If you’ve ever thought about collecting data from your Facebook Page fans, no doubt you’ve run into several questions:

• How do I add a form to a custom tab?
• How do I add custom fields to this form?
• How collect entries in a single database that I can download?

Enter ShortStack, a third-party application for Facebook Pages that allows you do create custom tabs, mobile apps and create custom forms.

In this video, I use ShortStack to create a custom form, add that form to a custom tab with an image, and then add the custom tab to a Facebook Page (here’s the final result):

If you want to share a picture of your hero, please email it to me (include name and description) to john@johnhaydon.com. I’ll be more than happy to update this post with your hero.

Have a happy and meaningful memorial day.

John W. Prosser

Today, I honor John W. Prosser. According to remembrances by others in E Company, 2nd Battalion, 415th Regiment, 104th Infantry Division, on December 3, 1944.

John saved other members of Company E who were in a small room by the courtyard of Haus Lutzeler when he covered a live grenade with his body. The safety pin had popped out of the grenade when someone accidentally dropped it. John used his body to absorb the explosion. He died as a result of his injuries on December 4, 1944. He was later awarded the Purple Heart.

My father, John Prosser Holthausen, is named after the uncle he never knew.

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Thomas Frederick Marshall

My grandfather, Thomas Frederick Marshall. An English soldier killed in 1917 in the trenches at Ypres, he left behind a young wife and infant son, who he didn’t live to see. His loss has echoed down the generations of our family.

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From Elizabeth Hovance

Many members of my family have served from the Civil War to our current conflict in Afghanistan. I am lucky that my younger brother (SSgt USMC) has just returned home safely from his second combat tour. Thank you for honoring those that have fallen – I’ve always liked how WWI was remembered “To our glorious dead,” regardless of nation. My tattoo is of red poppies in their honor.

[waiting for picture]

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Abigail Rebecca Grow

This is my baby, Abigail Rebecca, currently on duty in AZ.

Marion Jones

Marion was an amazing man who not only served our country but also raised 9 children. Two of those children are now retired military members as well. He was also a talented musician and writer who lived to the age of 94. People remember “Mr. Marion” bandaging up a skinned knee on a neighborhood kid or giving a left-handed baseball glove to a young man whose family couldn’t afford it so that he could play for the local high school team.

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Captain Charles E. Franklin

Captain Charles E. Franklin, USAF (1934 – 1966) was shot down over North Vietnam, 8/14/66; listed as MIA; interred at Arlington National Cemetery, 11/14/1988.

He was flying an F-105 Thunderchief aircraft and deliberately drew enemy SAM fire to allow his two companions to escape the area in their planes.  His remains were returned by the Vietnamese government in 1988.  He was promoted in absentia and is buried as a Lt. Col.  Hometown – Youngstown, Ohio. His son was born 11/21/66.

1. Social Media Is Not The Point. Your mission IS!
2. Social media will not fix your organization if it’s broken.
3. What you have to say matters, but what your constituents have to say matters more.
4. Facebook and Twitter are not free emails lists.
5. If you can’t see the target, hitting it will be a matter of chance.
6. ROI = Yes.
7. Loyalty can’t be automated.
8. It’s always better when they say it.
9. Everything your mom said was right.
10. Shut the laptop and go outside.
11. Everyone is just as confused as you are.

Steal it and make it your own:

Social media is not exempt from the natural laws of cause and effect.

If you want each person to be touched once, very lightly, then only a little effort is needed. But if you want those people to trust you, then a proportionately greater amount of effort is required.

Why it takes so damned long to create trust

The reason why things like trust and loyalty require a significant amount of time and effort is because you’re dealing with people, not ones and zeros.

And regardless of how rapidly media technology changes and evolves, people will always be the constant.

What do you think?

Especially if those tasks require tact. For example, scheduling an update on Facebook to go live at an optimal time doesn’t require tact. But what that update says does.

The problem with cross-posting

Cross-posting the same content across various social media channels seems like a great idea on its surface.

You have a great piece of content, why not kill four birds with one stone by posting Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest with a single mouse click?

After all, this feature is available in every single social media management tool. Is not cross-posting an industry “best-practice?

Four reasons why cross-posting is a bad idea

1. Technology – Many times third-party tools post in ways that are meaningless to both sender and receiver. For example, on Facebook and Twitter, updates say “via Tweetdeck” if you’re using Tweetdeck (PostPlanner allows branding). Also, tools like Hootsuite create an album for photos posted on Facebook called “Hootsuite Photos”. Again, meaningless.
2. Culture – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are very different communities with various different uses that talk about very different topics. For example, finding and nurturing valuable partnerships makes sense as a focus on Twitter, but not on Facebook. LinkedIn is where you discuss professional topics in a professional manner, not so on Twitter or Facebook.
3. Caring – When I see any kind of update on Facebook that’s posted from Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, I think, “This person is either not present or doesn’t care”. Admittedly, this is my own subjective experience, but I imagine many other Facebook users feel the same.
4. Hamper Sharing – Research shows that cross-posting hampers engagement on Facebook, but not on Twitter. The reason why is that, while the use of third-party tools and posting short URLs is encouraged, Facebook users post content natively and are less likely to click on short URLs.

The solution

Ask yourself if the time saved outweighs the negative impact of cross-posting (yes is a valid answer). If not, find ways to repurpose or optimize content for each channel based on their culture and technology.

You might find that with a little creativity and preparation, optimizing each channel really doesn’t take as much time as you’re expect.

Why do you cross-post content?

I’ve been recommending PostPlanner to many of my clients (and friends) for months now.

If you don’t know what PostPlanner is, it’s a way to schedule, manage and measure updates on your Facebook Page (here’s a video tutorial).

