What does a struggling economy do to struggling nonprofits? According to a new study from Giving USA, charitable giving only grew by 0.9% in 2011. And guess what? Little growth is expected in 2012.
Depressed yet? Never fear. In this excellent post on Frogloop, Allyson Kapin outlines some ways nonprofits can boost donations in 2012. One tip that stood out to me:
Don’t always ask for money. Many nonprofits are so focused on raising money and meeting their budgets, they often don’t treat their donors as important stakeholders in the organization. Your donors are a critical part of your community and want to be a part of your organization fighting for social change. Show them how they can help you meet your mission through actions, volunteer opportunities, social events, etc. Give them several paths to engage with your organization and make them feel like they are a valuable part of your mission. And of course you can ask them for money along the way.
To many nonprofits, this may seem counterintuitive; but Allyson makes an excellent point that ultimately comes down to your relationships with your donors.
If you take the time to identify your key advocates and build relationships with them, the return will be worth the time investment. Offer value and make them an important part of your efforts and organization, and you will see them giving more of their time and money in return.
Here are some ways nonprofits can build relationships with donors:
- Identifying key advocates and influencers: Conduct research to compile a list of those who are your strongest advocates or can influence others to do so. Check out this handy infographic from SmallAct and BlackBaud on identifying your influencers and scoring them for fundraising efforts.
- Developing opportunities of value: Think about all the different ways these key advocates can help your nonprofit – such as, like Allyson mentioned, volunteer opportunities and social events. Other ways might be through online word-of-mouth – spreading the word through their social networks through a blog post, tweet, donation widget, etc.
- Reach out: This is where you engage your advocates without asking for money. Ask them where they want to be involved and develop those opportunities for them. Focus on those who respond to your outreach and concentrate your community-building efforts on them.
- Keep building those relationships: Keep key advocates and influencers updated with new information and opportunities, ask for their input on a continual basis, and use their feedback. Through ongoing relationship and community-building, you can develop broader fundraising programs that engage not only them, but their communities.
Blackbaud, in partnership with Small Act and the National Wildlife Federation, recently published an interesting whitepaper on social media influencers and how to identify them for fundraising efforts. What I found most interesting about this whitepaper (which you can download here) is how influencers are scored based on how many networks on which they’re active, how large their networks are, and how engaged they are with those networks. The whitepaper breaks influencers down into 4 groups:
What’s even more interesting, is while Key Influencers and Engagers make up only 6% of total influencers, they have a total average estate value of over $700K. So, when it comes to engaging social media influencers for your next fundraising campaign, those two groups should be your biggest focus.
But, don’t discount Multichannel Consumers and Standard Consumers. While not as active on social media, they’re prolific (94% of total influencers) and still wield considerable donation power. They should be engaged in different ways, since they tend to be influenced more than influential – following the recommendations of their social media networks, friends and family.
Blackbaud produced this useful infographic, which defines each of the four groups and gives a good overview of the information contained in the whitepaper:
You may have read an awful lot about blogger outreach campaigns – how to build one, tools to find bloggers, etc. A blogger outreach campaign can indeed be an effective complement to your existing marketing efforts. It can help you identify new customer segments, build relationships, and reach new prospective customers. But if you’re just focused on bloggers, you may be missing a some crucial pieces to the outreach puzzle.
As we like to say here at Tuvel, our outreach campaigns go “beyond the blogger.” The research we do before launching an outreach campaign digs deep to find marketing channels that reach potential customers where they hang out online. Think about your customers and where they might be searching for information on your product, company or event. Sure, they’ll be reading blogs; but they may also be looking in other places:
Forums: Forums are certainly not dead yet! They were social media before Twitter and Facebook came along, and there are still many active online forums going strong. If your company is in the technology industry, for example, you should definitely take the time to identify the non-corporate support forums out there where thousands of your customers are discussing your products.
E-mail Discussion Lists: Yes, these are still going strong too. In fact, I’m a member of a very active and useful e-mail list, DC Web Women. These can be great for campaigns focused on specific topics, such as advocacy campaigns. By reaching out to list moderators to educate them about your cause and provide them with useful content, you can build valuable relationships that lead to fruitful discussions.
