Nonprofits

Top Ten Social Media Resources

January 25, 2014 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

We’re pleased to share our latest “top ten” collection of social media resources – a carefully curated list featuring a valuable mix of tools and checklists, practical guides, and insights and case studies from leading industry pros.

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Top Ten Resources:

1. Facebook Marketing Goals for 2014 – Now more than ever, success in Facebook marketing takes strategic planning and execution, and a working understanding of the many tools and resources Facebook makes available. In this post, Jon Loomer does a great job in identifying, outlining and explaining 14 key Facebook marketing goals for the new year. A great resource. >> READ MORE

2. Three Questions to Answer Before Your Social Media Campaign Launch – What is the objective of this campaign, what are my key performance indicators, what does success look like? This post from Ignite Social Media provides a valuable walkthrough of these three important questions you should ask and answer before launching any new campaign. >> READ MORE

3. The Social Experience: 12 Leading Brands & Visionaries Explore the Elements of Great Social Programs – Social media leads from Whole Foods, RadioShack, Caterpillar, ARAMARK, HomeAway.com, and industry pros such as Jay Baer and Ann Handley provide valuable insights in this free e-book from Social: IRL partner, Spredfast. A highly recommended download covering issues such as content marketing, building engaged communities, social customer care, and converged media strategies. >> READ MORE

4. Ten Tips for Reputation and Crisis Management in the Digital World – In the online era, it becomes critical for businesses of any size to have a social media crisis management plan – or even better, a crisis prevention plan. In this post, Ekaterina Walter discusses some key ways to avoid social media disasters, prevent them from escalating, or even to handle things if everything goes sideways. >> READ MORE

5. Influencer Outreach and Employee Advocacy – One of Social: IRL’s most popular interviews from 2013, features our in-depth discussion with Walmart’s Senior Director of Digital Communications, Chad Mitchell. Chad shares valuable insights on creating meaningful influencer relationships and outcomes. He also discusses the power of employee advocacy and steps Walmart is embarking on to engage, activate and empower their associates. >> READ MORE

6. Digital Transformation and Disruptive Trends: What to Watch in 2014 – As we’ve headed in to the new year we’ve been bombarded with the typical “predictions posts.” Two we would recommend come from Altimeter’s Brian Solis and Charlene Li.

In his post, Brian shares his agenda for 2014, with some key issues around social business, customer experience and digital transformation. >> READ MORE

In her post, Charlene discusses disruptive trends she is watching in 2014, and shares thoughts on the implications for organizations and actions they should take. >> READ MORE

7. Social Pros 100th Episode – Convince & Convert President and Youtility author Jay Baer, recently celebrated the 100th episode of his popular Social Pros podcast. This 50 minute Google Hangout features great conversation and valuable insights from Jay and special guests including Brad Walters from Lowe’s, Jessica Gioglio from Dunkin Donuts, Vanessa Sain-Dieguez from Hilton Hotels, and more. Highly recommended viewing. >> VIEW VIDEO

8. Digital Marketing Lessons Nonprofits Can Learn from charity: water – charity: water, a nonprofit that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations, is leading the way when it comes to redefining nonprofit marketing; they are exceptional at inbound marketing, focusing on creating powerful content to inspire people to join their cause. This post from Beth Kanter’s blog shares nine valuable marketing lessons from charity: water that other nonprofits (or really any business) can take and apply in their own organization. >> READ MORE

9. Building an Audience-Centric Content Distribution Strategy – To fully harness the power of content distribution, brands should shift from serving internal executives with branded key messages to serving journalists, influencers and advocates with relevant information focused on the end reader. >> READ MORE

10. Monitoring and Measuring Social Media: A Practical Guide – Eight practical applications for social media monitoring are highlighted (with examples for each) in this presentation from Social: IRL partner, Sprial16. Applications include competitive intelligence, industry research, market research, lead generation, customer service, crisis management, and campaign monitoring. >> READ MORE

Nonprofit Solutions Conference: Get Ignited, Create Impact, Be Inspired.

October 13, 2013 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

Social: IRL has been proud to invest in the regional nonprofit community, working with a group of sponsors and partners to host an ongoing series of social media for nonprofits workshops. To date over 800 nonprofits have participated in this free training opportunity.

