If you have been reading our blog the last year, you will probably recognize Peter Panepento. Peter is the principal at Panepento Strategies, a full-service content, digital, and social strategy firm for nonprofits and socially-minded companies. He was formerly an assistant managing editor at The Chronicle of Philanthropy as well. We are excited to announce…
In October National Public Radio released an interesting analysis of how the length of lead-in text affects post performance on Facebook. The organization pulled all its link posts from the last six months — over 3,000 in all — and analyzed post performance in groups of 40-character increments. On the first look, NPR found that shorter…
#NpCommPix is back in November! We co-host this fun photo-a-day challenge with BC/DC Ideas and encourage anyone who works in nonprofit communications (nonprofit staff, volunteers, consultants, whoever!) to play along. We play mostly on Instagram and Twitter, but you can post wherever you’d like. Just let the word of the day inspire you, post…
Kristina and I spent most of Saturday working on our Big Picture Communications Timeline for 2016. This is the exercise that I highly recommend you do BEFORE you attempt work on an editorial calendar. And if you are an office supply nerd, like we are, it’s a great excuse to go shopping! So many beautiful…
When I talk to community-based nonprofits that serve local or regional areas about content marketing or thought leadership, I often hear excuses like, “We aren’t the experts. The national groups are. Why would anyone listen to us about this issue, when we just serve this little corner of the world?” While national groups may have…
On Wednesday, we are releasing a new 45-page e-book and webinar on How to Tame Your Wild and Unwieldy Editorial Calendar. The e-book includes ten different templates or schedules to use as a starting point for building out your calendar, along with lots of additional tips and advice. The schedule will help you figure out…
Your reaction when your Executive Director says, “This looks TOO nice.” via GIPHY Heard this one before? The theory is that donors will think you wasted their money if any of your communications look like they cost you cash money to produce them. This theory holds that all of that money should be going to programs…
You absolutely need to include contact information in your emails (and other forms of communication). Including a first name in your email subject lines and greetings instantly personalizes your message and warms the reader to its content. It’s an email marketing best practice. But lots of times the only contact information you have is an email…
John Haydon gave me a great challenge: Share 9 content marketing tips. When you’ve written a 100,000-word book about nonprofit content marketing, boiling it down to your favorite 9 tips is a challenge. But I did it, and John captured it wonderfully: 3 tips for email newsletters: Be all about the reader Quick read, skimmable…
Today, for our Question of the Week, we want to know about repurposing your content. How do you adapt your content for different communications channels? Share your tips below! Here is what some of our Facebook friends had to say about mixing things up: Next Level Marketing: One way we “recycle” posts and information is to…
Today I’m sharing the third video in our new series from the Communications Coaching Program for Executive Directors (we call it the CoCoa Club for short.) An editorial calendar is a great tool, but don’t over-complicate it! In this video, we cover the basics with grid and calendar formats. (Can’t see the video player?…
Next Tuesday, April 28th, Claire Meyerhoff and I are doing a FREE webinar encouraging you to banish boring nonprofit communications forever. How does nonprofit marketing and fundraising content become so boring? Claire explains in today’s post. ~Kivi Guest Post by Claire Meyerhoff, Editorial Director at Planned Giving Marketing In horror movies, lots of scary people look perfectly normal at…
