A picture of Melanie Mathos

Nonprofit Radio for May 24, 2013: Twitter Tactics For Nonprofits & ASW FAQs

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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A picture of Melanie Mathos
Melanie Mathos
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Chad Norman
Melanie Mathos and Chad Norman: Twitter Tactics For Nonprofits

Melanie Mathos and Chad Norman, each from Blackbaud, co-authored “101 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits.” We’ll talk mostly about their Twitter tactics.

 

Picture of Amy Sample Ward
Amy Sample Ward
Amy Sample Ward: ASW FAQs

Amy Sample Ward, our social media contributor, membership director for Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and co-author of “Social Change Anytime Everywhere,” has 5 speaking gigs this week in Washington, D.C., Burlington, VT and New York City. She’ll share the questions she was asked.

 
 


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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host it’s friday, may twenty fourth oh, i hope you’re with me last week, i’d suffer pilo nephritis. If i heard that you had missed a conversation with gary vaynerchuk, we found out from this new york times best selling author sought after speakers, social media consultant and wine expert. What insights his book the thank you economy holds for leaders of small and midsize non-profits one takeaway from last week treat your employees better than your donors and maria’s mixed bag maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor had a few things for us ah conference reminder a tweak to google alerts and the report millennials and money from merrill lynch this week twitter tactics melanie mathos and chad norman are with me. They co authored one hundred one social media tactics for non-profits melanie mathis and chad norman and i will talk twitter and a s w f accuse amy sample ward, our social media contributor, membership director for non-profit technology network and ten and co author of social change, anytime, everywhere had five speaking gigs this week in washington, d, c and burlington, vermont, and here in new york city and she’s going to share the questions that she was asked throughout the east coast. My pleasure now, to welcome melanie mathis. First, she is senior public relations manager at blackbaud, spreading the word about their products, services, employees, customers and research. Before joining blackbaud, she worked as a development consultant and in the publishing industry on twitter, she’s at m e l emma tho, mel method and chad norman he’s, director of marketing at spark, a technology services company. In two thousand seven, he founded go green charleston, a technology focused non-profit helping charleston, south carolina area residents engage around the local sustainability community. He is at chad’s norman on twitter melanie chadwell comm thanks, honey. A credit to you. Yeah, tony. Thanks. Thanks for having to stay pumped to be here. That’s a pleasure. Thanks, chad. All right. Pleasure to have both of you. Um, your book is very tactical one hundred one social media tactics. But we need to start mohr strategically. Is that is that? Is that right, melanie? Yes. Way often refer to the book is a book about tactics has a sneaky strategy undertone, and we’ll skip well, we’ll get a quick little give away the one hundred first tactic. Is that a strategy? If you’ve made it that far and you haven’t thought through a strategy shouldn’t be implementing any tactics because you generally wouldn’t have a direction that you’re playing. George, right? And we’ve emphasized that on this show many times not just to jump into social media, but what are your goals? Why are you thinking about? Ah facebook page or twitter? Presidents are linked in group or a hashtag on twitter, which we’ll talk about s o you have some you have some advice in the book about strategy post chad, you wantto just brief us quickly on what post is about? Yeah, absolutely. The post method was actually created by gesture enough and charlene lee from their book ground swell and it’s just a really simple, easy way to break through like the scariness of actually creating a strategy, right? I think a lot of people hear that word and get a little freaked out and which is precisely why it’s in the book, right? Because then people just go straight to tactics. Like, well, i don’t really want to write down a strategy i’m just going to actually go through and, you know, implement some things quickly so the post melkis simple it’s just actually think about the people that you’re trying to reach that theo in post our p e and the o is objective like, what do you trying to achieve? Try to put some smart goals in there from numbers and things? Your strategy is the s and that’s sort of how things are going to look on the other side, where the outcomes you’re looking for and then finally, the technology or the tactics in our case, how are you going to implement or what do you gonna implement actually reach get those three things first, three things in order. We’ve talked a lot on this show with amy sample ward, who is going to be with me later about strategy and, in fact, the two full shows on march fifteenth and april nineteenth, we talked about her book that she co authored social change anytime, everywhere so we’ve had voted two full hours in the very recent past to that strategic thinking around online engagement, so now i thought this was a very good balance. Let’s do some tactical and i want to focus on twitter. That’s ah, you two are amenable to that? Absolutely no. Okay, it’s, a favorite goat can’t really it’s your favorite. Okay, okay, um, i’m glad you’re amenable. Otherwise we wouldn’t have too much talk about if you had said no, i’d rather not know. Then we’d be pretty much out of luck. So let’s start with something really pretty basic creating a twitter background. Um, melanie, why is this important for ah your strategy and how it fits into your general branding rather than just having some a default twitter background? Sure so read by non-profits surely take advantage of all of the different platforms and all the different space allotted to them personalized and bring your brand through to their communities, so that could be a twitter background. Google plus cover facebook cover whatever it may be, you’re given this st an avatar of background to tell your story and so it’s very important, i think, because not the visitors here perspective social accounts, that’s the first thing you’re going to see, they’re going to see how your organization is. Representing itself, and