Philanthroper sends subscribers an email every day simply asking them [...]]]> At the beginning of the year I came across a new social giving platform. Taking a cue from the success of Groupon and Living Social, Philanthroper has taken the idea of daily deals to the nonprofit world.

Philanthroper sends subscribers an email every day simply asking them to give US $1 to the cause of the day. It’s not much, but the goal is to get people to give small amounts each day. It’s a great idea, but I don’t see exponential growth anytime soon.

To their credit, they’ve built a smart product and they’re seeing growth. Highlighting one charity each day is creative, smart and unique. However, I see their current model failing to make a sizable impact for one reason – consumers have strong opinions about where they give.  It may only be one dollar but it’s often a morally complex choice.

Giving to a cause that educates children, is different than giving to a cause that teaches farmers in developing nations effective farming practices. A donor may believe that one is more important than the other. It’s not like choosing between two different types of tortilla chips in the grocery aisle. Giving to different causes is not homogeneous.

Now let’s take a look at some data. Here’s a snapshot of one week of causes on Philanthroper.

The average donation for the above week was $224.  Using this information let’s back into some figures.

Assuming the following:

• the daily email is driving 100% of donations
• open rate on the email is 50% (which would be well above industry average)
• click through rate is 15%
• 75% on site conversion

This means that for every $100 dollars of donation there need to be 1778 email subscribers.

As the average donation for the week noted above was $224 that would indicate that Philanthroper has 3983 email subscribers.  Fast forward to this week where the average donation was $585, and we can start measuring the growth of their reach.  Ignoring their social footprint our numbers indicate that their email list has grown to over 10,400 subscribers.  It’s good growth, but by definition, not exponential.

So, how should they increase their impact when growth isn’t taking off?  What I find most impressing is their ability to find their grantees.   Each day they seem to find a new nonprofit and I’ve never seen them repeat.  I suggest they take another tip from the daily deal companies and begin offering regional giving opportunities.  Not only will this expand the number of opportunities to give $1 a day, it will give many people more a reason to sign up and give.

Did you know Xbox even monitors the social mediasphere for strings of profanities as this helps [...]]]> I was at lunch today and I noticed a cop positioned across the street pulling cars over. One after another he kept getting people.  He not only knew what to look for, speeders, but how to look for them.

Did you know Xbox even monitors the social mediasphere for strings of profanities as this helps them target problems as they crop up with their xbox live platform. It’s true

So, the questions begs itself.  What do you listen for when as you monitor your brand’s reputation.  I hope it’s not only you brand’s name.

I’m writing this post from my iPhone at 2:20am while in line [...]]]> After an amazing day at the Children’s Miracle Network Social Media Summit with @cmnhospitals and thought leader Brian Solis (@briansolis) the stark reality that not all friends, followers and fans are created equal is unfolding as a living metaphor before my eyes.

I’m writing this post from my iPhone at 2:20am while in line at the San Francisco airport. I’m waiting to reschedule my flight after the wonderfully aged MD-80 that was to take me home to Indianapolis puttered out. Now I find myself behind 80 other tired people waiting to reschedule my flight, hoping for sleep and perhaps some small token of apology in the form of a soft hotel bed for a few hours or a few thousand frequent flyer miles.

Tough chance though. I’m a nobody to them. With hardly any sky miles to my name I don’t command as much importance to them as one of their more frequent clients. And so we arrive at the brutal truth of the situation. As social media marketers an PR professionals, we don’t have the time to engage each and every fan, friend or follower of our brand. So, just as Delta is also dealing with a scarce resource ($) they, like us, will focus on engaging with and ensuring that the most important customers are the ones who remain happy.

This post isn’t a rant, it’s simply meant to highlight what we all do, every day, when faced with making decisions and allocating scarce resources. The difference here is that an airline has a built in method for identifying and engaging with their most influential friends, followers and fans (read frequent flyer points and customer loyalty programs.)

Do you have a way to identify your influencers? Is it built into your business model? How are you seeking your most passionate fans? 1500 miles from home at 2:45 am, the importance of finding my brand’s influencers has never been more clear.

Now these critters are nasty, so the New York city public health department is waging a public war [...]]]> I’m sure a lot of people heard about this the other day.  I was driving home from work and heard on NPR that New York is dealing with a pest it hasn’t heard from in awhile.  Bedbugs!

Now these critters are nasty, so the New York city public health department is waging a public war against this health threat.  To do this, they have a multi-pronged public education plan.  What I thought was interesting was how they decided to build their own website to educate people about this.  My first thought was that this move makes sense, but after thinking about it for the rest of the drive home, I quickly became convinced that the New York public health department missed a HUGE opportunity to reach New Yorkers with their critical message.

