Connections : Web 2.0

Creating a Social Networking Strategy (Part 1)

Steve MacLaughlin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:15:00 GMT

This is a follow-up to Creating a Social Networking Strategy (Part 0) that originally appeared on this blog and also as a guest post on Beth Kanter's blog. One of the key takeaways from Part 0 is that once you stop just playing around with social media then you need to start putting together a strategy.

The first place to start is a proven and solid framework for your strategy. That bad news is that most people don't like "strategery" stuff. The good news is that a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done for you.

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies outlines a great strategy that nonprofit organizations can use. Josh was the keynote speaker at the 2009 Target User Forum. You can read an interview and write-up of his presentation on this blog.

In the book, Charlene and Josh recommend using the P.O.S.T. method for putting together your social networking strategy. P.O.S.T. stands for People, Objectives, Strategies, Technologies. And they are meant to be done in precisely that order.

People: Who are you trying to engage? Be specific and prioritize them. The answer can't be everyone.
Objectives: What are you trying to achieve? Is it about listening, talking, or energizing? How will you measure it?
Strategies: What will it look like when you're done? Start with the end in mind and how relationships will change.
Technologies: What are the tools you plan to use? Don't pick the tools first.

It sounds simple, but it works. Give it a try. Resist the temptation to jump right to the tools. Make sure you understand why you're doing this, how you plan to measure success, and identify your internal champions before you take advice from one of the 857 social media experts out there.

Social media and social networks are fundamentally a communications and relationship building channel. It's just on such a mass scale and full of plenty of sound, fury, and hype that we momentarily think the normal rules don't apply. They still do.

One of the first things that I recommend to nonprofits, after working through a quick P.O.S.T. exercise, is to establish your listening post. Before you dive into the conversation it's a good idea to know what people are talking about. Doing this also helps to acclimatize the people in your organization to how much is already going one in the social media ecosystem.

There may or may not be a lot of chatter about your organization, but there will certainly be activity related to your mission, cause, purpose, etc. It is important to tap into this because people are more interested in what you're actually doing instead of reading your mission statement. Read Frank Barry's blog posts "Set up Your Social Media Listening Dashboard in 30 Minutes or Less" and "I’m Listening, Now What? 5 Tips to Make Your Listening Worth It" to get started listening.

Use your listening posts to help guide your P.O.S.T. strategy. You are very likely to find insights into what topics, trends, and sites are closely aligned with your organization. As you work through developing your P.O.S.T. approach to using social media and networks you're likely to find a few scenarios that bring into question your strategy. Don't panic! There are always exceptions and special cases that come up.

Part 2 of Creating a Social Networking Strategy will cover a very popular question: How many staff members does this all take? Look for that post in the near future.

Blackbaud's Social Media for Nonprofits Web Seminar Series

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:04:00 GMT

Blackbaud has been doing another web seminar series. This one is all about Social Media for Nonprofits. This series will give you all the tools you need to fill your social media toolkit!

Internet experts Jeff Patrick, president of Common Knowledge, and Frank Barry, managing consultant for Blackbaud Internet Solutions are putting on this series of sessions. They already covered Twitter for Nonprofits, Facebook for Nonprofits, and Blogging for Nonprofits. But don't worry, you can still view the sessions online. Upcoming web seminars include:

Social Networking for Fundraising Professionals
This session is for communications, marketing, and fundraising professionals looking to understand how to integrate social networks into their strategy. We'll cover what is social networking, social media, and Web 2.0, why is social networking valuable for nonprofits, and how it can be used for fundraising.
October 22 at 11:00 a.m. PDT

Building a Brand with Social Networks: Marketing and Communications Strategies
This web seminar is for communications and marketing professionals - Manager, Director, Vice President and C-Level roles - looking to understand how to integrate social networks into your organization's communications and marketing strategy.
November 3 at 11:00 a.m. PDT

Social Networking Strategy for Nonprofits
This session will help you understand social networks, evaluate projects and opportunities within your organization, and participate in the process of constructing your social networking strategy.
November 12 at 11:00 a.m. PDT

Mark the dates down. Sign-ups for these sessions will be available very soon.

Social Media Explained — 140 Characters at a Time

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:05:00 GMT

Social Media is another powerful communication channel just like person-to-person, telephone, direct mail, email, web, and text messaging.

