I have spoken with small companies and nonprofits that feel developing an online presence is just more work than it is worth.  While I would agree that online isn’t the right line for everyone, chances are very high that developing an online presence is a very wise choice for your organization.  To see why, let’s look at the primary benefits and a few important caveats.

The Benefits of Online Movement Building

Wide reach - The internet offers a much wider reach than other mediums.  People around the world (as well as within your target market) will suddenly have information on your organization at their fingertips.  Scope and wide reach are some of the most powerful arguments in favor of including an online component in your movement building.

Low cost - Equally important is the relatively low cost for developing such an extensive reach.  Today you can have a professional looking informational website created in a single day for only a few hundred dollars.  This is a tiny price tag for the extensive reach that having a website offers.

Automated - While you may not always have someone in your office to answer the phone, your website will always be available.  Just as importantly, your website can provide detailed information to one or one thousand people each day without requiring any extra expenditure from you.  Master Card could easily tout, “Creating a website: $300.  Freeing up staff time: Priceless.”

The Caveats

Some audiences aren’t online - Just as in traditional offline marketing, your organization will still have a specific target market that you need to reach.  If your target audience does not have internet access — such as the homeless, for example — then an online presence will not be effective.

Marketing not included - If you open a new company but tell no one about it, you will have very few sales.  Similarly, if you set up an amazing website but tell no one, you will have very few visitors.  Developing a strong online presence requires much more than simply establishing a website — you will need to do the appropriate online outreach, as well as committing to list your organization’s website on all offline promotional materials.

The Final Verdict

The low cost for the extensive reach makes building a website an easy choice for most small businesses and nonprofits.  The more difficult question is how to fully capitalize on your investment once the website is up and running.  Optimizing your site for search engines, effectively marketing your site online through blogs, news, and links, and establishing your website as a core part of offline marketing efforts all play an essential role.  We will address each of these in future articles.  In the meantime, drop in the comments below any relevant experiences you have had with website development.

I often talk about how movement building can be a powerful tool for companies.  It generates a level of buzz that can be hard to achieve, it increases the number of evangelists spreading your word and, ultimately, it sells products.  In that spirit, we are going to examine an effort that blends the distinction between political movement and company.

Fire Logs

As far as products go, firelogs don’t seem particularly movement worthy.  I am talking about those little, highly flammable logs used to start the fire in your fireplace.  These are utilitarian products with little differentiation between manufacturers.  Consequently, price is the determining factor for most customers, leaving a relatively low profit margin and little room for new competitors with small budgets.

Reinventing the Log

In other words, producing the same old firelogs would to be an uphill battle for any newcomer.  Realizing this, a company named XOtherm decided to reinvent the log.  It chose to reshape the traditional fire-starter and give it a new face, literally.  It put faces of well known politicians on each log and is currently marketing The Burning Bush and The Flaming Liberal.

First of all, XOtherm has positioned its products as humorous novelty items (for which it can charge a premium) rather than practical fire-starters.  More importantly, it has launched products “hot” enough to generate a buzz.  While a traditional firelog can’t earn too much press, the idea of burning political figures certainly can.

Building a Political Movement

Past being attention worthy, political fire-starters can be used to generate a movement.   Regardless of whether it is well placed, there is a lot of antipathy directed toward President Bush.  Other groups have been capitalizing on this sentiment for a while, such as the National Organization of Women (NOW) launching the site The Truth About George.  Today XOtherm is using the existing passion of its audience to build a movement.

For Inauguration Day the company is promoting a national celebration of the end of Bush’s term.  This celebration is billed as cathartic and purging, representing our country turning a new page in its history.  The Burning Bush fire-starters will serve as the visual and symbolic focal point for this celebration.  Notably, there is little emphasis on the practical nature of the fire-starter as a tool to ignite logs; instead, the focus remains on how this tool enables the company’s audience to express its passions.

Political movements are a good fit for select companies and it is interesting to see how this XOtherm is using a movement to sell a traditionally utilitarian product.  Are there other examples that come to mind of companies combining movements and products in a novel fashion?  Please include them in the comments below.

At the Obama campaign rally in Asheville, NC this past weekend I heard people questioning certain aspects of the event.  As the Obama campaign provides an example of some very talented movement builders, I wanted to break down a few of those confusing elements and explore what they can teach us about building powerful movements.

Obama Movement: RSVP Needed

The Obama campaign strongly recommended that you submit an RSVP online to ensure that you would be able to get it into the event.  Once you arrived, however, there was no one checking RSVPs — only a 5,000 person long line.  So why did the campaign imply that you needed to RSVP?

Because this rally is one small component of the movement.  One of the most important parts of this event for their movement (and a key benefit of any event for your movement) is obtaining the ability and permission to continue a dialogue.  For every person who submitted an RSVP — regardless of whether they made it to the rally — the campaign now has both the ability to follow-up and a reason to do so.  The rally was one component in the ongoing process of building a movement, and the Obama campaign made sure they could leverage it to grow the movement in the future.

Obama Movement: Get Your Tickets

As you were waiting in that very long line, event volunteers came through multiple times handing out the tickets that you would need to enter the event.  For each ticket, you would fill out your contact information on one half and then the volunteer would detach it and hand you the stub.  All of this seemed logical until you arrived at the gate and discovered no one was collecting tickets.  If you then pulled out your ticket stub and read it more carefully, you found written in the fine print, “No ticket needed for admittance.”

