How Should I Get The Word Out?
from NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network:
Texting, Facebook, Email, Blogs, MySpace, Aaaargh!
As you probably already know, the answer is to use all of these communication channels. You may have heard the term Marketing Mix. This term means something different today than it did in the days of old media, but there are still some valuable lessons to be learned by analyzing your marketing mix.
The way I learned it, a Marketing Mix describes the various messages that a company disseminates through selected marketing channels. Traditionally, the communications were pushed (one way communication) through channels like television, radio, newspapers, and maybe direct mail. The options in the 80s and 90s were vastly different from the tools available to an organization in 2008. So how should an organization evaluate their marketing mix today?
Click here to read more.
Do You Want to Start a Blog?
While often regarded as a platform for people to share their personal stories, a blog can also be used to tell the story of an organization. Whether showcasing your work, offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse into your nonprofit, highlighting the people you serve, or advocating a particular point of view, a blog can be a powerful — and influential — communication and public-relations tool for your organization.
For a comparison of features and product reviews of seven popular blogging platforms, written with non-profits in mind, click here.
Make Techies The Decision-Maker
Information technology has a growing role in how nonprofits effectively do business. But the nonprofit techies, whether you are the chief information officer or the only person that understands email , need to be included in an organization’s decisions so technology effectively grows with the mission.
If you are the resident nonprofit techie, focus on these five areas of technology leadership developed by NPower Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia-based regional affiliate of the national NPower, which helps nonprofits use technology strategically:
- Implement strategic technology planning. A strategic plan can help your organization budget and set technology goals that make decision making easier.
- Develop a vision. Make sure that the organization’s goals and the technology work together to improve the missions. Look at each goal and determine whether technology can help the overall organization.
- Build a team. You can’t do it on your own. Don’t just fix a problem – take time to teach people solutions so that they can handle it the next time. You may be the expert, but you shouldn’t be called every time a computer needs to be restarted. Try to enlist technology savvy volunteers to help whenever possible.
- Communicate. Insist that all team members attend meetings. Bridge the gap between staff and the technology team by keeping everyone updated about what efforts you are making. Document when you try a new technology or change systems to track what’s working for the organization.
- Role models. Reach out to other nonprofits and share information to benefit your organization by learning through others. Try to join a nonprofit technology network so you stay up-to-date on the newest practices.
Polish up Your Database, Dust off Your Website
Is your homepage looking a bit shabby? Does looking at your database give you that same dizzy feeling as when you consider all the junk shoved under your bed?
How about your emails: Are they looking a little tired? Take this opportunity to clean up your online fundraising, marketing and donor management act. Here are a few highlights (courtesy of Network for Good):
- Choosing a Donor Database
- Doing Donor Management: Expert Advice
- Five Deadly Sins of Website Design
- Our Website Stinks! Tips and Secrets for Successful Redesign
- Six Steps to Better Email Outreach
- Examples of the Good and the Bad in Online Fundraising Appeals
Look Before You Leap Onto the Web
As with any other part of your organization’s marketing mix, your online fundraising strategy needs to be planned out. Slapping a “donate” button on your website and expecting miracles makes as much sense as placing a stack of fliers in your office foyer and thinking money will come pouring in through all the open doors and windows.
Therefore, as we head into those hazy-lazy days of summer, we’re advocating that you check out your online fundraising strategy and tackle four main areas, which will in turn boost your success (courtesy of Network for Good):
Facebook is #1
It was sort of inevitable given Facebook’s monster growth over the last few years, but April 2008 was the milestone: Facebook officially caught up to MySpace in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors, according to data released by Comscore and shown through the link below. Both services are attracting around 115 million people to their respective sites each month.
They are still trailing MySpace in the U.S., but with Facebook unique visits running almost 3x MySpace, the gap is closing.