you should really be able to tell very quickly, but a nonstop is trying to convey it. So that’s, why it’s very important to put a lot of thought into the detail around all of your social branding, and you have a very good example in the book, the high veld horse care unit, can you maybe you, khun melanie, give a couple of tips either either using that as an example or just, you know, some general tips that you saw that that they did sure have a commission that is it’s pretty upsetting it’s all about ending cruelty to animals so they could have gone that route? But what they’ve chosen to do is to really provide a really uplifting photo it’s gonna fire people help them towards their mission of happy horses. So i think it’s hcc you is their twitter handle. I will get back to if it’s not, but what i like about it is they have ah, clear call to action. They have other ways that you can get in touch with the organization right there. They’re using this space wisely. They have one strong image, they’re on brand they’re using. The right colors, they’re using their logo and just overall it really reflects their overall lead presidents as well. And chad, how would we get started with creating a twitter background? We can’t go through, you know, we can’t go through all these tactical tips step by step, although the book is very good step one, two, three, four, five and but but how would we get started with creating our own twitter background? Right? I think you take a start, it like looking at what you want to have that back on, right? Like taking your brand and sort of interpret it, you know, interpreting that through the lens of twitter like, what does that mean on twitter? How could my background graphic look? Maybe look at some examples get some ideas of things you like then actually executing a strategy and what you want have on it’s pretty simple, you just demographics editor, whether that’s, photoshopped or one of the free ones that you can download or a graphic designer like he would have to happen on fast, right and pretty much you’re just kind of creating something from scratch, right? A good size to use is sixteen. Hundred by twelve hundred pixels that’s going to cover most most twitter backgrounds most computer sizes or they go really big if you’d like andi, i tend to recommend for people to actually do a full image rather than use the tiled approach, which we can create one small image in the tile it you’ve been a full, big, large image give you really good control over where the elements are going to sit in the background. So i think the idea that not over think it, you can find some good examples that you like and, you know, really put a lot of that good stuff in the upper left and then really make sure the rest of the page really looks great on twitter, right? Because you’ve got the chance to not only is your twitter background, but then customize the link color and some of the elements on your twitter profile page and, you know, again don’t spend too much time and because most people going to ingest twitter from a twitter client or something like that. But again, like melanie said, this is a great first impression opportunity, as a lot of times people are seeking. A proper for the first time on social and so make sure your twitter profile page looks off when they land there. You mentioned the upper left, you said important stuff in the upper left. What what’s that about? Yeah, so the upper left is a really visible part of the twitter profile page, right? You know you’re going to get a little bit if you look at the way the twitter page renders there’s a little space up there like a few hundred pixels, we can squeeze some stuff in there and then kind of moving down the left hand side, so we’ll be seeing a lot of people doing is putting a really nice brand image up there, whether it’s a photo are their logo or something like that. And then i have some information that the left side where you can actually put information about your website, maybe a leak they called action. You could maybe even includes some people that are going to be posting on your twitter account there so it’s just a good opportunity to throw some content up because we know people are people’s eyes on the web, go to the upper left. And there is a little bit of space there on the twitter profile. Okay, we know that that’s, where people look first when they go to a new page bilich upper left. Okay, do we know where they go? Second, probably just reading a book down, going, going to the right down from there, right, straight across, diagonally to the right. Okay, we’re gonna take a break for a couple minutes. Go away. Of course. Melanie mathos and chad norman, stay with me. We’re going to keep talking about twitter tactics, and i hope you stay with us, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? Hi, i’m ricky keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant. If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s, six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? 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Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’ve got lots of live listener love going out to singapore. I don’t think we’ve had singapore represented before and in china, chung ching and beijing and also taiwan. So to everybody in singapore, china and taiwan knee how los angeles, california. Mira loma california in fort worth, texas welcome live listen to love to all of you and lots of other live listeners as well. Um, let’s talk some more about sort of getting started on twitter. Melanie and chad one of your recommendations is to add a twitter follow button. Melanie, how is this? How is this helpful or what is it sure so a lot of the tactics in our first chapter, which set up chapter, just focused on things that you, khun due to optimize all your channels and to really make it easy for you your community to engage with you. So twitter has provided these lovely buttons about four different kinds that you can actually put on your site or on your bog, and they have different focus areas so you can have a button that allows people to easily share a link like i’m sure people are super familiar with justin blogging platforms, but you can also use this for other valuable pieces of content, so think resource is not brochures. I doubt anyone’s going to get so inspired they wanted to share your brochure on twitter, but something that is going to be x stating maybe research or cool article in-kind follow button is probably the most used button behind that and it’s just a button that you can place on your contact page in a foot or sidebar on your site. Donation