Community Outreach

Social Media Outreach Assignment
Wen Chen
Social Media and Community Outreach

Harvard Business Review case Community Relations 2.0 illustrates an idea of businesses
utilizing social media as a platform to reach out to and build positive relationships with the
public. Thanks to technological affordance, people increasingly access to a wide range of
resources with just one click on computers and all other devices. New communities such as CMC
social support groups have also been built on social media so that people can exchange
informations and emotional support without physical attendance (Green-Hamann et al., 2011).
Consequently, questions have been raised concerning whether or not new communities will
replace earlier-generation online communities or traditional approaches of community outreach,
and what are the strengths and challenges of businesses using social media platforms for
community outreach.
Social Media Capacities
According to Kane et al. (2009), social media platforms first facilitate trust built among
community members, especially members of online health communities. Patients build
connections by sharing details about their diseases and treatments in online communities for
particular diseases. They also change the way doctors provide treatment by comparing their own
provided treatment with others on social network. Second, social media platforms can call upon
actions in a very short time. Social network sites enable people to voluntarily get together in just
a few hours for common interests and therefore spare time and money for businesses and event
organizers. Third, new online communities collect informations that are surprisingly reliable.
People today tend to share knowledge and information with caution due to the remarkable speed
and scale of information transmission on online sites. Finally, online filtering tools help people
get rid of useless or misinformed messages and identify the most helpful resources (Kane et al.,
2009).
Furthermore, some other strengths such as anonymity and asynchrony of social media tools
have also been testified by researchers. Due to the lack of physical attendance, the anonymity
enables individuals to exchange information without revealing real identities to other community
members. By doing so people can avoid the discomfort when they discuss sensitive issues in FtF
settings (Wright, 2002a). Also, the nature of asynchrony of social media platforms allows
individuals to use group information whenever and wherever they choose. This is a turning point
to people with health issues. For one thing, exchanging information and emotional support is
significant for people with disabilities and special needs as they are in more need of being
recognized and connected. For another, physical disadvantages to some extent prevent them from
having as much access to social activities as their counterparts. Therefore, asynchronous
communication provides opportunities for them to share information without physical barriers
(Campbell & Wright, 2002).
Challenges of Social Media Platforms
Even though there are numerous strengths of social media tools, businesses who intend to
use social media for reaching out to the public still have several challenges to tackle.
First of all, companies need to have a capable social media team (Kane et al., 2009). Since
building online communities on social media means opening channels up for both positive
engagement and negative defamation, a companys social media team must be capable of not
only exploring new opportunities for companys growth, but preventing reputation damages to
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the company. Second, identifying and collaborating with social media experts outside the social
media team is crucial (Kane et al., 2009). It may be hard for social media team to take solely
responsibilities of monitoring online activities on all social media platforms, interacting with
community members online and offline, and making quick and appropriate responses to
companys reputation damages. Collaboration with employees who are already active on social
media and have developed insights into virtual world will to some extent alleviate the burdens on
social media team. Third, businesses and community members may find it hard to contact a
specific person for further information as relational commitment on social media is relatively
casual. Community members may exchange informations in online communities out of
spontaneousness as they feel less committed to people they solely meet on online contexts. Or
they may become self-protective once things get serious. Therefore, individuals who seek
additional information, emotional support, or long-term mutually beneficial relationship from
specific people may find it hard to achieve (Lin & Anol, 2008).
Social Media Strategy for Easter Seals New Jersey
The organization that I will build social media strategy for is Easter Seals New Jersey
(ESNJ). ESNJ is a non-profit organization that provides programs and services for people with
disabilities and special needs. Even though ESNJ is one of the major disability service providers
in the state of New Jersey, it has failed to engage its customers on social media networks.
Therefore, the goal of this social media strategy is to increase its customers positive engagement
on social media and further to improve customer relations in the organization. The social media
tools that will be used are youreable.com and Facebook.
Being run by Disabled Living Foundation, youreable.com is an online community of and for
disable people to support and help each other by sharing their own experiences. One of the
reasons choosing youreable.com as a new social media platform is that Easter Seals affiliations
have been collaborated with Disabled Living Foundation for several years, and it may be easier
to build a new collaboration with the online community it runs.
We will first encourage customers to sign up for the youreable.com online community by
spreading out the collaborating messages and introducing this online platform on our Facebook
page. According to (Wasko & Faraj, 2005), one of the predictors of people contributing
knowledge in electronic networks is that by doing so they feel valued and enjoyable. It is crucial
to make individuals with disabilities to know that they are not only the one who get help from
others, which is the role they may usually play in life, but the one who are capable of helping
others by sharing experiences and providing emotional support to people in the online
community. Once they become newcomers to the online community, we will then motive them to
make specific contributions. Burke et al. (2009) proposed that contribution can be motivated to
make by social learning as friends of newcomers share more content will encourage them to
contribute more content themselves (Burke et al., 2009). Newcomers will have a list of what/
whom you may be interested in options where they can choose from so that they will first have
some topics and friends that they are interested in to follow. Therefore, newcomers will be more
motivated to contribute as they see their friends keep updating content. Third, I propose to relate
participation in the online community activities to social capital. When people first sign up, they
will be encouraged, but not compulsory, to identify their profession. This can be treated as a way
to connect people not only with similar life experiences, but with equivalent societal background.
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The online community, therefore, will function as a platform of exchanging emotional support as
well as of building trustworthy networks among community members. Finally, just like any other
NPO organizations, the main social media tool ESNJ has utilized is Facebook. Its Facebook page
has over 5,000 followers and, however, engage minimal interactions with its customers. Since
the most of contents ESNJ Facebook page has posted are informations about their following
events, customers have few motivations to exchange information and make contribution on the
site. Therefore, instead of solely sending out content about things, we will utilize Facebook
platform to spread content about people. Crafted stories and fun moment photos of previous
events can be put on our Facebook page in order to engage people who would care about the
cause to comment, like, and share stories to their social circles, which may also motivate social
ties in their circles to care or even contribute in turn.
Wen Chen
References
Burke, M., Marlow, C., & Lento, T. (2009). Feed me: Motivating newcoming contribution in
social network sites. In Proceedings of CHI 2009.
Campbell, K., & Wright, K. B. (2002). On-line support groups: An investigation of relationships
among source credibility, dimensions of relational communication, and perceptions of
emotional support. Communication Research Reports, 19(2), 183193.
Green-Hamann, S., Eichhorn, K. C., & Sherblom, J. C. (2011). An exploration of why people
participate in Second Life social support groups. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 16(4), 465-491.
Kane, G. C., R. G. Fichman, R. G., Gallaugher, J., & Glaser, J. (2009). Community relations 2.0:
With the rise of real-time social media, the rules about community outreach have
changed. Harvard Business Review, 87(11), 45-50.
Lin, C., & Anol, B. (2008). Learning online social support: An investigation of network
information technology based on UTAUT. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 11(3), 268272.
Wasko, M. M., & Faraj, S. (2005). Why should I share? Examining social capital and
knowledgecontribution in electronic networks of practice. MIS Quarterly, 29(1), 35-57.
Wright, K. B. (2002a). Social support within an on-line cancer community: An assessment of
emotional support perceptions of advantages and disadvantages, and motives for using
the community from a communication perspective. Journal of Applied Communication
Research, 30(1), 195209.

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Social Media Outreach Assignment

Social Media and Community Outreach

Social Media Outreach Assignment

Social Media Outreach Assignment

Social Media Outreach Assignment

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