisor approval up front, then you're on
  your own
• Edit for style and substance
• No violating SOPs
• No defamer/libel
• Comments are moderated for civility only
• When have you crossed the line? We know it when
  we see it usually.

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Pitfalls and Problems

• Contributors who dont contribute
• Contributors who are bigger than Jesus
• Contributors who dont get it
• Backseat bloggers
• Contributors have to be the right mix between
  institutionally powerful/influential and those
  who have the time, talent and inclination to
  participate.

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The one thing to remember

• Leverage existing and established social
  networks.
• (If you dont have existing and established
  social networks get some. Possibly before you
  start blogging. )

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Social Media Overview

• Dedicated marketing staff
• Vast exposure on nature.org
• Our branded social networks
• Facebook
• MySpace
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Twitter
• Gather
• Care2
• Change.org
• OneCause

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 1 Develop a plan and assign roles
• Phase 2 Make an announcement!
• Phase 3 Market your content

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 1 Develop a plan and assign roles
• Decide how each social network will be used
• Establish the tone and consider your audience
• Have a clear division of labor
• Determine the frequency of marketing content

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 1 Develop a plan and assign roles
• Lessons learned
• Started with RSS feeds, shifted to customized
  messages
• Roles evolved to multiple contributors
• Constantly adjusting our strategy

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 2 Make an announcement!
• Canvas all of your social networks announcing
  your blog has launched
• Add your blogs url to each social network
  profile
• Ask your fans to spread the word
• Contact your partners and build out your blogroll

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 2 Make an announcement!
• Lessons learned
• Fans, members, and partners were extremely
  supportive and excited!
• Dont be afraid to repurpose the same marketing
  message in a slightly different way
• Remember to use your other channels (email,
  website, search)

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 3 Market your content
• Use your blog stories as a NEW source of content
• Use probing questions as headlines
• Let an image catch the interest of your audience
• Create an ongoing story
• Test and see what works best in each channel

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 3 Market your content - Facebook

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 3 Market your content - Twitter

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Social Media Integration

• Phase 3 Market your content - Twitter

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Measure your success

• Trackable Metrics
• Unique visitors / pageviews
• Return visitor percentage
• Referring search traffic
• Google PageRank for your blogs homepage
• Crosslinks on elite blogs / media
• Time spent on site
• Approved comments
• RSS subscribers / reach
• Blog pages shared

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Measure your success

• Tools
• Google Analytics
• Feedburner
• ShareThis
• Technorati
• Wordpress
• Tweetlater

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Our Success So Far

• Google PageRank of 7 out of 10
• Top blog crosslinks New York Times, Christian
  Science Monitor, Treehugger, and other top blogs
• More than 8,800 followers on Twitter
• Techorati ranking of 63,343 Authority 55
• Facebook and Twitter consistently rank in the top
  three traffic sources (social media is working!)

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Thank You!

• Dave Connell dconnell_at_tnc.org
• Amy Ganderson aganderson_at_tnc.org
• The Nature Conservancy http//www.nature.org
• Cool Green Science Blog http//blog.nature.org
• Twitter _at_nature_org