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Posts Tagged ‘associations’

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Facebook’s popularity is still growing at exponential rate. Is your nonprofit taking advantage of this gold mine?

Here are three key features that can help your organization get the most out of Facebook:

Key Feature #1: Pages

Facebook has introduced Fan Pages for businesses and organizations, whereas, profiles are meant for individuals. From your Facebook Fan Page you can build community and increase communication with your members by posting updates, sharing pictures, blogging and interacting with your fans. It can also be helpful in recruiting volunteers, raising money and essential networking. It is free to set up a Facebook Fan Page. The only commitment your organization will have to make is one of committing time to create the page and keep it active.

Key Feature #2: Causes

Facebook has a diverse group of users who want to use their Facebook for various reasons. To help users get just what they want out of the social networking site, Facebook has allowed other companies (or web geeks) to create Applications which users can download to their profile. These thousands of applications include games, ways to share music or pictures, quizzes, polls, and lots more. The one that nonprofits need to be aware of is Causes. Instead of us telling you what they do, here’s a snippet from their website:

“Causes offers nonprofit organizations of every budget size, staff capacity, and issue area access to Facebook and MySpace, which between them have over 400 million monthly unique visitors. Facebook, the world’s “stickiest” site, sees over 100 million people log in on a daily basis. Beyond the sheer reach of these social networks, Causes provides nonprofits with specialized tools for spreading awareness, building community, fundraising, circulating petitions, and promoting other actions. Whether you want to reach out to a new supporter demographic, expand your donor base, engage and mobilize existing supporters, or spread the word about your incredible work, Causes is a platform for efficiently and effectively achieving those goals.”

The Causes website has a wealth of information for nonprofits interested in using their platform, including everything you need to know to get started, success stories from other nonprofits, and information on corporate and foundation matching grants.

Key Feature #3: Events

Besides allowing users to manage their contacts and multimedia, Facebook has a feature which allows users to create events and invite guests. You can customize the event, edit its privacy settings, invite members (you can also invite members not on Facebook through email) and add pictures or video. After creating the event, you can send reminder messages to your guests, monitor RSVPs, and interact with guests via a comment section.

Tags: association members, associations, Connect with a Younger Crowd, facebook, member engagement, member feedback, Membership Marketing, Non-Profit, nonprofits, social media, social media tools, visual communicators
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The Adult Version of Rock’em Sock’em

Monday, July 13th, 2009

When it comes to meeting conference attendance goals or fundraising goals, we know that sometimes you feel like the champ, but there are also times when you’ve taken a hard hit.

The competition can be tough as you battle for your audience’s attention and commitment. Many associations are finding that marketing plans that have worked in the past are now producing poor results.

Remember the classic game Rock’em Sock’em? The hours of fun spent knocking off the block of your tough opponents? And, the strategy that went into moving your red or blue robot into position, throwing punches at the perfect time – and most importantly, to try again after defeat.

Association marketing can often feel like today’s adult version of Rock’em Sock’em. You take those hard-blowing punches when e-mail blasts give less-than-desired results, or few members are jumping on board for early-registration.

It’s times like these that you simply have to pick yourself up, and keep swinging. Think on your feet and keep an open mind to new possibilities. If the same old punches aren’t working anymore, learn some new ones. Strengthen the impact of your conference marketing with a finely tuned logo. Improve membership retention with better communication through social media. Re-think your event marketing plan.

Keep rockin’ and sockin’ to discover those block-buster punches, and celebrate with that beloved gotcha victory cry!

Tags: association conference, associations, conference, Conference Marketing Plan, Increase Conference Attendance, Marketing a Conference, member feedback, member growth, member retention, Membership Marketing, Non-Profit, nonprofits, strategic thinking
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The Conference Brand Mark Podcast

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

In this podcast we are going to attack this lesson by breaking brand marks down into five key elements. As I explain how to make your conference brand mark a successful tool in portraying the overall value of your event, you will notice a reoccurring theme of pushing the value of your event, instead of the location of the conference. So I may start to sound like a broken record, but that just reinforces the potential strength your conference logo can have.

Listen Now!

Be sure you subscribe to this monthly podcast!

Tags: associations, Connect with a Younger Crowd, Increase Member Retention, member engagement, Membership Marketing, Non-Profit, nonprofits, social media, social media tools, strategic thinking
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A Primer on Google Alerts

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Here at RCG we love the world of social media and how it is transforming how people communicate with each other, how advertisers/marketers spread their message, and how it can connect us with each other in ways that makes the world seem smaller.

We could go on all day about the ins, outs and benefits of social media. But, today we want to touch on the first step into the world of social media: discovering what conversations are already happening (especially conversations about you – or your organization).

There are two ways to do this. First, you can spend hours each week searching the web for mentions of your organization. You may find a few news sources or blogs that make regular mention of your association, or a topic that is related to services you provide. But, it can be a very time consuming effort that gives you little information. So, we recommend the second option: using Google Alerts, a free tool that is praised by many.

The beauty of Google Alerts is that it searches the web for conversations about whatever topic you are interested in, and it brings those conversations to you – instead of you pulling your hair out while trying to rummage through inactive blogs and old forums.

