Gain insight from your key supporters to ignite sharing activity

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

Technology has blessed your community with more sharing power than ever before. The ability to retweet, like and pin with increased ease is what helped launch the slactivist movement.

Even though sharing has gotten easier, getting people to share still feels like pulling teeth.

So how do you get people to share your content? Here are five mind-shifts to remember:

Start with your database

1The people who are most likely to share your content are in your donor database and email list. Before you waste time trying to target specific audiences on Facebook (which you can easily do), make sure you’ve worked your database first. They are better spokespeople for your cause than you are.

Become one of them

2If you’re thinking on some level (even subconsciously) that your job is to get people to do something, stop it. You can’t make people do anything – especially if they don’t trust you.

What you can do is find the people who are already talking about your cause, and join their conversations. Quite naturally, on their own terms, they’ll accept you as one of their own.

Respect the blogger

3Don’t hire an amateur do a mass copy-and-paste blogger outreach campaign. Instead, create a strategy that truly motivates them to share your campaign with their audience.

Keep in mind that bloggers are in it for the long haul like you are. When the campaign is over, don’t disappear. Continue to demonstrate your sincere interest in their blog with comments and retweets.

Think about how you share

4Think about the last time you shared a video on YouTube. How did you share it? Did you email it, tweet it or post it on Facebook?

More importantly, why did you share it? Was it funny? Did it make you angry?

You can better understand the research about viral content if you look at what motivates your own sharing.

Huddle up with your 1 percent

Photo by arizonarepublic (Creative Commons)

5If you haven’t already, begin to identify your champions. Create a private venue using a Facebook Group so that you can deepen your connection with these folks. When it’s time to launch a tightly defined fundraising effort, they’ll be ready to go.

What makes your community share?

The post How to get people to share your content appeared first on Socialbrite.

Or, why your organization needs a content marketing strategy

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, businesses, Web publishers, educators, journalists.

You understand that there’s more to engagement than simple small talk. You also understand that when folks are truly engaged, they tell their friends about the good work you’re doing, which is much more effective than if you told their friends.

So who’s doing a good job of creating an engaged community with content? Here are three examples:

1The American Cancer Society has created an entire community around achieving victory over cancer by talking about “creating a world with more birthdays.”

2Share Our Strength hopes to end childhood hunger by 2015. This mission is immediate, heartfelt and simply stated. Their people talk about the line they’ve drawn in the sand.

3Epic Change is talking about gratitude – not about their organization – and why you should donate.

Creating a content marketing strategy

Here are a few thoughts on creating a content marketing strategy. Please (and I do mean please) add your ideas in the comments.

• Understand why they donate. The real reason. Not the one your board talks about.
• Understand why they tell their friends. Maybe donating to your cause makes them look more altruistic?
• Know what’s engaging the customers of your competition. Is there something they’re saying that’s not being heard?
• Talk to your employees. Beyond the paycheck and benefits – what’s the real reason they show up every day at 8:30 am?

• Talk face to face. Have coffee with some of your customers. Get to know their whole lives, not just the pain points you address with your product.
• Polarize. Can you sincerely talk about your beliefs to an extreme? Think Greenpeace and the GOP.
• Use your divining rod. Find bloggers who are already passionate about what you do. How are they talking about it? How engaged are their readers?
• Plan. Map out why certain conversations matter and how you’ll start talking.
• Be sincere. People can tell if you’re real. Make sincerity a key element in your strategy.

What else? Please add your thoughts below.

Related

• How to build a sustainable community (Socialbrite)

• The most powerful social media tool out there. Period! (Socialbrite)

The post Are you building an engaged community with content? appeared first on Socialbrite.

Facilitate, share — and enlist your members for help

This is a guest post I wrote for the Online Community Report.

Ilove my community. Whether I’m talking about my role at NetSquared, my blog, or my network of friends, I am inspired every day and find value in, and rewards for, my participation. Regardless of whether I feel like, or am trying to be, a community builder, the community always provides opportunities for others to join me. These spaces are built on distributed power and that makes the community a moving, growing, living thing that I am a part of, rather than a weight, trouble, or burden that I’m responsible for.