Social Media is different from traditional broadcast media, like newspapers, television, and film, because it allows user-generated dialog.

Social Media is closely associated with Web 2.0 and emphasizes multi-way communication and interaction instead of earlier one-way Web tools.

Social Media uses highly accessible and scalable forms of web-based technologies that allow people to create, publish, reach, and interact.

Social Media takes many forms like social content where weblogs allow individuals and groups to publish content that is open for comment.

Social Media can use video networks like YouTube, photo sharing like Flickr, and distribute content using Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

Social Media facilitates collaborative content publishing like Wikipedia, social news sites like Digg, and virtual worlds like Second Life.

Social Media has its largest presence on popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn where people connect online.

Social Media is also services such as Twitter where your messages are only 140 characters long — just like the sentences in this blog post.

Social Media allows nonprofits to use a mix of these tools to help create and build relationships with new and existing constituents online.

Social Media requires that nonprofits engage in active listening, creative experimentation, and metrics measurement to find what's working.

Social Media makes some nonprofits nervous because it requires them to give up some control over how their messages are spread and shared.

Social Media requires that you let go of the illusion of control over your message to leverage new tools and reach constituents in new ways.

Social Media has a lot of so-called experts and gurus, but the best way to really understand and grasp it is to start using it yourself.

Social Media is no substitute for having a good Internet strategy, integrated website, effective email marketing program, and solid metrics.

NetWits Summer Camp - Day 4 - Social Media Demystified

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:02:00 GMT

NetWits Summer Camp is all about social media today. There's so much to cover and so much to talk about. But I think that it's important to tie social media into how it fits within a broader online strategy.

The social media landscape is constantly changing. Nonprofits need to understand the fundamentals, what it's good at, and what it's not so good at. Here is a brief recap of today's session:

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0
Listen, Experiment, and Engage
Nonprofit Social Media in Action
The Momentum of Permission
Where We Go from Here

NetWits Summer Camp wraps up tomorrow with session about online metrics. I'll pull together some of the key metrics and benchmarks from across the web, email, online fundraising, and social media.

Sign Up for NetWits Summer Camp

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:07:00 GMT

Today, Blackbaud is announcing that registration for NetWits Summer Camp is now open. NetWits Summer Camp is a free five-day series of web seminars covering what every nonprofit needs to know about its website, email marketing, online fundraising, social media, and related metrics. The “Camp” will be held August 24 to 28 from 1 to 2 p.m. EDT.

The event series is an extension of Blackbaud’s popular blog NetWits Think Tank which focuses on technology, fundraising, social media and industry trends. NetWits Summer Camp will provide participants a broad knowledge of critical nonprofit technology concepts and how to best implement those technologies within their organization.

Websites Demystified
A website is one of the main cornerstones of your online initiatives, but are you making the most of it? This session will cover how your website fits into a nonprofit’s communication, interaction, and engagement efforts. Topics to be covered include website architecture and design, usability, content management, personalization, and how nonprofits can improve their online presence.
Monday, August 24 at 1 p.m. ET — Register Today! - SESSION FULL

Email Demystified
A successful email marketing program combined with an effective website form the core of your Internet efforts. This session will focus on the different types of email communication, ways to build your email lists, and best practices for getting the most out of your email marketing program. Topics to be covered include list building, segmentation strategies, design do’s and don’ts, understanding spam, and how to improve your email results.
Tuesday, August 25 at 1 p.m. ET — Register Today! - SESSION FULL

Online Fundraising Demystified
The Internet continues to be the fastest growing area for fundraising in the nonprofit sector. Using a website, email, and other channels can help improve overall fundraising results for your organization. This session cover how nonprofits are taking their online fundraising efforts to the next level and beyond the simple “donate now” button. Topics to be covered include online donation form do’s and don’ts, building a targeted online giving campaign, and how peer-to-peer fundraising plays an important role in all of this.
Wednesday, August 26 at 1 p.m. ET — Register Today! - SESSION FULL

Social Media Demystified
There is a lot of talk about social media these days, but how does it fit into an overall online strategy? This session will focus on how nonprofits are using Web 2.0 tools like Facebook. YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and many more to help engage and communicate with constituents. Topics to be covered include an overview of the social media and networking landscape, examples of nonprofits using these tools, and how to begin developing a social media strategy for your nonprofit.
Thursday, August 27 at 1 p.m. ET — Register Today! - SESSION FULL

