If you use Twitter for your nonprofit, you’ve probably been able to meet amazing people, form unexpected alliances and find relevant conversations that you wouldn’t have found anywhere else.

But there is one big problem with Twitter.

Tweets lose juice. Fast.

The graph above is a perfect example of a typical tweet’s lifespan. Born at noon, in the grave by 4 pm the same day.

Twylah gives tweets longer tails

Eric Kim is founder of Twylah, a tool that transforms your tweets into a custom fan page (see mine here).

With Twylah, your tweets are organized by the topics you tweet about the most and showcased on a single page where people can easily scan for content they find interesting.

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When nonprofits roll out a social media program, their tendency is to launch a presence on Facebook or Twitter and then treat them simply as new communication or marketing channels.

No, no, a thousand times no!

Of the 1.5 million charities in this country, perhaps 99 out of 100 go about using social media the wrong way, as a stand-alone tactic. The right way, as we tell our nonprofit clients, is to roll out a social media plan where all of the channels begin to work with each other in an integrated, aligned, complementary, strategic fashion.

Easier said than done, right? But one nonprofit that seems to be doing this well is worth a close look: The Hope Institute for Children and Families of Springfield, Illinois. It’s a midsize nonprofit that provides educational, residential and health services to children ages 5-21 with multiple developmental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorders.

Building out a digital marketing platform

I chatted the other day with Jarid A. Brown, who runs online interactions for Hope (which I’ll use as a shorthand here for the organization that runs education centers, residential services, a children’s home and a school in Chicago, among other things). Hope brought on Jarid 18 months ago to create a digital marketing platform.

“Our first task was to decide how to make the website, social media, event marketing and direct mail all work together,” he said by phone. “Because they weren’t. We had a traditional information-based website, all very technical and clinical with no opportunity for people to interact. It was basically a very thorough online brochure with no considerations of marketing.”

Jarid set about making changes. Hope began to integate Australia-based Prosper, a customer relationship management database, into its email marketing and event marketing activities and began using Constant Contact for email marketing. Most importantly, he made sure that social media, direct mail and events put on by Development all began working in tandem.

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Over the past few weeks, Nokia held the first Apps for Change contest, inviting people from around the world to suggest a mobile application to benefit society — which Nokia has agreed to develop. The winners also get to steer a $10,000 contribution to a nonprofit organization.

Some 302 submissions were fielded from people in 53 countries. I was one of the judges in the contest (along with Jussi Hinkkanen, Peter Hirshberg, John M. Jordan and Juliette Powell), and we’re now announcing the winners.

The winning entry was Red Heart, submitted by Sana Refai and Kamel Seghaeir of Tunisia. The entry put it this way:

This application will help you to generate your blood donor’s networks. In case of emergency, you (or someone else) activates the search of your nearest person in your blood donor’s connection (GPS Localization) and contacts him to come give you help. By installing the application, you precise your blood group. When you add a new entry, the application decides whether your connection can be a donor or not according to her/his blood group. The application can be extends from a private network to a public community by creating a website gathering all blood donors worldwide …

We liked the idea of a mobile app being at the center of a process that brings together hospital or emergency workers and volunteers in the community in a way that benefits accident victims through the use of geolocation services. Such an app could allow a wide range of individuals in desperate need of a blood transfusion to find compatible donors in their geographical area. While Kamel and Sana’s app could be useful in developed countries, perhaps its greatest value could be found in developing economies, where mobile phones are ubiquitous – but advanced blood transfusion services are not.

Honorable mentions: Using the crowd to carpool — & more

The judges also singled out three other entries for special recognition:

• Seamus Maguire from Ireland submitted an idea for an app designed to increase the use of carpools, and thereby reduce an individual’s carbon footprint. Using such a mobile app, the user could view other nearby users in need of a ride.

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Socialbrite, the learning hub & sharing community for nonprofits and social good organizations, is looking for a part-time Executive Editor.

This is a highly collaborative position that requires someone with serious editorial chops who is familiar with the nonprofit landscape and can hit the ground running.

At the outset, the hours will be sporadic and the compensation modest. Our intention is to gradually build up your hours and your compensation. Socialbrite accepts no advertising, so all revenues comes from consulting projects we perform for nonprofits and social enterprises. We are a small consultancy, not a nonprofit, and work exclusively with nonprofits, foundations and social change organizations. We do not have an editorial staff but instead rely on our team members’ contributions and unpaid outside freelance pieces.

In this position, you will:

• Plan the editorial calendar
• Work with outside contributors to whip their articles into shape to conform with our editorial guidelines
• Be responsible for upkeep of our evergreen resources, such as our Sharing Center
• Work with our team members to edit and code up their articles
• Work with strategic allies for content sharing
• Monitor metrics
• Exercise a high degree of independence and report in to founder J.D. Lasica
• Post updates to our Twitter and Facebook accounts
• Help drive conversations on the site
• Write occasional pieces relevant to our audience, as you have time.