A valued partner in hosting workshop events in the Kansas City area has been Nonprofit Connect, a membership organization that links the nonprofit community to education, resources and networking, so organizations can more effectively achieve their missions.

October 21-22, Nonprofit Connect will host their annual Nonprofit Solutions Conference. This two-day conference designed specifically for the nonprofit sector, offers a valuable opportunity to learn alongside passionate nonprofit professionals and community leaders who are looking for new ways to advance their missions and bring about change. The conference theme sums up today’s current nonprofit needs… get ignited, create impact, be inspired.

Being familiar with many of the speakers on the two day agenda, and with the agenda covering many issues critical to continued growth and future success of nonprofit organizations, we highly recommend this opportunity to the many nonprofits we have connected with through our own workshop series, and to all nonprofits in the Midwest region.

To view the full event agenda and lineup of speakers and experts, visit the event website. Register using enter discount code “NoSoCo-Feehan” and save $50.

Text-to-Give: Is There a Better Option for Mobile Fundraising?

February 5, 2013 by Ben Smith 2 Comments

Guest post by Dale Knoop, CEO of Social: IRL sponsor RAZ Mobile, a Kansas City-based startup that helps non-profit causes, campaigns, and candidates better engage a new generation of supporters via the power of mobile and social media. The post is published in response to attendee questions submitted during the course of Social: IRL’s ongoing nonprofits workshop series.

We’ve seen the terrible pictures and videos on TV and the Internet when a natural disaster strikes. It’s at times like this that millions of caring individuals respond to the call to action to donate to the victims of these tragedies via their mobile phones. They text a keyword such as “Sandy” or “Haiti” to a short code such as 90909. A $5 or $10 donation is then billed to them via their mobile carrier bill. This so-called text-to-give tool is a great vehicle for fundraising but it has many limitations that make it a less-than-favorable option or, in a majority of cases, completely off-limits.

Let’s run through a few of the biggest limitations of text-to-give as a mobile donor engagement and fundraising solution.

Not open to everyone:

Text-to-give is not open for nonprofits that have less than $500,000 in annual revenues, because the carriers have set this as their rule for who can use text-to-give. Most charities operate on far less than $500,000 per year.

Donations are limited in dollar amount:

The carriers cap donations at a low amount in case their subscribers don’t pay their bill, since this is how the money gets collected from a text-to-give donor. I understand their economics but if I want to give more through my mobile phone I should be allowed to. In effect, the wireless carriers are setting limits on a transaction between a caring donor and those in need.

No donor information is shared:

Other than the donor’s mobile number, nonprofits that use text-to-give don’t get any information about the donor, such as name, street address and email address. Text-to-give doesn’t help nonprofits build and grow a base of supporters. Instead, it treats donors like ATMs, which is precisely the reason many donors stop giving.

All nonprofits should seek to become the favorite cause of their supporters. Studies have shown the path to becoming a favorite involves educating them and sharing information with them on your work rather than simply asking for money all the time.

This is impossible if you don’t know who gave to you using text-to-give.

High cost:

Text-to-give can be very expensive for those nonprofits that meet the carrier rules for who can use it. Keywords like “Sandy” or “Haiti” can cost a few hundred dollars each month. The carrier and the aggregators can take a sizable chunk of the donation and you may face per message fees as well.

In disaster situations where text-to-give is used, the carriers have agreed that they won’t charge their normal per donation fee. But if you’re not a disaster and simply trying to keep a food pantry stocked, the carrier and the aggregator will take their normal cut.

A long wait for your money:

Since text-to-give relies on people paying their wireless bill, it can take 90-120 days for you to see the money donated to you through text-to-give.

There are also stories from nonprofits that have used text-to-give that suggest actual fulfillment rates can be in the single digits. For example, if 100 people donate to you with text-to-give you may see less than 10 donations actually be delivered to you.

In many instances, when people see the name of a charge on their bill that isn’t the name of the cause they donated to, they ask the carrier to remove that charge.

No fast set-up:

Depending on how you proceed with text-to-give it can take months to get going. There are other solutions that can have you up and engaging and fundraising in a day.