But, it ain’t easy. Being a Community Builder (I refuse, on principle, to use the word Manager) is a lot of work. So, how do you do it without losing sleep or sanity?

Here’s my 3×3 to Sustainable Community Building.

1. There are no shortcuts

Lead by example
Interact, use tools, and create and share content the way you want your community members to do so. Seeing you leave a comment, or share a resource, will model the desired behavior so others can see what to do (especially if they are new to social media or new to your community) and how to do it (especially if they are new to your tool or platform).

Operate in public
When it comes to “administrator” or “moderator” activity, always conduct it in public unless it requires or involves personal information. Don’t send a private welcome message – do it in public so others can benefit (they too can see, join in, and find someone new)! Don’t remove or edit contributions, but leave a comment to suggest how they can be improved. If there’s offensive or inappropriate behavior, note it in public so others can learn what’s OK and what isn’t, and feel empowered to help moderate as a community.

Ask for feedback and help
Asking for help or ideas means that 1.) you trust the community, 2.) you know that your community is valuable and smart, and 3.) you are interested in collaborating (not dictating). Don’t be shy about it – post blog entries or conversation starters, share your own feedback (operate in public), and provide places for the community to share ideas or feedback at any time (not just on specific ideas or proposals).

2. Know your community

Let the community know itself
Working in networks means that the “center” (that’s you) is no better than any of the other parts. You don’t have all the answers, all the information, all the best jokes. So, help your community know its self. Messages shouldn’t just be about you, stories shouldn’t just be about you. Find content and value from the community that you can help put the spotlight on; find stories and change-makers from the community that you can support. Make connections and introductions.

Know your role
Knowing your community means figuring out what they need from you, how they need your help, how they need you to help them to succeed. Some communities may need a “manager” to help keep everything moving along, and others may need an “operator” to make connections and recommendations. Some communities need a “friend” to share ideas and honest feedback, others may need a “champion” that can help push ideas and opportunities forward. Find your role (by asking for feedback and help!) and take pride in operating the way your community needs.

Help it grow
Part of knowing your community means recognizing when it needs new blood, a fresh wind, or a change of pace. That doesn’t always mean just one or the other. New blood = new members. If this is the case then help the community to promote itself and attract others interested in participating. Fresh wind = new topics or ideas. Sometimes, conversation can grow stagnant and ideas can fail to materialize into projects. It is your role to help find new inspiration. Change of pace = new way of operating. This may mean that the community has outgrown its facebook group and needs someone (you) to help move it onto the next platform/space where it can do more. You may need to be the one willing to say what everyone’s thinking and take on the task of making change.

3. Strive to be replaced

Encourage interaction without you
The goal of operating in public and leading by example is to enable the community to know how to operate without you. There can be interaction and exchange without your permission. There can be conversation without your moderation. Encourage the community to take control by giving them the responsibility and opportunity to do so.

Reward and spotlight leaders
Your goal should be to be replaced by other community members, as this means that you’ve created something so valuable, with members so dedicated to it, that they are willing to steer the ship and man the sails themselves. To begin nurturing those who may become the captains, start highlighting members who are contributing value. Shine the spotlight on those taking on extra responsibility. Operate in public by thanking them for their work in a way that’s visible to the whole community.

Share your toolbox
There’s no way that the community can take responsibility and contribute equally with you if you hold the key to a hidden set of tools. Open up all functionality to anyone who has proven their elevated role in the group. Share resources like strategies, best practices, and examples with the community so everyone can learn and contribute at the level you do. By sharing resources, you’ll probably find that the community has some to share back that will make your work even better, too!

But remember: all communities are unique, just like the members who comprise them. You can’t expect every group to operate the same way as others, or for one successful example to hold true in another setting. Communities are made up of people and the best approach you can have is to remain human. Organizations are buildings: they aren’t any fun, they aren’t very conversational, and they’re often made of neutral colors. You’re a human: you’re passionate, you’re interesting, and you have something to say. So even if you have different tools, different ideas, and different goals from one community to the next throughout your work, remember to stay human.

