Mondays with Marissa – Page 2 – The Healthy Non-Profit

A weekly feature in 2012 focusing on technology and non-profits.

Social Media and Election 2012: Strategies Your Nonprofit Can Use

November 12, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

Each year, a campaign’s online role becomes more and more valuable. The number of supporters each candidate has online is almost as important as the returns coming in from the daily polls. The election of 2012 was no different. Both candidates were on all social media platforms and they were using them to make sure their message was broadcast loud and clear before Election Day. Let’s take a look at how they did it.

Email
Tried and true, email is still a viable means of communicating with supporters. Getting people to sign up for your email list might be difficult, but once they are it is easy to update them on the major happenings with your organization. One thing I noticed, by being on the email list for one Presidential Candidate is that it’s all in how the email is sent that makes the difference.

Make it personable. Each message I received during election season, was addressed to me or even had my name in the subject line. I can receive up to 100 emails a day in my personal email box so it can be pretty easy for me to miss a few. However, when I see my name, I automatically give that message my attention. This doesn’t mean that I opened every email that was sent to me, but I did open my fair share. By using my name in the subject line and with in the message, the campaign was creating a rapport with me as a supporter where I felt familiar with them and could trust them. This is a simple tactic that can be used by organizations when sending out emails.

Timing is everything. Also when it came to emails, I would receive emails in real time. Before a debate I would get a – this is what I hope to accomplish in this debate – email. When a debate wa

s finished, I would receive a recap email from the campaign. These emails would come at exactly the right time. By sending things out at specific times, I felt that the emails I was receiving were more like a conversation than the traditional form email. Agencies can do the same thing around special events or during political seasons where votes might impact the success of the mission.

Mix it up. One last note about email. I received emails not only from the campaign, but from the candidate himself and other important campaign officials and supporters. Each email was written in a personal manner that read like a conversation opposed to a formal memorandum. By doing this, I felt like I was part of the campaign community and felt more invested in the outcome of the election. Remember that you can do the same thing within your organization. While you may have one person in charge of sending emails out, that doesn’t mean they have to all be written by the same person. Having a CEO send an email to supporters might be beneficial at specific times of the year. Also, think about having a volunteer write a short “this is why I volunteer” blurb that can be sent out to supporters. Additionally, you can have a donor do the same thing. By mixing up the authors of emails, it keeps email subscribers interested in what is being sent out by your organization.

Photos
We’ve talked about the importance of photos in social media before, but during elections season I really noticed how powerful they can be. Besides being more visually stimulating, photos can tell a story more powerfully than words at times. On election night, the Obama Campaign posted a photo of President Obama hugging The First Lady with the caption, “Four More Years”. This became the most “liked” and shared photo ever overnight. What was so special about this photo? It was relatable to so many people – it was a loving couple embracing. Taking photos that tell your story can help your agencies online presence grow.

Variety
One last lesson from election season – variety is the spice of social media life. Each candidate was on multiple social media networks and interacting with supporters on each one. While it can be hard to manage so many networks, making sure your message is being shared all over the web can only help your organization. Doing so will ensure it will be you who is controlling the message on that platform, instead of someone else.

Do you have any social media observations from this past Presidential Election? Have you used any of these methods successfully or unsuccessfully already? I’d love to talk about this further with you in the comments!

Changes to Facebook’s News Feed and What It Means for Your Non-profit

November 5, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

Earlier in the year, we talked about Facebook Insights, what they mean and how they can help you grow your organization’s online presence. One of the key statistical numbers Facebook gives you within Insights is something called “Reach“. This number represents how many people are viewing your Facebook content. You can measure Reach by how many people see each post on a daily basis. Reach can be a powerful indicator of how healthy your agency’s Facebook is.

Recently, you may have noticed that while your number of likes has been going up, your Reach number has gone down. This change most likely has nothing to do with the content you are posting or the number of posts. Behind the scenes, Facebook has been dialing down the number of people who see your posts and promoting the use of Sponsored Posts and Facebook Ads.