First off, the idea for a web site comes from an April 2010 report from the New York City Bed Bug Advisory Board Report to the Mayor and City Council which states in recommendation 1.3:

“Launch and Maintain an online Bed Bug Portal devoted to bed bug facts and resources.  A NYC Bed Bug Portal would provide an accurate, consistent and accessible source of information to the public”…”a Bed Bug Portal would serve as an outreach tool where residents could download fact sheets and educations resources, view instructional videos or slide presentations and find other documents.”

So what’s the rub (besides the use of the word “Portal” to describe a website?) Building a new web site wasn’t the answer.  It’s a tactical response to a strategic problem.

Practically, they failed to launch with a traffic generation strategy.

1. A quick search for terms relating to New York and bed bugs reveals not only that this new web site is nowhere to be found on the first, second, third or fourth pages of Google, but it reveals there are a lot of other beg bug related websites out there.  Many were created by average New Yorkers for New Yorkers.
2. All of the press releases that I’ve seen relating to this announcement don’t include a URL at all.  They’re not telling people the name of the web site.   See what I mean right here.  NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128828526
3. Why will someone visit their site over another site?  There’s a lot of competition for the term “bed bug new york” in search.

So here’s my recommendation.  Wikipedia wins search all the time.  Why not just fill the Wikipedia article with all of the reputable, quality and trustworthy bed bug information?  Why try and win search from scratch when you can use the site that wins search to communicate your time sensitive, critical and trustworthy information.  Spread the word, building a website isn’t the answer.

One year ago I didn’t drink coffee.  It was almost a matter of principle, I was even prideful in my coffee aversion.  Then something changed.  My wife and I had our first child and I came face to [...]]]> I’m learning something.  A good blog post generally starts or ends with a good cup of coffee.

One year ago I didn’t drink coffee.  It was almost a matter of principle, I was even prideful in my coffee aversion.  Then something changed.  My wife and I had our first child and I came face to face for the first time with true exhaustion.  Now, nearly one year after our child’s birth, I can’t get enough of it.  Its bold hot goodness gets me up in the morning and gets the wheels turning.

I’m only 12 months into my relationship with the dark drug, but I’m starting to realize that there’s a lot of detail to enjoying everything there is to enjoy with each cup.  (Bear with me, here comes an analogy to web strategy.)

If you’ve ever brewed coffee using a french press, you know there’s some very specific steps one needs to follow to make sure an optimal cup is brewed.  So just like with coffee, there are some basics that need to be addressed when you’re putting together any type of strategic web initiative.

• Preparation – For a french press this means choosing a good coarse grind for your beans and good quality water.  For a web strategist this means selecting the right “parts” for your new media brew.  What web sites will you be using, and how will you be driving traffic to them?  Answering this question is an all important one.  Don’t think that simply because you have a web site that people will visit it.  Find your the audience you want to target and then setup your outposts where your target will find it.
• Brewing – After you’ve boiled your water and poured it over your grounds in the french press you need to let it brew for about 4 minutes.  In the world of web strategy I see this as setting the site on your trap.  Do you have a clear conversion on your site so that when people land on your online postage stamp that they have enough to do engage with that they can get all the info they need and still remain close to the conversion.
• Press – Everyone knows… don’t rush the press.  Slowly push the stopper down on your french press to push the coffee grinds down to the bottom of the carafe.  Likewise don’t rush your conversion on your site.  I may come to your site 3-5 times before I’m ready to convert, don’t try to force me to convert each time I visit.  Force me and I may bounce from your site, just like coffee can eject from the top of the spout of your french press if you slam the plunger down too fast.
• Pour and Taste – And lastly the entire brewing process would be a waste of time if we didn’t then drink the coffee.  Likewise, be sure to measure your results from your web initiative.  Installing Google Analytics is a great start to measuring and analyzing your efforts, but be sure to look beyond the dashboard data.   How many people converted?  When did they convert?  If they abandoned, when did they leave and why?  Play the detective and have fun.

Over the past 45 days I’ve been working long hours as part of a team to put together some major events and I’ve been amazed by what our group has done.  Even though at Kiwanis, one of our core competencies as an organization is putting together meetings [...]]]> It takes a team to do great things.

Over the past 45 days I’ve been working long hours as part of a team to put together some major events and I’ve been amazed by what our group has done.  Even though at Kiwanis, one of our core competencies as an organization is putting together meetings and events, I’m seeing more and more how important it is to put the right people in the right positions.   When you have the right people doing the right things, the most complicated detail driven projects can go smoothly.  It’s truly amazing, especially as it relates to community building.

Whether your community lives online or offline, without a strong, effective team supporting the functions that allow the community to thrive, the community will fail.  These aren’t really any new thoughts, just fresh thoughts.