The charity:water/Twestival guys are back with more social media fundraising goodness and a bit of confustival (that’s the combination of confusion and twestival) for me. You remember, don’t you? Twestival–the international social media event to benefit charity:water. Here’s the sequence of our blogs on the topic.
February 2: Twestival: Sorry not fans
February 12: Twestival:Seattle Report
February 19: Twestival: Update Week 1
And here’s the e-mail that arrived Friday.
There are some amazingly wonderful components about this e-mail:
1. The e-mail was sent from Scott Harrison himself (he probably didn’t hit the send button, but his is the address on the e-mail)
2. Being able to see the wells drilled is spectacular. You can’t get any more “real” unless you take me to Africa. Good for them.
3. Question and answer interaction from the field. Again, very cool! What a great engagement element for anyone sitting on the fence about the need.
4. Specifics details on what to expect and what I can do.
5. Great Easter card promotion. That’s a terrific giving tool, PLUS I love how they have made the ask compelling with telling me EXACTLY what my $20 or $100 will do. Very strong.
OK, here’s what I need your help with. That is so wonderful, but the Twestival was February 12–it’s been 50 days since I gave my gift. I haven’t heard anything from them in these 50 days, not thank you, not anything.
I think it is a big leap to assume that I’m still as excited today, 50 days later, as I was shortly after I participated. Especially, since I really haven’t had any communication from them. Typical of a donor, I vividly remember the goat cheese mushrooms but I’m not real clear on the pitch they made.
I had assumed that for whatever reason charity:water didn’t capture e-mail or twitter addresses since I hadn’t received any follow up. Now that I know they did capture my contact information, I’m wondering why no thank you and why no contact until now?
These guys are obviously brilliant and well-funded so I think I must be missing something here. If Oneicity had been doing this campaign, we would have had a prompt thank you and at least a connecting ecommunication from someone at charity:water telling me what a difference I had already made in the lives of people in need of clean water. THEN we’d have rolled in an e-mail like this (provided that the thank you e-mail and the connector communication looked personal and not mass generated).
What do you think?
1. What do you think is the value of a “thank you” to a new donor acquired through social media?
2. How different are the rules for donor acquisition via social media vs. traditional media?
Oneicity certainly has an opinion about this, as you can tell, but I want to hear what you think. How different are social media acquired donors?
Can’t wait to hear what you’re thinking.
Steve Thomas
Partner, Oneicity
