Technology has blessed your community with more sharing power than ever before. The ability to retweet, like, and pin with increased ease is what helped launch the slactivist movement.

But even though sharing has gotten easier, getting people to share still feels like pulling teeth.

So how do you get people to share your content?  Here are five mind-shifts to keep in mind:

1. Start with your database

The people who are most likely to share your content are in your donor database and email list.

Before you waste time trying to target specific audiences on Facebook (which you can easily do) make sure you’ve worked your database first. They are better spokespeople for your cause than you are.

2. Become one of them

If you’re thinking on some level (even subconsciously) that your job is to get people to do something, stop it. You can’t make people do anything – especially if they don’t trust you.

What you can do is find the people who are already talking about your cause, and join their conversations. Quite naturally, on their own terms, they’ll accept you as one of their own.

3. Respect the blogger

Don’t hire an amateur do a mass copy-and-paste blogger outreach campaign. Instead, create a strategy that truly motivates them to share your campaign with their audience.

Keep in mind that bloggers are in it for the long haul like you are. When the campaign is over, don’t disappear. Continue to emonstrate your sincere interest in their blog with comments and retweets.

4. Think about how you share

Think about the last time you shared a video on YouTube. How did you share it? Did you email it, tweet it or post it on Facebook?

More importantly, why did you share it? Was it funny? Did it make you angry?

You can better understand the research about viral content if you look at motivates your own sharing.

5. Huddle up with your 1%

If you haven’t already, begin to identify your champions. Create a private venue using a Facebook Group so that you can deepen your connection with these folks. When it’s time to launch a tightly defined fundraising effort, they’ll be ready to go.

What makes your community share?

A long time ago in the city of Rome, there were several hundred men working on a large building.

A little girl, who was very curious, wandered into the building site to see what she could learn. She noticed three men – each carrying a rock the size of a basketball. And being curious, she had to know more about what they were doing.

The first man looked a little tired – even though he was fairly muscular. She asked him,“What are you doing?”, to which he replied “I’m carrying a rock.” That answer didn’t satisfy the little girl, so she asked the second man the same question.

He was as muscular and large as the first – and he too, looked tired. Gasping for breath, he answered “I’m building a wall!”

As you can imagine, that answer wasn’t any better than the first man’s answer, so she walked up to the third man.

The third man was smaller than the first, and quite skinny. But he had a bright smile and seemed to be full of boundless energy.

Very curious, she asked him, “What are you building?”

Without a moments hesitation he answered “I’m building a glorious Cathedral that will last thousands of years! Millions of people from all over the world will visit this place and return to their homes with more faith than ever in their own potential!”

The little girl liked this answer very much, because it seemed to give her a good feeling. A feeling as if she’d been told the most magical secret of life.

What are you building?

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

Instagram and Pinterest have grown at astronomic 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.

So 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 ten tips for creating photos that tell stories:

1. Show 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.
2. Show relationship - 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” in the photo which will trigger all sorts of emotions in in the viewer.
3. Get 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:

4. Use Infographs - 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.
5. Use black and white - You can use photoshop or Touch Color to tell a story by coloring part of a black and white photo, ala Pleasantville:

6. Use 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:

7. Use location - Are people growing organic vegetables on a farm? Are they building a house for a family in need? If so, show it.
8. Use 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.
9. Show contrast - take something familiar and turn it on it’s head to tell a story, like Oreo did with their gay pride cookie.

10. Show a beginning, middle and end - Create a series of photos that show a beginning, middle and end. For example, imagine an amputee entering a rehab, 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 #1 tip for telling stories with pictures?

Tomorrow (5/15/2013) I presenting a webinar for Nonprofit Webinars called Facebook for Executive Staff.

This webinar is designed to give you a framework for answering these questions:

• How are other nonprofits using Facebook?
• How does word-of-mouth marketing work on Facebook?
• Can you actually raise money with Facebook?
• What are the fundamental competencies for success on Facebook?
• How does Facebook fit in with my current marketing communications plan?
• Who should be managing our Facebook page? Interns? Staff? Volunteers?
• How can we develop a framework for content?

Register now for this free webinar.

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

But these three little settings for your Page can also dramatically increase reach:

1. Turn On Posting Ability

Allowing 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.

2. Turn On Tagging

Let 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.

3. Turn On Replies

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

1. With notifications to users who’ve been replied to with a comment.
2. 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!

Your supports give their time and money precisely because they want to change the world. And they see themselves as an equal participant in that change – not a sideliner.

So when you talk about your nonprofit changing the world, there’s a disconnect.

Yes, your organization is delivering the services, education, aid, etc. But your organization exists only as an agent for the change your supporters are fighting for.

From this perspective, you really are nothing without them.

The secret to building a thriving community

If you want more committed volunteers, more generous donors, and more evangelists for your cause, do this:

Swallow your ego and start telling the truth. In as many ways as you possibly can, tell your community:

Look what you did!

Like you, I get a lot of emails about specific events, tasks and projects. And like you, I have very little time.

One of the biggest time-wasters is dealing with inefficient emails.