Again, the Obama campaign is going to great lengths to collect contact information.  Many people were left standing on the outside of the arena, but the campaign now has the contact information of everyone who waited in line for the rally.  It is positioned to leverage this event to help expand its movement in the future.

Obama Movement: The seating chart

The majority of attendees were standing behind the press barricade.  A select few were in front of the press barriaced and right next to the stage, and the luckiest ones actually got to sit up on the stage with Obama.  Why would they create such an elaborate arrangement?  Why put the press in the middle of the crowd?  Why place spectators so they could only see Obama’s back?

The answer to all these questions is better press.  Events are perfect opportunities to gain free news publicity for your movement, and structuring the event to benefit the press will make good news articles all the more likely.  By weaving the press area through the crowd, the Obama campaign made it easy for reporters to interview members of the crowd and to comfortably obtain close-up photos.  By placing spectators on stage, the campaign provides the press with more interesting photos — as well as giving themselves an opportunity to visually establish the broad base of support their movement enjoys.  Planning your events with the media in mind will help your movement to successfully leverage free news publicity as well.

Obama Movement: Time for shopping

If you took the time to talk with vendors at the event, you found that many of them came from around the country, following the campaign trail.  The strength of this one movement sustains many companies manufacturing products, shipping them back and forth across the US, and hiring vendors to staff their tables at political events.

This is a valuable lesson for the great number of businesses which feel that movement building isn’t relevant to their market.   A movement can energize, rally, and attract people to new products or services.  It can even create new markets, as having a cause is more powerful than simply having a product.

Obama Movement: Additional lessons

The recent Obama rally highlighted some best practices for movement building, including the importance of collecting contact info (even when that entails creating fake tickets), how you can build press coverage and photo opportunities into an event, and even the relevance of movements to many businesses.  If you have attended recent campaign events, what other lessons have you found for effective movement building?  Leave them in the comments below.

The other day someone asked me, “Ok, so I know that you are a movement builder — but what do you do?”  It’s a good question, and one that takes a long time to answer.  It is complicated because, in many way, building a movement is similar to assembling a puzzle: there are lots of pieces, figuring out how they all go together can be tough, and if the pieces aren’t put together properly then the big picture won’t be clear.

The Puzzle Pieces

There are a variety of components to movement building, and so I’ve written a separate page for each category.  Their links are below, along with a short description for each.

Assessment

The start of any component of movement building is understanding where you are currently — including your resources, opportunities, and obstacles — and what the playing field around you looks like.

Strategic Planning

Once you know where you are, you will be able to set your sites on where you want to go.  Strategic planning is the ongoing process of figuring out how you will get from here to there.

Messaging and Positioning

Achieving your goals will require reaching out to others.  Your messaging and positioning will provide the substance of that outreach.

Marketing

Once you have clarified what your message is, the time has come to start spreading it.   Marketing involves developing and implementing your plan for outreach.

Press and Media

One tool in your marketing toolbox is media coverage.  Providing a consistent message through a diversity of press-worthy channels is the key to success.

Volunteer Management

The larger your movement becomes, the more effort will be required to keep its momentum going.  Volunteer management is the art of recruiting, developing, and retaining volunteers to help you with that task.

As you see on their individual pages, each of these categories encompasses a broad range of additional efforts.  Some may be more vital to the success of your movement than others, but all are important pieces in the movement building puzzle.

Fear of losing control is a primary stumbling block keeping organizations from building powerful movements.  I’ll admit that the idea of people who you haven’t trained, and who certainly don’t live in fear of being fired, serving as spokespeople for your efforts can be quite unsettling.  But the truth is, in today’s world, you don’t really have any choice.

Reality Check: You ALREADY Lost Control

Yesterday you knew that someone could be telling her friends about your company over coffee.  Today, that same person could be telling the entire world about your company through a product review website, a personal blog, or a whole array of discussion forums, all while drinking her coffee.

What defines the current era is that everyone is connected.  This means that everyone — whether you provided them with good customer service or not — can tell others what they think about you.  And others are listening.  Studies consistently show that people are paying more attention to the word of mouth buzz and less attention to traditional advertising.  So the reality is that, like it or not, you have already lost control over your organization’s image.

The Smartest Reaction: Embrace it!

The old saying goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” And in the case of your organization’s public image today, that is good advice.  Fighting it won’t stop your audience from discussing your organization — but by becoming involved you can help to shape the discussion.

This is good advice for customer service (treat everyone as though their experience will become known to the world).  It is good advice for customer relations (engage customers in the discussion, allowing you to influence it, gather information, and show your best side).  And it is GREAT advice for building a movement.

Movements are unique because they actively engage your audience to help attract more support for you.  No matter what you do, your audience’s voice is already going to be attracting or repelling support — and movements embrace this fact and use it to your benefit.

This governs the whole structure of your movement.  Your Big Idea is easy to understand, it is unique, and it excites your audience’s passions.  You begin your marketing by targeting the portion of your audience that is most likely to spread the word to others.  You publicize each success, using it to generate even more buzz.  And you engage your audience, your volunteers, or your customers to ensure that they have a positive experience and that they have the tools they need to accurately tell others about your movement.

All of these steps greatly improve the odds that when your audience tells others about your movement they are positive and on message.  Of course, there are no guarantees.  But the alternative is having no influence on how people are describing your organization or company.  Or, perhaps even worse, generating no buzz at all.  Once you realize that you have already lost control, the wisdom of movement building becomes apparent.