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Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, public speakers, educators, NGOs, general public.

Idon’t know what it is with us PR folk, but we like to use words, phrases, analogies that evoke destruction when we put our rah-rah hats on.

“Sizzlin’!”

“Crush it!”

“Kill it!”

We’re a bloodthirsty lot and happy to be so.

Today, I wanted to share seven lessons I learned as I prepared for a big presentation at Ignite DC. These tips go beyond the commonsense “know your audience,” etc. They are also a testimonial to Jill Foster, who served as my unofficial coach for Ignite, because she really underscored the importance of what I’m about to tell you.

What is your story?

1I envy speakers who have the perfect anecdote or joke ready to warm up their audience … because I usually don’t. They begin with a short story that they come back to at some point in the presentation that bears out the point they’re trying to make.

Even if you don’t have a funny story, I learned it’s important to set the stage for your story, and to tell the audience what they can expect over the course of the presentation.

This doesn’t mean you have to go into every detail. But you can take 15 seconds (that’s how much time each Ignite slide was allotted) to go through the top three or four “sign posts” on the journey they are about to take with you.

So write – yes, write – out your story arc. Where will it begin, where will it go, and where will it end? Then start filling it in.

Time yourself

2One of the most important things when you’re about to give a presentation is to time yourself.

The Ignite format is more tightly timed than others (5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide). Most conferences allow somewhere in the region of 40 – 50 minutes for your entire presentation. That includes Q&A, which is often the most interesting part of the session.

That means your presentation itself should be no longer than 20-25 minutes. The only way you’ll know if you’re hitting the mark is to time yourself.

There are a couple of ways to do this.

First, and most basic, use a watch or stopwatch to time yourself from start to finish. That way, you’ll get a sense of how long you’ll be carrying on.

Second, and I think a better way to do it, is to use the “custom slideshow” option in PowerPoint (which is still the most frequently used presentation tool), to set a specific time for each slide.

On a Mac, which is what I use, you go into “Slide Sorter” view and then set the time for each slide (assuming they are the same) in “Transition Options.” On a PC … you’re on your own, sorry!

Then practice to your timed slides. You’ll know where you’re going long, and where you need to add more content or banter.

Once you’re comfortable with your story and its timing, I suggest removing the timing from the slides, because you have no way of knowing when the audience will interrupt you. If they do, then it’s disconcerting to have your PPT proceed on its own without your accompanying commentary.

Identify the core message of your presentation

3While this might be one message, it could take the shape of two or three phrases that are central to your story arc.

For example, in my Ignite presentation, these were “humanity,” “the future” and “ball of light.”(You’re wondering just what the heck I was talking about now, aren’t you?)

This helps because, first, it will help you identify the most important moments in your story arc, which might help you with No. 1 above.

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Building a website is for your nonprofit is not as hard as some people make it seem. As we’ve said before, we recommend using a self-hosted WordPress.org installation over one hosted at WordPress.com because you can take advantage of thousands of free plug-ins created by the WordPress developer community.

You may want to hire a developer to set up your blog if you have nobody on your team who’s technologically proficient. But often, you can execute all of these steps on your own.

Generally speaking, there are nine steps to getting started:

1. Pick your domain name. Picking a domain name will be one of the most important decisions you’ll make. Selecting a domain name for your organization that’s compelling and easy to remember will take patience and creativity.
 
2. Decide where your site will be hosted. There are many differences between a WordPress.com blog, which is free, and a WordPress.org blog, but in summary, you want to go with WordPress.org. WordPress has a great list of hosting providers that support WordPress — and there are literally hundreds from you can choose from for a modest monthly cost.
 
3. Install WordPress. Most reputable hosting companies offer a one-click install of WordPress as demonstrated in this video.
 
4. Settle on a theme. A theme is essentially clothing for your website. It dictates the overall look and feel, as well as some of the functionality of your site. Check out these important considerations to help you choose a theme.
 
5. Establish your permalink settings. The default permalink structure in WordPress relies on the post ID — basically, a number — which is not recommended if you want to get found when someone is searching on your topic. Instead, choose a permalink structure that is keyword rich, like categories and post names. Watch How to Create SEO-Friendly Permalinks to learn how to configure these basic settings.
 
6. Add essential plug-ins. Plug-ins are add-ons that enhance the functionality of your nonprofit WordPress site. Check out this good list of essential plug-ins.
 
7. Create basic pages. WordPress pages are different from posts. Start with the basic pages first, such as an About page, a Donation page, a Volunteer page or a Subscribe page. Draft some text and add in images as desired.

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Remember how, in the old days, folks would call on others and, if they weren’t at home, they’d leave their calling card behind?

Even in this highly electronic day and age, there’s still room for business cards. But are you maximizing the use of your most basic calling card? And that’s nothing more than your email signature.