It’s fairly simple to use and customize to how you prefer to receive information online. You can even set it up to “alert” you about your topic on specific websites, for example, if you are an association providing services related to victims of crime in the DC area, you can set a Google Alert for articles from the Washington Post’s website about “victim’s rights”. Whenever an article with that phrase appears, you will receive an email with a link to the article.

We hope you can see how this might be a useful tool for your organization. Here are some tips on how to get started:

Set up an account by visiting Google.com and going to the “Google Alerts” page.
Select your keywords or phrases that you want to be notified about.
Use quotations around phrases. For example, “North Carolina Association of Chicken Farmers”.
If you want to set up an alert for a specific site use this combination: “chicken farmers” site:washingtonpost.com.

This tool can help you easily target communities that are having conversations relevant to your organization. Without much effort, you have the opportunity to target your message to people who are interested and possibly in need of your services. So, go and hear what is being said about your organization. Then you can start to interact in these conversations and you might become as amazed with social media as we are.

Tags: associations, Google Alerts, nonprofits, Organizations, social media, social media tools
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Direct Mail + Social Media Marketing = Fundraising Success!

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

To compliment our recent Whitespace Newsletter about conference marketing success by integrating direct mail and social media, we put together a few tips for our nonprofit friends who are slightly more interested in fundraising.

We’ve put together 4 easy tips to help nonprofits:

Engage previous supporters
Find new prospects
Convert prospects to donors
Raise more money without greatly increasing your budget

Tip #1

Let supporters know about your presence on social networking sites. In addition to finding supporters on Facebook and LinkedIn with your current email list, you can also inform them about connecting with the nonprofit through these channels with short blurbs on direct mail pieces, emails and the organization’s website.

Tip #2

Respond to feedback from social networking sites, and share it with supporters who are likely keeping up with the organization through direct mail or email. The nature of social networking is that it allows users to provide instant feedback – the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly. We’re not going to touch on how to handle the bad or the ugly, but we think you should sing the good feedback from the rooftops! Well, not exactly, but we do recommend you share it on direct mail pieces and emails, just like any other testimonial.

Tip #3

Integrate the campaign logo and theme across all mediums. Some organizations feel that their online marketing has to have a different “brand” than the rest of their marketing. This has potential to confuse the audience. We recommend using the same logo and theme for your fundraising campaign, despite how you are communicating with potential supporters. However, this does not mean you can use the exact same message, word-for-word on your direct mail piece as used on the nonprofit’s Facebook Fan page.

Tip #4

A popular trend (and useful tool) on Twitter is to tag posts with a hash tag (#), plus a keyword. This helps identify what the post is about, but also makes it easy to find when conducting searches. One of the most popular tags is #charitytuesday. This tag is used, you guessed it, on Tuesdays. Twitter users will post something about their favorite nonprofit and include this tag, hoping that the post will help raise awareness.

Alerting Twitter followers about upcoming direct mail pieces will peak their interest and let them know you need their help in raising awareness about the campaign. This is a great opportunity for nonprofits during a fundraising campaign with the potential to encourage matching gifts and referrals.

Tags: associations, Membership Marketing, Non-Profit, nonprofits, social media tools, strategic thinking, visual communicators
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What is social media marketing?

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Fairly soon your lives will be enriched with another edition of our newsletter, White Space. This month’s topic is on integrating social media marketing and direct mail – safely and effectively! But, we thought it might be best to have a quick and dirty lesson on social media marketing.

Let’s start with seeing what Wikipedia has to say:

“Social media marketing is an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunity and sales. The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.”

Social media marketing is…

A conversation. Brands/companies/organizations talk to consumers, consumers talk about, – most importantly consumers talk to each other.
Word of mouth advertising.
A chance to hear what people are saying about you, because whether or not you join the conversation – they are still going to talk about you.

Social media marketing is not…

A trend. It’s a shift in how we communicate.
Simply joining Facebook. You have to participate.
Going to ruin your reputation (if you are wise about it).
Controlling online conversations. It is about listening and engaging.

Tags: associations, Conference Marketing Plan, facebook, LinkedIn, social media, social media tools, strategic thinking, twitter
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Relief Effort for Pakistani Refugees

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Recently we were asked to create an ad for a unique national campaign to raise funds to support Pakistani Refugees fleeing war-torn Swat Valley. As the number of men, women and children recently uprooted by the conflict in north-west Pakistan neared 2.4 million, the UN Refugee Agency stated that it is “absolutely essential” that the international community mount an immediate and massive humanitarian response. This campaign was kicked off by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she asked the American people to join in the world-wide humanitarian effort in Pakistan:

“Now, Americans can use technology to help, as well. Using your cell phones, Americans can text the word “Swat” — to the number 20222 and make a $5 contribution that will help the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees provide tents, clothing, food, and medicine to hundreds of thousands of affected people. And before I came over here, we did that in the State Department. So we are making some of the first donations to this fund.”