In summary:

There are superior solutions for mobile donor interaction and fundraising that don’t have the many impactful limitations of text-to-give.

According to a January 2012 Pew Internet report, completing an online credit card form is virtually the same in appeal as text-to-give. Donors will make donations by entering their credit card information into their mobile phones.

As with any solution the pros and cons must be weighed. In the case of text-to-give my suggestion is to ensure your nonprofit focuses on creating a great mobile experience and let donors give as much as they want without the wireless carriers in the middle. Your supporters will reward you with higher engagement and that in turn leads to higher fundraising potential.

Social Media for Nonprofits: Highlight Video from Jefferson City, Next Stop St. Louis

January 17, 2013 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

Thanks to our friends at The Rocket Group for producing this highlight video from our recent nonprofits workshop in Jefferson City, MO. Our next workshop is coming up in St. Louis MO, on January 22. There are still a few seats available, and as always the event is offered free of charge for nonprofit attendees. Including the St. Louis event, over 700 nonprofit attendees will have participated in the workshops. A special thank you to our speakers and sponsors who help make it possible to continue offering the workshops as a free service for the nonprofit community.

Next workshop: St Louis MO, January 22. Learn More

Is Your “Give” Mobile?

December 21, 2012 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

Guest post by Dale Knoop, CEO of RAZ Mobile, a Kansas City-based startup that helps non-profit causes, campaigns, and candidates better engage a new generation of supporters via the power of mobile and social media.

“Give.”

At any time of the year, this simple four-letter verb carries a lot of weight. At year’s end, it becomes a mission-critical request for nonprofit organizations that combine it with “please” to create an opportunity for holiday generosity and last-minute charitable deductions.

Americans do a lot of giving. It’s 2 percent of GDP. Giving by individuals is the third largest industry in the nation, behind Uncle Sam and banking. And amazingly, today 75 percent of that individual giving is transmitted using the U.S. Postal Service.

Unfortunately, postal rates continue to rise and subsidies for nonprofit use of the USPS will likely be amended or could be eliminated entirely. Realizing the diminishing returns for “snail mail,” non-profits are being challenged to find alternatives to direct mail for soliciting and collecting donations.

“Give” is finding more and more power on the Internet, and fundraisers and donors alike are thrilled with what they see. But as we look back at 2012, there’s something missing to the “give” Internet presence: mobile giving via smartphones.

Sometime soon, when no one is looking, the number of smartphone Internet sessions will surpass the PC and never look back.

Giving a look ahead to 2013, you can see what’s driving this trend. More than half of all Americans have smartphones, and those numbers are growing exponentially. People of all ages (and especially millennials) live on their smartphones, and if your “give” isn’t there, then it’s got no power.

Mobile giving is capable of so much more than simply the cell phone carrier’s text-to-give product. Today’s web-based technology for mobile giving offers massive scale and provides nonprofits with vastly superior means for anywhere, anytime donor engagement and brand building. At the same time, today’s platforms provide immediate access to funds instead of waiting on the carrier for 90 days or longer with text-to-give.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, today’s web-based mobile-giving platforms offer nonprofits the opportunity to dramatically lower fundraising costs while also raising the lifetime value of the donor by making easy to give when the impulse strikes.

“Give” wants and needs a new home on smartphones. Will 2013 be the year you go mobile and put your “give” where your donors live?

Five key lessons learned: Social media’s impact on CFCA marketing strategies

December 17, 2012 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

Guest post by Shanxi Omoniyi, online content manager at Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA). Founded in 1981, CFCA has grown into a movement of more than 250,000 sponsors who are supporting more than 300,000 children, youth and aging friends worldwide.

Here at CFCA we’re blessed to have an organizational strategy that is extremely open and flexible to the potential of social media.

We believe in the power of community, and one of the best ways to illustrate that is through our social media team.

The team spans several departments but has one goal: to support our marketing efforts by providing a welcoming space where sponsors and potential sponsors can build community, receive answers to their questions, and hear more about our work.

Here are some of our key learnings over the years:

1) Personalize wherever possible.

