Get supporters involved by sharing your story through pictures

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

The Internet is slowly but surely becoming one big picture book.

Instagram and Pinterest have grown at astronomical rates precicely because they allow people to easily create, curate and share pictures. And Facebook has placed more importance on pictures, with cover images, full screen viewing and newsfeed preferences.

Photos are huge but simply posting photos is not enough. You have to post stories!

A powerful story in a photo earns every one of those thousand words:

• By making people take action.
• By getting people angry.
• By reenergizing volunteers.
• By moving the needle.

Here are 10 tips for creating photos that tell stories:

1Show action. Forget the chummy picture of volunteers with their arms around each other. There’s no story in that. Instead take pictures of them doing what they do.

2Show relationships. Include more than one person in your photos, or maybe a person and their dog like Best Friends Animal Society does. This way, you embed “relationship” into the photo, which will trigger all sorts of emotions in in the viewer.

3Get people angry. The New York Times found that anger, awe and anxiety are the top emotions associated with sharing. Create images that get people angry like this one from the Humane Society of the United States:

4Use infographics. Any combination of information and image used to tell a story can be incredibly powerful. Idealware’s new report, Infographics for Outreach, Advocacy, and Marketing is a super useful guide to understanding and creating infographics.

5Use black and white. You can use Photoshop or Touch Color to tell a story by coloring part of a black and white photo, a la Pleasantville:

6Use words. Many times a picture needs a few words to help the viewer along in the story, like in this photo from the Trevor Project.

One of my favorite iPhone apps for adding text to pictures is Over by Potluck, which allows you to easily add text to photos, like so:

7Use location. Are people growing organic vegetables on a farm? Are they building a house for a family in need? If so, show it.

8Use your fans. Encourage your fans and followers to share their stories in the form of pictures. Create a photo contest, or just pay attention when they post photos to your Facebook page.

9Show contrast. Take something familiar and turn it on its head to tell a story, like Oreo did with its gay pride cookie.

10Show a beginning, middle and end. Create a series of photos that show a beginning, middle and end. For example, imagine a person who lost a leg entering a rehab center, then working with a physical therapist for weeks and finally going home to be with family.

You can post these these photos one by one, or create a single image that includes entire story (ideally you would do both).

Let your heart be your guide

We are storytellers by nature, so our best tool for creating great stories is our hearts. Tune into yours and listen carefully.

If you listen carefully, you will begin to hear a great story. Then post it on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest to see if it speaks as loudly to your community.

What’s your No. 1 tip for telling stories with pictures?John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.

Should your organization incorporate audio into your digital communications toolkit?

Guest post by Will Coley
Producer-Founder, Aquifer Media

If nonprofits want to learn how to create content that both engages audiences and creates devoted supporters, we need look no further than the gold standard offered each day by public radio. Think about it: Radio producers can create stories that keep us in the car for “driveway moments” even when we’ve reached home, just so we can hear the ending.

Public radio has created legions of devotees who give money for something they can already get for free. At the same time, we’re in the middle of a renaissance of digital audio online and via mobile technology.

To take advantage of this exciting and pivotal moment, nonprofits should consider adding audio storytelling to your digital communications toolkit. Here’s why.

Listening (or why audio is special)

Listen to this 3 1/2 minute clip from WNYC and think about what you can see in your mind’s eye.

Can’t you almost see what reporter Marianne McCune is experiencing? Radio requires listeners to use their imagination, bringing us emotionally closer to the story. Add to this that audio is often more intimate than other media. We often listen alone or on headphones, putting these voices directly inside our skulls. Audio is also better suited to our busy multitasking lives: I can listen at the gym, while washing dishes or checking email.

Another thing to consider about the WNYC story above: I doubt that Margaret Maynard would have let the reporter into her apartment with a video camera (she was in her house dress after all). A microphone is far less intimidating and in some ways offers a level of confidentiality. Without a camera in the way, it’s far easier for the interviewer to maintain eye contact with the person being interviewed. Because of this, I think people open up in different ways and get to the heart of the story even more quickly.

