Charity and Social Media: Does Corporate Make it Crass?

I just read this great blog post, Social Media and Charity: Philanthropy or Crass Opportunism and wanted to comment on it and hear from others.

Well I appreciate the author's point, I think she's commenting more about corporations being involved in social media on behalf of charities rather than charities themselves. There are many other ways charities are involved with social media then just selling t-shirts on the Internet.

But it does raise the question? When does social media for your organization become less about connecting and more about marketing? Or is it intended as a marketing tool only?

Since I'm not every charity I can't answer that question on behalf of them but I do believe that social media can be used as more than just improving a brand. I think it allows the opportunity to connect with donors and raise funds as well.

I have to say, I'm not sure how I feel about this Feed America/Tide partnership. On on hand, a lot of money has been raised for the organization, but on the other, Feed America isn't getting the opportunity to promote themselves. The t-shirt is all about Tide and almost gives off a sense of bragging rights as if they need to shout to the world they are do-gooders.

So what do you think, good idea or misstep?

And what do you use social media for?

What is Effective Design?

Today we have a guest post, the wonderful John Lepp from Idea Design. He so graciously agreed to write a guest post about effective design, especially as it relates to direct mail.

What is Effective Design?
by John Lepp

Thanks to Lindsey for asking me to write a guest post on her blog.

I asked for some ideas on a subject matter, one of which was “What is effective design?” A favourite subject of mine. It’s a favourite because if you asked 100 designers what makes design effective you will likely get 100 different answers.

To me the answer is simple.

Results.

I design to get results, not look pretty (although sometimes I hope it is pretty too!)

Let’s look at direct mail.

Once I read over the creative brief and read through the letter, I like to have a chat with the writer and make sure I understand what is the core of their messaging. My job is to create an envelope that will get opened.

As you can imagine, even if the letter inside is from God Himself, if the donor doesn’t open the package – what does it matter? (In which case I would typeset simply – ‘Letter from God inside’ - maybe I would BOLD God.)

I have to get people in that package, and it might be pretty or it might be ugly, but it depends on the subject matter and being appropriate to the audience and the charity.

Being appropriate is a large part of what makes design effective. If your donors are old – do not use 9pt type. If your charity raises money for environmental issues – do not design a package with 5 inserts, an 8 page letter and a bunch of freemiums… I know it seems like a no brainer – but trust me – I’ve seen it – and it is obvious me to the designer (or someone) is not thinking.

I honestly believe that any marketing and communications a charity does needs to push people to do something. It must have a clear call to action. That makes it effective.

And if it effective, it will have the results to prove it.

Budgeting for Social Media Part Two

In a discussion with @alexbono about my last blog post, Budgeting for Social Media, I realized that I missed out on mentioning several important things to budget for, so I'd thought I'd add them here in this post.

When budgeting it's also important to recognize the skill level needed to set up and operate social media tools. While many social media tools seem fairly easy to create, if you want to add a personal touch, it will take certain skills. There are two main areas to examine:

Design
Most social media sites come with a typical design (or if it's a blog, a series of templates). If you want to modify them to include your logo and design, then you will need someone with graphic design/CSS abilities. A perfect example is this blog. While, currently I'm using a template, eventually I will be moving to a design of my choosing. As I don't have the skill for that, I'm relying on my business partner. If you have someone in your office who has the skills to make the changes, then that is great. If not, you will have to outsource. And of course, there are costs associated with that.


Content
Another important issue is content. As mentioned in Ten Things a Nonprofit Should Do Before Setting up Social Media, it's important to determine who's writing the content you put up before you start any social media tool. If this is something you can do internally, remember to weigh out the costs of that person taking the time to write it. Content also doesn't just mean the written word. If you have videos or photos, you need to assess who has the ability to create/post these and what the costs associated with them are.

Putting together a budget for social media will definitely save you some time in the long run and give you a better idea of whether social media tools are viable for your organization.

Budgeting for Social Media

How to do you budget for social media? In fact, do you have to budget for social media? Isn' the majority of it free?

A budget is more than just money and it's important to develop an accurate one to keep on track.

What goes in a Social Media Budget?

Time

This is the most important thing to include in your social media budget. One of the perks of social media tools are that the majority of them are free. But are they really? Once you factor in the time it takes for someone to complete the social media tasks, the cost goes up.

Example: Let's say you have someone posting a blog post every day who gets paid $25 an hour. If it takes them an hour to write a blog post, then:

5 hours a week x $25 an hour = $125 a week

It's important to determine what the true value of your time spent on each social media tool is to better understand whether the tool is a viable option for your organization.

Professional Development

New social media tools pop up everyday. There are also new applications for your existing ones. Setting aside a professional development fund is crucial. Whether the social media user attends a conference, buys a book or just takes time to learn new things, it's money that needs to be allocated.

Future Costs

Although it seems a little unnecessary to plan for costs that aren't actually in your budget, I recommend having some money set aside (if possible) for future costs. What if that great social media tool you've been using suddenly makes people pay for it? Some social media tools, like blogs have the ability to purchase 'premium features' that enhance it.

Technology
Another thing to consider is the technology costs. If you look at your current technology and realize that you need to upgrade, costs are going to be incurred. Knowing from the outset whether you need certain technologies for certain social media tools will help you avoid panic down the road.

Budgeting for social media is extremely important and will help sustain any social media program you implement in your organization.