Online Metrics Demystified
The combined use of a website, email, online fundraising, and social media brings with it a lot of powerful metrics to measure your results. This session will cover what are the key online metrics to measure, what they mean, and how to manage them on an ongoing basis. Topics to be covered include metrics for the web, email, online fundraising, and social media, industry benchmarks and trends in online metrics, and how to pull them all together to measure your online success.
Friday, August 28 at 1 p.m. ET — Register Today! - SESSION FULL

I hope you'll be able to join all or most of these sessions. Space is limited so be sure to sign up soon.

Twitter by the Numbers

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:23:00 GMT

There have been a lot of statistics coming out lately about Twitter. I'm sure there will be more headlines about Twitter given today's little outage. What follows is a sampling of some various statistics that have been published lately.

Here are some stats from Sysomos about Twitter usage:

53% of Twitter users are women and 47% are men
72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
21% of users have never posted a Tweet
93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
48% of the most active users have more than 100 followers, compared with 6.3% for overall Twitter users
More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com
TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share

Here are some stats from Nielsen about Twitter usage:

10.7% of all active Internet users used Twitter in June 2009
16% of Twitter users are under 25 years old
64% of Twitter users are 26 to 54 years old

It should be noted that Nielsen was only looking at Twitter.com users. That leaves out mobile phone and other application users from their statistics.

Social Media is a Big Waste of Time

Steve MacLaughlin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:03:00 GMT

That's right, I said it. You've all been thinking it. Admit it. A lot of time is spent these days talking about social media and working on social media. But is it all just a big waste of time?

Social media is a big waste of your organization's time if...

You haven't clearly defined the audience you're trying to engage
You don't have a clear goals for what you want them to do
You aren't measuring what people are doing or responding to
You haven't defined success and what the value of it is
You are only doing this because someone else told you to

Time is probably the most precious resource in the universe. They aren't making any more of it. And organizations are always trying to find ways to do more with less.

If you aren't being focused, goal oriented, measurement minded, and doing it for the right valuable reasons, then your time might be best spent on other endeavors.

Upcoming NetWits Live @ San Francisco Event

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:01:00 GMT

NetWits Live is coming to the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. Blackbaud Internet Solutions has teamed up with TechSoup Global to provide sessions on social networking, Web 2.0, email best practices, and more at this free, one-of-a-kind, half-day event.

Where: Hyatt Regency San Francisco
When: Wednesday | March 4th | 8:30am to 12:00pm
Who: Nonprofits on West Coast and San Francisco area
How: To register please visit: http://www.blackbaud.com/netwitslive

The Right Message, The Right People, The Right Time — Making the Most of Email Marketing
Join Blackbaud Interactive Marketing Manager Allison Van Diest to discuss winning strategies and tools for planning, developing, launching, and managing a successful email marketing program, including tips and tricks that you can put to use right away.
Speaker: Allison Van Diest, Blackbaud Internet Solutions Marketing Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

Rapid Donor Cultivation
You might not know that your new email opt-ins are in a crucial stage during the first 30 days. How do you engage people when they first join your nonprofit’s email list? In this presentation we will explain how to: Ensure a strategic stream of email communications, Engage new supporters with frequent, targeted, high-quality messages, and Rapidly cultivate new prospects
Speaker: Jeff Patrick, President and Founder, Common Knowledge

The Changing Nature of Online Fundraising
There are three major trends impacting nonprofits today: The channels used to fundraise are changing, the people who donate are changing, and the giving experience is changing. We’ll discuss why it's critical to fundraise with integrated and multi-channel campaigns, engage Generation-X and Millennial donors, and move beyond the donation page.
Speaker: Steve MacLaughlin, Director of Internet Solutions, Blackbaud, Inc.

Across the Spectrum of Social Media: How Organizations of All Sizes Are Leveraging Web 2.0
Chad Norman, social web strategist and self-confessed web-geek, will host a panel discussion featuring industry experts who consult with a wide variety of organizations on social media and Web 2.0. The panel will address how social media affects organizations’ resources, goals, and branding and will cover the tools that organizations can potentially put to use immediately following the event.
Panel Moderator: Chad Norman, Internet Marketing Manager, Blackbaud, Inc.

