April 18, 2013

6 ways to optimize calls to action in your blog posts

Be clear, optimize and analyze for great impact

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, marketers, Facebook users.
When you think about calls to action on your website, you typically think about landing pages. For example, your donation page or your email sign-up form.

But how often do you think about the calls to action in the blog posts you’re publishing each week?

Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s get one thing straight:

The chief purpose for your website is to encourage people to act. Whether it’s making a donation, joining your email list, signing a petition, or changing a habit, the purpose of your website is to encourage actions.

Here are six simple ways to improve the calls to actions in your blog posts: Continue reading →

April 17, 2013

4 reasons why blog post titles matter

blog-titles

Photo courtesy of adt610 (Creative Commons)

Do blog post titles (or headlines) matter? They do. A good title attracts more readers. A good title helps with search engine optimization (SEO).

Here are four reasons why titles matter. Share your tips in the comments section below! Continue reading →

April 16, 2013

Nonprofits, online giving & secrets from the Obama campaign

Highlights of 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study (infographic)

This is the second of two articles on NTC 2013. Also see:
• Highlights of 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, educators, journalists, general public.

Every year, Socialbrite takes a look at the annual study of online nonprofit trends put out by the communications firm M+R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network. This year, we waited a couple of weeks after the report’s release to hear directly from Madeline Stanionis, creative director of M+R, who dissected the annual survey of the nonprofit sector at last week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis.

The 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study offers the sector’s only in-depth look at how nonprofits fared with email marketing, online fundraising and nonprofit advocacy over the past year. The report studied data from 55 generally large nonprofits in the environmental, health, human rights, international and wildlife and animal welfare sectors. As I’ve said in the past, a study of 55 large organizations — which sent 1.6 billion emails to 45 million list subscribers and raked in more than $438 million online donations during 2012 — is hardly representative of the 1.5 million mostly small nonprofits in the United States. Still, the trend lines are worth examining. Continue reading →

April 15, 2013

Highlights of 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference

ntc crowd
At the NTC session on social data (Photo by JD Lasica).

And tips on how to reinforce habits for social good

This is the first of two articles on NTC 2013. Also see:
• Nonprofits, online giving & secrets from the Obama campaign (the 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study)

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, educators, journalists, general public.

Last week’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in Minneapolis was the fourth NTC I’ve attended in the past five years. I spoke twice at last year’s event, but this year I had the freedom to roam the hallways in search of interesting people and ideas that are shaping the nonprofit sector.

NTEN’s NTC serves an invaluable role as the one central gathering spot for the nonprofit community — a place where those of us involved in the sector (I run Socialbrite, a leading social media consultancy for nonprofits) can see friends and colleagues, keep abreast of new trends and, most importantly, encounter smart, interesting, passionate people we haven’t met before.

Oh, and I took a few photos, as usual. Here’s my 70-photo set on Flickr.

Highlights from the Nonprofit Technology Conference

There were far more interesting sessions than I was able to attend, so here are just a few takeaways that I managed to scribble down:

• Kathryn Engelhardt-Cronk, at lunch: “Storytelling without data is just an anecdote. Asking people to donate on the basis of anecdotes – those days are long gone.” Continue reading →

April 11, 2013

25 SMART social media objectives

How nonprofits can use SMART goals to chart impact

Guest post by Beth Kanter
Beth’s Blog

Using SMART objectives for nonprofit communications strategies is not a new idea. Spitfire’s useful SMART chart planning tool has been used by many nonprofits over the years.

SMART Objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely objectives. The Aspen Institute’s Continuous Progress blog points out they come in three flavors:

Tactical: Tools and techniques
Results: Money, time, or other tangible result that can be converted
Capacity: People, content, workflow, learning Continue reading →

April 10, 2013

Create a winning promotion for your Facebook page

Sweepstakes, deals, contests & more as a way to stoke engagement

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, social media marketers, Facebook administrators.

Guest post by Mike Gingerich
Tabsite

You’re on Facebook because you want engagement, right? But you don’t want engagement purely for its own sake.

You want to be on Facebook because an engaged Facebook community translates into more leads, more donors, more customers & more sales for your nonprofit or business.

Put simply, more engagement means more volunteers, subscribers and donors. Research data reported by Vocus notes that 79% of Facebook fans are more likely to purchase from a brand they have liked. Thus, pursuing more fans and deeper engagement with existing fans is a valuable priority. Continue reading →