Is movement building an art or a science?  This question could be more precisely asked: Is successful movement building guided by a set of universal rules, or is successful movement building guided by instinct, personal experience, and continual revision?

As is the case for many worthwhile questions, the answer is yes.  Movement building is both an art and a science.  There certainly are universal rules that increase your chances of successful movement building.  And those “artsy activities” — following instinct, learning from personal experience, and continually revising your strategy — are three of those (less specific than many scientists would like) rules. So what other rules are there for successful movement building?

Movement Building Tips

Movement building needs to be planned. There is a saying, “Failing to plan is just planning to fail.” This applies to movement building, too.  You always need to have a vision of where you’re going and a strategic plan for how you are going to get there.

Movement building requires revising your strategy. If the previous requirement for careful and thorough planning represents science, this rule represents art. Circumstances will change, opportunities will open, and obstacles will arise.  You need to be open to adjusting your movement building plan accordingly.

Movement building is momentum building . Building a movement is a continuous, ever-growing undertaking.  You need to use each achievement — each piece of media coverage, each event, even each word of mouth discussion — as the foundation for the next achievement.  Successful movement building means keeping that snowball rolling.

Movement building involves collaboration. Some would argue that collaboration is synonymous with movement building.  Including another organization in your effort — which brings its membership and its organizational capacity to the table — is a much faster way to grow than recruiting each of those individuals yourself.  Expanding your coalition will entail challenges such as more decision makers and divergent goals, but careful collaboration is a key to successful movement building.

Movement building requires patience and determination. As noted above, movement building is momentum building, and momentum building is not a once-and-done activity.  To succeed, you will need to be committed.  You are probably familiar with the concept of the long-tail in sales, but movement building has what I like to call the Wide Tail.  Your movement will grow in size and impact over time, and you will need to have the determination to stick in there through the growing process if you want to see your movement succeed.

There are many, many more tips for movement building, and I will be getting to them in future articles.  But for now, what are some of the other biggest ones that we should include?  Put them in the comments below.

Also, I wanted to let everyone know that to accommodate other projects the posting schedule for Movement Builders is going to change to Tuesday and Thursday of every week. As soon as the schedule permits, we will switch back to the Monday, Wednesday, Friday theme that you all know and love.

The title on my business card is Movement Builder, and it has provoked some interesting reactions.  I’ve gotten more than the normal allotment of raised eyebrows and sideways stares, a few people professing their undying love for my work, and a whole lot of questions.  The one theme pervading all these questions is this: What makes a good movement builder?

Movement Builder Defined

The Institute for Democratic Renewal, a national collaboration supporting movements for racial and social justice, published a list of the most common characteristics of successful movement builders.  While a few of the Institute’s points were omitted because they relate exclusively to social movements, the majority (in bold below) apply to all kinds of movements.

A Movement Builder understands that suffering and oppression are not enough to create a movement. In creating your movement you cannot afford to focus exclusively on the problem.  You must offer your audience a solution — a vision of positive change — for them to rally around.

A Movement Builder is conscious of the need to go beyond slogans and to create programs that transform and empower participants. I have written previously on the difference between marketing and movement building.  Most importantly, successful movement builders are not simply creating brand recognition; they are providing a positive change that their audience is passionate about.

A Movement Builder can accept contradictions that develop in the course of a struggle. Movement building is a dynamic, ongoing effort that is more a collaboration than a centrally controlled hierarchy.  As such, there may be contradictions that arise because your supporters — in other venues or on other subjects — disagree with each other or with you.  But successful movement builders are able to accept and at times even embrace those contradictions.

A Movement Builder is able to take advantage of historical moments—the convergence of time and events. No movement is created in a vacuum.  More importantly, no movement COULD be created in a vacuum.  Your audience’s passions come from the problems they are facing right now, in a particular culture, in a particular point in history, in a particular location.  A successful movement builder uses the current context to generate support and interest.

A Movement Builder chooses boldness over timidity. Many sports t-shirts profess, “No guts, no glory.”  The same could be put on a movement building t-shirt.  You need to be willing to get out there, speak up, and take risks in order to build the buzz that is essential for a powerful movement.

A Movement Builder calls forth a vision that is larger than the issue at hand. The truth is that your nonprofit’s current campaign or your business’ current product will not always be relevant to your audience.  The most successful movement builders engage their audience’s passions by solving current issues while simultaneously pointing to the larger vision that will lead the movement into the future.

A Movement Builder strikes a balance between control and autonomy. As mentioned above, movements are informal group actions that cannot be controlled in a strict hierarchical manner.  You can guide and influence your growing movement, but you cannot fully dictate its course.  The most successful movement builders have learned to walk the line between letting the movement run free and trying to control its every step.

Movement Builder Expanded

In addition to the Institute’s list, there are a few other characteristics that successful movement builders share.

A Movement Builder is strategic. Cultivating a movement is a complicated process, and without a plan to guide you the task becomes even more challenging.  You need to be willing to alter your plan when circumstances change, but you must always be following a strategic vision.

A Movement Builder seeks help. The essence of a powerful movement could be described as people working together to achieve a common goal.  As such, you are not just getting your message out to a receptive audience (that would be marketing) — you are assembling a group of people to help you spread the message.  The sooner you ask for help, the sooner your group begins to grow.

