As I venture deeper into the world of using social media for non-profits and charities, it’s always interesting to come across organizations that are using Social Media to create positive change in the world. I’ve long said that social media is a powerful tool, and has the ability to create a positive impact.

One such organization is Mission Possible. Homelessness is a big problem in our city. I live near the DTES, and I drive through Main and Hastings almost every day. Mission Possible helps to get people off the street by helping those challenged by homelessness and poverty achieve a renewed sense of dignity and purpose through meaningful work. They have two main businesses, maintenance and recycling, but they have also just recently opened an art gallery as well.

As with many charities, Mission Possible relies upon the goodwill of others to keep going. They actively solicit for donations. However, a growing trend these days is to use social media to fund raise. They have partnered with Broadband TV, and launched a video contest. Youth are encouraged to create 3-minute videos on why they should care about poverty and homelessness. After May 25, when the winning video is posted, all ad revenues will go directly to Mission Possible, so simply by watching a video, you can help to raise funds for the organization.

In addition, Mission Possible is planning a Smart Phone Raiser. On May 25, there will be a tweetup of sorts at The Academic. Young folks are urged to use their phones to talk, text and tweet at their friends, and will compete to see who can raise the most awareness and funds for Mission Possible.

I love that Mission Possible has come up with creative alternatives to raising funds, rather than simply soliciting donations. Are you a part of a non-profit or charity organization? Have you come up with creative ways of raising awareness or funds through social media? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.

I just finished teaching the module on Blogging this past week to my BCIT classes. I love introducing people to WordPress. It pretty much is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Part of why I love WP so much is that it gives people the ability to customize their website/blog, and the possibilities are basically unlimited.

When blogging, it’s really important to remember to make sure you make your posts scannable. If you land on a page, and there’s just reams and reams of text with no break, you’ll quickly click off somewhere else. But if you land on a page that has chunks of text, bold statements, images or video, it helps to break up the page and is much more pleasing to the eye. It is my policy to include a graphic on every single blog post I write–whether a photo, graphic, or video.

Sometimes it’s hard to find appropriate images, though and you don’t want to grab just anything from google. You might be infringing on copyright.

Check out Compfight. It’s a search engine tool that searches through Flickr and finds images that are licensed under the Creative Commons. You can use it as-is, or you can install the WP Plugin, and search for and insert images right from your WordPress kitchen sink. You have the choice of three different sizes, and the plugin even creates the licensing blurb for you.

Check it out!

Photo Credit: Andy Piper via Compfight

I‘ve been writing a monthly e-newsletter for three years, now. It took me a while to find my niche for the e-newsletter, but I’m fully into it now: every month, I share a “Social Media How-to.”

I started thinking recently, that it would be nice to have an archive of all these newsletters on my website. First off, it is a great source of information, and could be mined for information. Secondly, someone who might be hesitating about signing up for my e-newsletter could get a sense of what I write about, and get a clearer picture of whether or not they think it might be useful to them.

I use MailChimp, because it’s an insanely good deal. You can use MailChimp for free until your newsletter list reaches 2,000. There’s no other e-newsletter software out there that can offer you such a good deal. If you’re thinking about starting an e-newsletter of your own, here’s some basic information on them.

The screencast video that follows shows you how to do this, and you can check out the final results here.

These last few weeks, I’ve been both a student and a teacher. While teaching my classes at BCIT, I’ve also been taking a class–one that teaches me how to teach my class online. The plan is that I will teach my “Social Media Marketing for Business” class online starting in September.

Creating this new class forces me to look at my material in a new light. And the other day, I started thinking about how far removed I sometimes get from the basics–which is the way I have to approach my material: from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about social media. So. Let’s go back to the basics.

mmmm.... cake...

Social Media Marketing is founded upon a few basic principles:

Collaboration: I work with artists a lot. What I’ve found at times in the past is that artist (and other biz folks, too!) can be a little guarded about sharing their work and ideas. There is always the fear that someone will steal the idea. Social Media operates under the principle that knowledge is power, and the more brains you have working on on an idea, the better the outcome will be. A great example: hitRecord.

