Birds Give Back came and went and the Social Media Analytics Command Center tracked the philanthropic impact of Illinois State University’s most anticipated day of giving.
As ISU’s annual day of giving, Birds Give Back aims to inspire alumni, faculty/staff, students and the community to give to their passion.
Senior Managing Director of Annual Giving and Philanthropy Engagement Jillian Nelson shared, “Birds Give Back is primarily a digital fundraising campaign rooted in the growing crowdfunding trend. Social media is critical to success as it becomes the ‘word of mouth’ endorsement that inspires donors to take action.”
This year’s goal of 3,000 gifts was surpassed by early evening, hence unlocking the $20,000 gift of ISU Alumni Rob Sargeant ’65, M.S. ’67.
A social sharing challenge this year focused on a Birds Give Back promotional video that promised to unlock a $5,000 donation after generating more than 170 shares on Facebook.
The SMACC has a long history of supporting ISU during major fundraising efforts. Before Birds Give Back, the university participated in the larger Giving Tuesday campaign, occurring the Monday after Thanksgiving. The switchover occurred in 2015 to move away from interfering with larger non-profit efforts Giving Tuesday. Historically speaking, this week of philanthropy education and efforts usually occurs a week after ISU’s Founders Day to encourage continued alumni participation in university efforts.
The SMACC tracks the social media activity related to Birds Give Back keywords and hashtags such as #BirdsGiveBack and #redbirdphilanthropy. The SMACC motivates the Redbird community and encourages participation by demonstrating the reach and spread of the social media campaign.
The primary tool used for tracking social media is Talkwalker, a social media listening tool that helps brands better understand, monitor, and measure not only how they are doing but how others perceive them. Dr. Nathan Carpenter, Director of Convergent Media for the School of Communication, leads the SMACC’s student team. “Talkwalker allows us to quickly summarize and visualize thousands, if not millions of posts from a wide range of social media sources. We’re able to see important metrics such as the most influential accounts, trending topics, and top locations from participants in the campaign.”
Social Media Analyst, Daria Parfenova, was on-site at the SMACC in Fell Hall monitoring the Birds Give Back social media presence. She shared, “On the day of February 23, Birds Give Back got coverage of about 1.2 thousand posts and 9.7 thousand reactions. We can see the most significant spike in activity between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. when most people were on campus and participated in lotteries, challenges, and events. This great engagement of the ISU community made the hashtag #BirdsGiveBack the top #1 social trend in Illinois during that day.”
After a long day at Alumni Center, where the Birds Give Back command center was located, the final number in fundraising included $1,061,065 from 4,543 gifts.