A Movement Builder believes. Passion is contagious.  If you believe in your product, your nonprofit’s mission, or the political candidate you represent, people will be able to tell.  If you don’t believe, they will pick up on that, too.  Passion is contagious, and successful movement builders have it.

This is a solid list of the most prominent characteristics shared by successful movement builders.  Of course there are many other important traits — please add in the comments below some of the ones you have seen to be valuable in your work.

Movement Evangelists Defined

Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba popularized the term customer evangelist in their aptly named book, Creating Customer Evangelists.  Customer evangelists are customers who are so blown away by their experience with your product or service that they pass the word about your company on to others.  Properly cultivated, they can become an invaluable word of mouth marketing tool.

Not convinced this is feasible for you?  Great on paper but not a realistic dream?  McConnell and Huba say that all the proof needed is right there in your mirror.

You are an evangelist. You tell others what movie to see, which computer to purchase, what restaurant to visit, which dentist you prefer, which cell phone to buy, which books to read, which clubs to join. Your recommendations are sincere. Passionate, perhaps. Perhaps you did not realize that you are an evangelist, a bringer of glad tidings, but your sphere of influence does. It is made up of friends, family, colleagues and professional communities.

The concept of a movement evangelist is very similar.  It is the people who are so excited about your Big Idea and the positive change you offer that they voluntarily tell others about your movement, your services, or your products.  Powerful movements cultivate loud Evangelists, and these Evangelists will recruit more and more people to your movement.

Cultivating Movement Evangelists

The trick is getting — and keeping — those initial movement evangelists.  If you have already committed to building a movement rather than running a traditional marketing campaign, the steps involved will come much more naturally.  In other words, the mindset of movement building is predisposed to cultivating and retaining evangelists.

Big Idea. The starting point for building a movement and for recruiting evangelists is to have an identity that is easy to understand, remarkable, appeals to your audience’s passions, and offers positive change.  In other words, you need the right Big Idea.  For more information on crafting and tweaking your Big Idea, check out some articles in our movement planning section.

Create a Buzz. Building the buzz is so important that McConnell and Huba devoted a full chapter to it.  This is an incremental process and each new “piece of buzz” should be leveraged to draw more attention to the next.  Don’t simply put up a great new video on YouTube.  Put up a great new video that directs people back to your website.  Then publicize that video in your newsletter.  Next, let the local paper know that your movement is getting national attention through a new video.  Then you put the newspaper’s article up on your website and publicize it in your newsletter. And so on.  Buzz is exciting, contagious, and a great way to attract movement evangelists.  Always build it.

Make it easy for your evangelists. The more exciting your movement seems, the more your audience is going to want to talk about it.  So make this an easy task for them.  That could mean an easy to remember web address, and extra pamphlet to give to a friend, or a widget they can put on their Facebook or MySpace profile.  Netflix gives you special referral coupons to pass on to family members.  The point is that you need to make it as easy as possible for your newly minted evangelists to pass your word along.

Create a community. This is another step that received a full chapter in McConnell’s and Huba’s book.  As humans we are always seeking community and connections.  Providing that will give your members a much stronger personal identification with your movement.  This is a significant added value, over and above accomplishing your Big Idea, and is a sure fire way to cultivated highly dedicated evangelists.

Have a dialogue (and take it seriously). As a reminder, a dialogue is a two way street.  You need to provide the members of your movement with regular updates, but that’s not all.  You also need to solicit their ideas and opinions.  What do they like about the way that things are going?  What don’t they like?  What would they like to see changed?  How would they like to be involved in making that change?  By making people part of the movement you deepen their identification and thereby increase the chance they will tell others about it.  (And knowing where your movement is succeeding and where it needs to improve doesn’t hurt either!)

There are many other, individualized steps that have worked wonders for various movements.  Please help us all out by adding some examples in the comments below.

Youtube is a movement builder’s dream

It is a perfect tool for creating a buzz.  It gets your content out in front of an enormous audience for a minimal cost, and it has the capability for discussion and sharing automatically built in.  And the best part about it — you don’t need to have a professional video team to create something worth watching.

As an illustration, look at a video put up this month by Microsoft .  They have the ability to produce an ad that would make The Matrix look downright 1980 — but instead of special effects they have chosen a video that your movement could easily duplicate.  Why?  Because this look appeals to the Youtube audience.

Below is another example that recently made it to Youtube’s homepage.  This video (with 50,000 views and counting) is just a guy with his guitar singing a funny song about a growing movement — all of which could easily be replicated with any video camera and the most basic video editing software.

But you’re just a small organization!

I’ve heard it before and I’m sure I’ll hear it many times again: But we are just a small organization and don’t have the name recognition of Microsoft or Twitter, Seinfeld or Gates.  We simply couldn’t compete.

The good news is that the big players don’t have nearly as much advantage in the Youtube arena as you think.  We’ve already discussed the fact that they don’t have too significant of a technological advantage.  And big names are not needed either.  As an example, watch this video:

It’s cute and all, but it’s just a dancing bird, right?  Well, yes.  It’s a dancing bird that has been watched by move than 1.5 million people. As you’ll see if you visit the video’s page on Youtube, every time it is viewed the name of the nonprofit that posted the video is displayed, along with a brief description of their efforts (building a sanctuary for rescued birds) and a link to donate to the sanctuary. Filming a bird’s antics has earned this organization global coverage, and with some creativity your organization will certainly be able to add to your movement through Youtube.