We hear great stories every day of lives being changed through CFCA’s work in developing countries. These are the stories that get the most views on our blog, retweeted most on Twitter, and shared and liked most on Facebook.

Even in blog posts when we’re running a list of “how-tos” or “Top 10 things to remember about sponsorship,” for example, we’ve found that it’s essential to feature a picture of a sponsored friend in the post.

Often your headlines are the most widely read part of your content. Therefore we’ve tried to personalize every blog post headline, tweet and Facebook post.

Sometimes this just involves asking questions: “Why isn’t my sponsored child smiling in photos?” or “What happens when my friend leaves the sponsorship program?”

At other times, it means using pronouns like “you” and “your.” A good rule of thumb is to try to think of your headlines as if they were to appear on the CNN home page – would you click on them?

2) Encourage your supporters to help you.

We have the best Facebook fans in the world! Whenever we ask them to take action on our behalf, they’ve regularly gone above and beyond by liking, commenting and sharing our posts with their friends.

In 2010 we tried a new approach to helping children in need by posting their pictures and stories in a Facebook photo album. In the post, we encouraged our fans to share these albums with their family and friends.

Because Facebook is such a visual medium, photos are one of the most highly shared items. Over the last two years, more than 80 children, youth and aging people have been featured on Facebook and sponsored.

Photo albums are also a fantastic way to keep your supporters posted because you can regularly update the photos. When you do, everyone who has previously liked, commented or shared the album will receive an update.

3) Create a hub of great content to support your Facebook efforts.

When we began cross-posting our blog posts to our Facebook wall, we noticed an increase in our blog audience almost immediately.

Additionally, our blog posts also increased our Facebook presence, creating a relationship of mutual encouragement and support.

The CFCA blog has now become central to our social media strategy, where great content is produced and then shared across a variety of platforms such as our website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.

4) Take time to express your appreciation.

Sometimes Facebook pages respond on their wall only to negative comments or comments that ask a question.

While this is better than not responding at all, I strongly encourage Facebook page administrators to respond also to positive comments.

Sometimes just a “Thank you! We appreciate your support” is all it takes to make a commenter feel special and valued. And after all, we want more of those positive posts appearing on our Facebook wall, right?

Tip: Under Facebook’s Account Settings, you can toggle the “Notifications” settings so that Facebook will email you anytime someone posts to your page’s wall or leaves a comment.

5) Get organized.

For us, a Facebook editorial calendar is an absolute must. It helps reduce writer’s block and keeps us focused on learning how best to serve our audience and how often to call on them.

So far the best experience for us is to post twice a day at most, in the morning and afternoon. It’s a delicate juggling act to know when and what to post, but this has worked best for us in our experience. Also, weekends can be our most responsive times for Facebook posts.

Another tip is to reach out across departments to help with your community outreach. The CFCA social media team started in the Communications department, but we’ve realized over time that social media doesn’t belong to just one person, department or office.

We share updates about Facebook at our weekly community meeting, which includes all departments at our Kansas City headquarters – finance, child services, information systems and more.

Hopefully many of these thoughts will coincide with your own social media experiences. Now it’s your turn! How has social media affected your organization’s awareness and marketing efforts?

“Social Giving” – The integral role of social media in fundraising and donations

December 11, 2012 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

To outline the growing popularity of social giving, MDG Advertising developed an in-depth infographic that covers the gifts, groups, and givers engaged in digital donations. From the most popular platforms and profitable tactics, to the growth of online movements and the rise of the crowdfunding culture, check out the following infographic to see how social giving is really paying off.

Infographicby MDG Advertising

Social Media Marketing: Storytelling in 140 Characters

December 5, 2012 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

Guest post by Jessica Best, Community Director at emfluence, a full service interactive marketing company based in Kansas City.

In the last half of 2012, buzzwords like “content marketing” have been flying around and industry articles tell us to think more like publishers instead of like marketers. No longer can we simply share our product, its price and where to buy it. Our products solve problems. Our services provide solutions. And when we are great it, it makes for good stories. That’s what social media marketing is really about.

But how? 140 characters isn’t even enough for an introduction to your first chapter… Is it? The Salvation Army recently used a single tweet to tell a story and draw donors into their mission.

