AASP: Leveraging LinkedIn & Facebook data

Brent Grinna from Evertrue and Kathy McCann from Union College are presenting on "Big Data, Massive Potential". A recent study by CASE found that senior leadership within universities rate social media as both challenging and unimportant (and presumably, not a priority). It's generally viewed as separate from other giving programs, like annual or major.

EverTrue did an analysis and found that 80% of donor records have inaccurate or incomplete career data.

Around 80% of all university constituents have a Facebook profile, regardless of graduation date. LinkedIn is following hot on its heels. Not only this, but there is a huge move to mobile happening right now.

Brent and Kathy are talking about the traditional method of segmenting donors by engagement and capacity to give a gift. Social media can play a valuable role in identifying engagement (Facebook) and capacity factors (LinkedIn).

About half of the "mass affluent" use LInkedIn, 72% use Facebook and 27% use Twitter. Additionally, LinkedIn users are more likely to give. And about 60% of rated prospects are on LinkedIn, according to studies by Evertrue.

When constituents interact with us on Facebook, e.g. sharing, liking or commenting on a photo, how frequently do we actually review them for further engagement? Further, how often are we actually aggregating that data for analysis purposes?

Facebook likers are 91% more likely to give than non-likers. The more likes on your organization's page, the more likely the person is to be a donor. Major prospects use Facebook and "like" posts as well.

Recent alumni are often more likely to engage via Facebook than to open an email.

Brent is making a compelling case for joining internal organizational and external constituent data to identify engaged constituents. In an era of "too many prospects", any factors we can use to home in on our best prospects are worth consideration. Especially when we consider long-tern pipeline needs, social media makes sense as a method of both identifying and increasing engagement.

Another cool idea: share targeted content that aligns with fundraising priorities, and use this to identify people who are particularly interested in this area.

Also, if you want people to see your posts on Facebook, then pay for it. Posting without payment = buried.