Storytelling

Listen to this one-minute “sonic i.d.” from Atlantic Public Media on Cape Cod.

Even in these 60 seconds, there is an anecdote that reveals the mechanics of effective storytelling.

Our brains are hard-wired for stories: We can’t stop ourselves from listening or watching a compelling story. But what is a good story?

Ira Glass says that the structure of every story on “This American Life” is a “series of actions where someone says ‘This happened, then this happened then this happened’ and then there’s a moment of reflection about what that sequence means and then onto the next sequence of actions.” This “moment of reflection” also interests Harvard professor Marshal Ganz because it reveals shared values that knit us together. Because of this, he argues the personal stories of individuals responding to challenges (“Story of Self”) is the bedrock of effective community organizing.

Character is most important to independent radio producer Samantha Broun, who has worked on multimedia projects with nonprofits. “I have found that the most powerful testimonial I can provide for nonprofits is a story of someone (a character) whose life has been effected by that organization. No talking heads. No scripted bits. But real, raw, emotional tape from a person whose life has been changed.”

To tell the story of your organization’s work, look for the individual experiences of a program participant or a supporter that illustrate the values you’re working for. At the same time, respect their ownership of stories and think of “facilitating” others in telling their stories directly to a larger audience online.

Producing

Listen to this story I made about Antoine Jenkins canvassing for Barack Obama in Las Vegas, Nev.:

Like many other radio producers, I used a digital recorder, headphones and an omnidirectional microphone. Many reporters are now using smart phones to record audio, especially in situations where bulky recording equipment isn’t feasible. SoundCloud’s app on iPhone and Droid is an incredibly easy way to record and post directly to the Web and other social media (think Instagram for audio). This could be a great tool for nonprofits to use at community events or gatherings.

Here are two practical tips I’ve learned from recording interviews:

1. Get close to what you’re recording but not too close. It’s best to place your microphone or smartphone four inches below the mouth of the interview subject, aka ice cream cone distance. This helps you avoid recording the popping that the P sound often makes.
2. Be aware of surrounding noise. Ambient noise can often be an important part of radio stories, especially when you’re capturing live action. But for interviews not directly related to action, it’s best to record in a quiet non-echoey space and later gather ambient sounds. Carpets and drapes often help absorb sound. Wearing headphones helps ensure that you get great sound with digital recorders.

To edit the audio you gather, you’ll need audio editing software. GarageBand and Audacity are free. I use Hindenberg but many radio producers prefer Pro Tools or Audition. To learn more about producing great radio stories, check out Transom.org and Rob Rosenthal’s Howsound podcast. Rob teaches the excellent Transom Story Workshop (which I attended in 2011 to start learning the art of radio storytelling).

Sharing

Listen to this one-minute story “First Love and 27 Other Firsts” by my radio-producing friend Whitney Jones.

This story has been a hit on Cowbird, an online story sharing community. Whitney also shared it on SoundCloud and thePublic Radio Exchange. You can embed tracks from these sites on other websites like blogs.

As part of a project funded by SoundCloud, I embedded stories on this website to honor Studs Terkel’s book. I see these as “audio blog posts” or “audio posts” rather than a “podcast.” Not only does it sound less intimidating and time intensive, a “post” or “story” implies a one-off that’s part of a larger content strategy using other media. Also with SoundCloud, listeners can subscribe for updates via RSS and iTunes.

Public Radio Exchange is a great platform to get your stories directly on public radio. Whitney sold his story to the Public Radio Remix, KFAI and Third Coast Festival/Re:sound. Obviously stories from your organization won’t sell if they’re straight up promotions or advocacy. To help navigate journalistic concerns, you could invite an experienced independent radio producer to help tell your story and market it through PRX.

So in short: Just do it! Experiment! Start listening, storytelling, producing and sharing audio stories and see if something miraculous happens.

For an even more audiovisual presentation of this information, check out this Prezi.