Telling a great story in just 140 characters >> READ MORE

Social: IRL Nonprofit Workshop Series – A “Thank You” To Our Sponsors

November 1, 2012 by Ben Smith 1 Comment

Over the last few months, Social: IRL has hosted social media for nonprofit workshops in Springfield and Kansas City, Missouri, and will soon be announcing additional workshops in Jefferson City and St. Louis, Missouri.

These events have been offered free of charge to nonprofit attendees as part of Social: IRL’s ongoing education and advocacy initiative.

Offering the events at no charge has only been possible thanks to the support of our series sponsors.

We wanted to extend a special thank you to each of our series sponsors. Thank you Spiral16, emfluence, RAZ Mobile, and The Rocket Group. In Kansas City, we were also fortunate to form a partnership with Nonprofit Connect and the Philanthropy Midwest Conference, and look forward to working with them on future training and education opportunities.

A special thank you to MasterYourCard, who support the series as our presenting sponsor:

MasterYourCard is proud to be the presenting sponsor of Social: IRL Social Media for Nonprofit Organizations. Master Your Card is a public education campaign by MasterCard that helps consumers, businesses and governments get more for their money by mastering the technology behind electronic payments. Although MasterCard is based in New York, its heart is right here in Missouri. The heart of their work is safely processing millions of transactions a day from all over the world. And, every one of those transactions happens right here at their facility in St. Louis, Missouri. We invite you to learn about the safe, simple and smart financial solutions available from MasterCard through its electronic payment network. Visit masteryourcardmo.org for more information.

Thank you again to each of our sponsors. These events would not be possible without their support.

You can learn more about MasterYourCard and how they can help empower your nonprofit organization by watching this short video.

Startup Profile: RAZ Mobile – Helping Non-Profits Better Engage a New Generation of Supporters

September 4, 2012 by Ben Smith Leave a Comment

RAZ Mobile is setting out to help non-profit organizations better engage with their supporters via the power of mobile and social media.

Their recently launched mobile marketing platform enables any non-profit organization to create a full-featured, customized mobile website in a matter of minutes. The sites integrate seamlessly with social media channels and incorporate secure donation processing.

As supporters move to the mobile web and engage in social media channels, it’s important for non-profits to evolve along with them and pro-actively engage their supporters where they are most active.

Social: IRL recently spoke with RAZ Mobile founders Dale Knoop and Brad Kropf to learn more about their Kansas City-based startup and how non-profits might benefit from using their platform.

You can learn more about RAZ Mobile by visiting their website, or connecting with them on Twitter or Facebook.

Update: Since this post was originally published, we have been pleased to welcome RAZ Mobile as a new Social: IRL sponsor.

Could you please share a little about your background – who founded the company and why?

RAZ Mobile was founded by Dale Knoop and Brad Kropf and they each have a deep background in mobile data services. Among them both are dozens of patents and the idea for RAZ Mobile stemmed from their desire to help non-profit organizations deal with the coming donor cliff. Most donations currently come from direct mail and most of these donors are of an older demographic profile. Our goal is to drive innovation into the non-profit space, help them reach new donors, and ultimately benefit those in need.

What is the key non-profit challenge you’re setting out to solve, and what type of feedback have you see as you’ve started introducing RAZ to regional non-profits?

We talked about the coming donor cliff. Nothing beats having a mobile presence when it comes to donor engagement and fundraising.

The great thing we’ve seen in the first month we’ve been in the market is the phenomenal response from causes. They’ve seen their own mobile sites on their phones and, from their own experiences with the sites, quickly understand the need to add more mobile-friendly channels for communication and fundraising.

We’ve got some very traditional non-profits coming on board and we were amazed at the speed at which they started talking about tactics for using RAZ Mobile in what they do today.

Besides creating a mobile optimized experience, what other benefits does the platform offer non-profits?