For more on my experience with community building, read Online Community Building: Gardening vs Landscaping.  To get the original post on the Online Community Report, click here.

Flickr image by grantlairdjr

The post How to build a sustainable community appeared first on Socialbrite.

This is part of the series 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media.

In the above 2-minute video, I talk about why guest blogging could be a critical addition to your blog.

One benefit of guest posts is to further a relationship. You both build a relationship with other bloggers and expose your blog to a completely new audience — a great way to attract new readers and get new RSS subscribers.

Here are some guest post strategies I’ve used:

1. Read the blog of the person who you want partner with. Get to know his or her readers and content.
2. Be sincere and genuine with your interest. A long-term partnership will not blossom if you lead with a hidden, personal agenda.
3. Add valuable comments to their blog – and not “Great post, here’s a cool link.”
4. After a couple of months, a relationship will develop. Email the blogger directly. Let her know how valuable her blog has been to you and ask if she’d like to do a guest post on your blog. If it makes sense to write a post for her blog, provide links to a few example posts.
5. Have a guest post topic in mind when you make the pitch. Each time I’ve contacted Darren Rowse about writing a post on Twitip, I’ve had a clear topic in mind and have stated why this topic might be valuable to his readers. This has made it easy for him to say, “Cool. Yes.”
6. Give the other party your best content. A kick ass post is the only way to go – for both parties. See Rebecca’s post for an example of kick ass.
7. Focus on a long-term relationship. Keep the personal interests of the guest blogger foremost in mind.
8. If you’re an orange, partner with an apple. You want to partner with bloggers that can add value for your readers – but from a different angle. This will enable both bloggers to be exposed to a fresh audience. This was the case with TheDailyBlonde.
9. Have fun! It’s only a blog. When Grant Griffiths asked me to write for his blog, he had no idea that I would introduce the guest post with “Grant Griffiths Shoots Dorothy, Sells Toto On Ebay.“ We both had a laugh and now have a couple of projects brewing.

Homework: Spend 2 minutes and $7 on Chris Garrett’s book about using guest posting to get more subscribers (no affiliate link here!) and start thinking about your guest posting strategy.

If you don’t want to miss out on the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media, please sign up.

The post How to grow your blog with guest posts appeared first on Socialbrite.

On Tuesday I’ll be leading an online session for Philanthopy.com about building communities on Twitter (follow @Philanthropy for details).

Communities do not just happen. And they certainly don’t happen overnight. You have to have something important to talk about. And you have to be prepared to consistently connect people together over a period of months.

But Twitter seems like a big mess, doesn’t it? With thousands of tweets going off every hour, about hundreds of different topics, how do you build a cohesive group of fans?

The answer is hashtags.

Hashtags are a way to funnel specific discussions about a topic into a coherent thread, sort of like using Twitter to tune into specific radio frequencies. But not everyone knows how to create successful chat sessions.

In the screencast at top, I outline the basics of managing a hashtag chat on Twitter:

• How to use TweetGrid (one tool among many valuable tools)
• How to create a hashtag
• How to avoid missing replies to you within a chat
• How to find and invite others to your chat
• The importance of a landing page for your chat

Kudos to @ShareStrength for their excellent example!

How have you used hashtags successfully?

Photo by kbaird on Flickr.

Reposted from JohnHaydon.com.

The post Using hashtags to enhance community appeared first on Socialbrite.

Amy Sample Ward on nonprofit technology from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Just before we launched Socialbrite.org, I met Amy Sample Ward in person for the first time. Amy’s a whirlwind of energy and passion about all things np tech (nonprofit technology), and I was so impressed that I immediately asked her to join the Socialbrite team.

But not before I got her to sit still for a few minutes to talk about nonprofit tech, Net Tuesdays — Amy is the global community builder for NetSquared — and being a catalyst for social change.

