How can you make your nonprofit press releases social and shareable?

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.

Enterprising nonprofits should be eager to try something new to help your nonprofit stand out from the hundreds of traditional press releases that journalists and media outlets are bombarded with on a weekly or even daily basis. There is no proof these tips will help your nonprofit get more media coverage, but at the very least they will help your nonprofit’s press release get more exposure on the Social Web.

More via 11 Tips for Making Nonprofit Press Releases Social and Shareable | Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog :: A Social Media Guide for Nonprofits.

Our nonprofit constituents are empowered and we can’t control that

Consumers are absolutely empowered through technology now. That means our constituents are as well. It has happened and it is a fact. We can’t control that. Sorry to point that out but that is our starting reality.

Our constituents are empowered. They know it. Do we?

They know they have influence. Do we?

Our constituents know they have voice that is powerful. They know they have more power than ever before. Do we know that and act that way?

If you a member of the C-Suite or executive team, did you receive a report today alerting you to what your donors (members / volunteers, etc.) said about you on Facebook, your call center, Twitter, YouTube, Tumbler, Blogs, Pinterest, etc. (the list is ever evolving). Do you receive it every day? Do you get weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual summaries? Have you engaged with any of them personally yourself? If not, it is a reasonable why isn’t that important to you?

Even if we aren’t seeing it, other constituents (or potential constituents) are seeing what is going on. They are forming an opinion of us based on those comments. We can’t control what is being said. We can control how we will react in real time about it. We can control changing the experience in the future.

Say a constituent has a bad experience on your web site and they tweet about it. Do we think others have had the same experience and haven’t said anything? You bet they have. Do we think others will find the same thing and either say something or not in the future? Yes they will find it and yes they will say something or not. There is no hiding. If there is one horrible review out there, they will find it and not the 100 positive things others have said about us.

Nonprofits are beginning to listen to what is being said on social media and respond to it if they can. It does require a commitment of resources but it is not going away. More and more constituents (or potential constituents) are going to share the good, the bad and the ugly about their experience with us.

Have you started to shift resources into engaging on social platforms? How does that compare to your investment in your call center? Is your call center and social media center integrated in the approach you want your constituents to have? We have to manage our online reputation.

What are our constituents going to align with if we don’t first define the experience up front? What do we want them to be a part of? Now is the time to invest more in the experience rather than improve how the donation transaction occurs. Our future as nonprofits is in creating programs that scream out in splendor. It is about experiences that kindle meaningful and sincere interactions at every turn. At the center of our evolution (or is it a revolution) is the experience. The experience is everything now.

Are our nonprofit constituent experiences intentional?

What does the future of your nonprofit look like? Is it focused on your mission AND design?

The premise of this manifesto is all about being intentional about the experiences our constituents are having.

How many programs, products and services do you have? How many channels (Web, Social, Mobile, Call Center, Direct Mail, etc.) are you focused on? Do they all have a unified design and experience?

Mission + Design = Intentional experiences.

We are clear about our mission. Are we clear about our design?

If not, we aren’t ready to be the digital nonprofit of the future. If we aren’t ready to be a digital nonprofit, we aren’t ready for the future. If we aren’t ready for the future, will we be in business 5 to 10 years from now? Tough questions I know but worth considering.

So here are a couple more of intriguing questions:

• How do we ensure that our constituents are having an amazing experience?
• Why make constituents cope with the ordinary?
• Why aren’t constituents more engaged with both our mission and revenue opportunities?

Our focus and day to day work should be about creating “constituent experiences” in this new age of consumerism. What is going on in the rest of the “for profit” world isn’t lost on our constituents. They are judging us based on those experiences. We can bury our head in the sand. That will only get us left behind.

Consumers expect more from business (and hence nonprofits) than ever before. So our mission programs, products and services have a level of expectation that our nonprofit may not be aware of. The support of our contributors, members and volunteers have is not necessarily drive by our mission. It is driven by their experience at any company, for profit or nonprofit. How do we compare to USAA for example? Do we know?

Here is the harsh reality. They not only expect better experiences, they believe they are absolutely entitled to them. Will we be intentional in delivering on those expectations? Are we ready to get left behind with stagnant growth if we don’t deliver those constituent experiences?

There is a unique opportunity to create amazing and positive experiences at our events, on the web, at our call center (if you have one), on smart phones and in our direct mail pieces. Are all of those unified? Is the experience amazing?

That amazing or ordinary (or perhaps even bad) experience will be how our nonprofit is measured in terms of satisfaction or even our fundraising success. Do we know how our constituents feel about the experience they are having with us? If not, why not? Are we being intentional about that experience they just had at our event? Is it consistent with the experience they want on our web site?

You’re Doing Social Wrong. Your Teenager Does It Right.

