Growing an online community that will ultimately go out and DO something to effect change is hard.  Really hard.

So I tracked down the folks at Health Justice CT. Led by Project Manager Heang Tan (with a big assist from the enthusiastic Jenn Whinnem at the CT Health Foundation), they  had caught my eye with their innovative approaches to growing an online community around issues that aren’t always “sexy”–  health disparities.

Here’s the scoop, straight from Heang, on 5 strategies that made a difference in organizing community advocates:

Twitter hashtags–# symbols preceding keywords– are integral to the Twitterverse, helping users organize conversations into  categories. Clicking on a hashtag in a tweet shows you all the aggregated tweets on a topic–from Tweeters all over the world.

Hashtags are created organically by Twitter users; some are used regularly and others come and go (e.g. when a hashtag is created for use for a week-long conference).

Need a cheat sheet of hashtags to help you easily share news about all things Connecticut with your Twitter pals?

Download this list of 35 hashtags of all things Connecticut, categorized from politics and government to news.

Feel free to tape it up next to your computer as a quick reference.

Got more? Leave a comment. I’ll keep updating this list.

Screen shot: #NHV hashtag (Tweets about New Haven, CT)

Picture this:  A national medical society is hosting their annual convention in your city next week. The conventioneers want to visit local attractions during their down time, so they they look up recommendations on popular travel and review apps like Trip Advisor,  Google Maps, Yelp, and Foursquare. Your organization is one of the major cultural centers in town.

Based on the reviews, would the conventioneers visit you? Did you know that, to some degree, you can control the information listed about you on those sites?

Aware of the power of location-based tools and the ever-growing popularity of global positioning systems (GPS) and smartphones, savvy nonprofit marketeers are attracting visitors by smartly managing their profiles on Google Places, Yelp, Foursquare and Trip Advisor to maximize the appeal of their venues.

If visitors are the lifeblood of your organization (listen up museums, park and rec centers, faith communities, performance art spaces, hospitals, schools) then you need to take charge of your profile on the major placed-based tools. Here’s how to start:

1. Search for your listing on Google Maps, Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Foursquare and see what folks are saying about you.

2. “Claim” your venue by verifying that you are the administrator of that place.  Claiming your venue allows you to manage the online profile of your venue.

Coupled with maintaining  a first-rate website, sending informative, quality emails to supporters is the bedrock of nonprofit communications. Email is still king of the communications empire–whether one is cultivating donors, recruiting volunteers, or promoting a new program. Why? It still tends to yield consistently better results than any other online tool.

So why, why, why are some organizations neglecting an email strategy in favor of the latest and greatest social media tools? (I mean you, Pinterest)

Every organization that communicates with supporters — no matter how small– needs to invest in a broadcast email system such as iContact, Mail Chimp, Vertical Response, or Emma. Personally, I’m a die-hard Mail Chimp fan for its ease of use, support, integrations, and visually appealing templates.  Hotmail, Gmail, and Outlook, by the way, are not broadcast email systems.

Last week, Groundwire released their very comprehensive 2012 report comparing email providers. This fabulous review can guide you through the many choices and features of each system. Many are extremely inexpensive and offer nonprofit discounts. I  have set up Mail Chimp accounts for my clients– complete with customized templates– in less than an hour. The training takes a bit more time.

Once you have your email system:

1. Growing your list of email supporters must be an organizational priority. There are many, many strategies for growing a responsive, quality e-mail list. I’d start with Karen Zapp’s suggestions.
2. Incorporate some basic design elements to increase the likelihood that recipients will open your emails
3. You must follow CAN-SPAM laws
4. Create a schedule of emails so you are using email to consistently communicate with your supporters. (Suggestion: One monthly e-newsletter “digest” plus 2 other email messages during the month with dedicated themes, such as for an event, conference, performance, breaking news item).
5. Segment your emails so the right audience receives the right message
6. Place clear calls to action in your emails
7. Analyze the results of your emails through the reports generated from your email system.  What was your open rate? Click-through rate? Unsubscribers?
8. Cross-promote your email list with your social media channels.

In my view, Mark Zuckerberg has handed nonprofit organizations, businesses and other “brands” a Pinterest-like marketing opportunity with the introduction of the cover image for Facebook’s new Timeline.

