Gunner Speaks About Sustainable Social Media at Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers

Aspiration was delighted to accept an invitation from Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers to speak at their Annual Member Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Key points were captured in our ever-improving (*gasp*) slideware. We welcome comments, and we're glad to discuss these essential sustainability processes with anyone who's interested.

The session focused on crafting sustainable and coherent online communications strategies, emphasizing 4 essential processes for effective online engagement and advocacy:

• Audience Assessment: really knowing who you're talking to through intentional review of web, email and other usage metrics;
• Message Calendaring: planning out narrative message arcs, with all online messaging on a unified organizational calendar;
• Social Media “Dashboarding”: knowing where you and your organization are being mentioned online, and who's saying it;
• Publishing Matrices: Having a defined model for when to use what tool, and with what tone.

In addition, we stood proudly on our "Data-Centric World View Soap Box", emphasizing that organizational data is the digital and informational power of any social change organization, and that various trendy tools are only vessels which manage and propagate that data info future technology generations.

The session closed in visual splendor, reviewing the spectrum of online engagement tools through a range of lenses, including Target Audience, Tone and Voice, Matching Tools to Message, Control of Message and Brand, Frequency of Messaging, Time/Labor Investment, and Return on Investment.