Related on Socialbrite

• 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling
• 10 secrets to video storytelling success
• Creating video and media: A roundup of resources
• How to find amazing, powerful stories for your nonprofit video
• How nonprofits should be using visual storytelling
• Visual storytelling checklist

How the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum uses exclusive tweet-ups to engage supporters

Guest post by Annie Lynsen
SmallAct

I‘ve written before about the importance of engaging key supporters (heck, we wrote a white paper with Blackbaud and the National Wildlife Federation on that very subject last year). The other day I got to experience a fantastic event geared toward doing just that.

Earlier this month, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum posted an invitation to an event built around the new movie “Star Trek Into Darkness.” But this wasn’t an ordinary tweet-up. This was designed to be an intimate, behind-the-scenes event for only 10 people.

People were invited to apply, and then staff from the museum evaluated the responses, chose the best ones, and did a random drawing of those who made the cut to get the 10 participants.

I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the 10. I was excited to see some Tribble props up close (they’re not usually on display) and talk to the curator of the Star Trek memorabilia in the collection. But then it got better! We soon learned that we all scored tickets to an advance screening of “Star Trek Into Darkness” the night prior to the event, plus we got to participate in a Google+ Hangout with a few astronauts, including one on the International Space Station, and members of the cast and crew of the movie. (I even got to ask a question on camera!) We even got nice “swag bags,” which included a Star Trek T-shirt, temporary tattoos, a movie poster and a ticket to see the movie in IMAX 3D at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Needless to say, it was an unforgettable event. It wasn’t my first experience at a tweet-up hosted by the National Air and Space Museum, though, and both events I’ve participated in demonstrate the impact that in-person events can have on building relationships between nonprofits and supporters – particularly supporters who are enthusiastic participants on various social networks. Because of these events, I’ve now met and spoken to several real-life astronauts, and I think it’s safe to say there’s almost nothing I won’t do for that museum. And I certainly will be telling my friends about my awesome experiences for years to come.

How even small nonprofits can create one-of-a-kind events

Certainly, the National Air and Space Museum is in a rare position to offer such experiences. They have name recognition, an open-to-the-public physical location and they deal with subject matter interesting to a large variety of people. However, there are ways even small or more niche-oriented nonprofits can create unique, exclusive events for key supporters. Here are some tips to do so:

1. Make it intimate and exclusive. By keeping your numbers down, you build a sense of urgency to apply, and you provide a better experience for those who do participate.
2. Offer something unique. Every nonprofit has something special they can offer to a small group. Perhaps it’s a quiet meet-and-greet cocktail hour with your staff and CEO or executive director, where you can do a personal Q&A with a couple of lucky supporters. Maybe you can take people on location to watch your nonprofit in action. There are lots of possibilities.
3. Treat them like rock stars. VIP treatment goes a long way, and often costs little to nothing (but requires good planning). One of the nicest perks we got at the event was advance seating at both the movie and a panel presentation at the museum – even little things like that, which make life easier, can mean a lot to participants.
4. Make it easy for them to talk about the experience. The museum sent us advance information on wi-fi and outlet availability, and provided all of us with a handout when we arrived that listed Twitter handles for everybody we’d be talking to that day. Also, remember to get photo/video releases for people, and take photos and videos to post on your social channels!
5. Choose the right people. If you don’t have an established, in-person relationship with the people you’re inviting to your exclusive event, look for people who are passionate about your cause and who also present themselves well on social media both in terms of content and activity level. These are the kind of people who will speak well, often and articulately about their experience online and will enjoy each other’s company as well.

These kinds of events are powerful. Check out the two-minute video below to see what participants and a museum representative had to say about it:

Related

• Free tools to help geo-target your socialsphere (Socialbrite)

• 12-step guide on how to live-tweet an event (Socialbrite)

• Use tweetups to bridge offline & online (Socialbrite)

Allow posting, tagging and replies to increase engagement

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

Most of what you read about creating more reach for your Facebook page either has to do with Facebook ads or optimizing content.

But there are three little settings for your Page that can also dramatically increase reach.

Turn on posting ability

1Allowing Facebook users to post photos and videos to your page increases exposure to their friends.

For example, the friends of the Facebook users who’ve posted these photos of rabbits will see a story in their news feed, exposing them to the National Wildlife Federation.