My first reaction to what Facebook is doing was just like any other internet enthusiasts — “why are they monetizing the internet?” But then I stopped and thought about it for a moment. Given the public reaction to Facebook becoming a publicly traded company, they obviously have to find ways to make money. Advertising revenue seems like a great way to do it.

So, now the trick is how to do we work with Facebook’s new game plan?

One thing we can do is make sure that people are aware that they might not be seeing all of your posts. Here are two simple suggestions:

Post an explanation on your Facebook page
Send out an email to your distribution list

Explaining this change to people can help increase your “reach” numbers. Do you need to go into much detail when explaining what is happening? No. Something like what is posted below can do the trick.

Hi everyone! Due to recent changes in the Facebook algorithm that decides what is seen in your News Feed, you may not be getting all of the updates from us. To ensure that you remain up to date, please follow these simple steps:

1) go to the Pastimes Facebook page
2) hover over the box that says “Liked” under our cover photo
3) make sure that “Show in News Feed” is selected

Thanks so much for supporting [Name of Organization]!

However, making sure that people are aware is only half of the battle. Changing up your post types is also helpful. Photos are more engaging than text, so make sure you include a photo with as many status updates as possible. This will hopefully get one of your supporters to “like” the post and then one of their friends will see it as well.

It might not be a bad idea to consider setting aside some money for sponsored posts. The way this works is easy enough:

you pay Facebook a certain amount of money,
they ensure that a certain amount of people see that specific post.

Of course, you’ll want to be strategic when planning out which posts to sponsor, but sponsoring some and seeing how they work can help you decide if this is something you’d like to continue doing for your organization.

More information about what Facebook calls “Sponsored Stories” can be found here. (Fun Fact — Facebook also changed how many people see your personal status messages as well. Therefore, they have made it possible for those status updates to be sponsored as well . . . just in case you want everyone you know to know something.)

Finally, I’d like to remind you that Facebook (while quite popular) is not the end all be all of social networks. It is important to create a following on as many social media platforms as you possibly can. This will make it easier to adjust when changes like this occur. Don’t be afraid to share content across platforms to let followers on each network know that you are active in other forms of social media.

While these changes to Facebook will impact how you reach your followers, it should not change how you interact with people on Facebook. Just because you are reaching fewer people on a daily basis, doesn’t mean you aren’t reaching anyone. Do not let these changes cause you to be lax in updating or slow in responding to comments. As every nonprofit knows, every supporter counts.

Do you track your agency’s Facebook reach? What have been your experiences and how have you responded? Please share your thoughts and approaches in the comment box below.

What to do When the Internet Breaks

October 29, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

Last week, Amazon Web Services, which many companies use for their web hosting service, was down for a day. This effected many major websites such as Reddit and Imgur. It reminded me that while living life in “the cloud” can be a good thing, it is also important to have a backup plan.

Furthermore, as you read this you have probably already read many updates about The East Coast and how they are preparing for Hurricane Sandy. With many businesses (including webhosts) based out of that part of the country, it is important to remember that things might not work as smoothly as you are used to for the next few days. Today, I thought we could spend some time to take a look at what you can do when part of the internet that your agency depends on, day in and day out, breaks.

Communicate
When websites went down last week, it was easy to know what was happening because of alternate methods of communication. For example, I was able to see what was going on with Reddit because I saw a tweet from them explaining the situation. I even received an email from a company apologizing for any interruption in services due to the Amazon outage.

This highlighted the importance of communication to supporters when technology malfunctions. In order to make sure that people are aware of where to go when looking for news if some thing like your website crashes, it is important to have a strong following on various social networks. We live in an age of instant gratification where the instant is getting shorter and shorter. Making sure that you have a strong community on social networks and keeping communication active on these channels is important.

Don’t forget about other methods of communication as well. Sending out an email to your mailing list is not a bad idea when your website is down. Also, don’t forget that some people actually still use the telephone, so it might be beneficial depending on the severity of the outage, to update your voicemail message with updates for people who might call.

You don’t want to risk loosing a donor, volunteer or supporter to your agency due to poor communication.

