Tips | Beth’s Blog

Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category

Oct

2010

Category:

Guest Post, Tips, Tools and Tactics

Tags:

13 Comments

50 (More) Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

View more presentations from Chad Norman.

Note from Beth: Last week I presented remotely at the Blackbaud Conference. The big downside is that you miss out on seeing your colleagues and hearing their presentations. Chad Norman and Melanie Mathos presented this session which was not recorded and built on an earlier presentation. Chad graciously agreed to write up a guest post — and start a meme asking nonprofit and social media folks to add their favorite social media tactic in the comments below or using the hashtag #50smt and aggregated here.

My tactic is to use Rowfeeder to collect Tweets for an event, meme, or conference presentation – makes it efficient to aggregate and analyze. Do an analysis to improve or create content. I’m aggregating the Tweets for #50smt here.

50 (More) Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits by Chad Norman

So you’ve got a social media strategy…now what? Using your various social media channels to meet strategic goals is the right way to operate, but sometime you need an idea or two to help you get there.

One year ago, Melanie Mathos and I created 50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits to help organizations do just that – plug good ideas into good strategies. The response has been overwhelming, and inspired us to create 50 (More) Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits. These 50 basic to intermediate-level tactics can be used to support a variety of strategic goals and get your supporters to take action.

Below you’ll find 10 tactics to help you get started:

Make your content shareable on Facebook by adding a Like button
The Facebook Like button is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website and blog content. After customizing this widget at Facebook.com, you can easily put it into your site’s template in a matter of minutes. Each time a visitor “likes” something on your website, that activity will appear in their Facebook feed and drive some of their friends to your content.

Display the rules for your Facebook community
Some nonprofits stress out about how to handle negative comments on their Facebook page’s wall. If you think this will be an issue, simply write out a “commenting policy” on the info tab of your Facebook page. This will give you the freedom to moderate content with full transparency and give your supporters the right expectations. The Humane Society of the United States has used this effectively on their Facebook page.

Support a specific call to action with its own tab
If you don’t have calls to action on your Facebook page, you’re missing a huge opportunity! By using the FBML application, you can create custom tabs that feature programs and other activities. The Best Friends Animal Society does this effectively with their “Adopt!” tab. Other tab names that can get visitors to act include, “Sign Up”, “Volunteer”, “Donate”, or “Register.”

Launch a friend campaign to broaden your audience
It never hurts to ask, and that’s true when you’re trying to get new supporters to join your Facebook page. Your current Facebook fans all have networks of their own (the average Facebook user has 130 friends), so don’t be afraid to ask them to reach out and get their friends to join. The California State Parks Foundation launched a “Friend Get a Friend” campaign via two updates to their 517 fans. Within two weeks, their page went from 517 to 33,000 supporters—and they now have close to 60,000!

Create a branded social network around a specific topic or cause
Facebook communities are great, but some organizations need private label social networks to take them to the next level. For one thing, the average size of an in-house community is 50 percent larger than an equivalent Facebook network. You also have more control over privacy, branding, and the data (access to this data is important!) In addition, if your organization deals with sensitive topics, the private nature may encourage participation. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation has a thriving network built for people living with and supporting people with paralysis.

Encourage supporters to leverage their social networks for alternative giving
Alternative giving is a fun way to turn awesome supporters into awesome fundraisers! Many nonprofits have looked at birthdays, weddings, graduations, and other personal events as opportunities to raise money in lieu of traditional gifts. Facebook Causes has taken this to another level by helping users ask their friends for donations instead of gifts with birthday wishes. Over $7.5 million has been raised so far, so encourage your supporters to create their own birthday wishes.

User Twitter Widgets to display updates on your website or blog
Bringing your social network onto your website or blog is a great way to spread content and attract new followers. Twitter makes this easy via Widgets – customizable objects that can be embedded on your website. The Search Widget is a great way to incorporate Twitter content about a keyword, hashtag, or your organization’s name on your site. They also have a Profile Widget, Favorites Widget, and Lists Widget you should check out.