They recently added a feature that allows you to quickly see what time of day is best for you to update your Page.

Now Facebook Insights does allow you to download a CSV file and figure this out manually, but it takes a while to prepare the data for analysis (date posted and time posted live in the same cell – yuk).

How to view the best posting time in PostPlanner

With PostPlanner, all you have to do is rank your updates by likes, comments and/or clicks to see what time of day seems to be most prevalent.

The following two screen shots shows what seems to work in terms of time of day:

Time of day is just one factor

I should mention here that there are many other factors that increase engagement. Here are the biggies:

• Is the content optimized for Facebook? Cross-posting the same content across multiple channels generally doesn’t work as well as understanding the culture and technology of each platform.
• Is it interesting? Your content has to be interesting to your fans (you don’t matter) for them to share it. Their homebase is the Newsfeed, which they scan.
• Is it relevant to your audience? Knowing your audience well is the number one rule for content marketing.

What do you think?

If you think you can successfully promote your nonprofit on Facebook and Twitter without using it personally, you’re missing the boat.

The best way to truly “get” Facebook and Twitter the way your fans do, is to go beyond reading a book. You must move to their country, immerse yourself in the customs, and talk with them as one of them.

People who are fluent in Japanese got that way because they spent considerable time in Japan.

In the same way, many nonprofits still overly focus on counting likes and followers as if these metrics are the end goal, and then feel frustrated when they’re not getting the results they expected.

Going beyond counting likes and followers means asking a number of quantitative and qualitative questions about:

Reach: 10,000 Facebook fans doesn’t mean you’re reaching 10,000 people. In fact, a Page with 10,000 fans reaches only about 1,700 of their fans with updates.

Surprise, surprise! Additionally, you want to be asking:

• Who are you reaching?
• How are you reaching them?
• How frequently do you reach them per week / month?

Reaction: 10,000 Facebook fans means nothing if they aren’t talking about your nonprofit. And that’s the whole point of social media, right?

People that are talking about you are usually a subset of people you’re reaching. Some questions you want to ask about people talking about you are:

• Who is reacting?
• Where are they reacting?
• What are they saying?
• What are we saying that get’s them talking?

Action: No amount of followers and fans have any value unless you’re converting people. New members, subscribers, donors, etc.

Some questions you want to ask about people you’re converting:

• Where did they come from?
• What actions did they take previously?
• Who is taking these actions?
• What actions are most important?
• Are they also talking about us?

Always put goals before metrics

Defining and measuring reach, reaction and actions becomes much easier if your goals are crystal clear. Interestingly, lack of clarity is a big reason why many organizations don’t go beyond measuring fans and followers.

Instead of focusing on metrics first, ask yourself what you ultimately want people to do. Then the metrics come into view.

What do you think?

Following is a guest post from my good friend Sarah Robinson based on a workshop on loyal communities she’ll be doing next week for the Alabama Association for Nonprofits.

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The strategies and approaches for community building are changing. And gaining fierce loyalty from your community is becoming increasingly difficult.

There is just so much out there competing for the attention, and for the heart, of your members that doing things the same way you’ve always done them will no longer yield the results you are after.

To help you shift your lens on creating and maintaining a non-profit community, here are seven ways to create a fiercely loyal nonprofit community:

1) Decide why you want a community. If the only reasons you can come up with are “so we can ask them for money” and “so we can ask them to volunteer”, hit the pause button. Communities that are created for the sole purpose of being a one-way communication channel don’t last long and they never become Fiercely Loyal.

2) Understand the needs of your community. People who want to be part of a community usually have three primary needs: 1) Belonging, 2) Recognition and 3) Safety. Note: Not everyone who supports your organization wants to be a part of a community. Allow them to be individuals.

3) Stand for something bold. Taking a bold stand 1) allows you to rise above all the noise in today’s marketplace and 2) attract a very distinct group of people who want to be associated specifically with you and your non-profit.

4) Create multiple connection points. And by connection points, I mean opportunities for two-way communication. Gone are the days of non-profits pumping out one-way messages. Use blogs, social media, livestream videos and in-real-life gatherings to connect with your community members and give them the opportunity to connect with each other.

5) Create a culture of “We”. I often hear non-profits complaining about “those donors” or “those volunteers”, which tells me there is an Us/Them culture at play. What if you only used the word “we” as in “We are all supporters of this organization. Some of us just happen to work in the office.”

6) Keep evolving. Many non-profits already have a very solid, very predictable community so it’s tempting to move into a holding pattern. If you want a Fiercely Loyal community, resist this temptation. Channel your energies into creating opportunities for your community to develop Pride, Trust and Passion- not just for your non-profit, but also for the community they belong to.

7) Love your community. I mean really really love them. Not just because they can do things for you but because each member truly matters to you. Be interested in them; pay attention to them, get to know them. Treat them the same way you treat other people you value in your life.

These seven strategies are not expensive or fancy. And anyone at any point in their community building process can put them into play. Those who do will get the payoff of a rich, dynamic and fiercely loyal community.

What would you add to the list?

Download Sarah’s whitepaper (opt-in free) The ROI of a Fiercely Loyal Community

Facebook ads are an incredibly powerful tool to promote your Facebook Page or your Facebook Page updates.

But only if you use them as part of an overall strategy to:

• Grow your Facebook Page fanbase
• Increase engagement with your current fans
• Expand engagement to friends of your fans
• Promote a specific campaign like a fundraising or advocacy campaign

This video will show you how to:

• Get started with Facebook’s ad tool
• Decide whether to promote your Page or a Post
• Configure how your ad will appear
• Target fans and non-fans, and why
• Select a date range to run your ad
• Create a budget cap for your campaign

I know it’s a long video. You might want to favorite it on YouTube, or save it some other way.