In the first part of this case study on the social media strategy of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), you and I discussed how RAN uses Twitter. In that first part, we saw that RAN doesn’t use Twitter very well at all. If you have not as yet read Part 1, you may do so by clicking here.
As well as RAN doesn’t use Twitter, they make up for it in their employment of Facebook. And that’s what you and I are going to discuss today. Let’s make a short assessment of their Facebook strategy.
Face the Facebook
The first thing that hit me when I looked at RAN’s Facebook page was their number of fans. On Tuesday, February 23, 2010 (the same day I wrote about their Twitter strategy), RAN had 11,249 fans. This is almost eight times as many Facebook fans as the 
1,426 Twitter followers on that same date. (See Part 1.) The question “Why?” popped into my mind as it might be right this moment popping into yours. Why this big difference between the level of Facebook fans and the level of Twitter followers. I see this a lot. This type of difference serves to reiterate the point I made in Part 1, that RAN does not realize the value of a good Twitter relationship and seemingly makes little to no effort to develop those relationships. So a Facebook fan level of 11,249 by comparison is very good, but yet it would seem that an organization with RAN’s focus and stature could attract a lot more Facebook fans. Yet, although their fan level may not be quantitatively outstanding, a qualitative assessment of the RAN Facebook effort says that they do a good job.
The nature of their posts on Facebook are essentially the same as those on Twitter. The posts announce actions that RAN is taking or are calls to their Facebook fans to participate in RAN sponsored actions. As on Twitter, many of those actions and calls concerned companies such as Chevron, General Mills, and JP Morgan Chases. But unlike on Twitter, fan conversation can be seen quite easy easily on the Facebook page. No hashtags to search in order to see the level of fan/follower conversation. Facebook makes that engagement quite plain to see, as well as the number of fans voting “thumbs up.” That sort of visibility and approval can breed further conversation and even more fan approval.
Social Media Day of Action
In a direct action against JP Morgan Chase, RAN announced on Facebook an event they titled “Put Chase On the Run: Social Media Day of Action.” On Facebook, they announced this February 18, 2010 event beginning about February 12. Good decision on timing. Enough lead time for fans to be aware, but not so much that fans will forget in the meantime. The details of the event were spelled out on a Facebook event page. Here is part of those details:
This Thursday morning (February 18, 2010) at 9am EST, DirtyMoney.org will reveal a list of simple actions people can take online, letting Chase know that America is aware of the bank’s involvement in destroying the Appalachian Mountains. Participants will have a choice of actions to take on a variety of social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the new collaborative video platform, Citizen Global.
DirtyMoney.org is a domain name that when clicked redirects the browser to a Chase direct action page on the main RAN site. On February 24, which is the date I wrote this section that you are now reading, when I went to that domain name, I was taken to the Chase direct action page, but there was no “choice of actions” menu to be seen. Since my arrival there was almost a week after the event, I did not find this unusual. However, near the bottom of the page there were links related to this event.
One of those links went to a related story on the RAN site, and described some of the RAN Social Media Day suggested actions:
Some ways to take action:
1.Update your facebook status with this message: “Chase is bankrolling the destruction of American mountains for coal. End mountaintop removal and PUT CHASE ON THE RUN. Take action today at DirtyMoney.org.
2. Upload this Chase brand jam image to your Facebook picture (image to the left)” [Richard's Note: I have not included that image in this post.]
3. Brand jam Chase’s Facebook page “Chase Community Giving.” (follow this link) [Richard's Note: I have not included that link in this post.]
4. Tweet this message: #Chase is bankrolling the destruction of American mountains. Take action at DirtyMoney.org. #coal #mtr #RAN Please RT.
5. Upload the Chase brand jam image to Flickr (image to the left) [Richard's Note: I have not included that image in this post.]
6. Blog the social media day of action
Another of the links near the bottom of the Chase direct action page went to a page on the RAN site with an article describing the results that were generated from the Social Media Day of Action. That list of results was as follows:
- RAN and allies Tweeted to over 330,000 people
- RAN and allies touched 180,000 people on Facebook
- had over 30 unique blogs posted, including posts on Huffington Post, Treehugger and Grist
- had 3,000 people “defriend” the Chase Community Giving Facebook fan page
- reports of dozens of people cancelling their Chase credit cards and bank accounts.
- one Appalachian activist started a “Boycott Chase” Facebook group.
You and I will take a critical look at those results in the next post in this series about RAN. For now, we’re going to wrap up this particular post with a few thoughts.
Wrap-Up
Overall, I would say that RAN employs Facebook generally well. There are areas for improvement of course, but for the most part they seem to understand how to use this tool. Yet, although they appear to understand this tool fairly well, it remains to be seen how effective its usage is.
Regarding the Social Media Day of Action, the Facebook event page (on February 24, 2010) showed only 843 confirmed attendees and only 586 listed as “maybe attending.” Now, remember. The RAN Facebook page has at least 11,000 fans. A combined figure of 1,429 fans as either confirmed or possible event attendees is not a very impressive display of the Facebook fans involvement in a direct action. These numbers go to the issue of effective usage as raised above. A conversion rate of fans to event attendees in the range of 13% is low. This might be a sign of “slacktivism,” a natural human trait which plagues all online activist efforts.
So, for now I am going to raise the Irregular Competition Threat Index rating for RAN from the “2″ which we saw in the previous post. Right now, I am going to raise it to a “7″ based upon their overall employment of Facebook. But in the next post, you and I will discuss those Social Media Day of Action results as shown above, to get closer to the answer of just how “effective” RAN’s Facebook, and overall social media strategy, really is.
* * *
Part 3 of “How Does RAN Rank As An Irregular Competitor?” will be posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010. If you are reading this before that date, please subscribe to the FREE RSS feed so that you will be notified when the article posts. Click here to subscribe. Or, if you are reading this after that date, please click here to be taken to “How Does RAN Rank As An Irregular Competitor? – Part 3.”