Enhance team collaboration by scheduling and assigning tweets and monitoring
Most nonprofits don’t have the resources to monitor and respond to social media activity throughout the day. Tools like CoTweet and Hootsuite make it possible for multiple staff members to collaborate and schedule tweets from a single tool. This is great for pre-scheduling the delivery of planned tweets around blog posts, event reminders, and news, freeing up staff to focus on engagement (replying, responding, and reweeting).

Use video annotations for multiple calls to action
Getting your supporters to take action is a critical goal of most all social media activity, so never miss an opportunity. Using video annotations in YouTube is a great way to drive viewers back to a donation or sign-up page on your website. See how STILLER STRONG used annotations to create an interactive menu in their videos, and then learn how your nonprofit can use video annotations as calls to action. (Be sure to sign up for YouTube’s Nonprofit Program first!)

Extend your mission by leaving tips at check-in spots
Foursquare is becoming a great way for nonprofits to spread their mission around a local area. Tips can be attached to venues, and then displayed when someone checks-in there. For example, the Charleston Parks Conservancy uses tips to direct Foursquare users to nearby parks. (I’ve also seen environmental groups use tips to point out nearby recycling options and animal welfare groups promoting adoptions at pet store check-ins.) Get creative!

Tips for Remote Presenting

Financial Officers Group

View more presentations from Beth Kanter.

This morning Liz Karlin, who works at the Packard Foundation in Grant Operations, and I did a remote presentation for the Foundation Financial Officers Group on Organizational Change and Social Media Policy development. I talked about the change in workstyle that is needed before codifying a social culture through a social media policy. Liz gave a presentation on the process that Packard used to development its Social Media policy which is an important part of its an internal document called the “Communications Compass.”

There were some terrific questions and discussion. I’ve included some resources along with the slides here.

Since the meeting was taking place in Los Angeles, FFOG was graciously allowed me to present remotely with Liz Karlin. For someone with a hectic travel schedule, remote presentations are always welcomed. There is a huge benefit because you save time and travel money. The down side is the potential for technology glitches and, of course, not being in the room to catch the audience vibe. We got around those challenges quite well.

Avoiding Technology and Presentation Fail

If you are presenting remotely you need two things: a robust Internet connection and a moderator in the room who can serve as a bridge between you and the folks in the room. It is also helpful to have a back channel for communications with the moderator.

In the past, I have presented remotely using skype audio and video. Sometimes it has worked swimmingly like this one with Amy Sample Ward in 2008, other times not. Last year I audio-skyped into a conference in the UK to present with Steve Bridger. We had a very reliable Internet connection. Steve did a content delivery presentation right before and then brought me in via audio as a “cameo appearance.” We didn’t have enough bandwidth for video, so he projected my photo. I spoke for five minutes and then Steve served as the moderator and ask questions in the room and had me answer. (Here’s a video)

For the FFOG meeting, we used webinar software and landline because we didn’t know how robust the Internet woudl be in meeting space and because wanted to avoid poor audio quality which can happen with Skype. In the room, we had a laptop that was logged into a Webinar software projected on the screen so Liz and I could flip our slides remotely. For the audio, we use a phone line that was fed into the AV system and wireless mic. We had one person handling the technology and another person serving as moderator in the room. We had planned our presentation to include content delivery and facilitated discussion – and it worked.

The other challenge is the lack of feedback from the audience. When you’re live and in the room, you can observe body language and adjust accordingly. I thought we could use the chat back channel but since there was only laptop in the room we needed another system for backchannel communication. So, I asked our session moderator to use her cell phone and text me updates while Liz or I were presenting. The body language code was as follows:

! = audience is engaged (leaning forward in their chairs)
?= audience has questions or confused (puzzled looks on faces or raised hands)
x=audience is skeptical (legs or arms are crossed)
z=audience is falling asleep or bored (eyes are closed, they’re checking email or looking out the window)

It was great to get this feedback during the presentation and helped make it more effective.