confirmation form is a good place that allows people just click right on your website and instantly follow you without having to go to twitter and do it there on the hash tag is another one that’s really good that you khun you can pre populate which hash tag? The tweet will mention so it’s, good for a campaign if you’re asking people to add their voices, conversation, et cetera and then the mention wantedto awesome one for asking questions and getting support. So perhaps you have online fund-raising support person who you could add their handle right there, so it’s easy for people to contact them. On their preferred channel, if it’s twitter so there are all kinds of ways to really incorporate into your sight into your different channels, and i want listeners to know that we’re live tweeting because the shows social media manager regina walton is in the studio so you can follow the hashtag non-profit radio. Also, we found the the twitter id melanie for high veld horse care unit it’s at h h c u regina found that gina found that no problem, of course you know we’re covering you, i put you on the spot, regina found it and she live tweeted it. But beyond that we’re live tweeting this shows you can follow the hashtag non-profit radio. Okay, melanie there’s so there’s a lot there. Where would you recommend putting the the content ad button with tzekel right by the title of something? Or where does that go on a block post or something else that you want people to share? I’m going to throw this went over the chad because he’s more of the technical implementation. He probably has a better insight on this. Yeah, so i mean a lot of time. This is that is in response. To the people that have, you know what, i’m supposed to put a twitter icon like on their on their pages, like you can click that and go to twitter dot com and follow from there, but the idea of having us followed button instead, it is a little more powerful and you can put it kind of anywhere but needs to make sense, right? You don’t want to put this in sort of your social sharing area where you want people to tweet a blogger post or like it on facebook, or share it on pensions or something this would go sort of in some other places, like alongside a twitter box like a weird showing your feed right? You can put the follow-up button right there and say, hey, i just want to follow, you know, follow from here, you can put it in blog’s sidebars you could put at the top of bottom of block post greatly labbate you’re about us, page, write a page where you’re listening out a lot of other ways to get in contact with you. A donation confirmation page is another great place where you can actually have it like hey, thanks. For making that donation here keep up to date with the followers on twitter and having just do it right there, your press room or even on a custom kapin facebook so kind of any other places where you’re trying to, you know, get people teo, you know, communicate with you more and follow you and give you give your contact information you mentioned the twitter feed how do we how do we put that chad in in our on our blogger on our site, right? So it’s it’s, another widget from twitter you can actually go to twitter dot com and their resource section, as well as a place where you get the followed button and you can actually get a nice live twitter feed. You’ve seen these on lots of different sites. It’s another tactic in the book and you can actually bring your live twitter feed onto your website, right, which is great for two reasons one and explosions all the great things they’re doing on twitter and helps get get that message out farther, but it also brings in dynamic, real time content to your site to make it more of a lively place we see. A lot organizations doing this even on their home page, where they pull in like their latest tweet, i think you may decide it does that so it’s just again, another way to bring twitter outside of twitter itself and put it on your website. Can you modify that chad so that’s not only your twitter feed, but it’s it’s the occurrence of any time that somebody uses your twitter id? Absolutely yeah, you can do it search results, you can do a hashtag, you can do just the profile so it’s very customizable both from my content perspective and from a design effective you can actually use the css and use some of the attributes actually make it match the html of your website, so it doesn’t look like like a placid on there, so you have very customizable bullet from a content and design perspective. How technically savvy do you have to do tow b to do some of these things? Almost almost not none at all, right? Both, though all the wages are customizable on twitter with a really great with the wig, what you see is what you get type interface we just kind of get select colors if you’re non-technical person, they don’t have access to the website your website. You may need someone what basically twitter dot com spits out a piece of code and you could take that piece of code and put it on your website. So if you can’t do that yourself, you just need to send it to the person that can and do a little we should just take a couple minutes so so really rates again dynamic conta countryside as well. So you mentioned if you’re not a technical person, so a lot of small non-profits i think run into this problem where they just don’t have a lead person on staff to be able to do updates all the time. So what does that really pulls a dynamic content? So when people go to your site it’s not gonna look like it hasn’t been updated in a month? Yeah, it doesn’t look like a site from two thousand three. Exactly. Okay, okay. Um let’s see? Oh, chad. So you mentioned your doing this? What you see is what you get so you’re basically designing it and then the twitter site this is this is all through twitter. Dot com will give you the code based on the way you designed it. Absolutely. Yeah. You just you selected another color you want the links to be and how you want the outline, the look and what the font should be. And you say, you know, i think it’s generate code or i forget the button is but and it actually just spit out some code that you can copy and paste on and that it’s a little nice little in bed code. And where do we find the resource is paige? Is that is that the the navigation barman twitter we goto our twitter page. Wait schnoll looked at out, milady. Did you have that on the top of hands? I think it’s, just twitter dot com flash about flash resource is possibly, um but again, i didn’t have that handup okay. That’s ok, i put you on the spot. So it’s twitter dot com slash about slash resource is ok. Ok. We