To allow others to post photos, videos, text updates and links to your page, click “Edit Settings” under the edit page menu item in your admin panel.

Turn on tagging

2Let Facebook users tag themselves and their friends in photos you post to your page.

This way when you post pictures from an event, you can invite your fans to tag themselves and their friends. Tagged friends (who may not be fans) are prompted to visit the photo and like the page.

Turn on replies

3Allowing for threaded commenting helps create more engagement on posts in two ways:

• With notifications to users who’ve been replied to with a comment.

• With threaded comments that organize conversations better.

Once this option is selected you’ll notice a second level of commenting, like in this update.

Go to your page now and make these changes!John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.

Here’s an easy step by step to glossy custom tabs

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

If you’re looking to create a custom tab for your Facebook page that has complex features, like a donation page or petition, watch my 5-minute video above for an approach that’s fairly easy.

All you need to do is:

1. Create a secure Web page on your website that includes the features you want to render in a custom tab.
2. Eliminate your website header and navigation menu on that page.
3. Add the Static HTML iframe tabs app to your Facebook page.
4. Use the Static HTML iframe tabs application to create an iframe for the page.

(You’d think Facebook would make this a little bit easier.)

Have you created custom tabs on your Facebook page?

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.

Infographics & data visualization turn data into stories

Guest post by Julia Reich
Principal & Creative Director, Julia Reich Design

Most organizations have important data to present to their clients, members, boards of directors and other constituencies. Yet who has time to read or understand the reports, charts and diagrams created by your overworked staff?

Infographics are a communication trend that’s all about displaying data in an attractive, easily digestible format. With their unique combination of images and words, infographics are a powerful storytelling tool. It’s a way to take all that data you’ve collected about the great things your organization does and use it for social good purposes – to illustrate timelines, histories, relationships, the impact of a program and much more.

Removing a barrier to understanding

Ceci Dadisman, the director of marketing and public relations at Palm Beach Opera in West Palm Beach, Fla., used an infographic to promote her group’s 50th Anniversary Season. She says, “Opera, ballet and symphony are such complicated art forms. We are always trying to explain it simply in a nonthreatening way. Infographics  are a good way to explain what opera is with some facts anyone could understand.”

Jeff Ferzoco should know. As the creative and technology director at Regional Plan Association in New York – an 85-year-old advocacy group focused on urban research and planning in the tri-state area – it’s his team’s job to sift through mountains of data and figure out the best way to arm policy-makers and citizens with the knowledge they need to move the conversation forward about a particular project.

“Busy people don’t want to spend too much time to unravel complicated information, so if it’s explained at a level that’s instantly understandable and emotionally satisfying, you’ll have a lot more success getting your message across. It removes a barrier to understanding,” he says.

Infographics for reports, newsletters, videos, blog posts

Nonprofits are using infographics in a multitude of ways, such as in reports, newsletters, with a blog post, or in a video.

The marketing team at Open Arms, based in Minneapolis – an organization that  cooks and delivers free meals for individuals too ill to provide for their own nutritional needs – created several infographics last year for their 2010 annual report.

Kelly McManus is creative director at Open Arms and Susan Pagani is the Communications Director. They say that scattering the report with several infographics was a strategic decision they made together. “We wanted it to be more accessible to everyone – not just those who read the entire report cover to cover. Before, it was onerous to read. This has brought a level of fun to it.”

Kelly and Susan state they made the annual report more engaging by mixing up the serious statistics that are required to be reported, with more quirky facts – such as how many cookies were baked. This warm, welcoming approach reinforces their brand as well.

How to get started when creating an infographic

To begin an infographic project, it’s important to determine at the outset what your overall goals are, who your audiences are and what message you want to convey. Find the story you want to tell with graphics, and mine your data to locate the facts that support that idea. You will also need to provide text that accompanies the graphics, such as headlines and conclusions.