The bad news

There are two pieces of bad news.  The first one is that Youtube won’t fit with everyone’s strategy.  If you are focusing exclusively on a small community or if your audience doesn’t spend much time online, then Youtube is not for you.  It’s a powerful tool when it fits your audience and your organizational goals — if it doesn’t, then just leave the tool in your toolbox.

The second piece of bad news is that the immense power of Youtube is NOT a hidden secret.  It is a well known avenue for promotion and is becoming more competitive by the day.  Luckily, there is a lot that you can do to maximize the chances of your video’s success.  The nuts and bolts of a successful Youtube video — including choosing a title, selecting the proper video length, optimizing for thumbnails, promotion, tagging and more — are all covered by Dan Ackerman Greenberg in The Secret Strategies Behind Many Viral Videos.

We’d also love to hear the successes and challenges you have found with building your movement on Youtube.  Please drop your story in the comments below.

Marketing is a core part of movement building, but movement building is a much broader undertaking than a marketing campaign… Whereas a typical marketing campaign sends messages out, a movement will develop your audience into the message bearers.

This distinction points to the heart of true movement building.

Traditional Marketing: you speak, they listen

Interuptions are the foundation of traditional marketing.  You’re watching your favorite TV show, the suspense is building, enter commercial stage left.  You are reading your magazine, flip the page to learn more, enter advertisement stage right.  Pop-ups.  Banner ads.  Billboards.  All are attempts to interrupt whatever your audience had been doing so that they can listen to you.

The trouble is that your audience has learned how to handle interruptions.  They channel surf, they TiVo, or they use a pop-up blocker.  Worst of all, they have learned to filter.  They have become so adept at tuning out advertisement interruptions that surveys find up to 90% of all advertising is neither seen nor remembered by most people.  Mental filters have been conditioned for an advertising barrage and effectively deflect most ads from reaching your audience’s conscious mind.

Equally worrisome, the New York Times reports that 54% of people avoid buying products that have overwhelmed them with advertising.  Even if you succeed in breaking through your audience’s filters, you may only have worsened your standing.

Movement Building: they speak, everyone listens

Though Movement Building uses some traditional marketing, its primary focus is to impart a remarkable idea and then inspire audience members share that idea among themselves.  Unlike traditional advertising, movement building is an interactive dialogue which rapidly gains momentum.  While your organization may have begun the dialogue, a powerful movement will soon place the audience in the driver’s seat as they spread the idea for you.

Many of today’s leading marketers express this central idea in other ways.  The Tenaya Group, a company specializing in brand development, urges its readers: Don’t build a brand; Build a movement. They explain,

When you build a brand, your goal is to create a movement, a self-sustaining chain reaction that expresses the customer through the brand. It’s this energy from below that drives the brand forward. The immediate physical brand is just the first step, a catalyst for more powerful reactions to come.  Movement rules. In brands, the winner is not the wrapper. The winner is the flag.

Marketing guru Seth Godin explains this same concept in another way.

If the New Marketing can be characterized by just one idea, it’s this: Ideas that spread through groups of people are far more powerful than ideas delivered at an individual.  Social change, education, new-product launches, religious movements…it doesn’t matter, the story is the same.  Movements are at the heart of change and growth.  A movement — an idea that spreads with passion through a community and leads to change — is far more powerful than any advertisements ever could be.

Whether you call it Smart Branding, New Marketing, or Movement Building, the lesson remains the same: movements rule.  Today, success requires a much broader undertaking than a marketing campaign.  Whereas a typical marketing campaign would sent out a message, success requires you to develop your audience into message bearers.  In other words, you need to build a movement.

I know, you worked hard on it so why make changes already?  Because your Big Idea is the center of your movement and so we need to get it perfect.  Answering the questions below will help you tweak your Idea to get a better fit.

Has this Big Idea been taken yet?

With the overwhelming number of organizations competing for attention today, it is easy to overlook some of the less successful ones.  So even though you know your field well, take the time to run a few more Google searches and make sure no one else is trying to market the same Big Idea.  If they are, consider whether you can tweak the idea to carve out your own territory or whether the field is still open enough for competition.

Can our current organizational structure be aligned behind this Big Idea?

Just because this is a great idea doesn’t mean that it is a great idea for your organization.  Be realistic here.  What changes will be required for your organization to truly embrace this Big Idea and a new movement?  Are these changes that the organization can get excited about, or are they changes that staff or volunteers will fight tooth and nail (or even worse, by doing a half-hearted job)?  If the necessary changes can’t be implemented effectively, can the idea be tweaked slightly so that the organization can embrace it?

Does it play to our strengths?

The most successful organizations are those that recognize and capitalize on their strengths.  Invest the time to take an inventory of your strongest areas and then make sure that you can fully leverage your strengths behind this Big Idea.

Does it address our weaknesses?

Just as each organization has its strengths, each organization also has its unique weaknesses.  Success comes from knowing and playing to your strengths, and so that is what we will focus on most when building this new movement.  But it is also important to recognize weaknesses and make sure that this Big Idea won’t be handicapped by relying on areas where your organization under-performs.  If it does play to your organization’s weaknesses, how can the idea be adjusted so that it is supported by your organization’s strengths?

How does it match the interests of our funders?