The Baudcast Goes Green

Steve MacLaughlin — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:25:00 GMT

Episode 16 of The Baudcast is all focused on environmental organizations. It sheds some light on how they are leveraging Web 2.0 and other technologies to move their mission forward.

Blackbaud's Chad Norman has pulled together an all star cast that includes:

Michael Sola ― Director of Information Technology, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Danielle Brigida ― Associate Operations Coordinator, National Wildlife Federation
Jonathon Colman ― Associate Director of Digital Marketing, The Nature Conservancy

Melanie Milonas (Public Relations Manager, Blackbaud) also talks about her local work with Fields to Families. And Chad talks a little bit about his own efforts with Go Green Charleston.

They cover a ton of topics from social web promotion, market testing, social media ROI, social news stickiness, NWF's Good Neighbor Program, friends asking friends fundraising, allocating staff time to social networks, social networking role models, (lil) Green Patch, and Facebook apps for small nonprofits.

The panel also talks about where they get their inspiration from, how they go about trying new ideas, and the importance of exploring on a regular basis. Jonathan Colman points out that "testing is probably the root of almost everything we do." Great information and content throughout the 40 minute show.

I really think that Chad is now producing one of the best podcasts in the nonprofit sector. Sure, there's a little bit of Blackbaud news at the end of each episode, but no one would say it's an infomercial. Chad gets this stuff and he cares about this stuff. You can't fake authenticity. And he continues to pull in thought leaders from a variety of different nonprofit organizations. Good stuff.

Book Review of CauseWired

Steve MacLaughlin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:02:00 GMT

Tom Watson explores the societal impact of online social networks in his new book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Wiley, November 2008) CauseWired is the first book focused on making sense of social media in the nonprofit world. Watson not only gets it — but he also explains why social media matters in understandable terms.

The book begins by explaining that wired causes are on important aspect of how social networks impact our world. These "CauseWired consumers are superinformed consumers who expect to create and support causes, change politics, and have personal involvement in the brands they support economically."

"For nonprofit organizations and the philanthropists who support them, a grasp of the coming influence of social networks in causes will be, frankly, key to survival in a world where your grandfather’s style of check - writing charity no longer applies."

Watson addresses the hype factor of Web 2.0 and goes on to explain how the "sheer number of users is staggering" and can't be discounted. Part of his research for the book required him to dive into the medium. Tom's companion website for the book can be found at http://www.causewired.com/ and gives an ongoing account of changes that continue to transform wired causes.

To understand the context for wired causes, Tom Watson recounts his own personal journey through the many technological twists and turns he has witnessed. He wants the reader to understand why these changes in media and technology are transforming the "underlying human impulse to help others" and how to think about where this is all going in the future.

Tom begins with Hurricane Katrina as an example of social media creating a CauseWired movement. Bloggers were ahead of the mainstream media and the government when it came to telling the real story of what was happening on the Gulf Coast. Next came the photos on Flickr, the videos on YouTube, and numerous charities accepting online donations.

The book points to how the wired "infrastructure of personal interaction and its growth over the last three years creates fertile ground for fast - moving social activism online." It was this combination of technology elements that turned response to Katrina into a wired cause. And it still remains a wired social cause more than three years later.

"New technology and the human urge to communicate will create the basis for a golden age of activism and involvement, increasing the reach of philanthropy and improving the openness of politics, democratic government, and our major social institutions."

CauseWired then turns its attention to Facebook and the Causes application. Watson references the fundraising tool through the story of Eric Ding and his efforts to raise money for breast cancer research at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston. "What Eric Ding was doing with Causes on Facebook was not about building a fundraising campaign. It was about building an audience," says Watson.

Facebook illustrates an example of social pressure leveraging social data to drive people towards social causes. It's the ability to pull mass groups together and directing them towards causes that mean something to them and the people in their lives. Expect this capability to appear across multiple social networks in many forms over time.

"Causes do not spread just because they are good; they spread because people spread them. This seems simple and rather obvious, but it is the secret sauce behind the rise of all the online social networks. In short, people like being asked nicely by other people they know to do things for them; that request validates the relationship. This precept is as old as recorded civilization."