McManus supports this idea. “Infographics are a team effort. We got started by creating an outline on what messages we wanted to convey and those certain things you have to report on as an NPO, and then there are things we bring in to warm it up in a way our audience would find inspiring. We worked together with different departments to obtain the statistics we needed. Finally, we sketched it out and started creating designs.”

Infographics as a way to boost your site’s SEO

The more compelling the information in your infographic, the more people are likely to share it, like it, mention it – so more traffic gets driven to that page, thereby boosting your page rankings.

By promoting your piece thoughtfully, you can increase the likelihood of this happening:

• Optimize with keywords: “Bots” can’t read the text in your graphic (typically a jpeg or png file), but any image inserted on a site can be optimized by adding a title, 3-5 sentence introduction, and “alt text” (that’s text you see in lieu of an image on a site if the image loads slowly) into the HTML code. Use the word “Infographic” in the title. The actual file name should be keyword-rich too (rather than some file naming convention you may use internally). Tip: Google *can* read content in a PDF, so consider posting an alternative file your audience can download.
• Incoming traffic: Since they are easily shared via email and social networks, infographics drive people back to your site to see the graphic in context to possibly learn more, or get a better, larger view of it. Make it easy for users to share the piece by adding the following buttons: Twitter, Facebook Like, Google +1 and StumbleUpon.
• Time spent: An informative piece on a topic with wide appeal makes a Web page more interesting, so visitors are more apt to spend time on that page – and that’s a good thing, according to Google’s ever-shifting page-ranking algorithm.

Measuring efficacy is tricky business

The nonprofit marketeers and designers I talked with agree that measuring an infographic’s success is difficult. Instead, Dadisman has a different set of expectations: “We knew we weren’t going to get direct ticket sales from it; it’s more of a mission to further our presence in the community and about opera  in general.” She admits, “It’s hard to measure ROI. The evidence is anecedotal. It’s more of a long-term effort to build brand awareness. We can watch the infographic make its way around the internet with very little effort after the initial posting, so we know people are sharing it and spreading the word.”

At Open Arms, McManus and Pagani agree. “Donations went up last year but we can’t pin it directly to our infographic efforts. We hear a lot of comments – people from other organizations are using the infographics we created to show their own nonprofit how to convey information for donors and volunteers in a way that hasn’t been done before.”

The value of data visualization

The ubiquity of mobile devices means more and more data streams are flowing all around us, with a need for that information to be processed, delivered and understood. And with people becoming more design-savvy over time, there’s a demand for visual clarity and accessibility. Infographics are a tool that can use data in an attractive and engaging way to provide value to your organization.

Dadisman appreciates the impact infographics have had on her marketing efforts and plans to create more in the future. “It is the vernacular right now. Most people are visual learners. The arts are perfect for this form of communication.”

Especially for nonprofits, McManus and Pagani concur that “Infographics make it possible to tell a complex story in a few words that people can grasp right away. They’re great for nonprofits to tell a  story that will resonate with your audience. Telling people their dimes are being put to good worth – that is the ultimate value.”

Sincerity & technology help express gratitude to supporters

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

It’s easy to think about thanking your Facebook fans as something that’s nice to do – if you have the time and are in the mood. But saying thanks is a vital part of your success on Facebook, and everywhere else.

How do you thank your Facebook fans in ways that are sincere and meaningful? Below are five ways to say thanks that they’ll notice.

With cover photos

1Check out the Facebook cover Dogs Trust created to thank their supports. You can also switch things up by thanking specific fans in a cover photo and even tell them why you appreciate them (a la charity:water)!

With video

2Nothing conveys sincerity more than video. And iPhones and Androids make videos more easy to create than ever.

One of my favorite apps is the video camera from i4software. This app allows you to create hi-def videos at 1280 x 720 resolution with your iPhone.

A few tips to make your video more personal:

• Look directly into the camera lens but imagine that you’re looking into the eyes of a specific donor.
• Talk about your supporters – not you or your organization. Tell them what they’ve done by supporting your organization.
• Shoot in a room well lit with natural light if possible.

With Facebook ads

3Facebook ads allow you to target specific donor segments. For example, you could run a campaign that displays an ad thanking first time donors (in addition to sending them a thank you email and/or calling them on the phone. Read this post for more on targeting emails with Facebook ads.

