Integrating Your Website, Email Newsletter and Social Media Sites

Tomorrow I’m presenting a brand new webinar on How to Integrate Your Website, Email Newsletter, and Social Media Sites. It was the #1 requested topic in last fall’s survey of what you wanted to see on the weekly webinar series schedule.

I have to admit, it’s a rather ambitious topic for one hour. I’m in the middle of the PowerPoint deck now trying to find the sweet spot between giving you enough information to really make a difference in your online marketing strategy and giving you too many to-do list items that you run screaming from the whole idea of integration.

Here’s the framework I’m using right now. Please share any comments you have as I’m sure I’ll be playing around with this until sometime tomorrow morning! For those of you attending, I promise to have the handout available an hour before the webinar (but probably not much sooner!)

You can integrate your online marketing in three steps:

(1) Connecting

Make sure everything links to everything else. Do that by putting links into web and e-news templates, email signatures, and social media profiles. Use social media icons (search “free social media icon set” for tons of them) to make these links more obvious. If your e-news provider offers it, use the social media sharing links at the bottom of your e-newsletters (otherwise add your own).

Consider whether auto-updating makes sense. You can connect your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to update each other. Think about whether and how that makes sense given the type of content you share, how often, and with whom.

Ensure basic branding is in place. Your website, blog, e-news, and social media sites don’t need to be 100% identical, but it should be crystal clear that they are all produced by the same people.

(2) Strengthening

Think holistically about your online content creation. Integrate what you put out there by using an editorial calendar, while at the same time, recognizing which channel is best for what (e.g. email good for clear calls to action; social media good for awareness). Don’t  think of your website as something entirely different from your e-news, or your e-news as entirely different from your Twitter feed. Figure out what you want to communicate, and spread that across the channels in a way that makes sense.

Think about the paths. Think about how you want people to travel from channel to channel, and what they will see at each stop along the way. For example, if your e-news links to your website, what’s on that landing page? Does that landing page urge visitors to discuss the topic on Facebook or Twitter? If someone starts on Facebook, how are you encouraging them to sign-up for your e-newsletter? Again, it goes back to understanding how to get the most out of each channel.

Encourage multiple connections. Many of your fans will connect with you in multiple ways without being asked (e.g. they will subscribe to your e-news, blog feed and Twitter stream), but others will need some prodding. Connecting with people in multiple ways increases the odds that your messages will actually get through to them. You may need to offer some incentives (e.g. people on the email list get certain benefits, or get them first).

(3) Reinforcing

Learn from your metrics. Watch what’s happening along the paths that connect your online channels. Where are people coming from and where are they going? Are certain types of your supporters more likely to use one channel or another? What content produces the most interaction (e.g. clicks, comments, forwards, shares) in which channels?

Listen to the conversation, and bring in back into your content. You’ll learn a great deal from the conversation in social media that you can use to inspire and inform you e-news and web content.  For example, a conversation on Twitter can transform into a new update you send out via your e-newsletter. Blog comments can direct updates to other parts of your website.

Make sense? What’s most important? What’s missing? Please share your thoughts in the comments and I’ll see you on the webinar!

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Free Teleseminar on Fall Email Fundraising & More This Week

It’s a busy, busy week of training, starting with a free Nonprofit911 call from Network for Good on Tuesday, then a webinar on social media skeptics, an online fundraising workshop for AFP, and a conference closing plenary session via webinar. If you are participating in any of these events, let me know. I’d love to hear from you before and after.

Tuesday, September 15
Your Best Email Campaign Ever: 4 Steps to a Winning Strategy This Fall
During this free Nonprofit911 training call sponsored by Network for Good, I’ll be talking about what you can do this fall through your email communications to help set yourself up for bigger gifts in December.

Wednesday, September 16
Convincing Social Media Skeptics: “Selling” the Value of Social Media
You are ready to add social media to your marketing mix, but others around you aren’t so sure. Several people asked for help with the problem, so I’ve created this webinar to help you make your case. It’s on Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT). Registration is $35 or included with your All-Access Pass.

Thursday, September 17
Online Fundraising Bootcamp
I’ll be in Raleigh, NC to teach this morning workshop for the Triangle Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. I’ll spend the first hour going over the must-knows and must-dos for a successful online fundraising campaign, followed by on-the-spot makeovers for three organizations.

Friday, September 18
Online Marketing Basics for the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies
I’m presenting the closing plenary at NACCRRA’s Professional Development Institute via webinar.

Learn more about my weekly webinar series and about asking me to speak at your event.

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ROI of Listening: 17 Things to Do with What You Hear

If you’ve already started incorporating social media into your communications strategy and have done any research on it at all, you’ve come across the advice to LISTEN FIRST.