If nothing else, the meteoric rise of Pinterest in the social networking world demonstrates the appeal of distinctive images that invite curiosity, astonish, surprise, or inspire.  Folks are just pooped out reading so much text. And, now, with the ability to upload a unique image to one’s Facebook page on the most trafficked social networking site on the planet, nonprofits can market themselves with renewed dynamism.

The question:  What’s your unique, defining message? How to convey that in a single image?

With my cover image, I wanted to celebrate the quiet dedication of the staff and volunteers of cultural, social service, philanthropic and advocacy organizations in Connecticut, beginning with the over-the-top impressive international outreach work of buildOn, based in Stamford.  Here it is:

Come March 30th, Facebook will convert all brand pages to the new Timeline format, so orgs better get crackin’ on this.  Here are cover images from organizations who’ve already stepped up their marketing with the new Facebook look:

Connecticut Concert Ballet
Hartford Stage (featuring an upcoming performance)
Nathan Hale School House
Music Haven
Mystic Arts Center
The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven
Cedar Hill Cemetery Foundation
New England Air Museum
The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk
Greater Hartford Arts Council

You’ll likely need a graphic artist to create the cover image for you, since Facebook stipulates a 851 x 315 pixel image. Sizes of Facebook tabs and custom images for the tabs have also changed. Here’s a cheat sheet from Nate Devore on all new image specifications.

Importantly, Facebook is telling us that certain things cannot appear on the cover image, such as URLs, calls for action, or contact information. See the cover image guidelines here.

Need a video walk-through?  Here’s John Haydon on How to Convert your Facebook Page Cover to the New Timeline Layout:

Open the door and embrace this new marketing opportunity.  And remember that a picture says a thousand words.

In the past nine months, two new social media tools have splashed their way to the shores of the nonprofit world– Google Plus and Pinterest.  Is your nonprofit missing valuable opportunities for engaging new supporters if you haven’d yet embraced these tools? How should you decide whether to devote valuable staff time to establishing brand pages on these sites?

With great fanfare back in January, Google Plus announced hitting the 90 million user milestone, though some question just  how many of their “users” are truly active on the site.  It wasn’t until November that Google Plus allowed brands (like nonprofits and businesses) to claim a “brand page” to build relationships with supporters. Powered by the world’s foremost search engine and packed with juicy features like the ability to customize one’s message sharing into “circles,” many nonprofits jumped in.

The photo-centric site Pinterest has reached 10 million unique U.S. users faster than any independent website –ever. Marketed as a virtual pinboard, the site’s popularity is driven overwhelmingly by women aged 18-34.  Here are 10 nonprofits using Pinterest to market themselves beautifully.

Feeling the pressure yet? Feeling left out?

Don’t.

Instead, ask yourself:

• Do we have the staff time to maintain a new social media tool?   (Figure 2 hours per week per social media tool to see significant results, as per Idealware’s research.)
• Who is our target audience? Are they using that social media tool?
• Has our staff received training in how to use the tools strategically?
• Have we clearly defined the goals for using the tool?
• Who will be the “point person” for posting content? How often should they post?
• What is our game plan for handling negative comments?
• What kind of content “works” for that tool? Pinterest, for example, is highly visual. If you do budget and policy work, it may not be the best choice for you. Alternatively, it may be a boon to museums or groups promoting the outdoors or animal-rights, for example, who can more readily curate visual content that is inspiring.
• Have we established guidelines for what kinds of content to post?
• How will we measure our results?

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 Photo by Lucid Dreamer, Flikr–Creative Commons, 1/14/10, “1.53 Carat E SI1 Engagement Ring”, Attribution Share-Alike License

“Think!” photo by florriebessingbourn, 4/10/06, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.

For many organizations, nothing (nothing!!) is more vital than growing one’s list of email supporters. Despite the explosive growth of social media, email remains among the best ways to communicate with supporters and yield actions, yet the average nonprofit will lose 18% of their email users every year due to bounces and churns. So, most orgs have their work cut out for them just to break even with email subscribers at year’s end.

How to grow one’s email list involves many strategies, but here’s a simple and effective one that is underused, in my opinion:

Create a “take the pledge” or “sign a petition” campaign as a standing page on one’s website. Importantly, the pledge (or petition) functions as an advocacy and public awareness message as well as a strategy for email growth. And, the “ask” is much more compelling that a simple “sign our e-list” button on a home page.