Communication: One of the main mistakes I see businesses making on social media is that they aren’t attempting to create a two-way conversation. They are simply broadcasting their message. This is old-school marketing applied to new media, and it fails miserably. Social media is about having a conversation, which is why it’s incredibly important to check your @mentions on Twitter on at least a daily basis. Twitter, especially, is rapidly becoming a customer service tool.

Blogs were the reason we were catapulted into our current, Web 2.0 era: previous to having blogs, websites were one-way conversations: they were simply broadcasting. But blogs enabled us to begin to have a two-way conversation with our clientele, and that is an incredibly powerful tool for building engagement. Other forms of social media work in a similar way. Social media is, after all, social.

Transparency/Authenticity: There’s nothing that builds trust better than someone saying, “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.” Allowing your audience access to you, to your business, to behind-the-scenes, is an incredibly powerful tool.

The challenge, of course, is how open to be, how much to share. Oversharing (TMI!!) can be a killer. In general, it’s best to do what your momma, said, and that is, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.” But there are, of course, exceptions to this rule. Sometimes people are doing wrong, and need to be called out on it. But for the most part, keep your personal grousing to yourself, and not on Facebook.

Engagement: Many social media “gurus” will tell you that you need to build up your numbers in order to be successful on social media. To the extent that there are actually companies out there who are selling Twitter followers and Facebook likes. But numbers aren’t everything. Sure, if you have thousands of followers, it makes engagement easier, perhaps. But a small, engaged group of fans who are “into” you, and respond and reply and ask questions could be considered to be more successful than someone with thousands of fans.

Trust Relationships: All of these principles: Communication, Collaboration, Transparency and Engagement lead to relationships based on trust. And relationships based on trust lead to business, because we like to do business with folks that we know, like or trust. It’s just that simple.

If you stick to these basic concepts, you can never go far wrong.

I‘ve long been a proponent of microlending programs. For only a small amount of money, you can give a woman in a developing country like Africa the means to feed her entire family, by funding her to purchase a sewing machine, a goat, or some chickens. Plus, you almost always get your money back! Kiva is a really great example of a microlending program.

Recently, however, I found out about Micovolunteering, and I thought it was so cool, I asked Jennifer Robertson, who does marketing and communications for Koodo, and whom I met last week at a workshop we shared in Victoria, to tell me a bit more about it, because I thought some of you might be interested.

RC: Where did the idea for Koodonation come from?

JR: First, context.  At Koodo, we believe in supporting social good. And we know that people really want to make a difference in their communities, too. So to help make it happen, we’ve created Koodonation. Koodonation is an online microvolunteering community that makes it easy and convenient for busy people to lend their skills to non-profits, all in their spare time.

Now, while I would love to say the idea of Koodonation was mine… it wasn’t!  It was a combination of the work from incredible team I work with at Strategic Objectives and the Sparked team in the U.S.!

A member of Strategic Objectives found Sparked.com – a microvolunteering community in the States, and they therefore reached out to Sparked to see if they would be interested in licencing their platform for a Canadian launch.  Sparked already works with several companies such as Google, Kraft, SAP, licencing their platform and database to them as their internal CSR programs.  But it was the first time a company was reaching out to take their platform and launch it with a separate database.

The idea to us was brilliant!

• Microvolunteering was totally new to Canada,
• Any non-profit across Canada could take advantage of it,
• Any volunteer in any region could use it and contribute to the challenges posted by the non-profits,
• The platform is easy, interactive (sign up process for microvolunteers takes less than 5 minutes)
• It’s social (uses Facebook to sign  up, share on your wall a challenge you just helped on, …)

Now this was the kind of CSR program we liked!  We therefore set up an agreement with Sparked.com, which means we re-skinned their platform as Koodonation (that is why you see ‘Powered by Sparked’ in the footer of our site) and launched it in Canada.

RC: What is microvolunteering?

