Comments, metrics, and messages have come to the Facebook “Like” button. On Wild Apricot’s blog, Rebecca Leaman talks through the changes and explains the pros and cons.
Speaking of, what’s the best way to stay engaged with all those likers on Facebook? Nick O’Neill on All Facebook suggests that it can be as easy as asking a question.
A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethriccaor check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.
Are your action alerts effective as they could be? Join the discussion started by Jake Brewer on the Sunlight Foundation Blog about whether best practices for advocacy emails are really best, and what the alternatives might look like.
Facebook crossed the 500-million user mark this week. Distract yourself from your growing fear that Facebook really is poised to take over the world with these fun Facebook facts, courtesy of Mashable.
A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethriccaor check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.
Last night I enjoyed a fascinating 501 Tech NYC meeting where Michael Hoffman of See3 Communications and Sara Fusco of Refugees International shared some great ideas about how nonprofits should be thinking about video as part of their communications strategy.
I’m embedding their slides below–so do take a gander. Here are some of my takeaways:
The first question you should ask is not how long your video should be or how you’ll come up with something so hot it puts the Old Spice guy to shame, but how does video relate to your mission?
It’s not the number of views that count, but the eyeballs behind those views. Let the goals of your video and who you are trying to reach drive your creation–and how you measure its success.
As part of my summer reading binge, I’m just diving into Beth Kanter and Allison Fine’s important new book, “The Networked Nonprofit”. Beth and Allison couldn’t be a better-suited team to write about how nonprofits can use social media: both have been blogging on the topic (Beth writes Beth’s blog while Allison writes A. Fine blog), writing other books on networks and social change, and doing all sorts of neat related things.
The preface of their book includes this sage advice to its readers:
“…we ask for one thing in exchange: for organizational leaders anxious to jump into the what and how of social media, please practice using the tools yourselves. It’s the only way to discover social media’s power to change the way we think and work. We also hope you will trust the people within your organization to do the same, and encourage them to connect with the world in positive, creative ways.”
Amen, sistas!
I know from personal experience how important practicing using these tools is. Likewise, I know that you have to entrust and empower your staff to do the same on your organization’s behalf.
In order to communicate effectively for your nonprofit, you may need to be comfortable being wrong from time to time. Amber Wobschall on Connection Cafeshares tips and examples for how nonprofits can challenge past assumptions and make the most out of missteps.
Are you giving your donors, supporters, and other website visitors the right tools to get in touch with you? Create an inviting “Contact Us” page with the help of these tips from John Paul Titlow on ReadWriteBiz.
Not sure how to break out of broadcast mode with your organization’s Facebook updates? Miriam Kagan shares a nice example on DonorPower Blog of how nonprofits can use Facebook to build relationships with donors and inspire them to act and interact online.
A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethriccaor check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.
We at Big Duck spend a lot of our professional time thinking about websites. A lot. Whether we’re creating sites for clients, leading webinars about online strategy, or just keeping up with best practices, a good chunk of our workday brainpower is devoted to the web.
But then there are the non-work hours, when we surf and search and chat and click just like everyone else.
So we thought it might be interesting to see what we could learn from the websites we like to use on our own time. (Ahem. Not those kind of websites.) All the ducks selected sites they’ve found in their personal web use that they think are particularly well designed.The results are below, along with brief explanations why each duck made the pick he or she did.
If your default password is “password,” it might be time for an upgrade (this goes for your nonprofit’s online accounts, too). Need convincing? The fine folks at Common Craft break down the risks and offer tips for crafting a great password in this handy video.
A recent report from Pew Internet shows that mobile access to the Internet continues to rise—59% of American adults are active online through mobile devices (with even higher rates in some minority groups). Is your website ready for a world of tiny cell phone screens?
Nanhi Kali, a nonprofit that helps underprivileged girls, is trying a new approach to fundraising through storytelling: a choose-your-own-adventure video series, where your donations unlock new chapters. Katya Andreson considers the pros and cons of their approach on Nonprofit Marketing Blog.
If you’re making one of these social media mistakes identified by Social Media Examiner, don’t fret—they’ve also compiled some helpful tips for bringing your online efforts back on course.
A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethriccaor check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.
Here at the Duck we’ve been experiencing the heat wave in a way completely unique to our New York location. We are a very tiny part of a very large power grid which, like the shaved ice guy, gets very sluggish during the heat. Or doesn’t show up to work at all. We’ve been fortunate enough to keep our power and our air conditioning while others haven’t been so lucky.
We did receive a handful of very spooky emails from ConEd which used words and phrases like “fires” and “true crisis mode”. Maybe most alarming was ConEd’s suggestion that we switch over to a generator, which we don’t have: “If you have an onsite generator, you should get on the generator power ASAP.”
Like most New Yorkers, we kept calm (sleepy in fact), drank some iced coffee and hoped for the best. Some folks took the opportunity to check-in to the Heatpocalypse 2010 on foursquare. And I saw at least five young men in our building grow long hair and eccentric facial hair in response to the crisis, sort of like they did in the 60s on a hot day:
More than mutton chops and iPhone apps, we continued on with our Vampire Duck electricity conservation program, now in its second year. We’ve labeled all of our “vampire” appliances (which suck electricity even when shut off) and at the end of the day, we pull their plugs. We even shut down our computers, switch off our power strips, and… shut off the A/C (gasp!).
vampire duck label
We’ve found that like most folks, we don’t like to waste away in the heat. But, we also don’t like to use energy we don’t even know we’re using. Simple steps can make a big difference and perhaps the most valuable tool to fighting wasteful power usage is awareness.
What is your organization doing to keep energy usage down during the heat wave? Leave comments and tips below.
The Big Duck blog launched on July 1st, 2009 to help celebrate Big Duck’s 15th Anniversary. Our goals for the blog were to use it as a way to celebrate smart nonprofit communications, explore relevant issues, and have a little fun. And now a year has gone by. So to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Duck Call, I thought it would be nice to take a short trip down memory lane.
During our first year of blogging, these were the top ten most popular posts:
We’ve had a great time this past year, and we hope you’ve found the Duck Call to be smart, fun, creative, and useful as well. We look forward to more of it in the years to come.
Blogs are a great way to build relationships with your audience, show your organizations personality, and convene conversations. If you are thinking about starting a blog for your nonprofit, make sure to have a clear strategy and realistic goals, and are committed to maintaining the blog before jumping in.
Do you have a favorite post from the past year? Please share any comments, feedback, or suggestions about the Duck Call. And thanks for reading!
Does your organization have dedicated staff people for communications? Or even staff people who have, as part of their job description, some responsibilities for creating or managing external communications?
Unlike for-profit businesses of comparable size, nonprofits don’t typically hire people in communications jobs until the organization reaches a certain size: often somewhere around a $4 million operating budget or a staff well into the double digits.
In bigger organizations, communications people sometimes work in the development department (often reporting up to a “Director of Advancement” who’s typically a fundraiser). Maybe several staff people take on various communications responsibilities within various departments. With little or no coordination between them, this can often result in duplicated efforts, conflicting messages, or other “silo issues.”
At the end of a workshop Sarah Durham (Big Duck’s principal and founder) gave recently for the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network in San Francisco, a participant asked her what she thinks is the optimal staffing structure for communications. In particular, should development people should have oversight for communications, or communications over development?
We’ve been stewing on this question for years and we can’t say there’s one “right” way to do it. As with most things, it depends… on the vision, mission, and objectives of the organization, on the types of audiences they are aiming to reach, and other variables. (Hey, if the answers were easy we’d all have them, right?)