Have a Back Up Plan
Putting all of your eggs in the same basket isn’t always a good idea. Only having one copy of anything isn’t a good idea either. We talked about backing up data many times on DonorDreams before, but I felt it important to bring up again. If your web server ever goes down it is possible that you might not be able to recover your site. Having a local copy can make uploading it to an new server much easier. Always make sure you have things backed up.

Plan Ahead
Outages happen. Planning for them can make them easier to deal with. Sit down with your team and discuss what happens when technology fails. This conversation should go beyond just internet related things. Talk about what happens when the power goes out, the internet service goes down, or hardware breaks. After the meeting make sure that everyone is aware of the procedures discussed during the meeting and update them as things change. Ensuring that everyone is on the same page will minimize the stress if something goes wrong.

I hope today’s post has brought to light a few situations that people might not have thought about before. I hope that after reading this post, everyone has a better idea of what to do if part of the internet that their agency depends on doesn’t work. Have you experienced a technological failure that has impacted how your organization does business? How did you deal with it? Share your tips and tricks in the comments!

To all of our readers on the East Coast, stay safe out there! We’re thinking of you!

How to start a successful non-profit YouTube channel

October 22, 2012 erik Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, technology

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. YouTube is for more than just cute cat videos. In fact, YouTube is home to web networks, political commentary, educational videos and . . . OK, maybe some of the most adorable cats you’ve ever seen. If your organization is not on YouTube you’re missing a great opportunity to reach a new audience. In today’s post, let’s look at how YouTube can be a great resource for a nonprofit in today’s social media savvy society.

Why YouTube?

Well, think about it. Have you looked at a YouTube video yet today? If not, I’m sure you’ll see one posted in your news feed on Facebook that will catch your eye. The point is that YouTube is a place people go to find videos that are about topics important to them. YouTube is a familiar site for people. When people think of videos on the internet, they think of YouTube.

YouTube has a built-in audience. Many people don’t just go to YouTube for one video, they will often find a video that was linked to their video that they find interesting and watch that one too.Why not use this familiarity, and automatic audience to your advantage and make sure your organization has a YouTube Channel?

YouTube Basics

Once you’ve decided that YouTube is a network for your organization, it’s really simple to get started. All you have to do is sign up. Every YouTube user is given a channel where she can upload videos. This channel’s name is customizable. You will want to make sure that your organization’s channel name is easy to remember and recognizable to your organization.

The background of your channel is also customizable. You can upload banner graphics and change the color scheme to match your agency’s logo.

Beyond the cosmetic changes, make sure you take the time to fully fill-out your YouTube profile. This not only lets people know what your channel is all about, but it also gives them other places on the web to go (e.g. your website, Facebook page, etc). Additionally, filling out the profile helps with the SEO of your channel, which will help Google point people in your direction when they search for you.

Subscribing to other channels also helps you build your YouTube community and can help your organization gain new subscribers. The channels to which you subscribe cannot be seen by others; however, when you like a video or add it to your favorites list this action will show up in your activity feed and users will be able to see that.

YouTube users also have the option of choosing a video that is shown on their channel’s page first. Make sure you choose this video wisely. While some channels make this their most recent video, others choose to make it a welcome video. You can changed this at any time, but make sure that the video that is displayed prominently on your channel is one you think is a good representation of your organization.

As is true with any social media site, remember that sharing is caring. So, share your content on all of your other social media networks.

Nonprofit YouTube Extras

Like many other Google products, YouTube has made resources available for nonprofits to help them achieve their goals. This includes YouTube’s Nonprofit Program.

Benefits of being accepted into this program include:

a donate now button on your channel’s page,
the ability to livestream on your channel, and
call to action overlays that pop-up on related videos for users to participate in.

These tools will help your organization succeed on the YouTube platform. Applying is easy. Your agency just needs a YouTube channel.

I hope this post has given you some insight on how to get started on YouTube. As for what type of content to include on your organization’s channel, that’s a post for another Monday.

Has your organization had success with YouTube? What did you find most helpful when setting up your channel? What did you find least helpful? Leave your tips in comments!