 JR: Think of microvolunteering as a type of volunteering that is done online and that fits in the kind of time you spend on Facebook.  Microvolunteering can be defined by these four characteristics:

•  Convenient
• It’s volunteerism that fits into a volunteer’s schedule when they have free time. The tasks are simple and it’s all done online so they can volunteer anytime, anywhere – even at 3am on their couch!
• Bite-sized
• Volunteer tasks are broken into small-ish pieces, so they’re quick and easy to solve. So if a volunteer only has a little time to help/spare, they can still make a big difference. They can log on Koodonation and help a non-profit in as little as 15 minutes!

It’s crowdsourced, which means that anyone and everyone can help. And when it comes to coming up with ideas to help non-profits and solve challenges, a crowd of heads is better than one! So for example, a non-profit based in Toronto can receive help from microvolunteers anywhere in Canada!  Microvolunteering really broadens a non-profit’s reach.

It’s also network managed,  which means a non-profit can take advantage of the community of microvolunteers, and use this network to have questions answered, get opinions, get ideas.  As microvolunteers post all of their ideas and responses, the community also provides added value in rating the responses and helping non-profits decide which solutions are best.
RC:  How does the process work?

• 3270 microvolunteers registered
• 220 non-profits signed up
• 172 challenges completed

These numbers grow each week. And with our 2012 Koodonation Online Challenge, we aim to increase these numbers even more, as well as improve the participation rate (ie. it’s one thing to sign up, it’s another to make sure to keep going to the site and volunteer!).

These are not the typical volunteering opportunities you usually see, and so Koodonation is a new tool for non-profits.

For the microvolunteers themselves, Koodonation offers them a unique way to give back to the Canadian community, in a way that will fit their schedule!  No traveling required, no training required.  Microvolunteers just log on and see which challenge they can contribute on using the skills they already have.  And they do so from wherever they are, at whatever time suits them.  It makes volunteering easier.  And you feel so good after volunteering!

RC: Thanks, Jennifer, and good luck with the project!

You know how I’m always harping on about how you should be using video to promote your organization or business? I do it because you’re awesome, and I want you to be successful. Video is an incredibly powerful marketing device, and it’s being totally underutilized.

It’s understandable, though. People get intimidated by the thought of shooting video. First of all, lots of folks feel really uncomfortable on camera, and shooting good video, in my mind, anyway, requires you to be personable and yourself, instead of being some robot reading off of cue cards. The whole idea of video is capturing your personality, your passion. Secondly, not everyone has the right equipment, and this can be a bit of an investment. Thirdly, there’s the editing process.

I have recently started a series of video blog posts with a friend of mine for my cooking blog, and shooting the first one was a real eye-opener. I’ve been shooting video for quite a while, and one of my main problems with my video camera is the sound. After shooting my first vlog, it became deeply apparent to me that it was time to invest in a new camera, one with an external mic plugin. I’ll be buying the Canon Rebel T3I this week, and then investing in a shotgun mic.

However, if you’re not ready to take that financial plunge yet, you could get one of these babies for your iPhone. Also, don’t forget a tripod: there’s nothing less professional-looking than a bumpy video.

Editing?? Here you go. Fill yer boots.

I also recently invested in a cool little program for the Mac called Keynote ($20 from the App store). Ostensibly, Keynote is presentation software (think PowerPoint), but it also gives you the ability to make animated titles and graphics, like I did for this video.

Finally, I wanted to share with you this video tutorial by my friend Carla, where she shows you how to set up your very own home video studio for about $400. Includes a teleprompter and everything! How pro!

Woot!

Today’s the day–my new E-book, Getting Started with Social Networking for Non-Profit and Charity Organizations is now available!

You can purchase it in an immediately-downloadable .pdf format for a mere $11.95 here.

If you’re not convinced, then here’s a little teaser for you: go here and download the first chapter for free.

Also, because I like you, and you put up with my inane ramblings, I’m going to give you a special discount: $5 off with coupon code ARTOFTHEBIZ.

How awesome am I?

My world, and my business, are in a constant state of flux. Social Media is still so new, and it changes on an almost daily basis (both G+ and MailChimp recently got overhauls, have you noticed?). There are no rule books. Instead, I use the “learn from success” or “learn from failure” models, by taking note of what people are doing really way and emanating that, and staying away from what people are not doing well. Essentially, learning from other people’s experiences.