My next remote apperance is at Blackbaud Conference on October 20-21st in Washington, DC as part of the keynote to be delivered live by Allison. To avoid technology fail, they had a video team create a video with me in Boston last week — it is a reality tv meets Networked Nonprofit presentation, where I’m wondering around Boston in the rain and conservationally giving talking points. During the presentation, I’ll be on the Twitter back channel following the #netnon hashtag from the Independent Sector Conference in Atlanta. Talk about multi-tasking.

What advice do you have for remote presenting?

Sep

2010

Category:

Content, Philanthropy, Tips, Tools and Tactics

Tags:

5 Comments

In Search of Bachelors and Philanthropy in Rural Alaska and Video Story Capture Tips

The Story

Last week, my adventure in Alaska started with a meeting with representatives from community foundations around the state of Alaska hosted by the Alaska Community Foundation. That’s where I met Joe Page from the Jessica Stevens Foundation who told me the amazing story about the Talkeetna Bachelor Society.

The Talkeetna Bachelor Society is a program of the Denali Arts Council, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. The Society’s fundraising activities benefit the Talkeetna Bachelor Society’s Fund for Women and Children in Crisis. The main fundraising event is the Bachelor Auction, where ladies in attendance may purchase, at fair market value, a feisty bachelor to accompany them at the Bachelor Ball. Anyone can purchase the “male order catalog” and the proceeds go to support the charity.

Quite a different charity auction ….

I couldn’t help but think – what if Joe Page or other community foundation board members had flip cameras, some video and story telling training and shared their stories on the Alaska Community Foundation Facebook page?

I was lucky enough to talk my host into driving me to Talkeetna so I could document this fabulous story. So I got into the car with Aliza Sherman who lives in Alaska who I’ve known since 1995 and with Cassandra Stalzer my host to take a drive up the highway to create this five minute documentary, “The Hunt for a Talkeetna Bachelor”

After a few hours on the road, we ended up in the middle of this rural town that was the prototype for Northern Exposure. We found our way to the local brew pub – Twister Creek and Denali Brewery at the foot of Denali. Joe Page met us in town and we reviewed the Bachelor male order catalog looking for a good subject to interview. After walking around town, we discovered that one of the bachelors, Todd Basilone, owner of Mountain High Pizza Pie, was at work. So, I did an ambush interview to ask him to share why community giving is important. I hope you’ll take the five minutes to watch the clip.

Some Tips

I love capturing and sharing authentic stories with video – either with my iPhone (email to YouTube) or the Flip Camera. No matter the technology, the process of capturing and sharing a good story quickly is the same. Here’s some thoughts:

From Nancy Duarte's new book, resonate

Don’t take a vacuum cleaner approach

With video, don’t try to capture everything. I use a technique I learned from Jay Dedman called “Moment Capture” where you get the most enlightening snippet. I usually reserve video capture for a special story or moment that absolutely can’t be told with text. Sometimes this occurs as a video quote from someone who said something that was an Ah Ha moment for me or else it tracking down a story.

If the latter, I have a storyboard in my head and edit as I go. What I have found extremely useful is Nancy Duarte’s new book, resonate: present visual stories that transform audiences. While it is intended for storytelling with powerpoint, I think the frameworks and templates she offers for narrative arcs are very valuable. It is so helpful to have these templates as you capture the story.

Photo by Aliza Sherman

The Technical Stuff

There are only four things you need to remember while shooting your story. I learned these back in 2006 from Robert Scoble.

