Some of your best learning on social media occurs when you just start clicking around and see what happens. That’s how I discovered three of the four functions below and when I give in-person trainings on Facebook and demonstrate these functions (with the exception of hashtags since the functionality was just launched last week), there are usually quite a...
This blog post officially launches the research stage of writing my second book which will be published and shipped in Spring 2014. A follow-up to Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits, this book will place much more emphasis on using social media and mobile technology for fundraising. That said, I am very curious how social...
There absolutely is a math to social and mobile media. If your nonprofit has a good content strategy in place and understands the power of integrating all your nonprofit’s communications channels (website, email, Facebook, texting, etc.), then as your numbers grow on social networks so will your e-newsletter and mobile lists which in turn significantly increases your fundraising success. It’s...
Over the last two months I have opened more than 200 pieces of nonprofit print materials and 95% of them are in the same format and structure of those that I was writing and publishing in the late 1990’s. Like press releases, print fundraising appeals and newsletters seem to be taking little account for the rise of social and...
Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits was released in August 2011 and despite the rapid change occurring on the Social and Mobile Web, 90% of the content still rings true. The functionality of the tools discussedhave changed slightly, dimensions have been tweaked, and Google+ Pages, Pinterest and Instagram have since become relevant when launching a successful...
Seemingly less than 1% of nonprofit have upgraded to YouTube’s new One Channel design, but even fewer appear to be utilizing YouTube’s new InVideo Programming option. If you haven’t spent any time recently exploring YouTube’s enhanced tool set, I’d highly recommend that you set aside an hour or two to upgrade to the new design, add InVideo Programming, and...
Google’s strategy of making Google+ the thread that links all Google Products together is working. Google+ can now lay claim to 359 million active monthly users and the title of being the world’s second largest social network. If your nonprofit uses Gmail, Search, YouTube, Maps, etc., then you can’t avoid having a presence on Google+. Currently in Beta, YouTube just...
And yet another reason why your nonprofit can not ignore Google+… the Google Knowledge Graph which now prominently features information about nonprofit organizations on the right-hand side of Google Search results. Data is pulled from multiple sources including Wikipedia, GuideStar and of course Google+ Pages. As a result, nonprofits must ensure that their Wikipedia Page and GuideStar Profile are current and...
Social media has forever changed how nonprofits and journalists distribute and consume news stories, yet the format of nonprofit press releases has not evolved at all. Almost every communication medium out there has been impacted by the rise of social and mobile media, but not press releases. I think that enterprising nonprofits would be eager to try something new...
Until recently the nonprofit pioneers of the Social Web had to mostly rely on their intuition that their social media campaigns were resulting in more dollars raised online, an increase in brand and cause awareness, and higher rates of volunteer recruitment and retention. However, as LinkedIn, Blogger and Myspace all celebrate their 10-year anniversary this year, nonprofits have now...
My e-newsletter is by far the driving force behind Nonprofit Tech 2.0. Those 27,000+ subscribers produce more return on investment (ROI) in terms of bringing in new clients and webinar attendees than my 600,000+ Twitter followers and 40,000+ Facebook fans combined. And even though a recent report pointed out that email open and donor response are dropping in the nonprofit...
At least 15% of all traffic to nonprofit’s websites now occur on mobile devices and across all sectors mobile is set to surpass desktop browsing in 2014. Over the last few years as I have studied the rapid rise of the Mobile Web, I have become more of an advocate of launching a responsively designed website over launching a mobile site separate from...
Hopefully your nonprofit has grown accustomed to the fact that Facebook is a constant work in progress. That said, some recent upgrades to Facebook Pages have a big impact upon your nonprofit’s presence on Facebook and with the site-wide launch of the new News Feed and Social Graph Search coming soon, many more changes are likely to come. Before you fall...