What non-profits can learn from a man skydiving at 128,000 feet

October 15, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

This week’s “Mondays with Marissa” post is going to be a little different. Something happened yesterday. Did you see it? Follow it? Of course, I am referring to a man by the named of Felix Baumgartner who jumped out of a capsule attached to a balloon 128,000 feet above Earth. Take a moment to think about that.

Beyond the pure awesomeness of this feat, what I want to draw your attention to today is:

the social media that supported the mission, and
some ways that non-profits learn from the coverage of this event.

For those of you unfamiliar with what Felix did yesterday, here’s a brief overview:

Sponsored by Red Bull, this mission had a goal of studying the effects of acceleration on the human body in order to produce better spacesuits for space professionals and eventually space tourists.
Beyond that, Felix Baumgartner became the first human who wasn’t attached to an aircraft to break the sound barrier .

NASA’s evolving mission has led to private companies such as Red Bull stepping in to provide financing to make these types of missions possible. When the day came millions of people around the world tuned in to watch the live stream of the Red Bull Stratos leaving the Earth and eventually see Baumgartner jump out of it. You can read more about the story here.

Looking beyond the scientific significance of this event, let’s look at it through the eyes of a non-profit special events planner. When it comes down to it, that’s what it was, right? This was an event run at a specific time and for a specific cause.

Sponsorship

This space mission was funded by Red Bull and everyone knew it. Finding a corporate sponsor, especially a title sponsor, to cover the costs of your agency’s special event means profitability and ensures that donations from attendees will likely go directly to support programming. Similarly, finding a corporate partner that will match donations helps in the same way.

Word of Mouth

People knew about this event for months. If you have a once in a lifetime special event in your organization’s future (e.g. celebrating a milestone anniversary, etc), letting people know about it early and often only helps your cause. You can and should use social media to do this. How?

Create an event on Facebook.
Create an event on Google Plus.
Post about the progress being made during the preparation of the event.

Give the Event Its Own Website

Depending on the size of the event, it might warrant its own website. Doing so will make it easy for people seeking details about your event to find those facts easily online.

Take a look at the website for the Red Bull Stratos. Everything you need to know about that event is there. Make sure that you include the social media sharing buttons on the website to allow people to share what they find with others.

Videos

One of the great things that Red Bull did during the preparation for this event was to post videos about the progress leading up to yesterday. If it makes sense to do so for your event, videos are a great way to update people. Make them short and sweet, little clips and people will share them with others. If you can’t post videos as often, photos can work in the same capacity as well.

In addition to posting video to promote your event, you can also post clips of the actual event if you were lucky enough to secure a celebrity to speak or the event was particularly noteworthy. Click here to view a YouTube video of Felix Baumgartner’s historic jump.

Live Stream It

Again, this depends on your event and the legality surrounding it, but if it makes sense then you may want to consider live streaming it.

For example, if you are holding a competition such as a race, live streaming can help spread the word about what is happening and allow people to donate on the web during the event.

Sites such as YouTube and UStream allow users to set up their own channels to share with others. The videos from these channels can be embedded on your own site so you don’t have to send viewers somewhere else. Also, all of the live streams can be saved for future viewing as well.

Hashtags

While we were watching Felix jump out of his capsule at 128,000 feet above the Earth, many of us were participating in a social conversation on Twitter about what we are seeing as it happened. Creating a hashtag for your event can allow people to share news from your event in real-time. What’s great is that you can also use it to go back and easily see what people were saying after the event is over. For example, take a look at #livejump from yesterday.

Events like yesterday’s only come around once in a while. It is important to step back and see what we can learn from them when they do. I hope today’s post might have highlighted some new techniques for you when it comes to running special events.

Have you used any of the tools mentioned in today’s post? I’d love to hear about it in comments!

Email tools for your non-profit organization

October 8, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

With all of the social media services out there, sometimes you miss the one right in front of you. The one that most people use every single day. No it’s not Facebook. It’s not twitter. It’s email.

