The techPresident web site carried an item on Oct. 15, by Micah L. Sifry, titled “One Year After Obama, Most Big DC Orgs Aren't Embracing Social Media Tools” that discusses how DC-based organizations have and have not started to use social media tools. The item notes that “it’s still pretty obvious that a year after Barack Obama's electoral victory, most inside-the-Beltway still have a very cautious and traditional attitude towards social media.” The full item follows:
Marc Ross, Christine Stineman, and Chris Lisi of 2ndSix, Tribe Effect and Chris Lisi Communications have just published a very interesting report looking at how 102 big Washington-based trade associations and advocacy groups are--or aren't--making use of an array of 14 core social media tools and platforms. The results shouldn't surprise anyone; it's still pretty obvious that a year after Barack Obama's electoral victory, most inside-the-Beltway still have a very cautious and traditional attitude towards social media.
But the individual breakdown by organization and the thoroughness of the research (which covers a ten week span ending October 2, 2009) ought to serve as a wake-up call for many groups. Because the results are pathetic: "75 of the organizations reviewed [are using] four or fewer online new media tools. The average score of the organizations reviewed was 24%, meaning 76% of the most commonly used social media tools are not being utilized to communicate with members, voters and other constituencies."
Groups were scored on whether they were using the following as part of their web presence: an advocacy center (meaning some kind of grassroots action platform on the website), Facebook, MySpace, blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon, widgets, email signup form, blog badges, SlideShare and Flickr. Groups weren't rated on how well they were using these tools, just their "presence and employment."
The top ten organizations, by the # of tools used and their overall score were:
Sierra Club: 10/71%
Service Employees International Union: 9/64%
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: 8/57%
American Wind Energy Institute: 8/57%
Human Rights Campaign: 8/57%
National Electrical Contractors Association: 8/57%
Business Roundtable: 7/50%
League of Conservation Voters: 7/50%
National Beer Wholesalers Association: 7/50%
U.S. Telecom Association: 7/50%
These were the only groups to score 50% or higher, by the way.
The most popular tools were, not surprisingly, email and advocacy centers. The least popular: blog badges and StumbleUpon. (It looks like the Sierra Club edged past the SEIU because it's the only group using StumbleUpon; something tells me the SEIU's web team, led by Tim Tagaris, will rectify that quickly.) And can someone explain what's up with the National Electrical Contractors Association, and why it's more web savvy than the National Rifle Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Communications Workers (to pick randomly from the rest of the list)?