NP tech is social change work, whether you’re a nonprofit or an individual who wants to change her community or you’re a corporation that’s working on social benefit through a corporate social responsibility campaign, she says.

More than 36 cities around the world now hold monthly events as part of Net Tuesday, the offline component of NetSquared, and if you’re within driving distance, you should stop by and meet other change agents in your community. (Sarah Kennon does an outstanding job of organizing the Net Tuesdays in San Francisco.)

You don’t need to be a nonprofit org to get value out of Net Tuesdays, Amy says. Being able to convene offline shouldn’t be underestimated as a motivational force.

“Just to see how excited people get when they come together, it’s so rewarding,” she says.

She also discusses the nonprofit sector’s penchant for sharing knowledge. “I think people realize that we’re all going to get better if we share our knowledge instead of locking it down,” she says.

Amy offers tips for people who want to get involved in the social change movement. “Just start reading blogs and newsletters. … It’s such an infectious sharing community.”

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

The 9-minute video interview was conducted at NetSquared 2009 in San Jose, Calif. We’re so glad to have Amy on board as a partner in Socialbrite.

The post Using nonprofit tech to benefit society appeared first on Socialbrite.

My current job title includes the term “Community Builder” and I get asked nearly every day just what that means: How do you build community? Where is the community you want to build? How can I be a community builder online? Tips, secrets, ideas?! I want to take a break from all the hard work building community (does that get a wink?) to share some of what I believe is the core of successful community building (on or offline).

“Community building” is about a lot of things. Some people define it as organizing, especially around specific events, campaigns, legislation, or fundraising. Others see it as specifically applying to online community spaces, like a social networking site. I believe that community exists everywhere, really. That the Internet is a huge community of people looking to connect with others like them to form smaller, more specific communities. Those of us in positions to support those connections and collaborations are some of the luckiest people in the global network, acting as the email or Twitter post or blog reference that helps individuals make networked jumps to where they really want to be.

Gardening vs. landscaping

So, what’s the secret to successful community building? You guessed it: Be a great gardener and avoid the temptation to landscape. Here’s what that means:

• A gardener only takes out the weeds; a landscaper takes out everything that isn’t part of the design. Think about the number of beautiful plants or trees that have sprung up in parks, your yard, or even out in nature that weren’t “intended” to be there but quickly grew to be a valuable part of the ecosystem.
• A gardener isn’t afraid to mix things around; a landscaper plans and plots and plants.  Sometimes you can’t know ahead of time just which plants will respond well or want more sun or shade so you need to be flexible.
• When a storm hits, a gardener can remain open to planting anew and rejuvenating others; a landscaper may just order more of the same. Sometimes it takes a storm to realize which plants just weren’t going to make it or which were able to stick it out.
• When in doubt, a gardener will try more plants or kinds of plants and see which take root; a landscaper may default to less. What about the plants you had never used before to know about and how they took root, flowered, and bolted up right before your eyes?

Clearly, this is all very metaphorical here with the back yard options. It is, though, meant to paint a picture:

The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally. The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community. The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.

The Landscaper creates an ecosystem that matches a preconceived design or pattern. The approach is focused on executing a preconceived environment, regardless of how natural or organic it may be for the larger area. The landscaper is there to ensure that everything stays just as planned.

Your community

How can you apply these ideas to your community building? The first question I always ask myself when considering a new tool or functionality online, a new project or campaign, or even new partnerships or members is: “Is this something the Community wants or something I want?” It doesn’t matter what I want, really. It matters what the Community wants. And how do you know if or what they are interested in? ASK! Be sure to always provide opportunities for your community members or those who come across your work to share their ideas about what they would like to see, how they’d like to connect with each other and how they would like to work with you. And when considering anything new, ask for feedback and share your ideas and plans ahead of time. You may be surprised, but your Community often has even better ideas than you!

What do you think? Do you have other ideas about successful community building? Have a great example or case study you want to share? Looking forward to more!

You can read the post and join the conversation on SSIR here.

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