This consideration applies primarily to nonprofits and political campaigns.  There are times that the Big Idea able to excite your broader audience may not excite your current funders.  This dilemma needs to be faced squarely.  Will you be able to effectively pitch the Idea and — with the demonstrated success of your new movement — be able to secure continued funding from the same sources?  If not, are there other sources where you can secure the same (or additional) funding?  If not, how can your Big Idea be tweaked to allow you to obtain the needed funding and still engage your audience’s passion?  Money usually follows success, so chances are you will be able to overcome this obstacle.

Is this an idea that the media cares about right now?

Media coverage is just one component in building a movement, and as such probably won’t make or break your movement.  But if a little tweak can get you POSITIVE stories in a few more newspapers, talk shows, and 6 o’clock news programs, then all the better.

Does our current base care about it?

If your current audience base (members, customers, coalition partners) differs from the audience you identified when creating your Big Idea (which is fine), then how will your current base react to this Idea?  Is there any way to tweak the Idea to still appeal to much of your current audience while simultaneously engaging the passions of your new audience?

Are there other opportunities to be had?

Launching a new movement is an outstanding opportunity to create coalitions, expand your brand recognition, recruit new customers or volunteers, and create a buzz.  Will this Big Idea allow you to take advantage of all available opportunities, or could a small tweak allow you to greatly increase your organization’s gains?

Are there threats we can avoid?

Threats will be part of building any movement, but we should do what we can to minimize them.  Consider whether a small tweak to the idea can help you sidestep some of the troublesome potholes ahead.

As you have gathered, tweaking is more of an art than a scientific process.  Revising your guiding Big Idea to make sure that it is a perfect fit for your organization, your audience’s passions, and the current playing field will offer large rewards in the future.  In the next article on planning we will discuss the first steps to turning your Big Idea into a concrete plan.  In the meantime, put in the comments below anything else we should be considering during the tweaking process.

This is one of those times when dressing room wisdom applies to movement building: one size does NOT fit all.  Your organization is unique and so you are going to need a unique approach movement building.  Here are a few of the first questions you will need to consider when beginning to plan a movement:

What is our mission? Most fundamentally, a movement is a tool for achieving your organization’s mission.  Consequently, your mission is the starting place for movement planning (and now is a perfect time to revisit it).

Who is our audience? To achieve your mission you will need to communicate with others outside of your organization.  Be as specific as possible here.  Don’t let yourself off too easily with a simplistic answer like new customers, community members, or donors — outline demographics, location, and even names if you can be that specific.

What does our audience care about? The more specific you were with the previous question, the better prepared you will be for this one.  Building a movement means interacting with your audience’s passions and using these passions to generate excitement about your movement.  So take the time to carefully answer this question through research, surveys, or even organizing a discussion group.

How do our mission and our audience’s passions overlap? This overlap is where the magic will happen.  Notice that we are not talking about how your mission meshes with your audience’s mild interests.  Rather, you need an offer that will improve your audience’s lives in a remarkable way.

What is our Big Idea? The Big Idea is the concept that will unify your movement.  It is the rallying cry, the value proposition that your audience members will pass among themselves.  It needs to appeal to your audience’s passions, be simple and easy to communicate, and be fully in line with your organization’s mission.

After identifying your Big Idea it is time for some coffee.  The next step of the planning process will address how implementing that Big Idea will impact your organization and how it will achieve your programmatic or sales goals.  From there we can tweak the Big Idea before developing a marketing or outreach plan.  But for now, sip some coffee and jot your thoughts on the planning process below.

Building a movement is a lot of work, but it also offers huge pay offs.  In addition to our article on whether a movement is right for your organization, we thought we would give you a quick list of the top ten benefits that come from building a powerful, long-lasting movement.

Top Ten Benefits of a Movement

1. Achieves your organizational goals. A movement is not something you do in addition to running your organization.  If properly structured, building a movement will achieve your programmatic and sales goals, increase and engage your audience, and build your brand identity simultaneously.
2. Ensures you are guided by a Big Idea. In building a movement you are forced to have a Big Idea that people can quickly and easily convey to others.  Though this may require some pain at first, being guided by a Big Idea will ultimately be a great investment because it will allow your message to cut through the clutter of today’s crowded media marketplace.
3. Takes advantage of today’s communication. With nearly ubiquitous access to the internet, a cell phone in everyone’s pocket, and the growing importance of individuals such as bloggers as an information source, communication is very different than a decade ago.  Movements — with their exciting Big Ideas that people enjoy talking about — are perfectly structured to take advantage of today’s communication system.
4. Earns media attention. What do you get when you combine a Big Idea, lots of discussion, and a growing group action?  A great news story.  And if it is properly managed through careful messaging and conscientious follow-up, media attention will be one of the best free gifts you could hope for this year.
5. Avoids audience’s filter. Faced with an overwhelming barrage of advertisements, people have become very adept at ignoring interruptions such as TV commercials, banner ads, or telemarketers.  But a movement, with its word of mouth discussion, its online buzz in blogs and Youtube, and its news stories, is perfectly geared to avoid your audience’s filters.
6. Automatic perspective shift. If you were instructed to build a movement vs. market a brand, chances are that you would approach the tasks differently.  Similarly, when your organization begins to think of itself as building a movement, it will being to approach its daily tasks differently.  This simple perspective shift will lead to healthy changes in your strategic planning, your marketing, your media outreach, and nearly all realms of your efforts.
7. Better customer service. This perspective shift doesn’t require better customer service, it makes it natural.  As an individual stops being a customer and begins to be a partner in creating your movement, the way you (and your staff) treat them naturally changes.
8. Builds an army of evangelists. Movement Evangelists are people who are so excited about your Big Idea and the positive change you offer that they voluntarily tell others about your services or products.  Powerful movements cultivate loud Evangelists, and these Evangelists recruit more and more people to the movement.
9. Reaches WAY more people. Shouting from your soapbox is no competition for an Army of Evangelists talking to their friends, family, and coworkers.  A movement with its multiple lines of communication and ability to cut through your audience’s filter will reach more people and make more conversions than traditional marketing, hands down.
10. Prepares you for the future. Building a movement establishes a network of people who are interested in your organization, what it offers, and what it does.  Most importantly, they have told others about you already and they will do it again.  It is this powerful network will both enable you to grow and will continue to grow with you into the future.