More here: Facebook No Longer The Second Largest Social Network
Social Media in Plain English
With all the talk about social media, here’s a simple story that illustrates the forces shaping this “new technology that makes everyone a producer and tools that give everyone a chance to have a say.”
Edu-tech: Are You a Technophile or Technophobe? (revisited again)
With all the conversation last week about the new technologies and the influence Web 2.0 is having and will continue to have on our organizations, we re-post this small, but important, test of technoliteracy.
Print it out and save it; post on your message boards, both in the virtual world and the old fashioned one (the kind requiring thumb tacks).
And, if your are an organization professional, give this test to each and every staff member and consultant responsible for your marketing and PR efforts. If you are a lay leader, give the test to your CEO / Executive Director. For both of these categories, anything less than a perfect score requires some serious retooling.
- What is a blog? Is there a difference between a website and a blog? Do you know how to find Jewish blogs?
- What does Web 2.0 mean?
- What is Wikipedia?
- What is YouTube?
- What is Facebook? Is it the same as MySpace and Friendster, or are there differences?
- What is iTunes? What is an MP3 player?
- and a new addition, What is Twitter?
If you can’t answer all of these questions, it’s definitely time to start learning. Technology is not going away.
with thanks to Esther Kustanowitz and ROI120.com
Recruiting 2.0: Using On-line Social Networking to Attract Top Talent
Harness the power of the Web to expand your candidate pool.
On-line social networking is all about connecting people in dynamic and new ways. A small investment of time in on-line social networking can yield big results for an organization’s ability to reach new audiences with information about job opportunities and cultivate a broader and more diverse talent pool.
In the nonprofit sector, an estimated 60 percent of open positions are filled through referrals and networking. For this reason, nonprofit organizations benefit from building wide professional networks. Thanks to the proliferation of social networking Web sites, nonprofits can go on-line to grow their networks, promote their “employer brand,” and connect with prospective employees.
Read more from Kevin Kovaleski of Commongood Careers at GuideStar.org.
Linked Some More
A collection of one liners from yesterday evening’s panel; comments, ideas and thoughts. Each one is valuable. My apologies if I misquoted or took something improperly out of context. Chalk it up to making notes at 1 am.
Allison Fine
- Email moves messages faster than anything in the history of the world
- Definition of a millenial: anyone who went to college with a laptop
- We need to go where they are. The challenge is they grew up in a 2.0 world and expect things to work that way. In other words, like open source software, this generation is seeking an ‘open system’
- There is excess capacity in our social networks that care about our causes; the challenge is to maximize it
- Organizations need to be re-invented using these new tools
- Anything that connects your more to people will help your organization
Lisa Colton - Darim Online
- Many of the tools we have are not being used in the way they were created
- Jump in and start trying
Graham Hoffman - Hillel
- Technology is only as good as the people who use it
- How do we take the information and relationships from Facebook and tailor this to individual personal relationships
- Innovate. Collaborate. Create. Take Initiative. See our post on Hillel’s Campus Initiative project (E³)
- Hillel sources talent from the campus as early as freshman year
- There is an enormous amount of talent among our constituent population. We need to tap into, build and share this knowledge base
Michael Hoffman - See3 Communications
- 2004 was a tipping point as broadband exploded across the market. With the addition of video we can have a full-fledged multi-media experience
- We can now create video-centric micro sites; an example, Avodah’s Jews4NewOrleans project
Some final thoughts from our panelists on how Web 2.0 will impact our future and what’s coming next?
Michael:
- Everything is mobile, it fits in the palm of your hand
- The challenge for the big Jewish institutions - how to accept those smaller; to not be afraid of these new enterprises and smaller organizations
Graham:
- Institutions are wall and barrier driven - we need to break them down
- We need to leverage momentum. The boundaries between organizations and institutions need to relax
So, there you have it. A powerful evening.
A lot of people were listening; I hope they were hearing.
Be sure to check out our previous posts on Linked:
Linked: Maximizing Technology for the Future of the Jewish Community