That’s why I love case studies so much. Today, I wanted to share with you one of my favorites: Whole Foods.

What’s so interesting to me about Whole Foods, which is a large organic grocery chain based out of Austin, Texas, is that they could easily be old-school about their approach to marketing. They aren’t tech-based, and they aren’t really considered to be a “young” company. And yet, they are using Social Media extremely well.

A quick audit of their social media presence includes:

Blog: The Whole Story. A really interesting and interactive blog, it is written in a breezy, easy-to-read first-person point of view. It has multiple authors, and covers a variety of topics, from recipes, to sustainable practices, to education on products that are sold in their stores. It’s content rich, and there are posts at least once day. There’s lots of graphics and images and the information is presented in a readable format. There are also links out to the rest of their social media platforms.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wholefoods. With nearly 900,000 fans, in addition to posting links to their blogs, recipes and supporting local producers, they run Instigram contests, and do one of my favorite things: asking questions to build engagement.

Twitter: @wholefoods. But wait! There’s more! An entire page of local Twitter accounts, and specialists accounts. In addition, they are using their Twitter feed as a customer service tool–responding to complaints and making them right. There are lots of @replies, indicating that they are not just using their Twitter feed for broadcasting, but for having conversations.

YouTube: youtube.com/wholefoods. This is my favorite thing that Whole Foods is doing. They have an awesome YouTube channel with tons of great chef videos, recipes, cooking tips, educational videos, how-tos, etc. But my favorite is their In the Market: An Organic Love Story, which is a serial about a young man looking for love in Whole Foods. It’s a brilliant piece of marketing, because it’s engaging and fun, and true to the Whole Foods brand without being “salesy.”

Pinterest: pinterest.com/wholefoods. With a whopping 38 boards and nearly 800 Pins, Whole Foods is serious about Pinterest. It’s smart marketing, as their demographic skews heavily female, and so does Pinterest’s.

In addition, they have a Newsletter, a Podcast and a Flikr stream.

Whole Foods is doing social media right.

• They have a variety of different channels to engage customers where they like to be.
• They aren’t doing the hard sell, but providing valuable, interesting content, presented in an accessible manner.
• They are creating that content on a regular basis.
• They are using content marketing and education to overcome the fact that their pricing is higher than normal grocery stores, and to tap into a passionate niche market.
• Their branding is consistent across all social networking platforms.

On May 16, I’ll be leading a session called Advanced YouTube, at the very first Social HR Camp. It should be fun, because it’s an un-conferince, which means that my role is less about instructing, and more about facilitating.

Here’s the blurb from the website:

The First-Ever Global HR UnConference!

Highly Experiential.  Hands-On.  Conversation.  Awesome Learning.  Collaboration.  Networking.  Debate.  Fun.  Leading Edge.

SocialHRCamp is for the Human Resources industry—to start truly leveraging and integrating social media within the workplace, to create and drive unparalleled business value.  As a true UnConference; highly customizable and flexible, attendees get to create their own learning path, be as engaged as you want to be and get as much out of Camp as you want.

Basically, I think it’ll be lots of fun, experimental learning, and no doubt I’ll be learning lots, too! Would love to see you there!

I have some very exciting news.

For the past year or so, I’ve been doing some work with IdeaVibes, the Ottawa-based company that has created the Canadian crowdsourcing engine, FundChange. Paul Dombowsky, the owner of the company, asked me to adapt my book, The Guide to Getting Started with Social Media for Artists and Arts Organizations, for the Not-for-Profit sector. We are in the final stages of the process now, and the e-book with be launched on April 20 in Victoria at a workshop that I am giving there. After April 20, you will also be able to purchase it through my website.

Here’s the details about the workshop, although nearly 100 are already registered, and the deadline for RSVP’s was yesterday (oops! my bad! Sweet-talk your way in!).

Telus Victoria Networking Board and Lunch
Noon to 3 pm
Friday, April 20
DND Esquaimalt, 1575 Lyall St, Victoria

Here’s a cool infographic that Fundchange just released, outlining the success of their first year. Over $100,000 raised for Canadian NFPs and Charities via crowdfunding!