1. Don’t frame your subject’s eyes in the middle of the frame, use the rule of thirds
2. Don’t shoot when you have backlight, your subject will be dark
3. Avoid ambient noise, find a quiet spot to shoot
4. Shoot close to your subject so the audio doesn’t suck especially when using a camera with built-in mic

Click to play

My colleague, Nick Booth, from the UK taught me a few tricks about doing on-camera interviews and capturing b-roll. But to be honest, I didn’t put those in practice until I had mastered Scoble’s tips with one-take video takes. That was four years ago when I was shooting video with my inexpensive digital camera and using the free program in Windows, MovieMaker to create videos. It’s much easier now with smart phones and the flip cameras.

Sharing the Story

Storytelling with social media, of course, is more than you and your subject with a camera. Social media is a great way to involve the audience in the story as it unfolds. Mark Horvath is a genius at doing this with his Invisible People TV site. There are many tools you can use to share the story as it unfolds in video and photo as Aliza Sherman has documented here.

What has been your experience telling stories with social media? What are your favorite sources, tips, and stories?

Aug

2010

Category:

Mobile, Networks, Tips, Tools and Tactics

Tags:

12 Comments

Facebook Place: Time To Check Into Your Facebook Privacy Settings

Source: Facebook Blog Post

Earlier this week, Facebook added “where” to the list of personal information members share with the world. There was much speculation what this feature might mean for FourSquare and the subsequent riddles, “What happens when you add Foursquare to Facebook? (Answer: Facebook).

I’ve learned now that when Facebook announces a new feature, it is a signal for me to check into my settings and make sure that I’m happy with the way the default works. Do I want the world to know my location (if I choose to use that new feature?) Do I want to give my friends the ability to share my location with others?

These questions (and others) prompted a discussion about privacy concerns. The San Francisco office of the American Civil Liberties Union asked whether Places has again left Facebook members open to privacy problems. In article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a privacy expert gives some good advice:

Parry Aftab, one of several Internet safety experts who Facebook helped develop Places as part of a volunteer advisory board, said the feature does include enough controls to protect privacy.

But Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.com, said people who use social networking and geo-location technologies need to learn what the controls are so they can protect themselves.

“If you’re going to play, it tells you what you need to do,” Aftab said. “If you don’t like it, you can turn it off. I won’t use it, but my guess is my daughter will. As we move forward and these things become more and more robust, the question is do you turn off new technologies that allow more interaction and sharing or do you make sure people are empowered to use them safely.”

I posted some resources and questions on my Facebook page asking for some how-to information and Debra Askanase shared this good tutorial link that she got from a tweet from Mari Smith. Here’s how to turn it off:

1. Go to privacy settings
2. Go to “customize”
3. Scroll to “things others share”
4. Disable “friends can check me into places.”

Are you using the Facebook location feature or have you turned it off?

Facebook is doing a live stream at 11:00 am PST and you can find out more.

Jul

2010

Category:

Experimentation, Tips, Tools and Tactics, Training Design

Tags:

10 Comments

How To Make Social Media Experiments Fun!

Arts Council of Silicon Valley Staff

This year my work as Visiting Scholar at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation includes training, coaching, and facilitating peer learning sessions for grantees on using social media effectively, becoming a Networked Nonprofit. It has been incredible laboratory to put the big ideas in the book in practice.

I’ve had the pleasure working with one of grantees in the Local Program, the Arts Council of Silicon Valley, to coach them in making the transition to being a Networked Nonprofit. There is a wide range of comfort levels and experience using social media on staff, including the social media gurus who manage the Artsopolis which is focused on marketing the arts in SV.

This is an interesting process of spreading the expertise and way of working to all parts of the organization. This is a fairly small staff, with limited resources. As we discussed the challenges of culture shifts, many of the concerns were around lack of time. The Arts Council’s leader, executive director Bruce Davis, came up a great idea. “Let’s make the process of experimenting fun – let’s start with a Facebook Friday.” Their experiment is going to be focused on deepening and improving their Facebook presence for the Arts Council and getting everyone on staff to participate. Stay tuned for more …

Sharing Some Facebook Friday Insights

I like to have fun experimenting and that’s just what I’m doing on my Facebook Page, a place for learning, and sharing insights about best practices in social media for networked nonprofits. I learn so much from the conversation threads and people sharing what they do. I’ve been remiss in summarizing some of the nuggets out here on the blog, so here goes.