User Groups: Again, if you’re in the tech industry, it would behoove you to identify the top user groups for your products or related products and look for ways to build mutually-beneficial relationships. Many user groups offer discounts and free product trials to their members that have been provided by corporate sponsors. You may also be interested in presenting at meetings of local user groups to introduce your company and products to them.
Newsletters: Almost every industry has professional associations, societies and communities – many of which communicate with members with regular e-newsletters. Look for opportunities to provide information to those groups that can be included in their next newsletter, but make sure you understand what kind of content they would want to include first. If possible, find an archived copy on their website. Then, approach the editor with content they would be interested in.
In the next post, I’ll be giving you some tools and tips for finding and reaching out to contacts within these marketing channels.
Earlier this week, I participated in a Facebook discussion kicked off by Toby Bloomberg, the Marketing Diva. In addition to Toby, other way bright people in the conversation included B.L. Ochman. If you don’t already know who these fine folks are, make it your business to do so!
Turns out that Toby, an influential blogger, received an email from the PR Director of a major brand asking her to support their latest campaign. The discussion thread covered areas like pay-to-play and bad PR pitches. But, the
part of the conversation that caught my eye was the definition of perceived value. Not value to the brand or PR Director sending Toby the note, but how the blogger or person receiving the communication defines value.
We execute influencer outreach campaigns on behalf of clients and sometimes reach out to bloggers. We don’t typically begin a conversation asking someone to support our brand or cause. Rather, we try to find out what turns the reader on, where the value is for them – usually referred to as the Whats In It For Me. Sometimes the value is not a free pass or sample! A free trial download may be valuable to our client, but may not be valuable to the person that they’re trying to impact. Instead, value may be defined as access, education or an audience.
Recognition of community participation on a leaderboard can be an example of value, demonstrated by the rise of social gamification. As these dated (but still on-point) articles detail, value to some customers can be offering product input or even involvement in product creation. Having said all of that, sometimes people do want dollars off!
On the Internet, beauty truly lies in the eyes of the beholder. While the end game may be brand support or sales, experience has taught us that the reception of our campaigns is greater when the focus isn’t solely on the client brand. It has to be about the people.
The other interesting issue discussed in this thread was relationship-building. B.L. Ochman nailed it when she said “we’d like you to support our brand” is like saying “can we pick your brain.” In other words, building relationships by focusing on the other persons needs is a good place to start. You may not always be able to deliver, but listening goes a long way.
But enough about us. How do you define value?
The Case Foundation recently launched this amazing video called “The Power of Social Media: Connecting for Good.” It really resonated with us here at Tuvel – one of our mantras around here is “Social media isn’t just about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – it’s about being social.” That’s exactly what this video illustrates so vividly, especially when it comes to using social media to mobilize supporters around a cause. We’ve done this with organizations like Share Our Strength, Venture Philanthropy Partners and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Enjoy the video, and I hope it inspires you to do GREAT things with social media!
Photo credit: niallkennedy
Online community building skills come in handy whether you’re using social networks, email lists or web forums to build relationships. Traction, or getting people engaged, is becoming the holy grail of social media marketing. We’ve compiled the following Rules of the Road, culled from our experience with clients. We hope that some of these rules help your online community building efforts.
Facilitate rather than moderate: Managing an online community is art more than science. Facilitation allows you to work through members rather than broadcast to them, or even try and to control the conversation. Facilitation means that you, as the leader, take a back seat and encourage members to lead the conversation. This strategy helps foster a self-sustaining group with members helping members, instead of waiting for the group leader to respond.
Establish the ground rules and netiquette early on: How will the group be moderated? Is there a certain format you’d like members to use? Will you discourage cross-posting from similar groups? It makes sense to post community rules early on so that members can familiarize themselves, and you can point to them if necessary.
Be responsive: A good online community leader helps members and responds to issues in a timely manner. If a participant posts a question that goes unanswered, the leader might solicit input from other individuals both inside and outside of the group. If off-topic conversation becomes an issue, the leader might send through a friendly reminder. A leader might also have to act as a parent, occasionally mediating discussions that get out of hand and pulling members out of the “sandbox” for a “timeout.”
Choose your battles: Silence is sometimes golden. Taking a deep breath before hitting the Send or Post button can work well. It also makes sense to take a long view when dealing with situations that come up. At the sake of repeating myself, managing an online community is an art more than science. Over time, intuition should offer clues on conversations that merit a response. At the same time, don’t be afraid to exert authority when it’s warranted.