We all suffer from email overload – I’ve long since stopped counting how many emails I get in a day. Even when I’m not working or on vacation, I use my BlackBerry to delete unnecessary emails from my inbox, in an effort to keep on top of the traffic (sigh, it never stops!).

But I also know that when I send an email out, it’s a unique way to remind others of what I do, particular affiliations I have and things that are important to me.

Here are three tips to maximize your email signature as a marketing tool for yourself, your cause or your organization:

Proclaim yourself

1You normally include your contact information in your e-signature, right? Why not include hyperlinks to all the relevant data you think people should have access to? For example, these could be your website, blog or Twitter handle.

Job hunting? Make sure you include a link to your updated LinkedIn profile or VisualCV. Do you have a business to promote? How about linking to your Etsy site or another storefront?

If it’s in your signature, it’s right there for the recipients to click through to, yet you’re not hitting them over the head with it.

Add a visual touch

2Go one step further and add some visual pizazz to your e-signature; and a terrific way of doing this is by using a program such as WiseStamp.

What’s cool about this is that you can actually embed the hyperlinks rather than simply include them, and you can also include select social profiles such as Twitter, SlideShare, etc. at the bottom of your signature. For example, here’s mine:

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Advocating for the homeless from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Mark Horvath on invisiblepeople.tv & wearevisible.com

If you haven’t come face to face with the plight of the homeless, then you need to have Mark Horvath drape his arm around you and introduce you to invisiblepeople.tv and wearevisible.com.

Mark, who goes by the handle @hardlynormal on Twitter, is a former broadcast journalist who lost his home to foreclosure along with his production equipment. His site invisiblepeople.tv does a great job telling the stories of homeless people through classic man-on-the-street interviews, updated for the new era through his use of hand-held camcorders, such as the Flip cam.

“Authenticity has replaced production values” in importance, he says. He cautioned cause organizations not to create storytelling that’s so slick and polished that it becomes fabricated, leading people to become detached.

He says he “anti-branded” the site so it’s not about himself, but rather, “it’s about Jim and Sue and Popcorn and Grandpa and the story of the homeless people out there.” I’ve been so impressed with Mark’s work that I typically showcase it in our series of Socialbrite bootcamps on social media around the country. (The next camp: at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in New Orleans on June 5.)

A citizen activist, Mark has a big idea that the nonprofit community ought to heed. “I think we need to get rid of the term ‘donor’ and call everybody ‘friends,’” he says. “We really need to think of our supporters as friends because it’s a relationship.” Social media is what has turned nonprofit-donor relationships into a peer-to-peer relationship of equal partners.

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo

Wearevisible: Helping homeless people empower themselves

“I never would have imagined a farmer would donate 40 acres of land to be used to subsidize food for low-income families in a public school system in Arkansas,” he says. Yet that’s one of the remarkable things that’s happened as more people are getting involved in the cause.

Last year Mark launched wearevisible.com, a site funded by a Pepsi Refresh Challenge grant to help homeless people learn how to use social media in down-to-earth ways.

Mark and I chatted during a brief break at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington, D.C. I’m sure I’ll see him soon, at an event or on a nearby street corner.

Check out the backstory of Mark’s efforts in this Invisible People Project Trailer on YouTube.

Project Night Night’s Causes Fundraising Project page.

New Facebook tab spotlights impactful projects on Causes

Guest post by Susan Gordon
Causes

Causes has just released a fundraising tab for Facebook Pages, which is great news for nonprofits that have been investing in Facebook but struggling to find the right fundraising solution for that audience. It’s also a huge opportunity to bring your social media community into the inspiring fundraising campaigns you’re running through other channels. So far this year, $3 million has been donated to Causes fundraising projects, and nonprofits of all sizes, budgets and missions are finding they are the most effective way to do online fundraising.

To add the tab to your Facebook page, you can follow the step-by-step instructions on the Causes blog or follow these simple steps:

• Go to www.facebook.com/causes, log in to Facebook and click “Add to my Page.”
• Go to your Page and click Causes in the left sidebar.
• Click the big green “Get Started” button, where you’ll be able to find your nonprofit and add it to your Page. The default tab will look like this:

If your nonprofit would like to customize this tab, add videos/photos, price points, etc., create a Causes Fundraising Project and your tab will look like the one at the top of this article from Project Night Night. (See? If your nonprofit does not have a Causes Fundraising Project, your page will look like this.)

Free, customizable, socially enabled donation pages

In addition to being able to feature a project on your Page, Causes Fundraising Projects are free, customizable and socially enabled donation pages that nonprofits can promote through all their social media channels. Fundraising Projects help nonprofits tell inspiring stories of impactful projects ($10,000 for a school, $2,304 for a scholarship, $54,000 for a rally, etc.) that motivate supporters to donate. After each donation, donors are then asked to promote the project to their networks of friends and family on Facebook. Causes also provides back-end donation tracking and follow-up tools to help you build relationships with donors in the Nonprofit Partner Center.

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