like to like to share the detail here on tony money enough. So i like it. Get people, you know, get people started a swell as engaged. Okay, well, since we’re talking about all this stuff that could be on our site um, i’m going to turn to you still, chad, how do we make sure that our site is not getting too crowded now? We’re talking about these buttons and the background should have certain detail. How do we make sure we’re not getting too overwhelming? Yeah, absolutely. You want to avoid sort of the nascar factor, right where she’s got, you know, just tons of things kind of all clapped when one page again, you have to be strategic about it. You don’t want to just throw these things all over the place. You want to kind of think about when you’re designing any web page, what you want, the primary and secondary action for someone to be on that page, right? And so i think when you’re looking at, for instance, a twitter follow button that’s not going to probably fall into any of those two categories unless it’s a page about your social presidents are a page about reaching out to your connecting with you more so i think, you know, you really got to look at it from that perspective, right? When you’re adding anything to a page, is this? Is this contributing to the one thing i want them to do on this page, right? So again, get putting twitter but putting on extra stuff on there just going to detract from that so again be strategic about it. Okay, very important. Yes, we want this is all these tactics are part of a bigger strategy, which absolutely said, but merits saying again okay for you, melanie there’s a there’s, a recommendation in the book that you can personalize twitter and share, whose share with with visitors who’s doing the tweeting. Why? Why is that a good idea? Well, because twitter and facebook, it’ll get more crowded by brands, i think it’s even more important, to really personalize it and humanize organization people give the people and fund-raising right, and people communicate with people over a brand all day long, so if you’re doing it right, communicating on social should really feel very personal there much of a one on one conversation, and it often is if if you are doing it right, you are going to be you having those one on one interactions of advertise with your constituents so it’s nice to be able to present who’s. Behind this mystical organization accountants, you know who are the people that are actually behind it? They’re not robots, they have names, they probably have their own twitter handles and even better if you can add a photo to really human eyes who this person is that you’re communicating with its really going to increase engagement in the long run, you used the example of the humane society doing this very well, right? They have one thing they had several people treating on their account, that’s another really good thing to bring up is, you know, you’re going to try to get that consistency and voice, but everyone’s in a community a little differently, so just hurry up acknowledging that content organizations choose to even put initials on you, the author of the treated if it’s a team tweeting, uh, right now, i think they just have one person who’s kind of the face of their twitter account that if you go to their handle it’s very clear who it is and it’s a friendly face pompel durney can relate teo and have met hundred persons is very much the same when she portrays herself on social, so i think it’s really, really adds to the credibility of the brand and the mission. How do you manage this at at blackboard? Melanie so the blackbaud we have cheryl black who’s heading up our social now, so if you go to this site, you’ll see her face and her twitter handle right there, so people know exactly who they’re talking about, so you’re not hypocritical. You actually are following your own advice. Yes, actually, dad and i built the social program together a blackbaud and at one point, both of our mugs were up there because way were the voice of blackbaud but now we we’ve kind of handed over that torch, so people know that cheryl is the person that they’re communicating with. I have lots of hypocrites who our guests on twenty martignetti cafferata art, in fact, i tried to recruit them that way, you know? I like people who just have advice for others, so you’re an exception to that on admirable exception, both of you. All right, chad, where we’re going to share this? This personalization, these photos names. Where do we do this? On our site? Yeah. Again. You can sew the couple ways, i think. Melanie talked about having to be part of your twitter background graphic you can have it be a part of your on twitter, your description of the site you know where you talk about hey, this is who our brand is and by the way, the tweets or by so and so on and again, i think money may have mentioned some people do it on a twitter level. You’ve got five people actually tweeting you can do it like i think it’s a little, a little carrot and then some initials, so people at it that way you can also put on your website again when you’re when you’re talking, a lot of a lot of accusations do this in different ways, put out who their public faces are, who is talking, they could be on the contact that page, it could be in the press room again, just another opportunity to get that faith associate with the brand. I think it also goes both ways. We talk about being engaged to the to your supporters, into your audience, but also, i think, engaging the other way where it makes the person who’s doing the tweeting and doing the actual social activity feel a little more empowered within their own company, right? And helps them develop their own brand, which makes them do their job better, right? They become more invested. And so i think it kind of works both ways it’s really powerful tactic to get people were just really involved in really engaged in twitter on both sides. I’m talking with melanie mathos and chad norman. They are co authors of one hundred one social media tactics for non-profits the book goes much broader than twitter, we’re just focusing on twitter because on this show we haven’t talked about that specifically for quite some time. But the show there’s the book is much broader tactics in ah, all the social media sites um, we can we can make this even more personal chat with some actual, like meetings and getting to know people locally. You have some ideas around that? Absolutely so i mean, twitter is one of the best ways you can use it is to actually reach out and to attract new people right now, it’s a great public facing tool that people really looked too now as an