Empower people to take action

“The Dragonfly Effect” presents the four wings of an omnidirectional dragonfly, symbolizing four principles for the effective use of social media. Wing 4 explains how to get people to Take Action. (3/3)

	Title:	The Dragonfly Effect
	Author:	Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith
	Pages:	211pages
	Publisher:	Jossey-Bass
	Price:	$25.95

The Dragonfly - as you’ll recall from parts 1 and 2 (click here for part 1 and here for part 2) - is the only insect able to propel itself in any direction, with tremendous speed and force, when its four wings are working in concert.  This was the inspiration for the concept of the “dragonfly effect”—an elegant, effective outcome in which individuals armed with just an internet connection and a few social tools produce colossal results, disproportionate to the small amount of resources used.

Four key skills are needed to achieve the Dragonfly Effect:  Focus, Grab Attention, Engage, and Take Action.  We will describe here the principles of Wing 4, how to empower others and enable them to Take Action.  

Wing 4, Take Action
In the first three steps, Dragonfly practitioners will have created a single focused goal to provide direction, motivation, and operational guidance, and will have taken steps to Grab Attention and to Engage an audience, whether customers or cause-oriented participants.  

As Professor Aaker and co-author Smith explain, getting people to take action is not a simple thing—you must know what to ask for and how to ask for it.  A fair amount of skill can be brought to bear in crafting the “call to action,” based on understanding the psychology of asking.  

Many commonly used “calls to action” fail because they are not compelling nor specific, often leaving out the instructions on how people should act.  A typical “call to action” may consistent of just a kind of “P.S.” requesting the reader to call a phone number or click on a URL.  The authors refer to such non-compelling approaches in this way:  “That’s not a call to action; that’s a feeble whimper.”

A much stronger approach is to combine a powerful call to action with innovative social media tools.  For example, the Humane Society of the United States launched a campaign called “Take a Bite Out of IHOP’s (International House of Pancakes) Animal Cruelty,” trying to get the restaurant chain to use cage-free eggs.  The Humane Society asked its 170,000-plus Facebook fans to tag IHOP when they were online to change their Facebook status or to post a new message on Facebook expressing their outrage about IHOP’s practices in funding inhumane animal practices.  These posts then showed up on IHOP’s fan page, where it had 57,000 fans.  Within six weeks, IHOP executives were forced to address the issue and undertake a test leading toward making the requested change.

Choosing the right type of ask
Before crafting your ask, it’s most effective to consider the what, how, when, and scope of your ask.  You should think strategically about how a first action will lead to a second action, and so on, in an effort to create a longer term bond with participants.

One powerful research finding highlighted in the book is that asking for time before money can increase your audience’s willingness to contribute.  A study carried out by Jennifer Aaker and Wendy Liu in 2008 for the American Lung Cancer Foundation began by asking half of the potential respondents, “How much time would you like to donate to the American Lung Cancer Foundation?” before asking them for money.  A second group was asked first, “How much money would you donate to the American Lung Cancer Foundation?”  Asking first for a donation of time resulted in people giving one-and-a-half to two times as much money as when they are asked first to donate money.  (Journal of Consumer Research, 2008, 35(3), 543-557.)     

Six different types of asks can each be most effective under particular conditions.  Here is a short description of those asks.

Design principles that increase action
Once you’ve thought about the sequence of your asks and the social media channels for engagement, then you’re ready to think about the action steps.

There are four design principles that maximize your chances of getting people to act.

The best way to make your ask easy is to make it small and concrete; for example, instead of asking people to “save the planet,” ask them to use energy-saving lightbulbs and give them one free.  You can also create a kit with templates that will allow your most engaged participants to reach out to their friends.  It also helps to encourage participants to reuse materials—keep track of what’s working best and spread the successful tools and techniques around.

Using techniques from games has shown itself to be a very successful strategy in product marketing and in non-profit engagement.  Giving out status symbols, such as badges, for example, work by giving players a sense of satisfaction and achievement.  Displaying metrics for actions taken also works well.  The Obama campaign, for instance, gave members points for introducing friends to the campaign, raising money, hosting events, and posting blogs.  Another version of that is a “leader board,” a simple scoreboard that keeps track of participants’ scores or accomplishments in a game.  This helps to create competition between players, including motivating individuals to compete against themselves for ever higher scores.

Taking flight!
In the book’s final chapter, the authors offer interesting examples of projects that successfully combine the cultivation of social good with profitability.  One such undertaking that garnered a lot of press attention was called “Project Baby Warmth: Embrace.”  A group of Stanford Business School students created an innovative, cost-effective insulated sleeping bag to save the lives of low-birth-weight babies in poor countries.  Using principles of the Dragonfly Effect, the students created an emotional and touching video about a young Indian girl named Ananya, and asked viewers to donate $25 to “Help us save lives through the simple warmth of an embrace.”  The company took off and is successfully and profitably beginning to help solve this serious problem around the world.

 
Published June 2011 by Christine Arrington