nfptweetup

Next up in our series of guest posts is Paul de Gregorio, as he shares what inspired him about our latest event – and more importantly why he is now just points away from a Wookie!

I went to another fantastic NFPtweetup last night. Run and organised by the lovely people at beautiful world it’s an event that continues to motivate and inspire me. I just love the fact that third sector people of all types (from coders through to direct marketers) get together once a quarter, to learn, share, chat, drink and think together in such a relaxed and informal way.

What really inspired me last night was James Sadri from Greenpeace UK’s presentation on the recent Volkswagen campaign; you just have to check it out if you’re not aware of it.

 

The campaign objective is for VW to turn away from the Dark Side by dropping their opposition of key environmental laws.

James’ presentation was brilliant, a perfect NFPtweetup presentation because he delivered it with a smile, shared lots with us all and was so obviously in love with and passionate about his job.

But what really got me thinking was a fantastic aspect of the campaign that was created to incentivise people to spread the word and get others to sign up.

In the hope that you might win a limited edition T-shirt, those who sign up to the campaign can embark on Jedi training. Basically you sign up, you register, and you’re given a personal page and URL. Then of course you are asked to spread the word into your own social networks. Greenpeace want to harness the power of your referral to get your friends and contacts to sign up and spread the word, you know the theory here.

But you get given points, one for every view of your personal page and five for every person who signs up to the campaign from your page. The more points you are given, the further along the Jedi training path you go. Starting as an Ewok the goal is to unlock the T-Shirt once you have accumulated 1,500 points. Genius.

James went on to describe the lengths that people have gone to in order to further their path to the T-Shirt. My favourite was the guy who set up a blog claiming to know how to hack the page and get the T-Shirt, when you click on the link for the way to do it; you of course end up on his personal page and give him an extra point!

So I had to give it a go. I got home, registered and set up my own page. So far I’ve progressed from Ewok to Princess Leia and just unlocked Jedi Mind Tricks next stop is to unlock the Wookie at 100 points. Have a look here to see what I’m on about.  (And yes, that was a shameless attempt to get another page view.)

I loved pretty much everything about the campaign, but think that this idea is brilliant. We can argue if all traffic is good traffic, but in this case putting the message in front of many people as possible seems like a decent outcome.

On a personal level it’s reminded me of how brilliant Greenpeace can be, and reminded me to set up that Direct Debit I keep on thinking about.

 

Originally posted on Paul’s blog.

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In the first of our series of guest posts after NFPtweetup 12 last night, we hear from Lisa Hopkins as she shares her ‘view from a newbie’:

I was thrilled and delighted to be welcomed to last night’s 12th NFPtweetup.  Friends in the sector had long spoken highly of this paradise for passionate and enthusiastic people working in the charity / NFP sector to come together and share ideas.  Having followed the event on Twitter in the past I was intrigued to go along myself and see what it was all about.

I don’t know what I expected, really, but if I think about it, I thought it would have more of a casual, coffee morning vibe…  Instead what I found was a fabulous lecture theatre space full of buzzy charity and digital people, excitedly waiting for the presentations to start.

It was a little bit daunting, actually!  But spotting the snacks and drinks at the back gave me a reason to stride into the mix and start rubbing shoulders.  It was definitely a strange experience to keep seeing people I recognised and trying to place them – when I had never met them in real-life, just on Twitter.  Once I was over that small oddity I grabbed a glass of wine and settled in for the presentations.

My day job is in fundraising but my career has thus far been distinctly un-digital – but I have a burgeoning interest in digital and social media, so I was very excited to hear about something very different to my day-to-day.  The three speakers were clearly well-prepared and knowledgable about their topics and the whole event struck the perfect balance between professionally run and fun to attend.

When the breakout groups were announced I didn’t hesitate to join James Sadri’s session to talk some more about Greenpeace’s VW Darkside campaign.  For me, talking about this kind of campaigning – rather than direct fundraising – was a bit of a revelation.  I’m so used to measurable KPIs – return on investment, pledge rates, average values – so a campaign with no clear end date and that thinks about success in such different terms, was really inspiring to me.  And being in a room full of friendly people keen to share thoughts and opinions was brilliant.

I really wanted to be actively involved in tweeting about the event as well as participating and that proved a challenge – multitasking perhaps something I could refine a little! – but it was worth it as hearing in the moment what other people are thinking about what’s being presented added another dimension again.

On every level I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and found a lot of food for thought.  If I could do one thing differently I think I would have forced myself out of my comfort zone and spoken to more new people – so my tip to anyone reading this ahead of the event is to just talk to people.  Say hello, engage and interact.  Those strangers I did converse with proved to be friendly, funny and welcoming and I look forward to hearing more from them in the future – both on Twitter and hopefully in real life too!

I must say a massive “thank you” to Rachel and Teri for organising such a fabulously geeky (in the BEST way) and fascinating event, and I definitely look forward to attending more in the future.

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In anticipation of tomorrow’s event, we hear from James Sadri with a preview of his session and how Greenpeace mobilised its supporters to join the ‘Rebellion’…

VW’s Dark Side: using the Force for good

Back in late June, we launched a Greenpeace campaign aimed at stopping Volkswagen lobbying against a couple of key European climate laws.

The campaign nuts and bolts are pretty dense, and during our planning process we were looking for a way of communicating the issues in an accessible way, while also keeping the tone appropriate. VW is not a company we wanted to approach in the same way as some of our more confrontational campaigns and we still hope to turn the company into a climate champion.

After endless debate, we settled on using a Star Wars theme for our campaign, hoping to use the success of VW’s mini-Darth Vader ad (the most shared advert of all time) to drive some initial momentum into the campaign.

It worked. Although the campaign is far from over, the digital strategy around the launch has mobilised nearly 400,000 people to join our ‘Rebellion’ and engaged new audiences across the 13 countries where the campaign is running.

I’m going to talk about the ideas that went into the digital side of this campaign – including gamification – and explain some of the lessons I’ve learned through the process.

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