8 Answers to Why Nonprofits Need a Blog, and How to ‘Make it So’

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present a webinar about nonprofit blogging. It was a privilege to connect with 163 registrants online, and to take some time as a community to explore why nonprofits should blog, how we can (1) get started; (2) keep it up, and (3) use our blogs as a hub for all of our marketing communications strategies.

Some of the questions that came up were quite interesting.  So I thought I’d take a moment to respond to some of them, especially since a lot of folks seem to be challenged to impress on the “powers that be” – and themselves (since we’re all so busy already!) –that blogging is something in which they and their organization should be investing time and resources.

Does anyone still think they don’t need a website? Because a blog is really just a super-charged, dynamic website.  It’s the website of today!  It’s happening.  It’s not static. It shouldn’t be thought of as an “add on” thing.  It should be the thing.

      Anything worth doing will take some time.  But publishing content to a blog actually takes a lot less time than publishing to a website (not to mention properly maintaining a website).  And it’s much more user-friendly. You can pretty much put the site up and publish the same day. You don’t need to know a bunch of HTML coding, and you don’t need to assure that all sorts of templated pages are complete before you upload content to a server. With a static website, you have to open up your editor, such as Front Page or Dreamweaver, write the article, and update the page properties before uploading that page to your site using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software. Because not a lot of people on staff know how to do this, many nonprofit websites are hopelessly out of date.

      3 in 5 marketers are spending more time on content marketing this year, and you should too. Blogging gives you an ongoing, fresh source of content that you can use to feed your other social media streams.  If you set yourself up to blog consistently, you’re also setting yourself up to post Facebook and Twitter (and other media) content that’s timely, relevant and meaty.  This is content that will be shared, so it makes what you’ve already been doing much more valuable. Plus, you can drive folks to your other social media channels directly from your blog by incorporating share widgets into the blog template. It’s easy to do with the three major templates — WordPress, Typepad and Blogger.  And if you need some help, I recommend Spice Up Your Blog .

      Set your E.D. up with a newsreader feed (e.g. Google Reader) so they can have posts from relevant blogs appear daily on their home page. They’ll see what others are saying about your organization, learn what topics are trending in your field, and begin to get a feel for how blogs work and how they lend a sense of authority to the blogger. Include some blogs from organizations the E.D. respects.

            Get the person(s) most excited about the prospect (assuming they can write) to create your content. You can’t assign this to someone who’ll simply put it on the back burner. This is an engagement strategy. It must be someone who wants to build relationships with other bloggers by reading blogs, linking to them, commenting on them and inviting them to comment on your blog. You need someone who is not only excited to write on a regular basis, but who also wants to immerse themselves in the “blogosphere.” And you must give them the time to do this. It can be whoever writes your newsletter, or it can be a combination of staff and/or volunteers and interns. If you do use a volunteer or intern, however, don’t have them be your sole blogger.  You’re building relationships over a period, and volunteers often don’t last. And you can’t hold their feet to the fire to do the necessary follow-through once the initial writing is completed.

            Aside from the fact that the content is fresh, there’s the fact that search engines (especially Google) love blogs. Blogging tools like WordPress, Blogger and TypePad automatically add the code for page titles in every new blog post you publish to the Web.  And they automatically “ping” the search engines for you to let them know you’ve got fresh content. When you use meta tags on your website, unless you refresh them daily, search engines won’t be looking for you. So it’s a lot harder to show up on page one in a Google search.  However, with a blog you can much more easily rise to the top – without spending any money on search engine optimization.

      Blogs create an engaged community. First, you can ask folks to comment on your blog posts.  This helps you identify folks who are interested in your mission.  Plus you can learn about what specifically intrigues or inspires them.  Additionally, any good blog template will provide simple analytical tools that show you where your traffic comes from and which posts people are clicking on.  So you get a snapshot of where your fans hang out, and what they care about.

      Use content you already have, and simply repurpose it.  If you’re a childcare organization, offer “10 tips to babyproof your home”.  If you serve frail elderly, consider “5 warning signs of dementia”.  If you’re a health care organization, proffer “How to reduce stress.” If you’re a school with an educational philosophy, link to an article written by the founder and provide some insight into what it means for today’s curriculum. If one of your staff wrote an in-depth article in a scholarly journal, summarize it and offer some helpful commentary.  If there’s a new research study related to your work, recap the main points and offer your recommendations for next steps. If you created a video for an event, excerpt it and explain what it means.

      Create simple, useful content that solves people’s problems. Numbered lists are always read and shared.  You can also simply share a photo and add a paragraph.  Let the picture be worth its 1000 words.  Or just answer a question in every post.  Surely you get questions from your constituents!  Talk to your receptionist or someone in customer service or your volunteer coordinator.  What are the most frequently asked questions?  Answer them in your blog posts and you’ve got great content!  And ask folks to send in new questions in your comments box.  That way you have an endlessly repeating source of questions you can answer.