Effective Use of Facebook and Social Media Can Lead to Success

Egyptians’ effective use of Facebook has given life to a slew of hopeful pages and groups throughout the region. This makes sense: Facebook, if combined with the right message, the right environment and the right people can indeed help to spark massive crowds. New technologies make it easier to get more information out to more people, more quickly. The result? Town squares and plazas teeming with protesters. Two ousted dictators and two more on the brink.

Unfortunately, the quicker you mobilize, the less time there is to plan. The less the need for a traditional organization, the bigger the vacuum left after an initial big success. Whether it’s a huge protest, a victorious election, an ousted dictator or a momentous piece of breaking news, it’s more important than ever for movement builders and members to prepare for day two.

Build on Success Using Facebook

While it’s essential to reach goals, it’s even more important to build on that success and regroup. Act fast, capitalizing on increasing visibility and heightened awareness to get more resources for your campaign. Solicit strategic advice from outsiders with more experience and bring in new members and volunteers. If you need funding, now is the time to get it.

Get More Organized

You activated lots of people that were not formerly activated, but that doesn’t mean they’re organized. It’s up to you to organize them. How can you get in touch with your new members today and, if need be, weeks down the line? Whenever possible, collect emails, mobile phone numbers, Twitter handles and Facebook URLs and store them in a document that’s saved in a few different places.

Of course, always make sure this data is secured, and that you’re abiding by all applicable privacy regulations when you start to utilize it.

Adapt Your Vision

Why’d you start this thing, anyway? Reconcile your original goal with recent events and identify a new long-term vision for change. Your new plan should include an understanding not simply of what you want to achieve but also how you will achieve it. Articulate a clear and defined timeline that includes your upcoming actions — for example, weekly protests — and how they will take you closer to your long-term goal.

Get Feedback

Your campaign didn’t succeed only because of the most involved people but rather because of everyone. That’s why it’s so important to ask the people who got involved what the next step should be. Don’t decide anything as one person or one small group of more involved participants.

Take a cue from Wael Ghonim, one of the administrators of the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook Page, who, when asked what was next for a post-Mubarak Egypt, said: “Ask Facebook.” This is easier said than done, but the sentiment is spot-on. When identifying a new vision for your campaign, make it as easy as possible for members to decide.

Go Public With Your New Vision

Asking Facebook is meaningless if no one knows what the response was. Draw up an internal document to circulate amongst organizers with the feedback that you’ve received. Share it with everyone involved. The process of sorting through feedback can be as transparent and public as any other aspect of your campaign.

When a decision has been made, post it everywhere — on Facebook, on your website, your Twitter feed and in an email blast — so that everyone can hold you to it.

(Re)define Leadership

Everyone can be a leader as long as they are all coordinated and operating with a shared purpose and strategy. Now that you have a new long-term goal, offer a toolkit for organizers throughout the country to take this vision of change and work toward it on their own.

As Egypt demonstrates, it’s a lot easier to complete the first day of a revolution than the second. Holding together a large coalition is simpler when everyone is on board and the goal, be it an election or an ouster, is obvious. It’s not as easy to come up with a new vision, especially when the changed landscape is marked by infighting, confusion and the same entrenched interests as before. But, if you support your movement building with strong strategy and long-term thinking, then the chances are a lot higher that all of your demands will be met — and will stay met.

Source: Mashable

More Facebook and Social Movement Information

You can read more about social movement and Facebook inside our social media blog.