Search Results for: content marketing

When Do Bird Chirps Equal Fundraising?

When they turn into a sweetly warbled tune.

If you want birds to visit your window ledge on a daily basis you must woo them patiently and feed them. Only after you’ve satisfied their needs will they return on a regular basis and, on occasion, reward your persistence by trilling a sweet song.

It’s the same with donors and social media.

Nonprofit Social Media Alert: If You Do This You're Monkeying Around

Monkey see, monkey do is not a social media strategy.

It tends to lead to trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Huh?  Bear with me. We’ll get there. First… before embarking on a social media strategy, do you ask:

• What keeps our constituents up at night? How can we help them sleep better?
• What makes our constituents sad? How can we help them feel better?
• What makes our constituents smile? How can we bring them joy?
• And how can we do all these things without compromising our own well-being and authentic self?

Why You Can’t Get a High School Intern to Do Your Social Media

I know your budget is tight and I understand you’re struggling to pay for your existing staff, but you can no longer afford to ignore the number one way people find out about you – social and mobile.  Digital is the future, it’s increasingly important and increasingly multi-layered, and the time to start building your online community is now. Before it’s too late. Before you’re left behind.

Does Your Nonprofit Need a Social Media Manager? This is a question I’m asked a lot, and my recent post on Maximize Social Business addresses it. I think it’s a kind of funny question for 2013, given the fact that we’re in a digital world, social media is frickin’ huge and people today expect professional online communications and fundraising campaigns.

Breaking News about Your Nonprofit’s Social Media Strategy: It Doesn't Measure Up

XTRA! XTRA: NEWS YOU CAN’T USE

This just in: “Many nonprofits post on Twitter throughout the day to keep constituents up to date.”  Woo-hoo! I’m jumping for joy! Over the moon! Popping champagne corks! I’m….

Wait just a dog-gone minute…  Is this really a news story? What does this really tell me? How does this help me? Well, perhaps if I read the story I’ll…

Learn more.

What story?  Oh… this is a real headline, sent to me by my friend Jimmy (a really smart marketing guy who works in the business sector), for an article that appeared in eMarketer which claims to provide “the world’s top brands, agencies and media companies with the most complete view of digital marketing available.”  Yet really all the article does is report on a study by Vertical Response showing that nonprofits were more likely to be present on social media channels than small businesses surveyed in a similar study.

So, great.  We’ve got some data on how nonprofits are behaving digitally.  They’re putting up Facebook pages and starting Twitter accounts. Whoop-de-do.

What we do not have is a fully fleshed out narrative that tells us why nonprofits are behaving this way, who they’re targeting with their social conversations or what they’re getting out of it. We have no knowledge of their engagement plan or their engagement metrics. As I told my friend Jimmy, the fact that nonprofits are doing incrementally more on social media doesn’t really tell much of a story.

What Texting Your Kid and Nonprofit Social Media Have in Common

It’s perplexing to still hear folks ask “Do we really need social media?”  Do you need to text and respond to your kid’s texts?  Well… only if you want to be in touch! That question is so 2008.  In 2013 it’s more like “my way or the highway.”

Here’s the problem if you’re a small nonprofit:

You’re resource challenged.  You don’t have enough staff to do everything that needs to be done as it is.  Now you’re supposed to add social media?!  Well, which channels?  You can’t do it all, for goodness sakes. There must be one best channel.  Maybe you can just squeeze that in.

SMIT for May: Why you Need to Reinvent Yourself

Listen up.

Whatever you did in the past is relevant, but it doesn’t mean it’s exactly what you should be doing today.  Relevant means pertaining to or connected to. Your history is always connected with you in some manner.  But it’s not always germane (central) or apropos (to the point and opportune).

If you say…

That’s not the way we do things.

We tried that; it doesn’t work.

We don’t need research; we know what our audience cares about.

… stop.

Are You a Troglodyte Fundraiser? 3 Ways to Leave the Cave

In case you don’t know, troglodytes are hermits who live in caves. There are 3 ways I’ve found that folks in the development profession fit this description.  Are you a cave dweller? If so, here’s how to get out more.

1. Get out from behind your desk.
2. Begin to embrace social media.
3. Think outside the cave.  

What's 'Like' Got to Do with It? 5 Ways to Inspire Nonprofit Engagement Through Social Media

Stop counting likes and follows. If your work plan has “increase FB likes from X to Y or increase Twitter follows from Y to Z” as an objective, delete, delete, delete!  Your objective must relate to your “why;” it can’t just be a “what.”

Who cares how many “friends” you have if none of them are engaging with you?  Liking is passive.  Engaging is active. What do you want folks to feel/think/do?  You simply won’t get there by wishing and hoping.  You get there by inspiring.