Facebook Strategic Objectives

I asked folks on Facebook: “What is your organization trying to accomplish on Facebook with its Fan Page?“ Here’s a few answers:

To disseminate short stories that are unique to the fan page, as well as to link to articles on our websites. We are much more successful when the stories come with a blurb than when they are simply automated RSS-feeds.
To keep up with our friends, to empower them to tell their stories to the world, to find out what they need from us, to introduce them to each other, to offer mission-related action items, and to have fun.

Techniques for More Engagement

Someone said to me during a workshop a few weeks back – it really sucks to log into Facebook and see a two-star post quality ranking. This prompted me to post a question on my wall: How many of you Facebook Page admins notice your post quality ranking every time you visit? What I learned is that “drive by” analysis of metrics is really a waste of time. You need to grab the month’s worth of measures and look at them against your content.

Some folks have been puzzled by the Post Quality score which is determined by the percentage of your fans that engage when you post content to your Page. (It is calculated on a rolling seven-day basis… See More. The number of stars depends on how your Post Quality compares to similar Pages (for example, Pages that have a similar number of fans.)

Holly Ross simply ignores it and track the number of comments and likes on individual posts. Jon Dunn does something similar: “I prefer to really try to key in to what days were successful in terms of content. Understand why we had more new fans on a certain day. What about a certain post created that big conversation. Rinse and repeat.”

That particular wall post had 31 comments and 15 likes, way higher than other types of posts. Even better than the numbers was the knowledge nuggets shared. And, ah, I found the secret sauce: Simply Asking Questions That Allow People To Share Their Knowledge and Ideas sparks engagement!

Is there an App for that?

I have been wanting to test a poll app to see if having close-ended questions or running a poll might encourage engagement. So I installed this app and set up a poll “Do you think polls increase engagement? Yes or No?” Of the 43 people who took the poll, 89% said yes. Those who didn’t participate in the poll at all, but did on my wall asking for their feedback on polling apps said they didn’t like that the app asked for their personal information.

So, sometimes, the simple approaches work better.

A Couple of Useful Tools To Streamline Workflow

I asked an open-ended question “What are your Facebook administrator best practices?“ This produced a rich conversation on techniques. This was the first time I noticed people posting on the wall taking to one another, not me. The thread also includes some great nuggets about streamlining the content strategy as well as streamlining interactions with fans.

NutShell Mail is an software that aggregates comments and likes on your fan page and delivers it in one email. Manny Hernandez shared this link to a post about it.
Spredfast is a listening/content distribution tool. One feature that I like is that it will give you a list of the names of fans and how much a like/comment.
There is a way to link google analytics to FB insights.

A Couple of Good Facebook Links

I share about 2-3 really juicy how to links about Facebook a week. Here’s a couple that got the most likes or comments over the past month or so:

How To Contact Facebook for Help: Directory of Help Forms

Ten Cool Status Update Tricks

Be Careful Not To Violate Facebook Promotional Guidelines With Contests

Four Proven Steps to Facebook Page Success

Top Six Social Media Mistakes and How To Fix Them

Creating a Custom Landing Tab

Facebook Book For Your Desk

Finally, Mari Smith has co-authored a book, “Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day” – if you want one book about Facebook best practices that combines tactical and strategic – this is it!

Beth’s Blog

Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category

50 (More) Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

Tips for Remote Presenting

In Search of Bachelors and Philanthropy in Rural Alaska and Video Story Capture Tips

Facebook Place: Time To Check Into Your Facebook Privacy Settings

How To Make Social Media Experiments Fun!

Categories

Recent Comments