It seems that everyone is freaking out about teens abandoning social media sites like Facebook. By “everyone” I mean advertisers. They’re racking their brains trying to figure out why it’s happening. If you’re puzzled too, read this lovely piece in Medium by Cliff Watson, who argues that the number one reason kids don’t need Facebook is that they “literally don’t need Facebook.”

After running through a host of theories as to why, including the fact that parents (ew) and even grandparents are on Facebook now, he comes up with a much more reasonable reason: Young people are gravitating toward messaging services such as Kik, and in doing so, they’re recapturing the intended meaning of social: “Making contact with other human beings. Communicating. Back-and-forth, fairly immediate dialogue. Most of it digitally.”

In other words, it’s not a post; it’s an exchange. Snapchat anyone?

Are you saying pretty please?

Dan Zarrella is a great thinker on social media. He mines massive amounts of data and bases his recommendations on hard science. This is relatively rare yet needed in the field of social media marketing, and so he’s well worth following.

He recently analyzed 2.7 million tweets and concluded the following that people retweet when they are asked nicely as part of the original tweet. Conclusion? If you have something you want people to spread, ask them – with a pretty please.

Does your nonprofit have a LinkedIn strategy?

Is your nonprofit a part of the LinkedIn phenomena? If not, it is time to have a discrete strategy for it’s use. It is evolving fast. Are you?

We are seeing the evolution of the LinkedIn platform in a move that is positioning it to become a central node of professional collaboration beyond an online identity. The company wants to draw additional web traffic, and by looking at the numbers it appears to have succeeded. According to the web traffic analyzer Alexa, LinkedIn now ranks as the 10th-most visited website in the U.S. and fourteenth internationally. Many of us in the recruiting industry have considered LinkedIn no more than a glorified resume database … granted, a very large resume database! But this influencer capability seems to be a game-changer to me that is drawing even more visitors to the site, and changing behaviors of how professionals interact. The effect has only sped up the rate at which unique profiles are being created to more than 200,000+ a day.

via LinkedIn May Become the Central Home for Collaboration – ERE.net.

Free eBooks for fundraisers and nonprofits from Network for Good

At the Network for Good, they generate lots of great, free content.

Their library of free ebooks for fundraisers is excellent. You can view and download the guides here. Learn about everything from mobile to social media to fundraising to behavior economics.

Some mistakes to avoid in online fundraising campaigns

An online fundraiser is an effective way to obtain money your charity needs to grow and thrive. Online fundraisers are more than just putting a big “donate now” button on your website and mentioning it a few times. Online fundraisers take work, and like everything else planning. Here are some mistakes you should avoid when running an online fundraising campaign.

More here: 10 Mistakes To Avoid When Running an Online Fundraising Campaign | Business 2 Community.

As a nonprofit leader, do you understand the benefits of personal use of social media?

As a nonprofit leader, do you understand the benefits of personal use of social media? There are many benefits both to your organization and professionally. While it may initially take some time to learn and acquire the habit, there are ways social media usage can make our time investment both more efficient and more fruitful.

“In my experience, I have found that by engaging on twitter, I have actually saved time. In the past, I made an effort to visit various blogs, websites, and other online information sources to stay apprised of my field (both philanthropy and the areas where the Irvine Foundation works). I have found that by following the right feeds, both institutional and individual, I get that same information more easily and, frankly, I am exposed to far more that I would never have found on my own. To be sure, it’s an investment of time, but I actually think it’s a more efficient use.” ~~Jim Canales, CEO of the Irvine Foundation

 

Should your nonprofit host a Twitter chat?

Did you know there are 400 million tweets generated every day and 50% of all Americans see, read or hear about a tweet daily? As you can Twitter has become a very popular and powerful social medium and can become a great marketing tool for a nonprofit. It can be used for customer service, public relations and a quick way to share key knowledge.

Another way your nonprofit can utilize Twitter is by holding a Twitter chat. By definition a Twitter chat is simply an interactive conversation ran on Twitter, held at a specific time on a specific topic.

To host a Twitter chat, you simply need a Twitter handle (eg. @yournonprofit), a hashtag, which is simply a dedicated hyperlinked keyword with the “#” in front of it (eg. #yournonprofit) and a pre-determined date and time. Aside from the time invested in planning and promoting them, Twitter chats are free on Twitter to do.

Twitter chats are a great way to have an organized conversation between a nonprofit and constituents on Twitter. They can be a great way to engage with donors and ask about their needs and wants and to announce a new service your nonprofit maybe offering.

For example, Apple may use the hashtag #iphone in a 30 minute Twitter chat to discuss with the Twitter community about new features on their newest smartphone and a way to have an open, transparent forum to discuss customer concerns and wants.

Twitter chats can be very affective in building loyalty on your mission or services but they need to be marketed ahead of time on other mediums such as in email blasts and on other social media channels. A spur of the moment Twitter chat probably won’t get the biggest following.