What you are less likely to have found in your research is a practical list of what you can actually do with all of this new-found knowledge and perspective that you gain from building your listening network.

If you really apply what you are hearing, listening can become the cornerstone of not only your nonprofit marketing strategy, but your mission-oriented programs as well. Listening helps at every level: It can help your professional community thrive, your organization prosper, your individual programs grow, and your own personal career soar.

Here are 17 concrete actions you can take using what you learn from listening.

1. Better understand the people who matter most. Find, follow, and listen to the people who you think match the personas of your target audience, whether they are potential clients, funders, donors, advocates, or volunteers. Learn more about what interests them, what kinds of questions they have, and the language they use, so you can communicate with them in more meaningful ways.  It’s basic market research and if you listen for no other reason, this is the one.

2. Start conversations with potential new supporters. See who’s talking about your issues. Look at what else that person is saying online. If he looks like someone who would be interested in what your organization does, reach out to him with a personal message. Offer information or resources or invite him to an event. Open the door to a relationship just like you would to a personal friendship.

3. Answer questions and provide suggestions. People are constantly posing questions and talking about the challenges they face on social media and networking sites. Answer questions, offer suggestions, and become known as a good source of information and assistance. This is a great way to position your organization as an expert source.

4. Correct misconceptions. Is someone confused, misinformed, or worse, spreading rumors? Try to set the record straight by presenting your point of view in a non-confrontational way.

5. Find new partners. Discover who else is interested in and working on the same things you are, especially people and organizations you might have never known existed otherwise (e.g. they do what you do, but on the other side of the country). Share your successes, replicate theirs, and create new partnerships to get more done.

6. Measure the success of your communications. Are you trying to get the word out? See how well the message is spreading by monitoring who’s passing it on to others and how the message is changing as it spreads.

7. Feed your biggest fans. Build personal relationships with your biggest fans and give them what they need to spread the word about you (e.g., great stories, photos, videos, inside scoops on what’s happening in your field, etc.). These are the people who will not only introduce you to their friends and expand your circle of supporters, but also stand up and defend you and your cause if attacked by others, so keep them on your side.

8. Increase your own professional knowledge. Identify the leaders and big thinkers (I call them the “big brains”) in your field and keep an eye on the issues they are discussing and the resources they are recommending. It’s like attending a professional networking event without leaving your desk.

9. Keep tabs on your critics. Even if you choose not to respond directly now, keeping up with what your critics are saying will help you develop better rebuttals and fine-tune your messaging in the future.

10. Find your niche. It’s a competitive world, even for nonprofits (some might say especially for nonprofits when financial times are tough). By listening to what’s going on in your professional world, you’ll have a much better understanding of where you fit in, where you can fill gaps, and how you can stand out. And you must stand out – that’s what nonprofit marketing is ultimately all about.

11. Knock down your writer’s block. Not sure what to write about in your newsletter or blog? Read what others in your community are talking about and then write about the trends you see, draft a response to something you found particularly interesting or offensive, or summarize the best points others are making on a particular topic.

12. Pick up a reality check. We all make assumptions each day, but when you make too many, you know what happens: “You make an ass out of u and me.”  (I thought that was so profound when I figured it out at age 10!) Road test your assumptions by putting them out there and listening to the responses you get.

13. Spot programmatic trends earlier. By consistently listening to the “raw feed” you’ll be able to pick up on trends related to your work long before they transform into conventional wisdom. You can adjust your programs accordingly, and when others finally catch up, you’ll be considered on the cutting edge.

14. Respond rapidly to flare-ups. Listening puts you higher up in your own personal fire tower, so when a potential firestorm sparks, you can get water on it much faster than if you were on the ground, miles away.

15. Learn the lingo. Learn what words your target audience is using. The language that your clients use, for example, is often very different from the language that professionals in the field use. The reverse is true too: If you are trying to break into a new community, professional or otherwise, listening is a good way to pick up on some of their jargon and buzzwords.

16. Be relevant. If you want to be considered a player in the space you are working in, you have to be relevant. And to be relevant, you have to understand where people are right now.  Listening helps you keep up with what’s happening to the people who matter to your organization’s success.

17. Give good customer service. If your nonprofit is in the business of providing direct services, the people you serve are not unlike customers at a commercial establishment. Several commercial brands from Dell to Comcast are using social media listening on a near-constant, real-time basis to answer customer questions and address complaints, and you can too.

Want more? Join me for Who’s Talking About You and What Are They Saying? Listening to Online Conversations, a 60-minute webinar on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

Have more practical uses for what to do with what you hear? Add them by leaving a comment on the blog.