That is our list of the top ten benefits to building a movement for your organization, but there are many more.  Please let us know what else should be included in the comments below.

With a name like Movement Builders and a simple mission of helping you to build powerful, long-lasting movements, I know the answer you expect.  But we’re not going to say that.  The truth is that building a movement is not right for every organization.

Will a movement help achieve your mission?

The first question you need to ask is whether a movement will make your organization more effective at achieving its mission.  If your business or nonprofit is already at (or past) its capacity, creating a sudden increase in demand for your product or service shouldn’t be your top priority.  Or if your mission isn’t related to inspiring action in your audience, such as a foundation which already has adequate applications for its grants or the public works department of a city, building a movement won’t help.  And if a movement wouldn’t aid your organization in achieving its goals, stop reading here.

Are you willing to avoid a meatball sundae?

For the other 90% of you, the next question is whether you are willing to avoid a meatball sundae.  Seth Godin, one of today’s most influential marketing experts, explains this concept in his aptly named book, Meatball Sundae.

A meatball sundae is the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas. The meatballs are the foundation, the things we need (and sometimes want). These are the commodities that so many businesses are built on. The sundae toppings (hot fudge and the like) are the New Marketing, the social networks, Google, blogs and fancy stuff that make people all excited. The challenge most organizations face: they try to mix them. They attempt to slap new marketing onto old and end up with nothing but a failed website.

Though Godin is focused on marketing for corporations and we are focused on movement building for companies, nonprofits and campaigns, the same idea holds true.  Godin observes that many companies take boring products and mundane brands (meatballs), add on the latest, hottest, hippest marketing strategies (whipped cream and chocolate), and expect “magic” results.  The trouble is that these companies aren’t changing their fundamental value proposition and so the new means for communicating that value just don’t work.  Instead of ambrosia you get a meatball sundae.

The solution, Godin argues, is to be willing to revisit your basic recipe and see what can be changed to make it work with those tasty new toppings. No matter how good your marketing campaign is, if your product remains humdrum no one is going to talk about it; no one will tell their friends; no one will blog about you.

This insight is essential for movement building.  As long as you are offering the same old meatballs as everyone else, no one is going to get excited about you.  To become the locus of a growing movement, your organization needs to offer something that people can become passionate about.  That could be as simple as framing your organization in a new light or a small innovation that sets your organization apart.  (For example, Godin recounts how a failing paint manufacturer met with success just by redesigning their paint cans to include an easy to hold, easy to pour handle.)

But at times this change needs to run much deeper. It may require asking whether your audience really has an interest in the products or services that your organization offers. If not, building a movement will involve intense soul searching to understand just how your mission and your audience’s passions overlap.  Only after you have identified that common ground can you develop a strategy to capitalize on it, building an identity so exciting that your audience will spread it for you, online and off.

It is the challenging nature of this exploration, Godin explains, that keep so many organizations from ever building powerful, long-lasting movements.

More often than not, movements come from out of nowhere, from small companies or impassioned individuals.  That’s not necessarily because they are better qualified to do the work the New Marketing requires.  In fact, in many cases they’re not.  The reason big organizations stumble is that they can’t make the commitment.  They want both strategies — they insist they can have a meatball sundae.  They’re wrong.

Is a movement right for your organization?  It usually comes down to whether or not you are willing to avoid a meatball sundae. If your organization is dedicated enough to the immense benefits of a movement that it is willing to undertake an honest evaluation of itself — and implement the needed changes that it discovers — then building a movement will be one of the best choices you ever made.

There are many definitions out there.  Sociologists are debating which historical events qualify as social movements, while political scientists are reading their own stacks of books on political movements.  And of course corporate marketers have their own set of pithy definitions.  As our work here at Movement Builders involves aspects of all these fields, we are in need of a new, more holistic and manageable definition.

\’müv-ment\ An ongoing, informal group action that is inspired by a passionately shared idea and directed toward positive change

Let’s look at the components of this definition in more detail.

Ongoing: A movement is not a once and done sort of event.  A well attended press conference, a big release party for a new product, or even a good turnout for a volunteer event doesn’t qualify as a movement.  These may be well positioned to launch a new movement, but that momentum must be continued.

Informal: A movement is not fully controlled by anyone.  Though you can shape and coordinate a movement, there is no formal hierarchy able to seamlessly pass down orders.  This is a trade-off, but the outstanding organic growth and word-of-mouth marketing that a movement offers almost always outweighs the loss of formal, hierarchical control.

Group Action: At its heart, a movement is a group of people simultaneously acting in a similar fashion.