In addition to having a mobile optimized experience to share with supporters, non-profits can also process supporters’ donations in a matter of seconds. RAZ Mobile is priced so that causes can afford to experiment with a low cost solution and refine their tactics and strategies. Creating an app is both expensive to build and to maintain. Carrier-billed solutions can cost up to 50% of the donation made and the cause doesn’t know who the donors are. RAZ Mobile was designed to solve all these challenges and make giving easy, secure and quick for donors since they don’t want to pinch and swipe your PC site on their phone. Research says they’ll give up. In the time it takes to even find the Donate button on their PC site, with RAZ Mobile your donation could have been made and a receipt already sent to your inbox.

Could you share a little about the technology involved?

RAZ Mobile is a cloud-based solution which uses the browser to render the cause’s mobile site. Under the hood are several hundred thousand lines of code and links to social media like Facebook and Twitter and a growing suite of reporting tools.

We chose RAZ Mobile to be a browser-based solution in order to achieve the largest scale for our clients. We also use industry standard credit card processing technology in order to ensure the maximum speed of donations going to our customers and a high-level of security for the donors.

There are, of course, other mobile solutions being offered. Could you tell us what sets you apart? What unique user-benefits is RAZ Mobile able to bring to the table?

RAZ Mobile makes donations super easy and fast for donors making repeat donations. At the end of making your first donation a donor can create a secure PIN to store their credentials for future donations, making all future donations to any cause using RAZ Mobile just a few taps on their smartphone.

The other two aspects that set us apart are a commitment to service to our clients and making sure that our product for both causes and supporters is simple and yet incredibly powerful.

We actually have a client who evaluated several other solutions that are out there now and they chose RAZ Mobile. We are really honored to be selected and we think others will see the same thing.

It’s been just a month since RAZ Mobile launched. Could you give us a quick review of initial progress and where things go from here?

One month since launch we’ve got a handful of clients using RAZ Mobile and many more coming. Each of them has significant efforts in other channels like print and digital and they easily see the need to use RAZ Mobile to add the mobile channel to what they’re already doing today.

We’ll have some great stories to share soon and the cool part about what RAZ Mobile offers is an easy way for any cause to educate their supporters on an ongoing basis, anywhere, anytime and when donors give there’s someone in need who will benefit. That’s a great thing to support and we are very excited about the future for causes who are really worried about the age of their donors and the coming problems with our postal service.

We also have some amazing technical enhancements coming that are going to further advance our reputation as the leading innovator in the mobile engagement and fundraising space. We’ll be announcing them as they happen. Some will involve some great partners so we’re pretty excited about what’s to come. We have a full pipeline which includes some patent pending features.

Social Media for Non-Profits

July 30, 2012 by Ben Smith 2 Comments

Last week, Social: IRL hosted our second non-profits workshop at the Kansas Humane Society in Wichita, KS.

The event saw 65 non-profit attendees from across Kansas and Missouri come together for a day of shared learning focused on the potential of social media as a powerful integrated marketing, communications, and relationships platform, and a tool to drive positive action from supporters.

Social: IRL would like to thank our sponsors who made it possible for non-profit organizations to participate in the workshop free of charge. Thank you Cox Communications of Kansas, Delta Dental of Kansas, Colab Digital, UMB, Shay Chic Events and Design, Northstar Comfort Servicers, and The Arnold Group.

We would also like to thank the speakers who helped create a valuable learning experience for our attendees, and left them both inspired and empowered. To quote attendee Marcia Mater with Oral Health Kansas, “Thank you for an exceptional learning experience. My academic and professional experience is in communications… public awareness, organizational design and education. I came into the seminar knowing the elements and concepts of social media. What the speakers helped me realize is the interaction of the various elements to create a new approach to designing a communication system.“

The day’s agenda featured Eric Melin with Sprial16, Ben Smith with Social: IRL, Maria Loving with Via Christi Health, Katie Grover with Fidelity Bank, Jessica Best with emfluence, JD Patton with Armstrong Chamberlin, and Jennifer Campbell with Kansas Humane Society.

Finally, a very special thank you to our hosts, the Kansas Humane Society, who graciously provided their facility for two non-profit workshops and more than 150 non-profit attendees. We are inspired by the hard work and dedication consistently displayed by the staff and volunteers at the Kansas Humane Society and thank them for the service they provide to the Wichita community.

Our next non-profits workshop will take place in Springfield, Missouri, on August 23, and will again be free for non-profit attendees.