Author Tom Watson then turns his attention to the Darfur conflict and the role of social media. The Genocide Intervention Network got its start from using various social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster. The organization has continued to engage people via Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Change.org, and has been able to acquire activists, volunteers, and donors through theses channels.

The book points out that "using the power of the network to distribute a story, to sign people up to support a cause, and to occasionally bring them into the street is at the heart of the CauseWired revolution." Other nonprofits like Bright Hope International have also been able to reach the next generation of supporters by embracing social media and networks.

CauseWired then focuses on peer-to-peer philanthropy, a topic I'm very familiar with from the People to People Fundraising book. Watson discusses DonorsChoose and its eventual breakthrough to become a successful online fundraising tool. The same disintermediated approach to supporting a cause is what has made Kiva so successful. And there are some statistics that suggest many of these people are "new money" donors making their first philanthropic gifts using these websites.

"If you give people a chance to make an impact, and you let them see the evidence of their impact, they will respond. They naturally want to make a difference in the world, they want to respond but mostly they feel helpless. We give them something very tangible and provide feedback." - Matt Flannery, Co-Founder and CEO, Kiva

And what about those Millennials? Tom Watson covers them in the book too. He points out that there are "twice as many millennials as Gen-Xers and already a million more millennials alive than Baby Boomers." They are also more ethnically diverse, volunteer in large numbers, are more in tune with social causes, and "this is the most technically savvy and invested generation in American history." They want real change and are willing to take action to make it happen.

This also extends to the political arena. The 2008 US presidential campaign, citizen journalists, and how people are engaging and giving are explored. CauseWired is one of the first books to cover what the campaigns have been doing and what it can mean for other organizations. Some readers might let their own political views cloud the merits of what is being done, but putting those biases aside will help to get a better understanding of what's going on.

"Young people do not separate their causes into neat little boxes labeled POLITICS and CHARITY. They simply respond to what moves them, what their friends recommend, and what they believe might change the world."

While some political campaigns seem to go on and on without end, there is another phenomenon to be aware of: flash causes. Watson uses the Southern California wildfires of 2007 as an example of a flash cause. Twitter, Digg, weblogs, Facebook Causes, and other social media sites immediately became a rallying point for information and mobilization during the disaster. CauseWired goes on to detail other examples of flash causes in action.

Watson believes that there are two major trends on a collision course: "On one hand, people are ever more conscious of philanthropy and its role in commerce and society; on the other, these people are talking to each other more than ever before." The traditional fundraising practices of acquisition, cultivation, and stewardship are forever changed by wired causes. Are you prepared?

Involvement and engagement are now being built from the bottom of the giving pyramid on up. The author notes that "some structure is necessary in successfully organizing an online cause; pure groupthink rarely leads to accomplishment." There are some good explanations of approaches and processes to engage people and build CauseWired leaders.

The book ends with an extensive list of websites, blogs, social media sites, and other books worth reading. This is a great place to continue your understanding of some of the major concepts and examples featured in CauseWired. And sprinkled throughout the book are comments and insights from respected people in the nonprofit industry like Beth Kanter, Joe Green and Sean Parker, Allan Benamer, and Allison Fine.

Tom Watson's CauseWired is must reading for anyone in the nonprofit world. I have covered a lot of the aspects of the book in this review, but there is so much more to be discovered in its pages. I still didn't give away the really really good parts. Order your copy today.

The Illusion of Control

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:22:00 GMT

Gerry McGovern is a web content management guru. He's a very popular author and speaker on the subject. I had the good fortune of meeting Gerry a few years ago at a CASE conference in the UK.

Every week, since 1996, Gerry has published an e-newsletter called "New Thinking" that explores a variety of topics. This past week's edition was called "Web 2.0 is about giving up some control" and is well worth reading. Gerry makes a couple of solid statements including:

"The naïve tool-centric view of Web 2.0 still exists. 'Just give them the blog and the wiki software and get out of the way' has very limited logic. But it is classic IT-thinking. As if the tool was the be all and end all, and the only purpose of life was to discover the right one. As if it was the type of quill that Shakespeare chose that made him the writer that he was." - Gerry McGovern

It's the classic "build it and they will blog" thinking. Things rarely work out that way. Nearly every successful Web 2.0 initiative has happened because people seed, water, and weed them. If you want things to grow, then you can't just flip the switch on the technology and wait for the magic to happen. The magic isn't in the technology. It's in the people.