Set the tone and find your voice early on: Initially, members will follow the leader. It’s important to define the culture of the online community so members understand ground rules and expectations, but are not deterred from participating. Creating a community “voice” is also a big part of that culture. Will your group be casual or more buttoned up? Create discussions and ask questions in a non-controlling way that encourages participation and sets the tone.
Invite the right people to your party: Doing a bit of research and outreach to cultivate a core group of participants is smart. Who are the leaders in your space and what other groups do they participate in? Who are your competitor and “coopitor” groups? Reach out to leaders or participants and make friends! Invite those with similar interests into your online community and build your membership base early on.
Consider content curation: Community discussions will undoubtedly create solid content. Consider curating and posting this content somewhere in your group or, on your website or blog. Member-generated content offers value and can also be used to market your group. Here’s an example of community-generated content that was mined from the Netpreneur AdMarketing Community.
Use an organic growth strategy: A bottom-up, grassroots approach to community-building ensures your chance for success. In our experience, the alternative “build it and they will come” strategy isn’t as effective. It makes sense to start with a core group of participants, gain traction and then build from there. Better to have a smaller engaged group than a large community of lurkers!
Learn from the pros: There is much to be learned from the early pioneers of online community building! Here, I’m talking about the likes of Howard Reingold, Nancy White and Amy Jo Kim. For additional brainpower, check out this short post by Craig Newmark , Richard Millington‘s blog, or how Cisco’s online community for Networking Professionals got started.
Have fun and remember, its never about the technology but always about the people: They say people can tell when you’re smiling even when they can’t see your face, and I believe that’s true. If you’re going to make the commitment to manage a group, choose a topic or area that you love and one that will help your personal branding. These days, we hear much talk of social media platforms, SaaS solutions and automated communities. At the end of the day, it’s never about the technology but it is always about the people.
Is there anything I missed? Please let me know in the comments if you have anything to add!
Who doesn’t love an infographic? We sure do! And there are lots of them out there – but not all of them provide information you can take away and use. These are 5 social media infographics we think present truly useful information – whether you’re kick-starting social media efforts or looking to improve your current social media program.
Social Media Advertising Reaching New Heights: If running ads on social networks like Facebook is something you’re considering, this infographic provides some helpful guidance on the current landscape and how valuable social media ads are to marketers.
Pinterest Deconstructed for eTailers and Content Marketers: Pinterest is the 3rd most popular social network on the web at the moment, and this infographic gives you the “who, what, where & when” to help you utilize Pinterest effectively.
How to Train Employees to Handle Social Media: According to this infographic, 48% of senior financial executives (apparently the industry used for this survey) feel that “social media will be an important component of corporate marketing efforts going forward.” So how can you train your employees to handle these efforts in the most effective way possible? This is an excellent how-to infographic.
7 Reasons to Embrace Online Culture: We have a saying here at Tuvel: Social media isn’t just Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – it’s all about being social. It’s not enough to just be on social media, your brand must be social to survive and benefit. This infographic gives 7 reasons why.
Email Marketing + Social Media: We have another saying here at Tuvel: It’s not one thing you do, it’s everything you do. So if you’re not integrating social media and social sharing into your email campaigns, you’re missing out on some big marketing benefits.
What are the most useful social media infographics you’ve seen?
Hi, I’m Kari, and I’m a Pinterest addict.
I was wary about it at first (“Ugh, not another social network!”), but after using it for a few months, I totally see what the attraction is and why it’s driving more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. People love pictures, and Pinterest capitalizes on that.
Brands are slowly beginning to pick up on this popularity and leveraging it as part of their social media marketing efforts. And events are no different. They have a unique opportunity to further engage attendees and convey information through a more visual medium. A picture paints a thousand words, and events can tell an engaging story on Pinterest.
Here are 5 tips to help you get started on Pinterest to promote your event:
Make your pins visually compelling. On Pinterest, visual rules the day. This is what makes Pinterest so popular – images that compel users to learn more. Take an inventory of photos you have that will be of visual appeal, such as speaker photos, venue photos, infographics, and even videos (yep, you can pin those too!).