I know many of you are probably scratching your head and thinking that email isn’t part of the social media family, which is the position Peter Kim takes in his blog. Derek Halpern at DIY Themes blog makes the case for the other side. While I don’t want to engage in a debate over this question, I know these two things when it comes to email:

People seem to use it for social purposes all of the time (e.g. organizing meetings, polling opinions, marketing, etc)
People seem to use it to drive online traffic to their website and social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc).

Email can be used in many of the same ways as many of the social media sites. It is a great way to get news out to your organization’s supporters, share photos and redirect people to your online platforms.

The great thing about email is that it is a tool that people are used to using, and it is something about which they don’t need to learn anything new. Why does this matter? Well, it significantly increases the likelihood of people reading your content.

Today, we are going to take a brief look at a few services that can help your agency make the most out of email.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a paid service that can provide email marketing services to non-profits. They are a trusted name in email services for small businesses as well. Here are some features Constant Contact offers:

Email templates
Coaching & support
Social media links
Social media stats / analytics

Click here to access an online manual about how to access and use more advanced features associated with this service.

Other email marketing services

It feels like Constant Contact is the “Gold Standard” of email marketing services, especially if you pay attention to the television, radio and online advertising. However, I see a number of my non-profit friends using other services such as:

There is even one company out there — VerticalResponse — who offers a free service for non-profit organizations. While I suspect it is a scaled back version with limited features, it is something you may want to check out.

Develop a strategy

As with every other aspect of your ePhilanthropy and marketing program, you need to develop a strategy because “hope is not a strategy”. The following are just a few questions to help you get started:

Who is our target audience?
How should we build our agency’s email house file?
How often should we communicate with this group?
How does email marketing fit into our agency’s cross-channel communication strategy?
What type of content should we develop for this communication tool?
How do we prevent this tool from feeling like “one-way” communication and turn it into more of a two-way communication vehicle?

Our friends at about.com published a great article titled “Nine Strategies for Smart Email Marketing” that you may want to check out.

Does your non-profit agency use email marketing as part of its marketing and ePhilanthropy plan? How is that going for you? What service do you use? Are you happy with it? What would you do differently if you had a chance to do it over again? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Setting Up A Successful Work from Home Environment for Your Nonprofit

October 2, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

Don’t worry, it’s not really Monday! Erik is busy running a conference this week, so he asked me to fill in one more day this week. So welcome to Tuesday with Marissa!

Working from home is more popular than ever. In a time when salaries might not be able to grow as fast as they used to, offering employees an opportunity to work remotely can be a welcomed perk. While your employee might not be in the office, it is important to ensure that she feels connected to her team. Today we’re going to look at some ways to set up a successful work from home environment.

VPN
If your organization has the funds to set up a VPN system, I highly recommend it. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and allows users to log in from anywhere. Upon doing so they would have the same access to the servers and systems they would have if they were working in the office. They can be a bit costly to set up but this set up offers the most flexibility for you and your employee. The employee working from home would have no restrictions on access to the resources they need, allowing them to complete projects no matter where they were located.

VPNs are best set up on agency owned laptops that employees can take anywhere. I recommend upon setting it up that it is tested somewhere outside of your building to make sure everything is set up correctly. It would be the worst to plan your day working from home only to find out that your VPN doesn’t connect.

Cloud Computing
If VPN doesn’t work for your organization, there are plenty of other options to share files with people working remotely. Services such as Dropbox and Google Drive allows users to share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, ect, with anyone who has access to them. However, keep in mind that these files would live in the cloud on third party server. If something happened to that server you would loose your files. Keeping a copy of files shared in the cloud stored on your hard drive is highly recommended.

Chat Clients

One of the challenges I find with working from home sometimes is feeling connected to the office. While working from a remote location can help some employees focus, they can miss out on communication that happens around the office. Using a chat client like Gchat or Skype can help fill that void. I had one job where I worked exclusively from and getting a “good morning” from other team members made a world of difference. I didn’t feel as isolated.

Furthermore, it is important for managers of people who work remotely to still manage their employees even if they aren’t in the building. Too often the relationship between manager and employee can fall victim to the “out of mind, out of site” mentality. You can even go beyond chat conversations and have a video call from time to time to check in and see how everything is going or congratulate the employee on a job well done.