extension of your your media arm. And an organization so there’s, definitely some great waste interact locally, so we talk about a couple of them in the book. One of the coolest things a lot of people don’t know about is a site called tweet aholic and there’s lots of ways to like look att who’s tweeting locally and who’s actually, you know, because the hashtag because of geo location but tweet aholic, take it one step further and allows you to, like you could dig in and see who are the top tweeters by city name, right? So you can look up a city like new york city or charleston, south carolina and actually see a list ranked by who tweets the most, who is the most followers? So this enables you to actually go out and say, like, hey, i want to find out who the fifty, noisiest people in charleston, people that i may not want to engage with. But, you know, people that if i could get them entrenched into my brand and the my message, they may re tweet us because they have a big influence over people. So it’s a great way to when you’re starting out sort of target. A local group of people that may eventually become your advocates and help you spread your message locally on another way to get involved in almost every city now has a hashtag right so new york city’s on this i’m guessing it’s probably n y c charleston’s see hs a lot of time it say your airport code or just, you know, whatever your tower goes by outlay is definitely ella for los angeles, so you can follow these hashtag you could put him in a search feed as many ways to contract it, but again, that helps you monitor the general chatter of a city, right? So you can kind of see who’s talking about what and you can use the hashtag actually put on your own tweets to get into that stream of people that may not already be following you. We have just about a minute and a half or so left. Melanie and i wanted to spend some time, make sure we talk about measuring your outcomes on twitter. You have some ways of doing that to see how effective you’re being. Yes, definitely, and part of developing your strategy is really, you know, defining what? Those measurable objectives are because everyone asks, how do i know what to measure? Well, if you know what you’re trying to achieve, you know what you want to measure, so there are a ton of ways to do this. Facebook has amazing tool built in with facebook in site where you can really get down to even very specific demographics gender location, something with you two really looking within your own website, really seeing where people are coming from through social referrals is very informative because some social networks pop up that you may not be on your radar atop channel for you and and specific to twitter you, khun, you can monitor your own name on twitter. You can you can even calculate your influence. You have ah, have a site where you can calculate influence what’s that so cloud has been around for some time, and now you’re seeing it surface in a lot of different tools who we now have krauz scores, which are influence scores, dealt right into profiles so that’s another way to really i d who your influence there’s are and how influential you are. Uh, if it’s if it’s trending up it says a lot if it’s turning down, if you want to see, you know what you’re doing differently, that kind of lessening your impact and your message, amplification and that’s, that cloud is k l o ut right, kale o ut, dot com, yes, okay, melanie and chad, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Great, thanks for having me, it’s. Been a it’s, been a real pleasure. Thank you both. Right now, we take a break when we come back. Tony’s, take two and then amy sample wards. F ake, use. Stay with me, e-giving thinking, tooting, getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternative network duitz nothing to get. Thank you, cubine. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m lost him a role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll dahna i’m leslie goldman with the us fund for unicef, and i’m casey rodder with us fun for unicef, you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back, maura live listener love joining us from asia, new delhi, india, and joining us from new zealand christ church also italy. But we don’t know your city in italy, you’re you’re masking yourself or we just we just can’t see you. But welcome italy born jar no um, norcross, georgia, new bern, north carolina, jersey city, new jersey, jersey city i used to visit new jersey city over on ah, what street was that? Where my grandmother lived? My father was born, mcadoo have mcadoo have in jersey city that’s? Probably not the part of jersey city you’re in, but but jersey city, new bern, north carolina and norcross, georgia live listener love to you time for tony’s, take two on my block this week, i feel bad for the irs determinations unit that’s, the irs office that is accused of unfairly scrutinizing and delaying applications for tax exempt status from mostly not exclusively but mostly conservative political organizations like the tea party and but i have been seeing that office struggle for years because i’ve seen applications for tax exemption routinely take close to a year, and i personally know groups that have waited more than a year even there was an automation project, the form that you fill out to get your tax exemption from the irs is formed ten, twenty three, and there was supposed to be an automation project where you could fill that form out online. Then they delayed the launch of that, and then i stopped hearing about it. So i always thought that that was bad news, you know, not a priority among the irs development staff toe automate that on and then in two thousand eleven, there were two hundred seventy five thousand charities that lost their tax exempt status, and tens of thousands of those reapplied they didn’t want to lose their tax exempt status. They were still active organizations, they re applied and to that same unit, so tens of thousands of new applications probably came in within months, i’d say of when that that iris loss of exempt status list was issued. So, you know, i just think that i’ve been seeing this determinations unit struggling for years many years as i’ve been around non-profits and i think it just came to a head and people were trying to be more efficient and flag something’s and categorize. Something’s and that turned out not to be such a good idea, but i don’t think it was politically motivated. I think it’s ah, staff people trying to just be more efficient, there’s more about that on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com, including some