Passionately Shared Idea: The members of this group share a common belief, discovery, or piece of knowledge that has led them to act in this similar fashion.  And this idea is not of the boring variety.  Members are excited about the idea and the action, and so they actively pass it throughout their group

Positive Change: People become involved in this group action to make a positive change.  That positive change could be a broad and sweeping such as the Civil Rights movement, or it could be on a more individual level such as adopting an amazing new product or service to improve your own life.  But in all cases the idea is being spread and the action is being taken because of a positive change which excites the members of the group.

All these components are essential for a powerful and long-lasting movement.  Comparing the current results of your organization’s work against this benchmark gives a starting place for developing your organization’s unique movement-building plan.

All of the following items can (and usually do) play a pivotal role in movements, but they are not movements by themselves.  Understanding the differences can help us see what changes need to be made to help your organization or effort develop into a powerful movement.

Nonprofit Organization – A nonprofit, with the noble purpose its name implies, is an ideal entity to lead a movement.  It is assumed to have the right intentions, and building a movement generally will help the organization achieve its programmatic goals.  However, many nonprofits do not generate a buzz within their community or have the organic growth that typifies a movement.  Nonprofits can chose to cultivate and lead a movement – but most are currently not movements.

Company / Business – Companies, with their significant marketing budgets, are another ideal entity to lead a movement.  If the monetary benefits that a company receives from building a movement are rolled back into the movement-building budget, a company can actually be one of the most powerful tools for growing and leading a movement.  However, many companies do not provide enough value added or do not have remarkable enough brands to earn the buzz and organic growth that would break them into the category of a movement.

Political Campaign - Political campaigns are the third ideal entity for leading a movement.  With their dual focus on earning publicity and solving people’s problems, they are perfectly positioned to create a buzz and garner the involvement of their audience.  Political campaigns, however, typically fail to involve their members past the electoral cycle.  They may well be a mini-movement while approaching the election, but they fall short of becoming a true movement by ending their efforts too early.

Marketing Rollout – Marketing is a core part of movement building, but movement building is a much broader undertaking than a marketing campaign.  Most importantly, building a powerful movement entails turning your passive audience into the movement itself.  Whereas a typical marketing campaign sends messages out, a movement will develop your audience into the message bearers, the leaders, and the funders.

Brand – A strong rallying point is essential for a movement, and a brand can often play that role.  But that rallying point doesn’t need to be a brand – it could be an idea, a person, or any other symbol.  Brands (for-profit, nonprofit, and political) are the center of many of today’s newly developing movements, but the overwhelming majority of brands do not have any movement associated with them.

Fad / Trend – Hot new trends or fads are perfect vehicles for launching a new movement.  All too often, though, fads are not managed and their energy is not directed toward a more sustained and powerful rallying point.  The fad then ends up being just that, dissipating rather than becoming a true movement.

What separates movement material from the rest of the hubbub clambering for our attention is this: it is remarkable.   As marketing guru Seth Godin explains in his book, Purple Cow:

Something remarkable is worth talking about.  Worth noticing.  Exceptional. New. Interesting.  It’s a Purple Cow.  Boring stuff is invisible.  It’s a brown cow.

If you spend enough time driving through agricultural areas you stop noticing the cows.  At first they were cute, even romantic in their own pastoral way, but given time they blend into the background, unnoticed.  But if you passed a Purple Cow, now that would make you sit up and stare.  And chances are that when you got where you were going you would mention the amazing bovine.  Chances are pretty good that you would bring it up over dinner that night, too.

This same phenomenon is true in the realm of media.  Continually bombarded with ads and news stories, our brains have been very adept at filtering.  Another nonprofit doing its normal work or another new product just like the rest?  Brown cows. Unremarkable.  Unnoticed.  But if you were shown a Purple Cow – an organization that was doing or offering something truly remarkable – your mental filter will make sure you took notice.

Even better than being remarkable enough to get noticed, a Purple Cow is remarkable enough to get discussed.  That one discussion will then turn into another, creating the dialogue and buzz that is essential for any movement.  So when you are planning your nonprofit’s next campaign or developing you company’s next product, make sure it is remarkable.  A Purple Cow, combined with a clear and succinct call to action, is an essential ingredient for launching any successful movement.

Powerful movements aren’t built by chance. They are built though careful planning, well-targeted marketing, development of capable and inspirational leaders, and strategically applying leverage to achieve tactical goals. Perhaps most importantly, successful movements always follow certain rules — regardless of whether the movements are issue oriented, built around a for-profit brand, or fighting for electoral or political change.

On this site you will find information about what movements are, what rules the most successful movements follow, and how your organization can build a long lasting and powerful movement. There are tips for nonprofits on planning and launching a movement, or turning diverse, existing campaigns into a unified, powerful, and self-sustaining social movement. There are tips for elected officials on using the campaign trail to create a movement that will sustain them through numerous future electoral cycles. There are even tips for corporate marketers explaining how nonprofits achieve such good publicity with relatively minuscule budgets (and how businesses can duplicate their success).

Shane Walton
Shane uses his experience assembling and leading effective teams, his relentless strategic focus, and his gift for connecting with others to build long lasting, powerful movements. With a background in political science and non-profit management, he has taught at universities in North America, Asia, and Europe. He is currently building Yuru, a movement toward living passionately, and CoolerHotter, the latest in online rating movements. Shane is also a sought after speaker and consultant, helping both nonprofits and companies mobilize their target markets to action through leveraging their markets’ innate passions.