While working remotely is becoming more and more a norm these days, I hope these few tips help you and your agency think about the best environment to set up for your employees. Based on your set up, you might be able to work something out for work from home volunteers using cloud computing services and chat clients. What do you think? Do you work from home? What tool do you find to be the most successful in helping you be productive? Let us know in the comments!

A Guide to Creating a Cell Phone Policy for Your Nonprofit

October 1, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

These days many employers provide cell phones for their employees so that they can be connected at all times. This can be both a blessing and a curse for employees. On one hand, they don’t have to move to far to get the information they need, on the

other hand weekends can be interrupted by an email that normally wouldn’t have been seen until Monday. Either way, managing the cell phone usage of your organization can be a full time job. Today I’m going to share some questions you should ask yourself when setting up a cell phone policy for your agency.

Do you really need cell phones?
For some organizations it makes sense for employees to have cell phones provided to them. The work that is being done happens around the clock or from remote locations. For others, it might be more of a matter of connivence. Take a moment to think if providing cell phones is really needed.

If you decide that cell phones are needed, who in the organization needs one?
This is going to be breaking news, but not everyone needs a cell phone. Everyone might want a cell phone, but not all positions within your agency require one to be provided. Be selective about this because it is much easier to give someone something than to take it away.

What type of phone is needed?
It seems like there is a new phone out every day. I advice to get the phone with the least amount of features needed. If this person is only needed to be available by phone, does she really need a smartphone? Also just because a person might need the bells and whistles of a smartphone, doesn’t mean that smartphone needs to be an iPhone 5. Look at all of your options and really think about what the user of the phone really needs.

What plan to go with?
The good news here is that most major cell phone providers will work with nonprofits to set up a contract that work for them. Make sure you shop around and see which company can do the most for you. Don’t rule out the prepaid option either. It might be the best way to go for your organization. Also, keep your eyes out for smaller competitors to the major providers, like Ting. Ting has a flexible plan system that lets you prioritize which features (talking, texting, or data) are most important and you pay accordingly. So if one person on your team doesn’t need to talk on the phone much, but needs to have data access all of the time, Ting allows you to create a plan that provides just that.

Can we use our personal phones?

Employees may want to use their own phones for work. Some organizations provide a stipend to each employee to use toward their cell phone plan. This can be a solution for your agency, but you still need to protect your organization’s data on that phone. I recommend setting up an agreement for the employee to sign. It should included statements that allow your agency to be given access to the device to see the configuration of any application that deals with sensitive data. The employee should also use a lock on their phone to keep that data safe. Also, your agency needs to be ensured that the device will be wiped clean before the employee provides it to another user.

I hope this guide helps you organize your cell phone policy for your organization. Have any tips or best practices to add? Post them in a comment below!

How Nonprofits Can Maximize LinkedIn to Grow Their Community

September 24, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, nonprofit, technology

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that LinkedIn was the grownup Facebook. When it first started, I didn’t think much of it, but over the years, LinkedIn has become a powerful networking tool, not only for job-searchers, but for everyone in a professional community. Today let’s take a look at a few things that you can do to maximize your and your organization’s presence on LinkedIn.

Complete Your Profile
When starting out on LinkedIn, completing your organization’s profile is important. This is because the heart of LinkedIn is connecting people. The more information it has about you, the better it can serve as a networking resource for you and

your organization. Take some time to think about 10 to 15 keywords that you think would best describe your agency and their mission. Using the right keywords will attract the right people to your page.

Not only is an organization profile important, but it is important that everyone connected to your organization has complete profile as well. Make sure employees, volunteers and board members take the time to fill their profiles completely. There is a “Volunteer and Causes” section that can be added to personal profiles where supporters can list your organization.

Companies as Donors
If you are looking to find a company to sponsor an event or make a donation, LinkedIn would be a great place to start. Many companies will list in their profiles if they give to charitable causes or not. If you cannot find info on their profile, see who is connected to that company and reach out to people in your network.