You know. The forwarded email with no comments other than “FYI”. Or, the request for feedback buried deep in the email with no mention of the request in the subject line.

Fact: Every time an inefficient email is sent, one baby sea turtle dies. Even without the threat of inefficient email, only 1 in 1,000 hatchlings will survive to be adults. So stop it.

Read Chris Andersen’s email charter, which has tens ways to make better emails so you don’t unknowingly kill baby sea turtles:

1. Respect Recipients’ Time This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end before sending.

2. Short or Slow is not Rude Let’s mutually agree to cut each other some slack. Given the email load we’re all facing, it’s OK if replies take a while coming and if they don’t give detailed responses to all your questions. No one wants to come over as brusque, so please don’t take it personally. We just want our lives back!

3. Celebrate Clarity Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences. If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid strange fonts and colors.

4. Quash Open-Ended Questions It is asking a lot to send someone an email with four long paragraphs of turgid text followed by “Thoughts?”. Even well-intended-but-open questions like “How can I help?” may not be that helpful. Email generosity requires simplifying, easy-to-answer questions. “Can I help best by a) calling b) visiting or c) staying right out of it?!”

5. Slash Surplus cc’s cc’s are like mating bunnies. For every recipient you add, you are dramatically multiplying total response time. Not to be done lightly! When there are multiple recipients, please don’t default to ‘Reply All’. Maybe you only need to cc a couple of people on the original thread. Or none.

6. Tighten the Thread Some emails depend for their meaning on context. Which means it’s usually right to include the thread being responded to. But it’s rare that a thread should extend to more than 3 emails. Before sending, cut what’s not relevant. Or consider making a phone call instead.

7. Attack Attachments Don’t use graphics files as logos or signatures that appear as attachments. Time is wasted trying to see if there’s something to open. Even worse is sending text as an attachment when it could have been included in the body of the email.

8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR If your email message can be expressed in half a dozen words, just put it in the subject line, followed by EOM (= End of Message). This saves the recipient having to actually open the message. Ending a note with “No need to respond” or NNTR, is a wonderful act of generosity. Many acronyms confuse as much as help, but these two are golden and deserve wide adoption.

9. Cut Contentless Responses You don’t need to reply to every email, especially not those that are themselves clear responses. An email saying “Thanks for your note. I’m in.” does not need you to reply “Great.” That just cost someone another 30 seconds.

10. Disconnect! If we all agreed to spend less time doing email, we’d all get less email! Consider calendaring half-days at work where you can’t go online. Or a commitment to email-free weekends. Or an ‘auto-response’ that references this charter. And don’t forget to smell the roses.

We don’t use Facebook to buy things, and we don’t use Facebook to follow the latest news from consumer brands.

We use it to connect with our friends! Same thing goes for Twitter and Pinterest, although Twitter and Pinterest are more about discovery.

The nonprofits who know that they are a distant second priority with Facebook users have achieved 95% of the mindshift required to be successful on Facebook.

Another important step in this mindshift is to appreciate what people are naturally willing to do on sites like Facebook:

How Facebook enables frictionless actions

Facebook removes psychological and technological friction points to increase social sharing and other doable actions.

There are two components to frictionless sharing on Facebook:

1. Actions that make sense (psychology) – Facebook allows app developers to use gestures other than“like” for news feed stories. For example I just “completed” a run with Runkeeper.“Completed” works better because although I definitely completed the run, I may have not “liked” it.
2. Permission hurdles removed (technology) – Timeline apps asks permission only once to access and share a user’s data. As shown below in the RunKeeper app, it’s easier for me to understand what the app needs to work. The app authorization also lists activities that will appear, and allows me to choose who can see your activities.

It’s important to realize that frictionless sharing is about removing both technical AND psychological hurdles to sharing.

Meaningful Facebook actions

ActionSprout is a Facebook application that allows nonprofits to engage their supporters in more meaningful ways.

For example someone can “Sign” a petition, “Support” a project or “Join” a challenge (as shown above). Facebook users are more likely take these types of meaningful actions.

You can also import ActionSprout user’s names and emails into your email marketing software. From there you can use email marketing as a way to ask for deeper actions, like volunteering or donating.

What do you think? Comment below.

One of the fastest ways you can boost engagement on Facebook is to look at what more experienced nonprofits are posting on their Facebook Page.

There are at least two ways to build your own “text book” of organizations you’d like to learn from:

• Create a private interest list on Facebook. Once you create this list, you can add pages simply by mousing over the Like button and selecting “add to interest list”.
• Create a secret Pinterest board (if you don’t want the public to see it). I like this method because it allows you to collect screen grabs of updates you think work well.

Powerful Updates from Nonprofit Facebook Pages

Below are 11 updates from a collection of 33 (and growing) updates from a public Pinterest board I’ve created called Powerful Updates from Nonprofit Facebook Pages.

View and follow the entire board here

If you’re looking to create a custom tab for your Facebook Page that has complex features, like a donation page or petition, here’s an approach that’s fairly easy.
All you need to do is:

1. Create a secure webapge 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.