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What “Trust Agents” Means for Nonprofits

I read “Trust Agents” by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith this weekend. It’s about, as the subtitle says, “Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust.”

I’m talking about these concepts in the book I’m writing on nonprofit marketing, so I wanted to see how what Chris and Julien advocate for the business community might translate to the nonprofit world. While they use Beth Kanter as an example of the “Archimedes Principle” — leveraging your network — that’s really the only mention of our sector.

I would sum up the basic thesis of the book as “Be there, be helpful, don’t ask for anything, and eventually it will pay off.”  It’s essentially a guide for how to be human through your computer or nice guys finish first in social media. There is actually a section titled “The Importance of Being Human” and an “Action” list for how to be human that includes things like “Remember to ask about other people-first” and “If you mess up, remember the three A’s: acknowledge, apologize, act.”  In another section they give advice on making eye contact and smiling at in-person events. Though they claim that “the nerd is mostly extinct,” a lot of the book feels like “Chris and Julien’s Advice for the Socially Inept.”

But, of course, the reality is that a lot of people and businesses are trying to use social media as their own personal hype machines, and therefore they aren’t acting like good human beings and end up turning off a lot of people. So, I understand the emphasis on netiquette in the book, especially in regards to social media, even though those weren’t my favorite sections.

Here’s what I think nonprofits will find most useful in “Trust Agents” . . .

Make Your Own Game. They suggest that you look at your situation as a game, and find ways to hack it. Don’t be afraid to try new approaches. I like this concept a lot, even though I’m not a gamer and many of their computer gaming examples went right by me.  But this is the same idea I’m getting at when I tell nonprofits that they need to become their own media moguls and stop wasting tons of time trying to get press coverage. You can be the publisher and broadcaster now. Making your own game is how you stand out, which is really the core message behind Nonprofit Marketing Guide: helping your nonprofit stand out in the crowd. That’s one of our slogans. I think the game metaphor is another great way to get this concept across. This is really a must-do in today’s nonprofit marketing and fundraising environment.

Online Friends are Not “Move Your Couch” Friends. I know many nonprofits are struggling with understanding who and what their new online friends are to them. I’m still working on my book chapters on this, so I’m not sure how I will end up framing this exactly, but the way that Chris and Julien put it is that a friend online is not a sales (or fundraising) prospect. Just because you are now friends on Facebook doesn’t mean that a fundraising appeal will be welcome. Becoming a friend online means that person is now open to a conversation with you, but because you are being human (see above), asking for money is not what you want those early conversations to be about. Instead, you want them to be about learning about each other’s interests, being helpful, etc. If people in your organization are really having a hard time knowing what to do with your online friends, this book can definitely help.

Be “One of Us.” Along with the game metaphor, I also like this concept a lot. Chris and Julien are saying that you really have to see yourself as and behave as a member of the community you are trying to reach. You do that primarily by being helpful to others and not expecting anything in return. They also talk about being “Agent Zero,” where you build this network of networks around you and about “Building an Army” around you of people who you empower to help you.

When nonprofits try new approaches like social media, it’s often easier to convince skeptics of the value if you can relate those new approaches to your current job description or an element already in your strategic plan. If that’s the case with you, then the Agent Zero and Build an Army chapters will be particularly helpful to you, because they most closely align with what nonprofits do all the time — building networks of supporters around the cause and rallying volunteers and advocates to make it happen. But at the same time, caution Chris and Julien, never forget to remain “one of us.” No matter how much influence and trust you eventually weild online, you want to remain one of the guys.

Adopt a “Yes, and . . .” Mentality. It’s very easy for nonprofits to adopt a defensive posture and to fear competitive voices. After all, if that other group down the street gets more attention, then they might raise more money, perhaps money that you think is rightfully yours. I find that nonprofits also tend to dwell on the negative possibilities too much, especially related to using social media. You hear “Yes, but . . .” a whole lot. Chris and Julien advocate that you instead adopt a “Yes, and . . .” approach. Instead of getting stuck on the negatives, move the conversation forward with a new contribution.

“Trust Agents” is a very quick read, and while you’ll need to do some translating to the nonprofit world, if you are interested in how your nonprofit can use social media over the long-term to stand out and to build support for your cause by becoming a trusted voice in your community, it’s worth checking out.

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Getting the Personal – Professional Mix Right in Social Media

It’s a debate that anyone using social media these days is having: How much personal information do I share when I’m using social media for work, and how much work information do my personal friends care to know? What are reasonable expectations for a nonprofit to have about what staff members will say online? Should blogging, tweeting, etc. be official or unofficial? Do rules about social media at work impinge on staff’s freedom of speech?