With a hand-written card

4If you’ve acquired emails and donors from your Facebook Page, you have the ability to create a list of names and addresses. This gets easier and more meaningful with tools like Profile Builder from Small Act.

Take an hour each week to send a hand-written card to a few people who’ve commented on some of your latest Page updates. You might even take a screen grab of the post and include it in your note of thanks!

With your heart

5Bottom line with any of these approaches is the sincerity of the gesture. Always go back to this prime point regardless of how fancy you get with tactics and sparkly gifts.

Finally, check out Amy Eisenstein’s Sample Stewardship Plan to help make thanking your donors a reality.

How are you thanking your Facebook fans?

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.

Start with content marketing, activate intellectual capital & go from there

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

Content marketing has risen to the forefront in recent years as an important tool in the nonprofit communication toolbox. It’s about creating great content: on your blog, through social media messaging, your newsletter, annual reports, case studies, whitepapers, etc.

At its core, content marketing is about communicating with your supporters without selling and asking for a donation at the end. The nonprofit, social enterprise or organization is providing value by creating and sharing information, innovative ideas and insights that makes your supporter smarter and in the know. You become a resource. The result, much of the time, is that you earn the trust and loyalty of your supporters and donors. You no longer interrupt them with “messaging” but invite them into a conversation they find value in, that they deem worthy of sharing, that makes them come back and ultimately invest in you with their minds and wallets.

The issue with creating great content is that often change-makers and nonprofit leaders are unsure about how to activate the most powerful resource they have: their intellectual capital. Nonprofits can be treasure troves of insights just waiting to be unleashed and shared with the world, but often the best of ideas and expertise lies dormant within the walls of an organization.

The Readiness Dance: Share your insights despite the misgivings

There are many reasons why organizations keep their most valuable thoughts and findings internal. I call it the Readiness Dance. People will say, “Our data isn’t completely ready yet – we’re not 100 percent clear internally on our direction with this project,” or something similar. While I completely advocate for presenting breakthrough insights that are research-based and clearly thought out — in fact, that is the essence of true thought leadership — very often it’s more about that “readiness” variable. It’s less about how analyzed the data is and more about how comfortable and confident we are in sharing our ideas and insights with the world.

When nonprofits hone in on their years of experience, research, collaborations and discoveries, they can advance their mission by using those same valuable thoughts and insights to lead. Many people call this thought leadership, and I’d like to see more organizations build their capacity to lead with their thinking.

Especially for smaller to medium-sized nonprofits, thought leadership is one of the most effective and least expensive ways an organization can build awareness of their cause and support for their ideas and programs, and influence the communities they need to reach, including decision makers, policy makers and donors. By harnessing the power of their collective insights, an organization can shape its thought leadership to inspire and move its supporters to action.

While building a thought leadership program for a nonprofit should be thought of as an organization development exercise and not just a communications/PR job, communications teams often and appropriately lead it.

Below is a short primer to help you get the conversation started with your team. I recommend getting your group together around breakfast (or Google Hangout!) one morning and running them through this little primer. I promise it will get the conversation started and make for an interesting talk about how you approach your work and the insights and ideas that lie just below the surface.

Start with the big idea or revealing insights

1Every big idea starts with a vision. It has a strong viewpoint and brings new insights and problem solving to an issue. Ask yourself what original, innovative and valuable perspective you and your organization bring to the table. What do you want to achieve from it?

Overcome culture shock

Photo by schipul (Creative Commons)

2Effective thought leadership programs are an organizational development function, not just a public relations function. Powerful thought leadership campaigns need to be embedded into the culture of an organization to be truly successful. Teams need to be on board with sharing those ideas and insights with the world. They are your greatest ambassadors. Does your culture support that? If you encounter resistance, ask them what about it makes them uncomfortable?

Tell a great story

3Concentrate on telling one focused and clear story and communicate it using channels you know your audience engages with. Social media, online communities, associations, traditional media and speaking events like panels and conferences are all fair game.