"But the managers are not the only clever people in the room anymore. The room is much bigger and it is speckled with cleverness. To manage in the Web 2.0 world is to converse, to listen, to be honest and upfront, to collaborate, to moderate, and constantly watch out for the trends and patterns that always emerge when many minds mingle and mix in the network." - Gerry McGovern

Web 1.0 was about controlling the one-way message. Web 2.0 is about engaging in two-way messages. The only remaining control is the illusion of control. You can avoid having a conversation. You can even pretend the conversations aren't happening elsewhere. Good luck with that approach. I'm sure it will work out just fine.

Social Networking Ideas and More

Steve MacLaughlin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The latest episode of The Baudcast covers a lot of topics and is well worth a listen. Episode 14 is nearly 40 minutes long and a lot of the discussion is around the value of social networking and how nonprofits can begin to leverage it.

The panel discussion includes Chad Norman (Internet Marketing Manager), Melanie Milonas (Public Relations Manager), Chris Clark (Software Engineer), and myself from Blackbaud. Also on the panel are Danielle Brigida (National Wildlife Federation) and Garrett Keating (United States Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation).

There's a great exchange between the panel about social networking and what is working, what makes the metrics move, and what might not yield results. A common trend is to see a small number of very active users. I think this reinforces the 90/9/1 Rule that I've talked about in some of my presentations about social media.

We also talk a little bit more about some of the new social networking functionality in Blackbaud NetCommunity v5.5. Chris Clark touches on some of the development work that has been done on the product, and he discusses some of the thought processes that went into building this functionality.

The build vs. borrow choice also gets a fair amount of discussion by the panel. Many nonprofits might be able to get things started purely through borrowed technologies or social networks. For certain key constituent groups the build approach may be a very effective tool to help increase the relevancy of those relationships.

A question sent in via Twitter from Marc Pitman asked about fundraising differences and trends in Asia Pacific. I did my best to explain the hybrid nature of fundraising here that combines a focus on recurring gifts and major gift development. It's very much a combination of fundraising techniques used in the UK, Europe, and North America.

There's plenty of other good stuff in Episode 14, and I hope you'll listen to it and send us some feedback. I was also glad that Skype managed to work and sound pretty good from here in Australia. Sometimes all this technology actually does work.

2008 AMA Nonprofit Marketing Conference

Steve MacLaughlin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:50:00 GMT

Today's blog entry is coming from Washington, DC and the 2008 American Marketing Association's Nonprofit Marketing Conference. This is a three-day conference with a variety of speakers and sessions all around the theme of "Telling Your Story: From Vision to Results."

This morning I'll be doing a 4-hour workshop called "One to One Marketing: Using Technology to Connect with Individuals" with Michael Cervino, Vice President and Co-Founder of Beaconfire Consulting.

The session is going to try and demystify channel communication and how to do some real integrated marketing. Lots of information, several examples of integrated marketing in action, and then we'll give some attention to the most effective online channels. It wouldn't be a workshop without some interaction so there will be a audience analysis and communication planning exercise.

Get more information about the session and download a copy of the presentation by visiting the Beaconfire Wire blog.

Connecting Some Different Dots

Steve MacLaughlin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:24:00 GMT

Here are a couple of different connections worth checking out...

The Baudcast - Episode 8
This episode discusses Blackbaud NetCommunity v5.5, social networking noise, the European SONI Survey, and an interview with Marc Pitman. The panel discussion includes Chad Norman (Internet Marketing Manager), Melanie Milonas (Public Relations Manager), Allison Van Diest (Product Marketing Manager), and yours truly, all from Blackbaud. Look for more regular episodes and special guest appearances in the near future.

ePhilanthropy Foundation Symposium
This Saturday is the ePhilanthropy Foundation's Social Networking and Nonprofit Online Strategies Symposium at Columbia University in NYC. There are a lot of great sessions and you can register now for the event online. I'll be presenting a session called "Leveraging the Internet to Build Relationships and Expand the Reach of Your Organization Online" that takes some ideas from the People to People Fundraising book to the next level.

