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

Your nonprofit has a problem. You’re trying to get people to volunteer their time and donate their money–but you can’t even get them to pay attention.

You’re not alone. In the internet age, nonprofits and businesses are all in the same boat.  We’re not only competing with each other for people’s time and interest.  We’re also competing with online games, viral videos, and cute cat photos.

But what if you didn’t have to compete? What if, instead of your bidding for your supporters’ attention, they came looking for you?

You’re already doing content marketing

You can use content marketing to attract the people and funders whose support you want.

Don’t let the term throw you. You’re already doing marketing any time you communicate with a specific group of people to move them toward taking an action you desire.

And you’re producing content all the time. Not just when you write articles or snap photos. The Content Marketing Institute lists 26 ways to produce content, from research reports to online games.

You can do it better

The key is to offer your audiences content that’s so good and so useful to them, they keep coming back for more – and telling their friends. How do you do that? Here are five steps to take.

1. Commit to doing better. Most nonprofits are happy just to be producing content at all. As Kivi Leroux Miller tells us, it’s time to question that approach.
2. Know your audience. Know them so well you’d recognize them on the street. (John Haydon’s Nonprofit Marketing Personas Workbook will help you there.)
3. Have a strategy. It can be as simple as “Who are the audiences we’re trying to reach? What do we already know about these audiences? What do we need to find out to give them what they’re looking for? What will they do differently if we succeed?”
4. Keep it exciting. Look for ways to give your audiences useful information in a variety of forms — written, visual, online, through social media.
5. Promote it. Use every means you have to spread the word about your great content. Word of mouth, public speaking, radio, TV. Newsletters, social media, your website. Link to it in the signature line of your emails. Find the hook so a local journalist turns it into a story. Be creative!

Invest in content marketing

Remember: people are busy. It’s so easy to delete your email, ignore your press release, toss that annual report or printed appeal letter into the recycling bin. Most people will do just that – if they see your outreach as just another claim upon their time. But content marketing can make them glad they found you, instead.

What do you think?

The post How content marketing can help your nonprofit appeared first on Socialbrite.

This is the first of a two-part series on content marketing.

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

Guest post by Dennis Fischman

Your nonprofit has a problem. You’re trying to get people to volunteer their time and donate their money – but you can’t even get them to pay attention.

You’re not alone. In the Internet age, nonprofits and businesses are all in the same boat. We’re not only competing with each other for people’s time and interest. We’re also competing with online games, viral videos, and cute cat photos.

But what if you didn’t have to compete? What if, instead of your bidding for your supporters’ attention, they came looking for you?

You’re already doing content marketing

You can use content marketing to attract the people and funders whose support you want.

Don’t let the term throw you. You’re already doing marketing any time you communicate with a specific group of people to move them toward taking an action you desire.

And you’re producing content all the time. Not just when you write articles or snap photos. The Content Marketing Institute lists 26 ways to produce content, from research reports to online games.

You can do it better

The key is to offer your audiences content that’s so good and so useful to them, they keep coming back for more – and telling their friends. How do you do that? Here are five steps to take.

1Commit to doing better. Most nonprofits are happy just to be producing content at all. As Kivi Leroux Miller tells us, it’s time to question that approach.

2Know your audience. Know them so well you’d recognize them on the street. (John Haydon’s Nonprofit Marketing Personas Workbook will help you there.)

3Have a strategy. It can be as simple as “Who are the audiences we’re trying to reach? What do we already know about these audiences? What do we need to find out to give them what they’re looking for? What will they do differently if we succeed?”

4Keep it exciting. Look for ways to give your audiences useful information in a variety of forms — written, visual, online, through social media.

5Promote it. Use every means you have to spread the word about your great content: word of mouth, public speaking, radio, TV. Newsletters, social media, your website. Link to it in the signature line of your emails. Find the hook so a local journalist turns it into a story. Be creative!

Invest in content marketing

Remember: people are busy. It’s so easy to delete your email, ignore your press release, toss that annual report or printed appeal letter into the recycling bin. Most people will do just that – if they see your outreach as just another claim upon their time. But content marketing can make them glad they found you, instead.

What do you think?

The post 5 simple steps to content marketing success appeared first on Socialbrite.

Why nonprofits need to tell their stories by creating new content

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

I‘ve been to dozens of nonprofits’ offices, but there’s a phrase I’ve never heard uttered even once: content marketing.

Sounds kind of mysterious, doesn’t it? But when you strip it down to its essence, content marketing is just a way for organizations to tell their stories.

I was interviewed, along with marketer Greg Jordan, about content marketing for nonprofits at a new podcast from the Content Marketing Examiner moderated by publisher Martin van der Roest. Here’s our conversation:

To get discovered online, you must create fresh content

Some highlights from the podcast:

• Don’t be put off by the term “content marketing.” The marketing landscape has evolved with the realization that all nonprofits and businesses are media entities now. If you have a nonprofit or business with an online presence, guess what? You’re a media publisher. For people to find you through search, you have to create content. The webinars I give for CharityHowTo cover search engine marketing in part and explain why keywords are critical to your nonprofit or business.

• Content comes in many forms, from blog posts and Facebook updates to Pinterest pins and Twitter tweets (I’ve never liked the term “micro-blogging” so won’t use it here).

• Don’t get hung up on crafting perfect content. Don’t get frozen by writer’s block. As my partner John Haydon likes to say, Done beats perfect.

• Greg Jordan made an important point: Before you begin, start with identifying your business goals. Write them down, make them something that’s attainable, realistic and worth achieving. And measure them, little by little.

• I suggested trying to find individuals who represent your cause or brand. Ask if they’d be willing to share their stories. Have someone inside your organization, or a contractor, come in and capture those stories on video, on audio or in text. By bringing your story down to the individual level, you make it universal.

• Consider asking people in different parts of your organization, in a respectful way, whether they’d be interested in sharing their skills and passions. Do they blog in their off-hours? Do they shoot photos or video on the weekend? Are they willing to attend an event you’re putting on to help capture it and share it in social media?

• Greg reminded us that it’s not just about creating your own content. It’s about sharing others’ content and updates.

What would you add about storytelling or content marketing for organizations?

Related articles on Socialbrite

• 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling
• 10 secrets to video storytelling success
• Step-by-step guide to creating a media strategy
• Complete guide to creating a video project
• How to find amazing, powerful stories for your nonprofit video
• How nonprofits should be using visual storytelling
• How to create high-quality Web video interviews
• Visual storytelling checklist

The post Content marketing: We’re all media publishers now 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.