Create well-organized & relevant boards. Because Pinterest gives users the option to follow a person (and all of their boards) or just individual boards created by a person, it’s important to plan your boards to appeal to different interests your attendees will have. For example, if you offer several tracks of conference sessions, consider creating a board for each track that includes photos of speakers. Have photos from last year’s show? Create a special board to share them.
Categorize your boards properly. Apart from just browsing through the pins of the people they’re following, Pinterest users like to browse through Pinterest categories to find new things from people they don’t follow, so make sure you categorize your boards appropriately. You can only add a board to one category, so make it count! Think about where your attendees would go to find the information you’re providing, depending on what kind of content your event offers.
Include descriptions with keywords. As I started using Pinterest more, I quickly realized that simply pinning a photo with a description like “Love this!” or “Yum!” wouldn’t give it proper context or exposure. The description not only tells others what they’re looking at and why you pinned it, but helps your pins to get found. If someone searches for a specific keyword on Pinterest, pins containing that keyword come up in results – so you don’t want to miss that opportunity! Think of it like SEO for Pinterest.
Mix it up, don’t just broadcast. The same rules of social media engagement apply here as they do on any other social network. Don’t just broadcast your own content on Pinterest, but mix it up with relevant content from other sources. Look for what others are pinning related to your event or event topics. One idea is to create a Speakers board and pin articles or posts from your speakers about what they’ll be talking about at your event (that include an image). Note: there has been some recent controversy regarding whether content shared by users on Pinterest violates copyright (there are lots of articles out there about this, but here are a few). While there hasn’t been a definitive ruling on this yet, it’s best to remain on the safe side and pin content that you either own, or have permission to pin (i.e. you’ve been given direct permission, such as from your speakers or partners, or the website clearly allows anyone to pin their content on Pinterest).
Have you used Pinterest for an event like a conference or tradeshow? What tips would you offer?
As we’ve worked with more and more events over the last couple of years, we’ve come to realize the importance of building lasting relationships that provide promotional value to everyone involved. Don’t get me wrong, everything we do is about building lasting and valuable relationships through social media with people who can help spread the word. But we’ve taken that a step further with our event clients by building cross-promotional partnerships on their behalf – what we call Social Media Partnerships.
What are Social Media Partnerships and how can they be valuable to your event? They provide a way for you to team up with a company or organization to create mutually-beneficial social media marketing opportunities. Many events (like conferences and trade shows) have sponsors and media partners who help promote the event to their audiences in a variety of ways – such as banners, offers and promotions, and coverage. By adding a Social Media Partnership level, you can create additional opportunities for promotion of your event through social media channels – not just Twitter or Facebook, but via groups, blogs, forums, newsletters and online communities. There’s incredible potential in Social Media Partnerships to reach hundreds or even thousands of prospective attendees through partner networks.
What to look for in a Social Media Partner:
- Relevance: Look for blogs, online communities, or associations with the most potential to reach your audience. Conduct research for those discussing or championing topics covered at your event.
- Reach: Vet prospective partners based on how many of the right people they’re reaching. Find out how many newsletter subscribers, blog readers, group members and social network followers they have (Twitter, Facebook, etc).
- Opportunity: Identify as many different opportunities a partner can offer to promote your event. Can they write a blog post, tweet, post to their Facebook page, or run a banner? How about including a mention in their next newsletter or podcast?
How can you leverage Social Media Partnerships for your event?
A Social Media Partnership is about building a mutually-beneficial relationship with the partnering company or organization, while getting as much promotional value as possible from the partnership. We work with our event clients to put together an agreement that outlines exactly what both sides will be providing and receiving. If you already have a trade and barter agreement for other marketing and media partnerships, it will provide a good template for a Social Media Partnership agreement. The main difference, however, will be the inclusion of social media promotion and exposure.
Here are a few strategies you can use:
- Co-branding opportunities: Offer logo exposure on your event website and in onsite printed materials (such as show programs and signage) as a Social Media Partner, while your Partner runs a banner or logo on their website. A high-profile, credible Partner will lend brand equity to your event and raise its profile through their endorsement. You can also give your Partners exposure through your Facebook page, or even by adding their videos to your event’s YouTube playlist.
- Exclusive offers and discounts: Remember, a Partnership will need to provide value to the Partner and to their readers or members. For instance, you could give them an exclusive discount code to offer their communities online.