The names can be delivered to public officials as a traditional petition would be, but the online nature of this type of campaign has added benefits: Once someone takes the pledge by signing on, an autoresponder can be set up asking them to forward it to a friend. The names, if appropriate, can also be added to a web page as a running testament to the growing number of people who support the cause. The pledge/petition can be launched to coincide with a key date (i.e. A Labor Day pledge campaign where folks pledge to support an increase in the minimum wage) but orgs can continue to collect supporters and email addresses on one’s home page. A good-looking graphic makes makes all the difference, too.

Take a peek at 5 organizations doing this well:

Share our Strength uses a gorgeous graphic, a concise, powerful pledge, and a running ticker that adds a bit of peer pressure (Jeff Bridges doesn’t hurt either):

Importantly, you must let people  that you will be adding them to your e-list.  Share Our Strength uses this best practice (and complies with CAN-SPAM laws), by adding a disclaimer:

Reform Immigration for America goes one step further, not only using a pledge campaign to grow their email list, but their mobile texting list, as well. Their permission policy (at bottom) is also clear and comprehensive.

The ASPCA uses a pledge campaign to raise awareness about puppy mills AND add to their list of supporters. Note the  ”opt-in” box for emails on their sign-on form.

Bread for the World uses this concept in their “Send a Memo to Congress” campaign. The “Urgent” stamp adds power to this petition. It educates, advocates, gives people something concrete to do to make a difference, and has a simple, straightforward ask.

Importantly, at the very bottom of the web page, they add this about their email sign-up:

The Earth Day Network uses an innovate pledge campaign that allows supporters to choose from a list of pledge actions on a drop-down menu. Once selected, you go to a screen where you enter your contact information, and you can opt-in to their email list by checking a box. Great graphics makes this very compelling. Effective? Take a look at that counter.

You can do this, too. See Idealware’s report on “A Few Good Online Petition Tools” to figure out the best tool to use to get your petition or pledge rolling.
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Photo by Garry Knight, “Jefferson’s Pledge,” 2/19/09, Flikr Creative Commons, Attribution Share-alike 2.0 Generic License 

Does your nonprofit shoot photos and videos of people, and publish them on websites, print newsletters, or social media channels? Do you have permission to use those images, even for internet mediums yet unheard-of? In this Part 2 of  ”media minutes” with award-winning photojournalist Shana Sureck, learn what a good photo release form should include, so the proper permissions  are obtained from your subjects.

Why should nonprofit organizations blog? To shape public opinion, position oneself as an expert on an issue, give volunteers and supporters a voice, and tell stories from the field (showing donors the impact of their contributions).  A blog may also significantly increase traffic to an organization’s website, since web content is refreshed frequently through blogging.

In turn, a blog may garner media attention; journalists learn which local organizations are opinion leaders on certain issues through your blog. The personal commentary that is the hallmark of a good blog humanizes an organization and its mission.

Importantly, a blog needs to be updated frequently–once weekly as a rule of thumb. Nothing will make an organization look more overwhelmed and out of touch than a blog that’s been languishing for months without an update. Other blogs suffer from design issues that make them difficult to read, and lack varied content (read: photos and videos) that would entice the reader. Brevity and a focus on stories and commentary are key.

Listed in no particular order, here’s a round-up of 30 diverse Connecticut nonprofits who are blogging as part of their social media strategy. Take a look: who’s doing it well?

1. United Way of Greater New Haven

2. Florence Griswold Museum

3. Danbury Museum and Historical Society

4. Connecticut Food Bank

Lambda Legal’s accomplishments remind me of an overachieving first-born child. They are shrewd and relentless in arguing legal cases around the country to win full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people–and more often than not come out on top.  Seemingly omnipresent, they have a lot on their plate. It’s not surprising, then, that their monthly newsletter is jam-packed with updates. So much so, that their news may overwhelm the reader.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a recent re-design of their e-newsletter–a perfect example of how less is more.  The new version has far less text, a cleaner two-column design, a brighter color scheme, fewer but larger professionally designed graphics, and all the navigation  links have been completely removed from the header.  The title has been changed from “e-news” to “In Brief”–a nice play on words that also tips off the reader that they are not about to be subjected to a reading of “War and Peace.” Best of all, their key news items are listed with just a single descriptive sentence followed by “read more.” Nice job.

Before:

After: