Why have few nonprofits made major investments in inbound social marketing?
How come nonprofits do not seem to understand the ROI or value of integrating social media across the organization?
When will more nonprofits have a dedicated person for inbound social marketing?
Why do many nonprofits think of inbound social marketing as an optional or add-on part of their overall marketing, PR, and donor development strategies?
As I thought through these questions, several possibilities came to mind based on my experience with nonprofits across the country:
The entry cost for social media management and inbound marketing tools seems too expensive for many donation-based nonprofits.
Determining the ROI for inbound social marketing campaigns means having a solid handle on existing data trends and intensely tracking and comparing the impact of social marketing campaigns across all channels.
Integrating social across the organization is rarely heard of and usually relegated to the marketing department – never being considered for customer service, donor development, public relations, support, R&D, nor sales.
Dedicated resources cost, yet if you want to do inbound marketing right it is worth the investment to get the right person or team in the door to monitor and manage it daily.
Inbound social marketing is here to stay and works best when it is integrated across all departments: operations, HR, marketing, PR, IT, broadcasting, customer service, and development.
Certainly, some will push back on these ideas it is built on my experience interacting with nonprofits. It is unfortunate, but I can count on one hand the nonprofits that have a dedicated resource for inbound social marketing.
This is where Heather’s book comes in. Every nonprofit C-Level should read this book. While a few may see this resource as a primer, everyone will get nuggets of wisdom to apply to their organization. An excellent companion book for ROI and social analysis would be Social Media ROI by Olivier Blanchard.
Start With Benchmarks
Below is a list of benchmarks that Heather has seen through her years of experience with nonprofits. While these are not strictly to be adhered to they are excellent goals to shoot for.
5000 fans/followers as a first tier goal
10,000 fans/followers as a second tier goal
$2,500 – $10,000 annual budget for:
eNewsletters
List building
Donation landing pages
20% email opens as a first tier goal
25% – 35% email opens as a second tier goal
eNewsletter of 500 words with 1-2 updates per month
$12.48 is the average value of an email subscriber
Online giving should equal 25% of all organizational giving
40-50 hours a week for social media management
Best Practices
I have also included a list of best practices that Heather recommends. Look at your organization and weigh these in light of your current situation.
Facebook
6-10 posts per week (1-2 day)
Goal is for 1 comment and 3 thumbs up per each status update per 1000 fans
Ads equal $1.07 spent to acquire a fan
Twitter
“Old school” retweet 80% of the time
Auto-RT (retweet) 20%
25% of all tweets should be replies and retweets
4-6 tweets a day (20-30 tweets a week) 8am-8pm
YouTube
1 video per quarter (3-4 per year)
Create a “Favorites” channel
Customize and brand your YouTube page
LinkedIn
1-2 updates per week
2 hours a month participating in online groups
Comment or participate 1-2 times per month to get your name out
Goal of group size should be 5000
Rotate “Manager’s Choice” discussions 2 times a month
Send group announcements 1 time a month featuring 3 articles
Launch a sub-group after the main group has reached 5000 members
Blog
Post 1-2 articles per week
Post summaries from events 1-2 days afterward
Choose only 1 category per post
FourSquare
Create a FourSquare Business Page
Add a reward for checking in or stopping by
Mobile
Link to mobile channels from mobile site
Text message open rate should be 90%
Send no more than 2-3 text messages per month
Expect to budget $10,000 to build a custom smartphone app
Promote apps for 2-3 months per year
Heather’s book if full of good information and how-to advice. You will especially like the checklists for getting started and tactical planning.
If you’re part of a nonprofit, purchase a copy of Social Media for Social Good and begin implementing the information immediately. If you have already been involved in social media marketing then compare your benchmarks for success to those above. You do not need to start with a big budget but in today’s world you have to be involved with inbound social marketing. It is not too late to catch up and you surely don’t want to get left behind.
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I recently started a blog on common sense leadership. Many people I talk to are tired of all the latest trends and fads in leadership and management? Me too. Leadership and management is really quite simple — the common sense application of it is what’s hard. Join a growing number of business people who are fed up with trendy principles and workplace hypotheses created in order to sell sensationalism and books. Check out the new blog and let me know your thoughts and the kinds of content you’d like to see.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how WeirdGuy blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 6 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 8 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 761 posts. There was 1 picture uploaded, taking a total of 49kb.
The top referring sites in 2010 were zimbio.com, facebook.com, familyfriendlymorningshow.blogspot.com, google.com, and search.conduit.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for virtual iphone, consultative leadership, dictatorial leadership, animal personality traits, and animal personality types.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Sebastian Barros, at Penn Olson, has put together a nice list of 38 free tools for monitoring social media. Evaluating return on investment (ROI) or, for social media enthusiasts, return on engagement (ROE) is a must! Seeing results is often challenging for many that want to get a handle on what is happening related to their online brand.
Check out Sebastian’s article and be sure to visit the links to the resources listed. I think you’ll find some that will definitely need to be added to your tool box.
If this was helpful, let me know by commenting below. Enjoy!
This provocative clip gives you some data to chew on if you are wondering about the ROE and ROI of Social Media. Thanks Socialnomics – Social Media Blog.
Day 2 is down but not out. In today’s line up was Mari Smith, Jason Alba, and Ann Handley. Mari covered the in’s and out’s of using Facebook for business while Jason revealed the power and reach of using LinkedIn. Finally, Ann ended the day with her Top 5 reasons to be on Twitter and listed some of the tools she uses.
My take aways from the today’s Summit are listed below. I have broken then down by Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Facebook
Create a loyal following by:
Optimizing your profile
Choosing your core message
Creating a fan page
Adding “friends” strategically
Thinking about relationships first
Creating viral visibility
Running tests with social ads
Adding Facebook to your overall marketing strategy
Also, use Friendfeed.com as another means to networking and creating community. You can pull your Twitter tweeps, Facebook friends, and Google contacts in as well.
LinkedIn
Create a comprehensive and complimentary Social Strategy for your organization
Tie your Twitter tweets to your LinkedIn status updates
Use keyword phrases in your profile summary
Export your LinkedIn contacts to a personal database for backup and mining
Use the Slideshare app for displaying presentations
2-Minute Per Week Strategy = accepting/rejecting connections and asking/answering questions
Twitter
Why use Twitter? Here are several reasons:
Create a strong community of followers
Use it to provide Customer Service
Stronger brand awareness
Networking
Monitoring the online community conversation in regard to your organization
Last nights keynote at SMSS09 with Gary Vee (Vaynerchuk) was high energy. The attendees especially liked the Q&A session afterward. Nothing like free business coaching.
Gary spoke for about 45 minutes (too short) but could have gone on for another 45 easily. The tweets were flying throughout the entire session. My take aways from the evening were:
You may remember when I first started writing about Twitter and then when I started using it. I have found it fun and interesting using the micro-blog format. It is certainly faster than writing a 200-250 word blog article.
So how about you? Why do you Twitter? Do you like to keep up with friends and family? Do you view it as a “game” wanting to see how many followers you can gain? Do you use it as a form of self-expression or do you think of it as a way of developing community?
Let me know here in the comment section below. Enjoy!
I have to be honest, I have not researched this yet. So, I wanted to hear what you have experienced. I have heard that while the iPhone is cheaper to buy ($199) the cost of operating is more and so it all evens out similar to the original pricing.
Now, it’s your turn – talk back. Have you found this to be true or is the phone more competitive with other models and manufacturers?
Blogging has become an impulsive contemporary art for careerists. Should you develop your own blog or shouldn’t you? Will it help or hurt your career? Let me present this canvas to you as a primer of sorts to think about this issue.
Much of my career practice and coaching involves an organizing thought: You own the business of your career. It’s your worklife mission, your vision. For years I coached and, some would say, admonished my clients to take ownership of their career paths as they work for someone else. When you do not own the business, one of the greatest ways you can help or hurt your career centers around your own online and offline reputation. With so many choices and so much information at the click of a computer key we may feel information overload no matter what our career field might be. We may also feel empowered to create or destroy.
What’s easy can be fun or dangerous. In a matter of minutes you can set up your Blogger, WordPress, Typepad or related blog site. And the minute you post? Your words can be accessed by billions of people around the world. No web designer needs to be hired. No technical guru at x dollars an hour has to listen to and potentially kill your ideas. You own this medium. You have freedom. You can say or site anything. There’s no waste of time and no need to white-board everyone else’s ideas.
It’s so easy but don’t let the impulsive ease of blogging let you forget about the eyes that watch your art, your views, your passions, protests, observations and objections.
How might this medium help – or hurt – your career direction and path?
How it can help:
1. You have an audience. Keep it positive. Blogging may add to the company’s brand and your position as an authority or subject matter expert within your company or your field. Jane S. worked at a powerful, regional advertising company. She cleared her personal blog through her boss, her boss’ boss and her company human resources department. They said she didn’t have to but with my advice she did. During a recession she has received two promotions and her blog has since been incorporated into the main site of the corporation because of its powerful, business development prowess. She says, “Now 40 percent of my time is incorporating my personal brand or blog into the company’s brand with the complete blessing of the executive team.”
2. Paint the right picture. Drive customer confidence. As you cite critical sources and make intelligent, important observations your personal blog augments your position within your company and promotes your company. You never bash your company. You can be yourself and be authentic. James P., a salesman, asked for permission from his company to comment on his business travels and business adventures as a technology sales consultant. Customers love the funny, idiosyncratic stories. James says, “My blog has been a business generator for the company and earned me four speaking engagements on behalf of the company and four speaking engagements locally that were sponsored by local sales networking organizations. I can’t believe it. It’s made me kind of recession-proof in my career!” His first book is being self-published and his company uses him to teach and train all new sales personnel.
3. Get a raise and a promotion. Defend the faith. Blogging helps you document and publish your ideas while associating with great people. Again, Alice P. published her blog under a pseudonym two years ago. Today she has kept the quirky observations about life, travel, art and kids quite eclectic. Her blogging has incorporated funny observations about office life without offending anyone at work. It’s been serialized by the company and referred to. The CEO thought her site should be commented on, featured and linked to by the company to help with esprit de corps. Alice states, “Now I have an in-house company editor who helps me promote and publish my blog. We’ve added videos and more fun stuff. The company pays me monthly.” She keeps her comments happy, funny and still personal.
How blogs can hurt:
1. One small step. Negative posts can be fatal. Blogging can open you up for many legal, liability and employment questions, problems or crises. Last year, Jim C. came to me after he had posted a rather nasty post on his Top Ten Worst Retailers in the World blog. His company did business with two of those retailers and as nosy or highly-sensitive corporate personnel found out about his lambaste it caused a rift at the company. According to Jim, “This year for other reasons I was let go. It was not the economy. I crossed the line.”
2. Pictures tell a thousand stories. Larry seemed to pipe up at work a lot about things that bothered him. So he decided to publish a seemingly anonymous blog. As a techy he posted hundreds of comments on political ideas, people he thought should be impeached and railed against what he considered bad taste and fashion. He did this anonymously under a lot of different names. But when he decided to take pictures at the year end Christmas party and publish captions that offended nearly everyone, he was, well, suspended without pay forever (fired).
3. Beautiful art can be destroyed. Craig became disillusioned after an 18-year career. Nearing retirement, his company had promoted three people younger than him to the technology director level. Years ago he had engineered their web presence. Knowing that having no blog presence left his company vulnerable, he found it increasingly interesting and titillating when he created a blog presence, added negative comments to company products and dumped a list of customer complaints onto the proverbial, anonymous IHATEXCOMPANY.com, the site a former employee developed to stick it to the man. Under pressure, the IHATEXCOMPANY.com author faced legal entanglements and gave up Craig’s name as a blogger. Now Craig is in litigation. It’s not looking good.
Imagine you’re an artist like Michelangelo dipping brush to paint; a seemingly limitless creative well. You’re halfway done with your masterpiece, the signature of your worklife and rather spiritual mission. As you take your impossible position on the scaffold to paint more of the Sistine Chapel you have a thought. Imagine you could destroy your Sistine Chapel with one strike of the match. Like the great artist, blogging can help you take ownership of your career and worklife vision. Of course, it can also be just for fun too. But let’s also realize you, like the great artist, have the power to create or destroy your career future with just a few strokes or decisions.
Make sure you know your audience and you understand the potential impact of your newly -minted blog posts. It could make a lasting impression and a permanently positive or negative impact on your career picture.
Paint yours. Paint it well.
John M. O’Connor, MFA, is the President of Career Pro of NC, Inc., a comprehensive career services organization specializing in Executive Outplacement, Corporate Outplacement, Federal/Military Career Transition and Consulting. He was appointed to the Board of Directors (2006) for Raleigh-Wake Human Resources Management Association (RWHRMA.org). He is also a Certified Career Coach, Certified Resume Writer, and Credentialed Career Master.
If you haven’t figured out that you are being Googled in your job search just as frequently as you are Googling your business contacts, then it is time to enter the world of modern career management. Whether you want to or not, you must develop and maintain some kind of professional online profile and recognize that people are forming opinions about you based on what they find after typing your name into a search engine.
Your own approach to online reputation management will be dependent on your career goals and personal comfort level with becoming visible online. Ideally, everyone would invest in a customized online portal for his or her personal brand (see examples). When you have your own blog or website designed, you have total control over how you present yourself. However, if you have limited time or funds, you may be wondering what you can do to establish or extend your online brand quickly and economically. Here are five free resources (some also have paid services):
1. www.Naymz.com. Think of Naymz as the 411 to your online identity. Not only can you create a profile, but you can also point people to all the other online content that you want them to see. This includes your other social media profiles (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), websites, articles and relevant links. You can upgrade your account to have Naymz buy your name in the paid search results so that you get guaranteed first page placement on the leading search engines. A paid listing can be especially helpful if you have a common name, digital dirt or are impatient to show up in the natural listings.
2. www.BusinessCard2.com.BusinessCard2 is a virtual business card that is designed to show up in your search results. In addition to a downloadable vCard with contact information, you can include a bio, recommendations and attachments such as a resume, presentations, articles and photos.
3. www.LinkedIn.com. LinkedIn is a must for every business professional, and it’s not just a networking tool. Create your profile at LinkedIn, and make it public. Chances are that you already have a LinkedIn profile, but you haven’t gotten it ready for public consumption. LinkedIn has good “Google juice,” so your public profile will typically rank high in the results when someone searches for your name. (If you have a common name, be sure to include qualifiers as keywords in your profiles. When people type your name into the search box and they get millions of results, they will begin to narrow down their search by the name of your latest employer or MBA program, your specialty, job title or location.) You can control what elements appear on the public Internet versus the content that only gets displayed to your LinkedIn contacts. Write a keyword-rich, easy-to-digest profile that showcases your value to your target audience and request endorsements from contacts that support your claims. The best way to get endorsements from people is to go ahead and endorse them. LinkedIn will prompt them to return the favor so you don’t have to. Recruiters value LinkedIn endorsements because you cannot edit them (but you can decide not to use them). Also keep in mind that the size of your network will display as part of your public profile and judgments may be made about having too many or too few connections. The right quantity for you is purely subjective, but know that the intention of LinkedIn is to connect with only those you actually know and would recommend to others in your network.
4. www.VisualCV.com. VisualCV takes having your resume online to the next level by allowing you to back up your achievements with proof of your performance. Think of it as an online, multimedia executive portfolio that is template-like in design (your site looks like all the other VisualCVs). You can upload or link to relevant content that supports your claims and also control who sees what.
5. www.Alltop.com. I strongly advocate publishing articles or posting thoughtful blog comments related to your area of expertise. Searching Alltop will help you find the websites and blogs that would be effective in reaching your target audience.
To avoid possible confusion and more work later, don’t start using any of these online identity management resources before you take the important first steps of discovering and articulating your personal brand. Ask yourself, what is my unique promise of value or value proposition, and how can I differentiate myself from others who are vying for the same opportunities? Write one compelling social networking bio that you copy and paste consistently across all of your online profiles. To make a great first impression, you will also want to get a professional headshot since people are often meeting you online before they meet you in person.
Who would think a friend half-way around the world would talk me into joining Twitter? Well, Justin did, but I admit I am still skeptical. I have been tweeting for a coupe days and only have 7 followers…hmmm. Could be my original conclusions were right (See Related Articles).
I’ll give it some time and try several different environments. Who knows, I might like it.
Also, let me know if you’re on Twitter too! You can find me at eweirdguy.
Really? Who says, blogging is dead? Maybe it was Jason Calacanis. Well, if you’re Jason and your tired of writing lengthy content…yeh, blogging is probably dead for you. Twitter is short, sweet, and to the point. And, it doesn’t hurt if you have a following or are seen as a bit of a celebrity.
Well…it makes all the difference!
If you’re an average person, what do you care? If you’re blogging for your family and friends, then guess what? Blogging is not dead. If you’re tweeting for family and friends, good for you. Although, I question whether your family is reallt interested in where you are at any given time or how many times cute-little-Suzy rolled peas up into her 8-month-old mouth (See Twitter Is For The ADD Generation).
Sorry Jason, blogging is not dead. Twitter is fun for some, but it will soon be replaced by a type of video tweeting and live friend0finder mash-ups.
What do you think? Take the poll or make a comment.
After rumors surfaced on the Web a few months back that a new Kindle might be on the way, Amazon.com did its best to shoot them down, saying a new Kindle was not coming this year. Well, Boy Genius Report has gotten ahold of some photos that appear to be the Kindle 2, so we’re curious what Amazon has to say now.
What do you think of the Kindle? I like the Kindle A LOT from what I have seen and read, but it seems very pricey. Kindle owners speak up. Is it really worth the $360 price tag?
My friend, Justin, published a nice little article on strategies he has been developing for clients. Many companies have Marketing Strategies, PR Strategies, Technology Strategies, Business Strategies, and Learning Strategies, but I do not know any that have Blogging Strategies. This would fit nicely within a Learning Strategy… don’t you think, Justin?
Recently I have been turning my attention to blogging strategy for business. And there are some interesting things to observe out of the process that are a tweak on good old fashioned communications planning.
If multiple blogs are a part of the strategy, you must decide on who the audience is for each one.
Decide who the author/s should be
Determine the appropriate tone of voice
Provide a guide to general direction of the posts and content. If you can outline 50 potential posts before you start you might be onto something – if not, rethink
In Learning Strategies we often talk about leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. We often recommend using Blogs, Wikis, Message boards, Chat sessions, and Social Networking. Yet, the idea of a complete strategy around blogging is intriguing.
NOTE: This was posted on Communication Nation a little while back, but I loved the drawings and had to share.
By Dave Gray
The difference between local and global markets is like the difference between the fishbowl and the ocean. To understand and engage successfully requires a shift in perspective. Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your global communications efforts:
1. Get outside your fishbowl. To go global you’ve got to get out from behind your desk. Your culture surrounds you like the air you breathe, and you can’t understand it until you get outside it. Spend some time – an extended period, if possible – completely immersed in another culture. When you return, you’ll be surprised how many things you notice that were previously invisible.
2. Be authentic. Being global doesn’t mean losing your identity. If you’re a global company that was started in Germany and is headquartered in Germany, it’s perfectly ok to be German. It’s a multicultural world and you are a part of it too. The key is to be respectful of other cultures while being true to your own unique identity.
3. Remember that you are a guest. When you are visiting another country, or when you open an office there, you are a guest. The same rules apply that would apply if you were visiting a friend’s house. Be polite, respectful, and thoughtful in your communications.
4. Think visually. There’s a reason why TV is booming while newspapers are going out of business. People understand pictures faster and more easily than words. With pictures you can communicate complex ideas instantly, and virtually nothing is lost in translation. And words need to be translated, while pictures are a universal form of communication.
5. Ask for feedback. Share your ideas with global teams early, when they are in the napkin-sketch stage, and ask for feedback. When you ask people to participate in defining the message, you build trust. If you build your message globally, then deployment becomes much easier.
Last year WeirdGuy blog participated in Blog Action Day. This year, we will again and share from a weird perspective on the issue of poverty. I encourage you to get involved. Find out more details at Blog Action Day.
Kevin Kelly is one of those guys I could listen to for a time and then have to walk away and ponder on all the implications of the information I have just received. He is one of a handful of people I greatly admire. At the “5000 Day” mark, Kevin talks about the next 5000 days of the Worldwide Web and makes some interesting predictions. The clip is about 20 minutes long, but well worth the time. Sit back and listen to what Kevin has to say.
I recently read Heather Mansfield’s book, Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits. As I finished the book several thoughts came to my mind:
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Day 2 is down but not out. In today’s line up was 
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