Follow People
I am not an advocate for stalking, except for in the case of LinkedIn. The more connections you have, the better your network, so follow people you know and people you don’t know. Having a connection can help you along the way, when it comes to

gaining volunteers, finding new donors, hiring a new employee, or finding a new board member.

Group Hug
One of the most dynamic sections to LinkedIn is their groups. There are groups focused on just about everything. Join as many as you can or have your organization start one tailored to discussions about your mission. People expect to start conversations in LinkedIn and groups can be a great way to create new connections.

Keep People Up to Date
LinkedIn is just like every other social media site; as in it works best when you update it frequently. So share news and blog updates with your community there too. Also, LinkedIn does a good job of of aggregating news that is important to you. It is a great place to find new articles to share with your followers as well.

Find Your Next Board Member
LinkedIn just released a new, exciting tool for nonprofits called LinkedIn Board Connect. This allows nonprofit organizations to use LinkedIn to find people who might be a good fit to be the next member of your board. For more information on this new service, take a look at LinkedIn’s announcement. Also, they are having a webinar on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 to explain what Board Connect can do. I suggest joining in to see if this is a tool that would be beneficial to your organization.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: finding the right social network for your organization is key to your social media success. LinkedIn can be a powerful tool to find people and grow your community. How does your organization use LinkedIn? What are some of the things that work best on this social network for you? I’d love to talk about it in comments!

How Podcasts Can Spice Up a Nonprofit’s Social Media Plan

September 17, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

Named after the mp3 player that changed the world – the iPod – podcasts have become a big business when it comes to social media. In fact, there are entire networks dedicated to producing audio and video content for people to enjoy.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this media format, a podcast defined as: A multimedia digital file made available on the Internet for downloading to a portable media player, computer, etc.

How can podcasts fit into your agencies social media plan? Let’s take a look.

Why Podcasts
What makes podcasting attractive to a person visiting your site is that it is a different type of media to consume. Blogs and photos are good, but sometimes more can be said through and audio interview or short video. People like variety and providing podcasts, gives a website visitor an opportunity to choose how they will receive their information. Furthermore, by consistently publishing podcasts, you can build an audience that follows your organization on a regular basis as opposed to just checking in from time to time.

What to Podcast
Really the topics for podcasts are pretty endless; but choosing the right ones will allow you to use the features of the format in the best way possible. Here are a few ideas of what you can podcast about:

Interviewing Board Members – let people know who they are and why they are involved in your organization
Special Event Planning – in the weeks before an event, showing people the progress that is being made can help hype up the event
Discuss Issues Surrounding Your Mission – remind people why your mission is so important. Discuss things that are happening in the news that impact your progress in fulfilling it.
Volunteer Spotlight – interview a select volunteer, highlight their work and show people why volunteering for your organization is worthwhile.

The nice thing about producing podcasts is that there is no standard length requirement. Your podcast can be anywhere from five minutes to more than two hours in length. This can allow you to have a focused podcasts on just one subject or include a variety of topics.

How to Podcast
Well the good news is, you don’t really need much to get started. As your content grows, you may need more sophisticated equipment, but to get things going you really just need a computer and a microphone. There is free software called audacity that

will record and edit audio recordings. If you are looking to get into video podcasting, you will need a video camera that shoots in high definition and video editing software. Most computers come with a program already included such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie.

For a more detailed look at how to get started, check out this Digital Trends article.

Sharing Your Podcast
One of the easiest ways to get your podcast seen or heard by the masses is to publish it on iTunes. Lots of people use iTunes as their media manager and it makes finding podcasts easy. Also, by publishing to iTunes, you can use their RSS feed and post it on your website so that people can see the latest episodes there as well. If you decide to make video podcasts, I suggest publishing episodes to your YouTube channel as well.

Podcasts are a different form of media and will take time to develop. However, if you have the resources to create one, it is a great way to offer different content to your organization’s audience. By providing yet another way for people to be informed about what is going on in your agency, you can gain exposure to a whole new group of people.

Has your organization tried podcasting before? Have any tips and tricks to share? Let us know in the comments below!