Become a resource

4People don’t like to be sold things, for the most part — even when what you’re selling is a noble and brilliant cause. That said, they do buy into solutions, expertise and problem solving. Share your insights. Spread your idea. Offer guidance and people will follow.

Inspire action

5Powerful thought leadership can inspire people to act. Whatever your idea is, make sure that it is actionable. What do you want people to do? Be brave. Ask for what you want.

What are some of the ways your team is leading the conversation on the issues that drive your cause? I’d love to hear some examples. If you’re not quite there yet, I would love to hear what some of the barriers are that you’ve encountered.
Caroline Avakian, a Socialbrite partner, is a social media strategist in the New York City area with a focus on strategic communications, content marketing, blogging and training. Contact Caroline by email, see her profile page, visit the CauseSmart blog, follow her on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.

Photo by Randi Deuro on Flickr (CC BY)

New social tool helps organizations identify top influencers

Target audience: Businesses, brands, digital marketers, advertising agencies, SEO specialists, entrepreneurs, educators, journalists, Web publishers.

Social media has changed not only marketing but search. Today, you need to know who are the top influencers in your sector before you can engage with them and convert them into becoming supporters or champions.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, CEO/co-founder of Little Bird: “We can deliver you right to the top of the mountain.”

Now along comes a new player in the social influence space whose goal is to provide that missing piece of the puzzle: Little Bird. The brainchild of Marshall Kirkpatrick, an entrepreneur/data journalist/technologist who was co-editor at ReadWriteWeb, Little Bird has been in closed beta since October with an exclusive focus on Twitter. But today the site is spreading its wings (sorry!) by expanding to include Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn. It’s still in private beta but the invitation wait time is very short.

Think of it as a way to roll your own army of supporters. “The ultimate vision is that anybody will be able to convene a circle of experts in their field: product design, nutritionists, ceramicists,” Marshall told me. “We can deliver you right to the top of the mountain to begin your engagement to save you the grind of the heavy lifting.”

The top of the mountain being the rugged mountaineers who have slogged to the social media summit and become the top influencers in their sectors. Similar in some ways to how Google’s Page Rank looks for linkbacks to web pages to determine credibility and relevancy, the Little Bird engine analyzes the connections between people to determine who has the most juice in a particular community or on a specific topic.

It’s all about the verticals

I tried Little Bird and was immediately impressed by how it sized up the top influencers in several fields. For social media marketers and public relations professionals, Little Bird offers special appeal, saving us countless hours of assessing who are the folks worth paying attention to — not just at the summit but far down the mountaintop as well.

But Little Bird holds much wider appeal. Don’t know if that fellow sitting in front of you in a job interview is all that? Suss him out on Little Bird — and see which of the influencers in his field are following him.

If you’re a journalist, you may want to know the top 15 experts in the field of water conservation.

If this reminds you a bit of Klout, that’s OK. Influence is hot right now. But there are important differences. Klout is an axe, Little Bird is a scalpel. While Klout is about overall online popularity and clout, whatever that is, Little Bird is not about inducing people to pass along corporate messages to mass audiences. It’s more about discovering the people whose opinions matter in a particular niche or vertical.

“This is tool to build relationships and foster a deeper way to engage with people, not another way to spam people,” Marshall said.

Here’s a short video of Marshall introducing the service:

Introducing Little BIrd from getlittlebird on Vimeo.

A bit pricey, but worth it

OK, final details: Yes, it’s a bit pricey, so you’ll need to gauge whether it’s worth your investment. Little Bird costs $50/month for individuals (up to five reports), $250/month for small businesses, $500/month for mid-size businesses, $1,000/month for businesses with 101 to 500 employees and contract prices for enterprises. Last time I heard, they’re still weighing another pricing tier for nonprofits.

I haven’t tried all the features yet, but there are a sweet set of options beyond running reports. For those of us tired of the firehose, Little Bird is a welcome relief.