It’s an honor for us to participate in a campaign that can easily positively impact the lives of people in dire need of basics for survival. After learning about the magnitude of this refugee crisis, we set forth to design web and print ads. Here’s a little tip for nonprofits – we were able to obtain amazing pictures of refugees from the Associated Press. The photos they shared with us tell the story of desperation, need and hope better than we could explain with words. The AP is often willing to share their photos with nonprofits, and will typically offer them at a reasonable price.

Keep an eye out for our ad to appear in some national publications, but more importantly we hope you participate in the campaign. To learn more, visit www.unrefugees.org.

Tags: 20222, associations, Hillary Clinton, Non-Profit, nonprofits, Pakistani Refugees, Rottman Creative Group, Swat Valley, Text SWAT
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How Associations and Nonprofits Can Benefit from Using Ning

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

In our most recent White Space newsletter we discussed conference marketing tailored to Millennials, and briefly mentioned the slight addiction to social networking among this generation. Turns out, the addiction is contagious and now the Millennials are teaching their parents how to use Facebook and Twitter.

But, did you know that those are not your only options for creating social networks? Using commercial social networks is becoming more and more popular for nonprofits and associations. But, they may not always be the best fit. This is especially true if your members are really active within your social network.

The next step up for organizations is to create a house social network, which is not as difficult and technical as you might think thanks to the help of Ning.

What is Ning?

Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. With little time investment organizations can set up their own house social network that can add an alternative way to engage with their members and fulfill their goals or mission.

In a recent survey, nonprofits answered questions about social networking, over three-quarters of the survey respondents indicated that the network is valuable asset to their communication efforts.

Popular Features of Ning

Ning has several features that allow members to easily share information with each other.

Communicate with members through blogs, forums and videos.
Members can also interact with each other through chat and sharing pictures.
Communication is encouraged through the ability to form groups based on interests or geography.
Nonprofits can increase fundraising efforts by installing widgets to collect donations.
Increase event participation by posting information to your members.
Export your social network member data to increase your list of contacts.

Enough Talk

We’ve done some research and found some quality house social networks from organizations to help give you a picture of how this tool can increase communication and engagement in your members. Check them out, then come back and leave us a comment on what you think.

ASPCA
American Library Association
Geographical Association Network (A network for geography teachers)
Bridge Builders

Tags: association members, associations, Connect with a Younger Crowd, member engagement, member feedback, Membership Marketing, Ning, nonprofits, social media tools, strategic thinking
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The Best of White Space, First Edition

Friday, May 15th, 2009

This week we are introducing The Best of White Space. This print version captures the highlights of our monthly e-newsletters over the past few months. Conference marketing, Twittering your annual conference and improving membership retention are just a few of the topics included in this premiere edition of The Best of White Space.

Keep an eye out for your copy to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

If you would like to receive a copy, simply email us at rcg@rottmancreative.com.

Tags: association members, associations, Increase Conference Attendance, Marketing a Conference, member engagement, member retention, Membership Marketing, Organizations, Rottman Creative Group, strategic thinking
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Nonprofits Benefiting from Social Media and Online Contests

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Bringing awareness to social issues and supporting charities is the fastest growing trend we see in social media. And lately the most successful campaigns have been ones that involve a friendly competition.

You are probably all aware of the recent Twitter challenge between popular TV star Ashton Kutcher and CNN. The heavily-publicized contest started with Kutcher and CNN battling to be the first to obtain 1 million Twitter followers, and ended with Kutcher, CNN and Oprah Winfrey purchasing mosquito bed nets to combat malaria. Kutcher also donated $100,000 to the Malaria No More Fund. The contest was talked about on everything from morning news shows to late night TV. It aided in boosting Twitter’s popularity, but also brought awareness to an important social issue.

A Facebook Contest worth $3 Million

A more popular way of using social media for online competitions is to have various charities compete for funds. Yesterday Target launched an online contest through Facebook called Bullseye Gives. The premise is that Facebook users can go to Target’s profile and vote once a day between May 10-25 to determine how Target distributes $3 million among 10 charities. The participating charities are:

American Red Cross
Breast Cancer Research Foundation
Feeding America
The HandsOn Network/Points of Light Institute
Kids In Need
National Parks Foundation
Operation Gratitude
Parent Teacher Association
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
The Salvation Army

Although it was just launched yesterday, nearly 6,000 votes have been cast, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the lead. At the end of the contest Target will tally the votes and allocate the $3 million based on the percentage of votes each charity received. The contest will result in each of the nonprofits earning some percentage of the funds, raising awareness about their organization and learning a new use for social media. As for Target, the contest is an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to supporting nonprofits, which will enhance their brand.

The opportunity for nonprofits to win money through online contests is growing exponentially, adding another viable option for fundraising. Most of these contests will require nonprofits to sharpen their social media skills. Starting a blog, learning how to “tweet” and starting a profile page on Facebook are just the beginning. But, besides winning money through these contests, nonprofits are raising awareness and support through social media just by participating. To us it seems like a win-win situation.

Tags: associations, facebook, member engagement, Membership Marketing, social media, social media tools, strategic thinking, twitter
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The Adult Version of Rock’em Sock’em

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