If you and others at your nonprofit organization are wrestling with questions like these, you might find this slide show helpful in framing up some of your discussions. I don’t have the answers to all of these questions (the right answer for you is the wrong answer for someone else). But I do outline some of the reasons why we are debating these questions, describe five approaches nonprofits are using, share how the National Wildlife Federation, American Red Cross and Easter Seals are addressing some of these concerns, and offer some suggestions for how to be more personable, even when you are really using social media mostly for work.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

If you are interested in hearing my commentary over these slides as well as my answers to specific questions, you’ll find the recording of the live webinar this slide show comes from in the All-Access Pass Holders Archive starting tomorrow.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Market or Promote Your Cause on Social Media? Yes, You Can!

The conventional wisdom these days seems to be that nonprofit organizations should not use social media for marketing, communications, promotion or anything like that. Instead, the CW goes, social media is only for listening and learning (call it market research and professional development if you actually want it to survive your work planning process). Ironically, people who support this point of view generally seem to have no problem with the idea of using social media for fundraising.

I think the conventional wisdom is wrong, because

(1) it assumes that all marketing, communications, and even promotions are one-sided sales pitches. That’s just flat-out false. Good marketing, as Katya Andresen points out all the time, is a respectful conversation. I fear I’ll be making this point forever, but I guess marketing comes with so much baggage, that’s just the way it has to be.

(2) it creates this illusion of  social media “conversation cops” out there waiting to bust anyone who talks about their own programs without first being asked about them. I think this illusion may be scaring off some nonprofits who could really benefit from participating in social media.

Look at a couple of recent tweets from two nonprofit social media rock stars . . .

From the National Wildlife Federation — tweets promoting their photo contest:

• 12 days left to enter the National Wildlife Photo Contest. $25,000 in cash prizes for Pro, Amateur & Youth divisions http://ow.ly/gMiL
• Amazing Wildlife Photos and the True Stories Behind Them: http://ow.ly/gU4F

From the Humane Society of the United States — tweets promoting their work to protect dogs:

• did you know ONE in FOUR shelter dogs are PUREBRED and there are breed-specific rescue groups? http://bit.ly/12Z0Sz
• Wayne’s Blog: Eight-State Dogfighting Raid Largest in U.S. History http://tinyurl.com/ml26gu

These tweets and links clearly promote the organizations, their programs, and their positions. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Rather than saying that nonprofit marketing doesn’t belong in social media, I’d say this.

Good nonprofit marketing via social media is:

• Genuine. Real, specific people at the organization are doing the talking. They never hide behind the 501(c)(3).
• Generous. You promote others, as well as yourself, and freely offer resources, info, help, etc. that advance your mission. You do so by commenting, retweeting, linking, etc.
• Grateful. You acknowledge the support and generosity of others in accomplishing your mission.

Conversely, bad nonprofit marketing via social media is:

• Greedy. Always promoting only one’s organization, programs, and points of view at the exclusion of everything and everyone else.
• Grandstanding. Holding up yourself or your organization as the be-all, end-all, know-it-all.
• Grabby. Always trying to latch on to others or using unrelated posts or tags to get your message out.

(OK, I admit that I entertained myself on an otherwise boring flight this morning by coming up with six alliterative words to describe what I was thinking about. The time crammed in the flying tube really does go by faster when you are working a good word puzzle!)

The reason that NWF and HSUS are social media rock stars is because of their Twitter-stream as a whole (and similar streams on other sites). They include plenty of tweets linking to their own websites and promoting their programs, but also many, many retweets and replies. They aren’t simply talking about themselves, but retweeting people who are talking about aspects of their own lives that are related to the nonprofit’s mission and participating in back-and-forth conversations. We know the staff members behind the organizations. In other words, they are genuine, generous, and grateful. And they are marketing the heck out of their organizations at the same time by being that way!

So, yes, nonprofit friends, you may market, communicate and promote your organization and your cause through social media. But just like any other set of tools, there are good ways and bad ways to go about it. Keep these six Gs of social media marketing in mind, and I think you’ll be just fine.

P.S. I’ll be talking a little more about this on Wednesday, during The Personal/Professional Mix: Getting it Right in Social Media.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

My Five Favorite Twitter Tools

I’ve received several questions about the Twitter tools I use, so here are my five favorites. Yes, to use Twitter as efficiently as possible, you actually need to do more than what Twitter.com offers!

1. TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop

These tools let you put people you follow into groups, which is essential once you start following more than a couple hundred people. I currently have  groups for nonprofit marketing pros, nonprofits, social media “big brains”, nonprofit tech, and a few others. They will also break out all the replies to you and mentions of your username into separate columns so you can keep track of conversations and retweets. Of course, you can also set up special searches, like your organization’s name or keywords or tags you want to follow.

Both tools do just about the same thing with the differences being fairly technical and/or aesthetic at this point, so pick which ever fits you best. Mashable has been reviewing the constant upgrades to both tools. I’m using TweetDeck for now, but like Seesmic just as well.

2. TwitterFeed

This turns the title of your blog posts into tweets, including a link. So this post here will automatically appear in my Twitter stream shortly after I publish it as “kivilm blogged on My Five Favorite Twitter Tools” with a shortened link to this post.

3. Selective Twitter for Facebook

This Facebook application (add it to your personal Facebook profile) lets you update your Facebook status through Twitter by adding #fb to the end of your tweet. There are other applications that update your Facebook status every time you tweet. But I don’t want everything I put on Twitter to appear as my Facebook status. For example, if you are having a conversation with someone on Twitter, only your side of the conversation would get sent to Facebook and it doesn’t make much sense to your Facebook friends. If you only use Twitter to post “updates” and don’t engage in much banter or replies, those other “all tweets to Facebook” apps will work for you.

4. Friend or Follow (now I’d pick Tweepler)

A great tool to catch up with the people who are following you, but you aren’t following back, and vice-versa. The best part is you can export the list as an excel file and it will also include the person’s profile description. This is great for people like me who fall behind on following. Now I can export this list every now and then and see who I need to go follow. No, I don’t follow everyone who follows me. Some people are clearly just trying to get higher follow/following numbers or work in industries and/or tweet about things completely unrelated to what I care about. If you choose to follow everyone who follows you, then you definitely need to set up groups in TweetDeck or Seesmic to maintain your sanity (assuming that you actually want to read what others are tweeting!)

UPDATE on 7/9/09: I’d replace Friend or Follow on this list with a tool I just used to process 500 followers: Tweepler. You can quickly follow or ignore based on their profile and click to see their last few tweets. By the way, if your updates are protected, I’m not following you unless I already know you well.

5. TweetLater

OK, I admit I haven’t actually used this one yet, but I just heard about it from @johnhaydon and I will definitely use it soon! It allows you to schedule tweets for a later time. When you end up doing a lot of work at night like I do, this is great, because it allows you to work at night, while sharing that work during the day when most people are actually using Twitter.

John is a great source for all things “Twitter for Nonprofits” so check him out. Darren Rowse’s Twitip is also a goldmine, though not specifically geared to nonprofits.

Bonus for Blackberry Storm Users: I tried several different apps that were supposedly optimized for the Storm and landed on TinyTwitter as my favorite — go to http://m.ttwt.at from your mobile browser to download over the air. I use that, along with the mobile Twitter site —  http://m.twitter.com

Tags: twitter

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Mixing Your Work and Personal Life Online

When I started my consulting business 11 years ago, virtually everyone told me to market my services under a company name, rather than to promote myself under my own personal name. No one would hire an individual freelancer, I was told. I needed to appear to be a “organization.” Organizations were more stable,  more trustworthy, and more marketable. I wasn’t keen on adding “& Associates” to my name, thus EcoScribe Communications was born.

Oh, how times have changed.

In the last decade, with the rise of social media, especially blogging and social networking sites like Facebook, the personal often carries much more cache than the organizational. Small business people like myself are urged to let their faces and personalities shine through — and even corporate America doesn’t want to be faceless any longer.

Now nonprofits are wrestling with these same issues, too.

How much of a staff member’s personality — and personal life — should shine through in a nonprofit’s newsletter or blog? What’s the right level of personal detail from staff on what are really meant to be organizational profiles on Facebook or Twitter? Should you encourage, monitor, or simply ignore what your staff say on their own personal profiles about their work lives? Can we really keep our personal and professional lives online separate, and even if we can, should we?

I’m hosting a webinar on The Personal/Professional Mix: Getting it Right in Social Media on July 15 (Rescheduled from July 1). During the webinar, I’ll share some examples from the nonprofit sector about finding the right mix of the personal and the professional and also offer some tips on making the right decisions for you and your organization. I don’t have all the answers, but I will help you frame up the discussions so you can talk intelligently about your options with others in the office.

For now, here’s what some smart folks in the nonprofit world are saying:

Does Your Nonprofit Need a Social Media Policy? (Beth Kanter)

Why We’re Not Friends Anymore (Michelle Murrain)

The Two Paradoxes of Identity in the Digital Age (Maddie Grant)

How are you handling the personal/professional mix online? Leave a comment and share your story!

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)