Little Bird is still a tad rough around some of the edges, as with any new service, but with Marshall at the helm, you can bet that Little Bird’s forays into online influencers will only get better and better. Search is becoming more social, and Little Bird is one of the companies leading the way.
JD Lasica works with nonprofits, social change organizations and businesses on social media strategies. See his profile, visit his business blog, contact JD or follow him on Twitter or Google Plus.

A quick, helpful guide for nonprofits using WordPress

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

One of the most common questions about writing an effective blog post is the proper use of categories and tags.

What exactly are categories and tags? What purpose should they serve for the reader? Should they each just be one word? How do tags and categories relate to each other? And what does all this mean for optimizing your site for search (SEO)?

Categories vs. tags

Categories are like the aisles in a grocery store and tags are like the ingredients in the various different foods. Chinese chili sauce is located only in the ethnic foods aisles, but garlic (an ingredient) is found in the chips aisle, the frozen dinners aisle, and the vegetable aisle.

Tags (ingredients) link together all of your posts (food items) across your categories (aisles).

According to WordPress, tags “make it easier for people to find your content. Tags are similar to, but more specific than, categories.”

Categories and tags also influence how your blog posts rank in search engines.

How to create effective WordPress tags

Examples of useful tags include “no-kill dog shelter,” “adoptable dogs” and “Australian cattle hounds.” Examples of bad tags include “dog,” “shelter” and “transportation.” The idea is to write tags that are highly specific and can stand on their own.

This way, your readers can find the content they’re looking for much more quickly. Plus, someone looking to adopt an Australian cattle hound will never type “dog” into a search engine.

There are at least three purposes that tags serve:

1. Put your readers before anything else. Ask yourself this: If someone clicked on your tag, will the tag archive be what they’re looking for?
2. Use existing tags first. To avoid redundant tags, use an existing tag before creating a new one. WordPress makes this easy with an auto-complete feature and a tag-cloud; both display tags you’re already written.
3. Make a regular habit of deleting tags that are redundant or too general. Search by topic in your tags panel and weed everything out until you have a few highly specific tags for that topic.

Three useful WordPress plug-ins for tags

If you do use WordPress, there are several plug-ins that can create powerful experiences for readers using tags. Configurable Tag Cloud and Opacity Tags are my personal favorites. If you need to delete unused tags, check out the Mass Delete Unused Tags plug-in.

How to create effective WordPress categories

A dog shelter blog I recently visited included the following categories in the sidebar: “Hairy,”,“Declawed,” “Thoughts.” The problem with these categories – and it’s a very common problem – is that they don’t help the reader.

There are at least three purposes that categories serve:

1. Categories help you communicate to readers what your blog is about. And if people can’t figure this out, they will quickly leave. Categories can be used to create a hierarchal navigation menu in your header or sidebar that quickly communicates the topics your blog covers.
2. Categories help you control where people click on your site. Don’t forget that the purpose of your website is to direct visitors down specific paths of action. You decide which categories to include in your navigation. You decide which categories to display on specific sidebars within your site.
3. Categories help you get found on Google. Google uses your categories to help index your website content. Google also looks at the topical relationship of all your categories as well, so the dog shelter mentioned about might move their “Thoughts” content to another blog.

Four things you can do now to improve your categories

1. Make them clear. Edit your categories so that they are broad enough to cover the larger topics you blog about, but specific enough so that people can know what they’re going to get when they click on the category page.
2. Consolidate categories. Through the process of renaming your categories, you will no doubt find useless categories. Remove the posts from these categories, put them somewhere else and delete these useless categories.
3. Clean your slugs. Slugs are the simple URL structure associated with the category. Remove words like “a” and “the. This will help improve the URL structure for search engines. There are also plug-ins to help clean up your slugs.
4. Start another blog. If you find yourself writing blog posts about topics unrelated to your website, consider starting a different blog, perhaps one just for your personal take on things. Again, your readers and Google look for the prevailing themes of your blog when deciding to subscribe or rank. If there’s not a cohesive theme, you’re in trouble.

Optimizing categories and tags on your site is a lot of work, but the enhanced search rankings and enhanced reader experience are well worth the toil.

How are you using categories and tags?

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter and Google Plus or leave a comment.