Evaluation+and+Piloting

=Evaluation and Piloting=


 * //What small piece can you implement first as a pilot?//
 * //How will you learn from the pilot for your next experiment?//

As many nonprofit early adopters have learned, the secret to social media strategy success is careful, low-risk experimentation. Put another way, "You need to have failures before you can have success." Your initial experiments will be designed around trying out the tools and techniques. What's important is to set up some discovery questions on the front end and keep a constant eye on what works and what doesn't. Understand that you will most likely fail in these early efforts, so don't be risk adverse. Learn from the mistakes and reiterate over time.

The most point is that you set up a system for learning how to improve your social media efforts over time.

used the Flickr API which made everything automatic -- from tagging and uploading without the user having to even touch Flickr. They had about 3,000 submissions and captured about 2,000 new email addresses.

Wendy Harman of the Red Cross [|recommends] these steps to planning and designing your first experiment:
 * Pick a social media project that won’t take much time and relates to goals
 * Write down your successes
 * Write down your challenges
 * Ask or listen to the people you connect with about what worked and what didn't
 * Watch other nonprofits and copy and remix for your next project.
 * Rinse, repeat.


 * Resources**

[|The Art of Beginning: Improving Social Media Practice Through Reflection] by Beth Kanter Reflective Practices Resources