- Contests and promotions: Provide a free pass to your event for your Partner to give away through a contest on their website or via Twitter. Here’s a great example of a giveaway held on CodeBetter, an online community for web developers and programmers. Through a partnership with our client, Visual Studio Live!, they gave away a pass to attend a conference and even chipped in money for travel expenses!
- Social capital: Leverage your Partner’s social networks by asking for tweets, posts on their Facebook page, or through their LinkedIn group (if they have one). Provide them with tweets and trackable links they can use (like a campaign tracking URL to your website shortened through a service like Bitly).
- Email communications: Ask for a mention for your event in your Partner’s next newsletter before the event, or even for a dedicated promotional email sent to their list (where you agree to provide them with the HTML content).
- Coverage: Provide your Partner with a press pass to attend your event and cover it for their blog or publication. This will result in even more exposure both during and after your event!
- Onsite advertising opportunities: If it’s appropriate for your Partner and space is available, offer a small booth space to them so they can get in front of your attendees. Another option may be to provide them space in the press room for their marketing materials.
Do you currently leverage social media relationships for event partnerships? If so, how? Tell us how it’s working for you!
You’ve probably read at least 100 blog posts listing the big marketing and social media trends for 2012 (our 5 social media trends included) – I know I have. It’s that annual tradition that starts around October and continues right into January – lists of tools to use, companies to watch, everything you should be thinking about when it comes to marketing in the new year. And a lot of what you’re reading isn’t necessarily new stuff; but they are things that will grow and become more popular, and therefore, should be worthy of your attention and consideration.
Mobile is one of those trends. It’s been listed on many a marketing trend list for 2012. Mobile marketing has been around for a few years and has gained momentum since the advent of the iPhone; but why is it suddenly the hot marketing platform for 2012?
To start, here are some stats from Mobithinking.com, which we talked about at a recent Foundation Center DC seminar on social media trends for 2012:
- 90% of mobile phone users interact with it daily.
- 85% of handsets will be able to access the mobile web by the end of 2011.
- Smartphones will overtake “feature” phones (those handsets that allow for calling and texting only) in 2012. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore those using feature phones – still a big segment of your customers and prospects.
Another stat that shows the importance of mobile: many mobile users are mobile-only – 25% of mobile Web users in the US, in fact. They rarely use their desktop, laptop, or even tablet device (although that last one could change significantly over the next couple of years).
Mobile marketing can be implemented in a number of ways, including:
- Making your website mobile-friendly or creating a mobile version: Perhaps easier said than done, but there are a number of low- and no-cost tools out there to help you if you don’t have the web design and development resources to do it for you. Google also launched a free tool for building a mobile landing page this year.
- Developing a mobile app: Again, resources for building a mobile app may be an issue; but tools such as AppMakr can help you build your own – no coding required. There are lots of mobile app building tools out there, both free and paid, and this exhaustive list will help you choose the one right for you.
- Using QR codes: This is one of the easiest ways to get into mobile marketing. QR codes are most effective in offline places like print and signage – where people only need to scan the code with their phones to easily
access your content. QR codes are easy to create using free tools like Delivr or even URL shortener Bitly, and can direct people to any content you want – like your mobile-friendly website, a product information page, or a video. - Leveraging location-based services: If you have a physical location (like a retail store or event of some sort) establish a presence on a location-based service like Foursquare. It’s free and a great way to get people interacting with your business or organization through their phones. You can also offer check-in specials and provide tips on your page to help your customers (such as staff favorites, off-the-menu items or secret discounts).
- Launching an SMS text campaign: I don’t know about you, but I see more people texting than talking on their phones! Texting campaigns can be a bit more time- and labor-intensive to collect mobile phone numbers, plus it can get expensive depending on the size of your database and provider rates. But, check out tools like TextMarks (their ad-supported Lite version is free) and EZTexting for some relatively low-cost options.
How you use mobile marketing all comes down to what will be the best fit for your business or organization. A location-based service may not make the best sense for an online-only e-commerce site, but a mobile app may help customers choose the best product to buy. Determine what goals you want to achieve with mobile marketing, then look at what other similar businesses and organizations are doing for ideas.
Do you you plan on adding mobile to your marketing mix in 2012?