April Fools SMIT: 7 Tips to Stop Social Media from Peeing on your Nonprofit’s Floor

This month’s SMIT (Single Most Important Thing I have to tell you) is that if you don’t take care of your social media it’s going to pee on your floor, tear up your furniture and chew up your shoes.  No fooling. Social media is like a puppy. Everyone wants to play with the cute, cuddly…

6 Ways Your Nonprofit Wins the Game of Social Media

First you get in the game. This should go without saying, but I still hear too many executive directors saying they don’t want to play. Folks: you gotta play to win. And it’s not the lottery.  Your chances of winning are really good.  It’s a game of skill, not luck.

Then you acknowledge that everyone is getting into the game.  So you won’t get noticed just because you’re on the field. An October survey of U.S. nonprofits by VerticalResponse found that more than three out of five nonprofits reported spending more time on social media than they did a year ago. Nearly two out of five reported devoting six or more hours per week to social media. Ninety-six percent of nonprofits said they were on Facebook; 80% of these organizations reported posting on the site multiple times per week. Twitter also gets significant attention from nonprofits. The site was used by nearly three-quarters of nonprofits, and the organizations were more likely to post several times a day on Twitter (19.5%) vs. Facebook (13.8%).

Just because you’re flitting and twitting around doesn’t mean you’re getting anywhere fast. It reminds me a bit of the big pile-up on the football field.  An amorphous mass.

If You Build it They Won’t Come – 10 Must-Do's for Social Media in an Inbound World

Just building it isn’t enough. Whatever it may be. A blog. A Facebook page. A Twitter profile. You name it.

Sorry.

They won’t call.  They won’t write.  They won’t wax on rhapsodically about your finer qualities. The most they might do is notice you out of the corner of their eye; then move on.

It’s on you.

To get real value from social media you must build it, get folks to come, get folks to talk and get folks to recommend you to others.

Here’s the kicker: You’re not 100% in control. Yeah, I know it kind of sucks.  Us control freaks just have to get over it.  Folks are going to be learning about you through others, and you won’t know about it. They’ll talk about you, and you won’t know what they’re saying.

Let me tell you a tale of two siblings, Outbound and Inbound.

6 Ways to Get Others to Promote Your Nonprofit Blog for You: Happy Talk – S.S.T.S. Series, Part IIIb

Talking is what builds your reputation and develops relationships with those who share the values your organization enacts. Talking is central to your blog – and entire social media – strategy. So… let’s talk!

In the first part of this two-part post about how to get others to promote your blog we discussed how to find your natural “sharers” – those folks willing to be spokespersons on your behalf, whether they be influencers or advocates.  Today we’re going to talk about how to get these boosters to spread your good word through digital word-of-mouth.

6 TIPS FOR GETTING YOUR TALKERS TALKING:

How to Find Your Nonprofit Blog Advocates vs. Influencers — S.S.T.S. Series, Part IIIa

To make your blog worth the effort, it’s got to be shared. And that’s what we discussed in Part I: Share and Part II: Shareable of this S.S.T.S. Series.  Great!  But how do you get folks to really TALK about you, rather than just shooting out one-shot shares?

You begin with content, of course. No one is going to share crap, no matter how easy you make it for them to do so. In the C.P.A. Series we talked about getting folks to open and read your post. Done! In the R.C.A. Series we discussed giving folks something engaging to talk about – relevant, constituent-centered and actionable content.  Done and done.

Now that you’ve got the good stuff, you need to get folks walking your talk!

You want more than short-term share transactions.  You want shares that drive desired action responses; you want transformation!

Why the Human Dimension is Key to Social Business Success

We’re really hung up on technology these days. And jargon. We use terms like “social media” to describe a range of practices – from digital communications to any form of customer-centered marketing that embraces the ways in which people interact, inform themselves, form communities and co-create within the current zeitgeist.  Then we it up…

How to Chat People up with your Nonprofit Blog – Coda to the R.C.A. Series

Still a bridesmaid? Or have you gotten engaged?  The R.C.A. Series is all about engagement. It’s the middle part of a three-part series. We move from values (philanthropy)…  to shared values (development)…  to action (fundraising).  Every tip in the series (as well as in the preceding C.P.A. Series  and the upcoming S.S.T.S. Series) also pertains to just about everything else you do in your nonprofit work. So read this even if you don’t have a blog. Yet.

Blogging is not a one-trick pony.  It’s a way of life that expresses who you are, why you’re of value, and how you and your ‘stakeholders’ — those who have a stake in the outcomes you produce — can work together to create positive change. (If this sounds a lot like the “case statement” of yore, that’s because it is!) Think of your blog as your content hub; the place from which all messaging emanates.

Blogging is a three-part proposition.  In fact, so is your entire marketing strategy.  And your fundraising strategy.  And your program strategy. Arguably, your entire modus operandi is a three-part proposition:

How to Create Nonprofit Blog Conversations That Engage. Let's Talk! – R.C.A. Series Part II

R.C.A.? Yup.  When building a blog, you want to be Relatable, Conversational and Actionable. In Part I   of this series I encouraged you to think like an RCA Victrola. You want your content to get people singing your song.  And, heck, you can’t sing unless you know the words.  So, today let’s put the “C”…