Oxfam

Oxfam takes the top spot in our league table this month. The charity has taken an innovative approach to its Facebook pages, making full use of tabs to embed content, creating a website-like experience for users. The OxfamGB page even includes a “donate” tab and an online Oxfam Shop, enabling the charity to begin monetizing its social presences and attributing a direct ROI value for activities on these platforms. Oxfam’s official website affirms the charity’s commitment to social media as http://www.oxfam.org.uk prominently features links to the organisation’s social presences. However, despite Oxfam’s visible enthusiasm for social media, the charity has so far achieved a relatively low number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers in comparison with other charities.

The launch of the Oxfam curiosity pop-up shop at Selfridges created great publicity and celebrity associations. The charity is also present on ebay, and online discussions prove that vintage aficionados often celebrate their charity shop finds online. This could form the basis for some great blogger outreach, perhaps challenging fashion and design bloggers to come together to create an ethical fashion show.

Recommendations: Oxfam UK has a large number of presences on Twitter and Facebook, so it may be relevant for the charity to consider whether they have adequate content and resources to effectively maintain and grow so many presences - for example on Twitter there are accounts for @OxfamGB, @OxfamIreland, @OxfamScotland and @OxfamMusic. Each account should have a clear strategic purpose and a specific content focus.

Unicef

Unicef has a well-established following on social networks with nearly 14k subscribers on YouTube, over 400k followers on Twitter, and over a million likes on Facebook, but the charity’s reach score has been relatively low in recent months. However, the “Donate a word” campaign which uses the spellchecker within Google Chrome to trigger donation prompts, has received widespread positive coverage from design bloggers.

Another innovative initiative the charity has adopted is its recent partnership with parenting site Mumsnet, where senior members of the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative team took part in online discussions. This Initiative works with the NHS to encourage new mothers to continue breastfeeding. A number of the contributors involved criticised the way the scheme has been implemented, and UNICEF representatives were able to explain directly what they were doing to help ensure that it is properly implemented.

Unicef was also in the news last month when football manager Jose Mourinho claimed that Barcelona had been favoured because of its charitable shirt sponsor. Social news sites and Twitter users voiced amusement at his claim.

Recommendations: Unicef have built up a large following across different social media channels, but the challenge is now to keep this audience active and engaged. Unicef has launched forums in support of its Baby Friendly initiative on its UK website, but interaction has been minimal so far – it could be advisable to host these conversations as a thread within Mumsnet, where their target audience is already present and discussing related issues.

Greenpeace

Greenpeace uses somewhat controversial tactics to attract attention to its cause, so it is perhaps unsurprising that this charity achieves the lowest satisfaction score of all five charities analysed, putting the organisation in 3rd place.

Greenpeace has undertaken several high profile campaigns in recent months, from encouraging Facebook to “Unfriend Coal” to fighting against oil drilling company Cairn Energy, resulting in the filing of legal papers trying to fine Greenpeace £1.76m per day for disrupting its operations in the Arctic. The organisation’s activities create massive engagement on Facebook and achieve mentions in national press, and the biggest spike in mentions happened on Earth Day (22nd April) when Greenpeace released a timely report claiming that Apple has the least green data centers of all IT companies.

Recommendations:Greenpeace has gained a massive following across several Facebook pages, but is not maximising the potential of these online communities in terms of using apps to share detailed information on its work, and also taking the example of Oxfam and Unicef in collecting donations through their Facebook page itself.

MacMillan

Macmillan Cancer Support has been using social media in a slightly different way to the other charities discussed here. Firstly, Macmillan have maintained an active support forum on their website for several years, where cancer sufferers, their families and survivors are sharing their experiences and providing emotional support to one another. Their website also features blogs, multimedia content and live chat functionality. Macmillan’s Facebook page does not focus the subject of cancer, but is instead a hub showcasing, thanking and encouraging volunteers.

Across all social media channels, support for the charity is almost unanimous, with Macmillan nurses being hailed as “guardian angels” by both victims and their families.

Recommendations: The vast majority of references to the charity appear on Facebook and Twitter. Blogs are quite under-represented, so there is real scope to boost the level of references here. It appears that the “Make for Macmillan” initiative is proving successful elsewhere, so perhaps some outreach could be conducted with fashion, design and crafting bloggers to ask them to become involved with this.

NSPCC

NSPCC takes last place in our league table, with a modest 8k Twitter followers and a basic Facebook page, which does not provide much depth of information on the charity’s cause or take advantage of the opportunities to showcase the results of its work. Also notably absent is the ability to donate to the NSPCC through an on-page app, and although the charity has a presence on Facebook Causes, this is not linked through to their official Facebook page.

There has been some negative sentiment related to the charity recently as Paul Amadi, director of fundraising announced that NSPCC pays nearly £100k a year for membership to various sector bodies. Twitter users voiced their opinion that this money could be better spent elsewhere.

Recommendations: NSPCC has some work to do in order to catch up with other charities which have had a head start in social media, but there are lessons to be learned from the work of other non-profits online, including fellow children’s charity Save The Children. As a priority, the charity should develop a content plan for its social presences, and look for innovative ways to drive revenue through these channels.