Social Good Summit | Berenice Suarez
On September, 22nd of 2019, I was sitting for the very first time in a Social Good Summit in Manhattan. Apart from being very excited to be listening at experts of the industry, I was also very happy because I knew this was the kind of experience I was looking for in a Master Program: not only attending to classes but also having experiences in the real world.
I chose to go to the Social Good Summit because is an event that take places only once a year and brings together social entrepreneurs to share strategies and stories about creating social change, and this for me was very important.
What it grabbed my attention very much were two main topics:
Social Media Community Building and how to create good and meaningful content.
Regarding Social Media Community, Brook McCarthy, Director of Hustle & Heart recognized reasons people are on social media: procrastination, socialization, entertainment, trend-watching and crafting public identity. McCarthy explained to the audience how they differ from and overlap with the reasons changemakers are using social media (to raise awareness, rallying people around a cause, driving people to your campaign, distributing content, engaging people in general). She said that if social media tends to be effective on people’s awareness, there has to be a balance between all these elements.
First, McCarthy explained, social media experts need to know their audience, to know if they are their perfect-fit people that will form the core community. She also pointed out, community managers need to understand their psychographics (beyond their demographics), in other words, to know how they value tangible and intangible things, how they think, what they care about and why they are interested in the cause you are trying to promote. McCarthy explained that knowing these elements will help focus on the right message, with the right tone at the right times and will prevent from going into social media clutter.
Regarding on how to create good content, McCarthy emphasized that thinking about the bare minimum will allow your social media platforms to have consistent content. In other words, she said, you have to think of yourself as a curator in that specific area you are trying to build awareness. she explained that a curator doesn’t necessarily need to create everything from scratch but always give your perspective on the context of things that are already happening in the world or around the cause you are interested in.
Also, she aware that in order to keep people engage, only 5 to 10% of your content should be directly promotional, otherwise people will start switching off. Headlines, visuals, videos are all elements we should take advantage to create engaging content.
Another basic rule she gave was to include call to actions, and make sure to respond most if is not all comments and be ready to interact with negative responses as well.
Lastly, she pointed out that the most important is to be enthusiastic about the cause you are working on.