links that i have, and also including links that some commenters have had gotten some very good comments with with links to that post called i feel bad for the irs determinations unit and that’s tony’s take two for friday, the twenty fourth of may twenty first show of the year and also want to wish you happy. Memorial day long weekend coming happy memorial day and thinking about our our veterans who gave the ultimate sacrifice that’s what memorial days about? So we want to keep that in mind. Amy sample ward is with me now, and we know that she’s, our regular social media contributor, we know that she’s, the membership director at non-profit technology network, and we know that her most recent co authored book is social change. Anytime everywhere you may not recall that herb log is at amy sample war dot org’s but you probably do recall that on twitter she’s at amy, r s ward. Welcome back in the simple word. Thank you. I feel like maybe you’re experiencing ground hog day, and so for you you’re just like, oh, i have said all of this so many times you may recall it may recall it alright, but maybe some people don’t recall it. We could maybe, just maybe, the rest of us aren’t experiencing ground hog day. All right, welcome. I don’t know why. Why my welcoming you? Because if we if i don’t allow you to speak, then i’m at a loss for what to do for the next twenty minutes. I guess we’re gonna have to go ahead anyway. All right. You’ve been travelling. I saw you checked in laguardia airport like seven o’clock this morning. Yeah, that’s when i landed with seven a. M from where? From burlington. Okay, early flight from burlington. Yes, but i’m since four. Thirty. All right. All right. So you’ve been on the eastern seaboard this week? Yes. I have been taking a tour of the thunderstorm region and experiencing a lot of high humidity and sudden downpours. Okay. Yeah, well, welcome home. Thank you. You’ve been talking, i guess, about your book. Yeah, about the book. And and, you know, some of the events have been q and a’s. Some of them. I was joined by alison cape in and we did it together, and others were more like hands on workshops really focused on getting organizations kind of from the from the very beginning stages of maybe having a facebook page, but they don’t know who set. It up, or why? Or maybe not even really engaging much online and and just having an email newsletter, and that was it, and helping them figure out how to how to have some strategy and resource is in place so that they could go start engaging. Alison kapin of course, your co author of the book, how long do these workshops go? I mean, how long’s it take to get people to be more more savvy and strategic about what they’ve already jumped into and are not doing very well. It does not matter how much time the event is, people will say it was not enough time, you know? So i’ve done workshops that air just a knauer long i’ve done workshops that ahron entire eight hour day, and you get to the end of eight hours and i can barely speak out loud and certainly don’t want to hear my voice any longer, and yet people are like, so can you come back tomorrow and we’ll keep working on this, you know, because i think there is that feeling that when when someone who’s gone gone down the path before comes back to the beginning of the trail, you know, and is willing to go with you, will you don’t want them to just go the like the first mile of the hike you like, no take whole appellation trail is pretty long, you know, george, i don’t want you to leave me now, so but but ultimately the point of the workshops at least those that that i’ve been doing recently are really to get people not to a place where they leave the workshop feeling like, well, i have my strategy in place, i have a community map finished, you know, i know every piece of content i’m ever going to create, but instead they know how they can go create that content plan and how to create a community map so they can go do it with their staff, because ultimately, i don’t know what they dio i don’t know what their strategic plan is, so they can take it back, work on it with their staff and put something in place that makes sense for them. Okay, so let’s, talk about some of the questions that you’ve been getting talking about brought issues, certainly and right, but why don’t you start to share? What you got for us? I have a long list after five events i was so you’re you’re speaking is not very good because people have millions of questions you and as you know, i’m anticipating the questions, which is what a good speaker as you know, i find it very hard t just talk and talk my way talked about your that yes, exactly. Tim sample on the line, i don’t know what way have oregon. So the first one that i that i got consistently almost every event wass you know, not not so much the how much time should we invest but the why does it take so much time? Why, you know as if they assume they’re doing, they’re doing facebook wrong and that’s why it’s taking time? And i think it was really indicative that there is still no matter how much we hope it goes away, there is still the sense that you could just create some social media profiles and bam, you’re going to have a super engaged community that wants to, like, take that video viral like whatever it’s going to be and that’s it it’s not a silver bullet, you know? Social media is a place where you can you’re gonna have to invest time because it is a it’s, a slow burn, you know, you’re just going to build that community over over time, and it will continue growing if you continue investing time and, you know, all the rest. But, you know, people were really disappointed. Like, why is it taking me so much time to use facebook on overtime meaning years, right? This is long term stra, tragic engagement conversations, all the stuff that, you know exactly exactly, i mean, you know, some of those organizations, for example, that chad melanie we’re talking about and pointing to his great examples, especially using twitter. Well, they’ve been using twitter, most of them, you know, since two thousand seven eight nine and it’s been a while, you know, and and it’s not because they they joined twitter because they thought it was only going to be here for a year, they joined it saying, ok, well, you know, our communities out there, i think we can engage let’s just start engaging, and we’ll keep building on to what we’re doing. All right, you’ve got to recognize this is a long term right, irrespective of the platform. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, even if for some reason, you know twitter shutdown tomorrow permanently, you’re going to have to go somewhere else and start building because the community also does the same thing even as people you know, when we join a new platform or go try out a new tool it’s not like we instantly all have our, you know, three hundred high school graduation friends that have somehow found us already. And, you know, even as individuals, it takes time to build up how you use a tool in what you’re who you’re following, etcetera. So why should it be different for an organization? Ok, another question that we got a couple times wass what if we don’t have any fans? What if we don’t have any followers? Like, how long do i use facebook before i stop? You know, how long do i use twitter before i stopped? Because well, you know, we don’t have any fans right now, so what? Why should i post? Why should i log in to facebook today and post something if i only have two fans and i totally understand that the emotional side of that question the like but no one’s listening to me. So why am i going? But again, think about it as if it wasn’t social media. If your organization said okay, we’re going, you know, pilot this new programme, we’re going to create a new service and day two of this new service no one shows up at your clinic. Well, you’re not like sorry. Yes, the service is done. We’re no longer providing, you know, health care checks because no one showed up today. You would you would laugh and think that that’s so silly, you know, if it was an offline thing, you would say we have to commit to it. We have to just say, you know, every day at nine o’clock we opened the clinic doors well, same on social media, obviously not to the same maybe extent, but you still have to say ok, every day we’re going to post something so that if and when people do come it’s it’s a living place it’s not, you know, a ghost town, social profile that’s never been used so and again, creating that consistent content that is valuable lets you share it with people. Let’s, give it, tell other staff, hey, we posted that report, you know, like melanie said, if you have a great new article or some research posted up there, even if you don’t have a lot of followers and friends, and then encourage the people out, the organization partners you work with to share it, but to share it from that social platform instead of just from your website and encourage people to go there and again, it’s, like, you’re going to have a thousand fans overnight, but you’ll get those people who said, oh, you’re oh, that research, you know, it’s really interesting i’m going to like your page or follow you on twitter in case you have more of that. So again, it’s it’s more of the commitment to being consistent and less of the well, no one’s here, so i don’t wantto play in the play room by myself, but is there a point where a new organization should say, you know, we’re just not we’re not getting any traction, maybe our constituents just aren’t interested in facebook or twitter. Yeah, i definitely think so, and that isn’t going to be decided in in a month, you know that comes over time when you know that you have given it a really effort, but it also goes back to things we’ve talked about on the show before about not creating social profiles unless, you know, your community is even using that platform or starting a strategy exactly. Exactly. So we, you know, for example, that one of the events yesterday in burlington someone said, you know, i’m hearing people talk about instagram, should i use instagram? My community is, you know, he described his community and i said, well, it sounds like and i don’t want to be making, you know, extreme generalizations, but it sounds like your community probably is not one that has ah lot of smartphones, you know, it’s, not a bunch of iphone users, and he said, no, probably not. Well, if you don’t, if you don’t a camera phone, you’re not using instagram. It isn’t that they’re not interested in photos as a general medium, but they’re not gonna have that app, so don’t feel obligated to go just create profiles every time you hear of a new application. Follow your community to those platforms so, you know it’s worth being consistent. With content, we gotta take a break. Go away for a couple minutes. Amy sample ward stays with me, and you should, too. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping huntress people be better business people. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Durney go live listener love for bridgeport, connecticut, new york, new york welcome, seoul, south korea. Anya haserot and very glad that things have calmed down a bit on the korean peninsula. I think it was just five weeks ago or so five, six weeks ago. You know what? Saber rattling and i mentioned it as i was doing live. Listen, love, i’m glad things have quelled a bit. They’re very, very, very glad of that. Kawasaki and tokyo, japan, konnichi wa and we have an unknown live listener in japan. You’re masking yourself. Well, we just can’t find you, but konnichi wa of course to the unknown japanese listener. Okay, amy, um, we finished offgrid instagram pretty much, you know, you don’t belong there. Really, if you don’t. If you don’t think your constituents have smartphones because it’s a smart it’s an app, right, right. Ok, what else you got for us? For your from your travels? Well, i have a few more. So one that came up in a in a couple different cities was the question of, you know, unlike the last question, you know, we don’t have anyone no one’s, no one’s liking us on facebook instead. What if we’re getting plenty of likes and they are not the right people? Oh, now, how are we defining the right people? Well, i i asked the same question think they were just like, you know, oh, they’re not the, you know, donors, and we only want donors or that’s what they don’t have a lot of following people follow us, but they don’t just tell us how you know, these were examples of, uh, primarily youth facing organization’s getting some, not pg thirteen appropriate accounts are connecting to them, okay on i and i think this is an interesting one to bring up because for some organization, you know, like they’re just if they’re just following you on twitter, for example, you might not even but you might not go through your followers list because maybe you’re just paid attention if they’re adding you or something, you know, if they’re if they’re replied you directly, then maybe it would get flagged to you, but to chad and melanie’s example of including on your actual website or on your actual blawg page, the follow or like us on facebook, widget, a little button and it and if you do that you can have it show, you know, that other people have have liked the paige, but you’d showing up on your website and they they have that because they wanted people to see that social like, hey, lots of people like us, you know, as soon as you went to the website, but unfortunately, that meant you would go to this website focused on youth services and see a string of inappropriate facebook photos along the top of the website and so their their community manager there, you know, the staff people that were managing those accounts felt like they had to at all times have the home page and facebook open so that they could refresh things frequently throughout the day. And if they saw a new person pop up, they could go into facebook and block them from the page or go into twitter and block them from the twitter if they’re inappropriate. Exactly. And that and and so that’s the whole other side of well, first you’re trying to just get and you know, that idea of i just need to get people to the page, and now you’re thinking, oh my gosh, these horrible people are on my page so, you know, how do you deal with that? And then again, i think it really does not exclusively you’re still going to have to do that physical management of deleting people are blocking people, but it comes back to content if you’re making it very clear that you are there providing services and not necessarily, you know, connecting people with youth, then then again, you’re setting the tone that this space is here to talk about the service they were, they were probably pretty clear about that. I mean, odds are it’s the person who was asking the question with people because these are multiple we got this a few times people who ask these questions, probably their sites are very pure and youth oriented, but they’re still getting inappropriate followers and friends. Well, i think the difference is that it’s it’s connecting facebook and your website, your website may be very clear what you d’oh, but often, organizations wantto have more of the like fundez social content on their facebook page, so that may mean they’re facebook parties is photos, events, etcetera, so on that facebook page, it may not have the same kind. Of institutional feel that the website does okay, so do what you can managing moderate, yeah, exactly, exactly on and then one more for tow highlight for today at the first time, i’ve gotten this question at these kinds of events, you know, normally get this question from people like you, tony, but instead i was getting it from, you know, normal citizens, and they were saying, well, isn’t facebook dead isn’t isn’t twitter just for like young people. Now i write an article that, you know, all these kids left facebook, and now they’re using twitter so all the adults should leave twitter very interesting perspective, that article i ask, such as, i’ve never ask questions like that. Well, you know, i think you’ve probably asked it in a more, you know, theoretical what’s the future. Okay, well, that’s much more insightful, but the undertones of is it a valuable place? Is it worth investing in, you know? And i think for those people they were coming at that question from well, if if this person says it isn’t, it isn’t going to be around for a long time that maybe i wouldn’t have to waste my time today. And i understand that feeling i have the love hate relationship like all the rest of us do with some of these tools, but at the end of the day, until we see that facebook really is dead, or we see that twitter is apparently only for young people like some article that that person read, they are still having huge engagement. There are so many daily active users, monthly active users, even in our own, the report that we do with them in our strategic services, the e non-profit benchmarks report showed that in two thousand twelve the non-profits that that we study and have access to their data for this report had over two hundred percent growth in their twitter fan base or follower base, so that may happen. A facebook could maybe be gone tomorrow, but today it is here and today there are millions of people using that platform, so you could say you don’t want to invest because maybe it could go away. But you have your trying to get people’s email address, and they unsubscribes it’s the same feeling if it if it is the channel that they’re choosing and that they’re there it’s worth engaging in and again, you should have a strategy that isn’t based on facebook. You should have a strategy based on engagement so that you can be nimble. Facebook goes away, you pivot. Go to the tool where the community is an example would thank you for sharing your f excuse for this week’s trips, of course, my pleasure next week, it’s going to be archive edition, but i don’t know which one s o if you have a show in mind that you can’t find, sometimes i get emails. There’s there’s woman on i can’t remember her name. She talked about this, but i searched your site and i can’t find it if it’s something like that. If you have a show in mind, you can find let me know on twitter or linkedin or facebook, and if i replay your suggestion next week using that show, then i will send you a social media roadmap, which amy gave me several of and i have one left, so if i use your show all ah, i’ll send you my last social media road map insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities are listening to the show each week. If you’d like to talk about sponsorship, contact me through the block. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, and janice taylor is our assistant producer. Shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, in the office in the studio, i should say this week, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. We’re going to be on the road very soon, not too far marriott marquis in times square for nicey fund-raising day, and then in october, will be at bebe con. So that’ll be cem cem road tripping for the remote producer. I hope you will be with me next friday. Wanted to eastern for the archive show at talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. I didn’t think you did a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz waiting to get into thinking. Nothing. Cubine hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications? Then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s two one two seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way look forward to serving you! You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Hyre this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to go what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. 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