Inside the iPhone Numbers
The new features and the price cut on the iPhone G3 wasn't the most interesting information to come out of Apple yesterday. Steve Jobs noted in his WWDC Keynote speech that 98% of iPhone users are browsing online, 94% are using email, 90% are using text messaging, 80% are using 10 or more features. That points to some behavior trends that are reshaping the phone market as iPhone copies continue to hit the market. How much longer can we actually call it a phone?

2007 Online Giving Trends
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a series of articles about online giving trends in 2007. This is their annual review of what's changing and what's not in the online space. Nicole Wallace notes that "while Internet giving at many charities has continued to climb, the rate of growth has begun to taper off, and the increases haven't been enough to offset declines in direct mail." Much of the initial article seems to echo findings by Target Analytics in their 2007 Index of National Fundraising Performance: There are less donors giving more dollars and this trend has continued post-Katrina. Taking a look at some of the data from the articles also shed some light on trends. The Greater Des Moines Community Foundation had a 2929.5% YOY increase in online giving and the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund topped the list with $314,035,185 in online donations in 2007. There might be something to that whole community foundation market afterall. More on all of this in a future blog post...

Social Networks: It's (still) about the Relationship

Steve MacLaughlin — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:01:00 GMT

Last week, TechCrunch published an article about the Causes Application that was also syndicated in the The Washington Post and picked up by many nonprofit media outlets and bloggers. Causes reported the online fundraising results from their first year in use.

Most of the discussion surrounds the simple mathematics: $2.5 million raised from 12 million users = $0.21 raised per user / per year. But that's a little bit too simple of an analysis. Kinda like declaring the value of an email address based on just online giving data. Something rather important is missing from the equation.

What you're missing is a complete view of the donors in question. Are they new donors or existing donors? Are they lapsed donors? Are they switch donors? Did they also give through other channels? Did they give more, less, or the same through any other channels? Have they given again since the first gift? Have we done anything to engage with them since that gift? And what's our plan to engage them now that they've taken the first few steps. Ya know...fundraising 101 kinda stuff.

Much of the buzz around social networking and fundraising reminds me of the "Underpants Gnomes" episode from South Park. The kleptomaniac creatures of short stature had a simple money making plan:

"Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Profit"

This flawed thinking process isn't that far removed from what many players in the nonprofit world have tried to apply to email (collect email addresses → ??? → donations) . And now the same logic is being applied to social media. That strategy won't work either. I'm sorry to say that there are no shortcuts. That's true whether your technology partner is Blackbaud or someone else.

The only place where "commitment" comes before "engagement" is in the dictionary. No sane person would walk right up to someone and make a marriage proposal. Yet somehow many organizations want to believe that people will go from "friends" one moment to "donors" after the next click.

Social networks allow for different forms of engagement to happen on a mass scale. And those engagements need the same TLC and stewardship to turn them into commitments. It's something that I like to call: The Momentum of Permission. The simple act of engaging through loose or tight relationships opens up the doors for further interaction.

But if you're not prepared or setup to take these initial engagements to the next level in the relationship then I don't think you can complain about less than optimal results.

In a recent live discussion held by The Chronicle on Philanthropy this topic came up. Seth Godin voiced the following comments:

“You don’t need 1000 shallow relationships, you don’t need a long list of friends. What you need is deep relationships, people willing to mortgage their house to support you, willing to host a party to support you, willing to devote a vacation to support you. That’s not about volume, nor is it about the site. It’s about how you build relationships that matter."

That might sound like purple cow crazy talk, but it doesn't make it any less true. Without taking the "shallow relationships" to the next step in the relationship all you have is a long list of friends. You need to engage them, retain them, and steward them to get their long-term commitment. And there are several organizations that have been able to successfully do this as part of a broader social media strategy.

I've had the chance to chat about this with Matt Adkisson, the co-founder over at FreeCause. They have worked with a lot of nonprofits, like Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, to leverage social networks successfully. Matt commented that:

"From what we've seen, younger users want more engagement - less of a transaction, more of an on-going experience. They are willing to spend more time and effort involved in a process, or taking actions, to help the non-profits. We should try to capture their constituent data within our traditional CRM systems because from there, we DO know a bit about the giving experience and how to engage, develop, and manage donors over time."

As both acquisition and retention rates continue to be in flux this issue is only going to become more and more important. Or you can dismiss all this stuff as a passing fad. That's your choice to make.