A fairly recent ranking of how UK charities use social media makes interesting reading.
There is a league table – we all love league tables – which puts the Royal Airforces Association as the 100th charity and Cancer Research as number one.
On this list the National Trust is #7, the RSPB is #13, WWF #31, FoE #49, Woodland Trust #55 and WWT #91.
But I’m not really sure what that means as I can’t find in the article nor in the report that I have downloaded quite how this index has been compiled. So how you get further up the table I don’t know.
So why do I bother to tell you about it you might ask. The answer is that it’s intereting to see the wildlife NGOs put alongside the education, human health and development NGOs and other charities on any measure.
Looking at the list, the National Trust is ranked #5 in terms of financial strength and would have got further up the overall ranking if only it had a ‘community’ on its website where its members could chat to each other. The RSPB is relatively high-ranking because it does have a community and it, like all the highest ranking organisations, has staff who respond to comments on blogs, Twitter etc.
To my mind, in these times of austerity, what the table demonstrates is that there are large differences between charities in how much they are using social media including Facebook, LinkedIn and You Tube. Doing a bit more might be a very good and relatively cheap way for smaller charities to make their mark in the social charity world.
This is the way that the world is going – how quickly will wildlife charities lead or follow the trends?
And you can ‘like’ me as Mark Avery on Facebook, follow me as @markavery on Twitter, and potentially link up with me if we have done business together on LinkedIn. As far as You Tube is concerned I have to admit that you can still find me dancing away there too.
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Seems to me that social media could help level the playing field between the wildlife NGOs. Whilst the big ones can do a bit more than the small ones, a. Good, lively and free twitter feed both provides an organisation with valuable intelligence and an opportunity to get it’s messages heard. As something of a veteran of Social Media – albeit not to your dizzy heights – I doubt it’s a gamechanger for charities, but used well it can give advantages to smaller organisations potentially that the traditional media can’t. I think the Grasslands Trust is perhaps such an organisation.
The wildlife charities need to be very visible in social media to attract members and, more importantly, to keep them. Being seen shouting for wildlife is expected of them by members, introduces them to potential new members and those that shout loudest will get members easier than those that don’t shout.
Members are the lifeblood of wildlife charities for many reasons such as income, volunteering hours and expert knowledge, etc.
And Yes, I am a recruiter for a wildlife NGO. Off to work now…….