Update: After getting some great ideas about things I missed, I will be posting a part two tomorrow!

Ten Things a Nonprofit Should Do Before Setting Up Social Media

Social Media is definitely an effective tool for nonprofits to use. However, before you jump into the pool, what are the things you need to do first?

1. Determine your message
What are you trying to say? Do you have more than one message? Develop a short paragraph that encapsulates what you want to say and continually reference it as you work on social media tools.

2. Determine who your audience is
Who is your audience? Are they tech savvy? Creating a plan to enter the social media arena is irrelevant if none of your audience will follow you there. Consider surveying your donors to determine how they want to hear from you.

3. Develop goals
What do you want to achieve from social media? Donations? Awareness? Determine your goals and remember to keep them handy as you progress.

4. Determine the exact ROI you are expecting
This goes hand in hand with #3. Get specific about the return on investment you are expecting. If you want donations, what's the amount? If you are looking for new supporters, how many?

5. Research and determine which social media tools work for you
There are multiple social media tools out there. It's important to determine which ones work for you. Signing up for everything isn't going to be the best use of your time.

6. Create a strategy
Developing a strategy for your social media activity is extremely important. You need to determine what content you want to create and where you want to put it.

7. Create the analysis method
What's your method for analysis? It's important to track what you do on social media tools so you can examine whether you are achieving the ROI that you want.

8. Determine the main contributor as well as the sub contributors
Who's writing the content for your social media sites? Is it the same person who's posting them? Are there more than one person contributing? Hashing this out ahead of time will make the process flow much smoother.

9. Develop content ahead of time
Create some of the content you need ahead of time so you aren't scrambling to find something to post/write about everyday.

10. Develop response procedure
What's your procedure if you recieve a negative comment from someone? Or even a positive one? Determine how you handle questions and comments from your audience.

Twitter: One Thing New

I discovered over the weekend that I have 85 followers on Twitter. Although that seems fairly impressive (at least to me anyway, I know people have hundreds), I realized that I barely knew any of them. Yes, a few of them are my friends or various people I met, but the majority of them I don't know too much about. So I'm on a quest to learn something new about all of my followers.

I read a blog post last week (lost the link otherwise I would share) that was talking about connecting with your followers and learning something about them.

So I thought I would do the same! Starting Monday, I will be asking my followers to tell me One Thing New about them.

I will keep you updated on my progress on Twitter and on the blog.

I encourage you to find out One Thing New about your Twitter followers and share it on this blog or on Twitter.

I will be using the *hashtag #onethingnew so feel free to post using that as well! Let's see how many new things we can learn about our followers!

*What is a hashtag? That's a tag that you can add on your Twitter message that groups messages together. You can then click on it and see everyone else who has posted with the tag as well.

What do you want to know/learn?

I'd like to get some feedback about various topics/issues that people want to see discussed on this blog? Is there something you would like to know that just isn't being covered?

Also, any feedback you are willing to give regarding the look and feel of the site would be greatly appreciated. I am continuing to make tweaks here and there.

When Twitter Becomes a Distraction

How many people find themselves constantly distracted by Twitter every day? Is it stopping you from doing actual work?

The answer is Yes and No.

Twitter definitely has potential to make your organization shine. It's a great way to get your news out there, meet with donors and solicit donations. You can discover what people think about you and get a real sense of your community.

That being said, Twitter can sometimes become a distraction that takes you away from other important things.

How did this happen to me? Well, as a writer, I am constantly at the computer, working on projects for clients, blog posts, articles and more. My use on Twitter has exponentially grown. I have 85 followers and I am following 118.

That's alot of people to follow! As a result, I got an application called TweetDeck which allows me to sort my followers by category, making it easy to manage. This is a great tool and I highly recommend it. However... it makes a little 'ding' noise every time you get a tweet. Useful? Maybe. Annoying? Yes, especially since the people I follow tweet alot during the day.

I eventually had to shut it down during times when I was writing so I could concentrate.

It's important to balance the time you spend on Twitter, actually using the tool the way you need to use it. Really examine your time at the end of the day and assess whether that time you spent on Twitter was worth it.

The Communications Triangle

In a previous blog post I talked about connecting with your donors, and it will be a subject that is brought up over and over again. Connection, along with vision and voice, is one of the main aspects that make a great communications piece.


Therefore, I present the Communications Triangle. It's pretty simple to understand, but at the same time, realistically it can be hard to achieve all three sides of this triangle.


So what do I mean by each of these?


Vision


Before you start any communications piece, you need to address the matter of vision. What do you want to achieve from this project? What impression do you want to make? What are your goals from this communication piece? It's important to determine these areas, so that your vision can be fully realized.


Voice

What are you trying to say with this communications piece? Who is it coming from? Are you being statistical or sentimental? And does your voice match with your target audience?


Connection

Who is your audience and how can you connect with them? That is the ultimate question. Whether it's through sharing stories, sharing facts about the organization or more, remembering to connect is one of the most important things you can do.

It's important to remember to have each of these pieces in equal measure. Only then, will you have a great communications tool!

This post was inspired by a great communications piece, from http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/.

Check it out here:

News Roundup-Mar.1

I was away for the weekend and came home to a plethora of articles and tweets. I sorted through, and foudn a few good ones. They are all social media related (of course) but definitely interesting and useful! Hope they help!

Social Media Promotes Your Business

A Blog is Your Home, Twitter is Your Happy Hour

And Now, Twitter Philanthropy