Non-Profit Chas

This week, I marveled at the power of social media:

• I posted a blog article about Laws of Client Work that got some link love, resulting in some nice traffic, new subscribers, and great connections.
• On eduStyle I got feedback from other higher ed web folks about some of our recently launched Notre Dame websites, revealing some browser quirks our team needed to fix.
• Brazen Careerist featured one my posts on their homepage, introducing me to new readership.
• Several of my friends and followers posted links to my stuff on Twitter, leading their followers to suddenly begin following me.

  How to take advantage of the social media attention

  1. Meet new followers. When I get a comment on my posts or a new follower on Twitter, I check out their profile or website. If they’re interested in me, I might be interested in them.

  2. Subscribe to your new friends. I like to give a trial run on new blogs and twitter users… if I follow a user, it’s because I am want their contributions – not just another number on my profile. Twitter isn’t about a high score to me. If it doesn’t work out – if I find myself skipping past their content regularly, I’ll unsubscribe.

  3. Listen. As I wrote in Shut Up and Listen to the Internet it’s easy to find conversations pretty much in real time. If you’re an active member of the community, no matter how small your role, you can be better prepared to respond if you know what’s going on.

  3. Participate in the conversation. I try to post responses in my comments, but I also make an effort to comment on the new blogs I’m trying out. My network grew a little bit, and it helps to strengthen those new ties by reaching out.

  4. Follow up with new, contextually relevant content that offers some value. My social media post did fairly well, so now I’m following up with my suggestions on what to do with it. It’s the second half of the story.

  5. Suggest something else. I always hate landing on a blog with a fantastic article and then discovering that they’re a one hit wonder. I might want more of the same. If you have other good content, offer a route to those posts or that might interest your visitors. I added my table of contents page as a way to do that, but I’m already planning on reworking it to better introduce new visitors to my blog. I love the “related posts” approach on sites like RailsTips.

  Keep the momentum

  The biggest tip of all is that you have to be consistent and maintain your momentum. You’ve done a lot of work to build your network and brand so far, so don’t let it slide by taking a month off and disappearing. Keep writing, keep networking, and keep the conversation going.

In my first job, I worked with a big healthcare client. They had built a new building and spared no expense. We worked with them to create a unique, powerful online community for their patients to communicate with doctors, staff, and each other. They would maintain an online journal (before the word blog was popular) and customize their experience. It was a social network for cancer patients. Six months and a lot of money later, we launched the site.

Nobody used it. Two years (and a lot more money) later, it still hadn’t been used.

Why? The client didn’t have time to mess with it. They never distributed logins to their patients. They never promoted it. They simply didn’t give it any attention. Eventually, it just disappeared.

Social media are just tools. And like any tool, you have to know how to use it, what it’s good for, and what it’s not good for. And as with any tool, you can come up with creative, unintended uses that might do the trick.

I caught myself feeling a bit disappointed today when I realized that I hadn’t really invested myself in a particular LinkedIn network. I don’t go back to check for posts, network with people, or create new content.

Then I thought about the dozen other social networks I don’t check regularly. LinkedIn, Ning, and Facebook groups… I can’t be the number one contributor on them all. Plus writing for two blogs, Tumblr, and Twitter. I’m spread so thin across the Internet that I don’t really have any effect in any of those places.

The question isn’t “should I do social media?”, but rather “how should I do social media?” And the answer is “as well as I can manage.”

Sasha Dichter wrote a fantastic Manifesto: In Defense of Raising Money

I’m sending this to all of my board members and encourage you to take 10 minutes to read it.

I hinted at this in my posts about Blog Action Day and What All Those Fundraising Books Don’t Tell You.

The difference between success and failure isn’t smarts or money. It’s not your logo or your office or your website.

You’re not more successful because you’re not doing more.

All the fine tuning, testing, strategic planning, and seminars won’t do you any good in a vacuum. Those can take you from 80% up.

But going from 0 to 80% is easy – it’s just a matter of taking action and doing something.

As 37 Signals often says, If it works, do more. If it doesn’t work, do less.

We stopped our strategic planning because it was a distraction from doing the work. We weren’t at a stage where extensive planning sessions were helping us. We didn’t have our house in order. We weren’t actively fundraising and marketing our programs. We weren’t collecting the right information. We couldn’t even speak intelligently about our financial picture.

So we hit “pause.” Six months later, we feel much more secure about all facets of the organization. This winter, we’re starting our strategic planning again.

GOYA

My designer friend Oak taught me this acronym: GOYA. It means “Get Off Your Ass.” Sometimes I set it as my desktop background just so I have a constant reminder (download the wallpaper) to myself that I need to put up or shut up.

So your challenge each day is to accomplish something that helps advance your mission. Call or visit a donor. Write a thank you note. Make a quick decision and execute.

I’m embarrassed to admit that Camp Fire doesn’t take online donations. In preparation for an appeal letter, I decided to buckle down and set it up. I’m going to use PayPal because we already have a PayPal account and it’s a quick way to take online donations without a lot of hassle.

How to Accept Online Donations

1. Sign up for a PayPal account, or sign in if you have one.

2. Go get a donation button:

Generate a button using their button wizard or grab the code and modify it manually.

3. Place it on your website. I created a donate now page I can use (and continually tweak) as a landing page. I also added it to the homepage and sidebar of our website so it was available from anywhere.

4. Options (beyond 5 minutes): I also took advantage of the custom thanks and cancellation page options to set up thank you messages and direct any abandoned donations back to our site. I wanted these to be in my control, not left to a generic message from PayPal.

5. Add conversion goals to your Google Analytics account. You do have analytics, right? Set one goal for getting people to your donate page and another goal for having them visit your thanks page (because they actually donated).

PayPal vs. Other Options

In the future, I’ll look to streamlining the process and moving as much of the form into my own site. I’ll let someone else continue to handle the transaction – I don’t want to store or even see credit card numbers. But I want as much of the experience and layout in my control as possible.

I’ve also looked into other services like Network For Good but the fees are higher. There is a trade-off, though – more customization, reporting, and fundraising tools. As we develop our online giving and have some expectations on volume, I hope to move to something more powerful.