Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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My Guests:
James Heaton: Trim Tab Marketing
James Heaton is president and creative director of Tronvig Group. The metaphor of “trim tab” as one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meaning for him. He explains how something small and seemingly insignificant can make a big difference in your marketing. And how to figure out what that small thing is. (Originally aired on July 20, 2012.)
Amy Sample Ward: More Social, So What?
Amy Sample Ward, our social media contributor, co-author of “Social Change Anytime Everywhere” and CEO of NTEN, has thoughts about how to manage the internal changes when you make social media a part of your office culture.
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I hope you’re with me last week, i’d suffer pilot nephritis if i learned that you had missed cool crowd funding dahna ostomel, founder and ceo of deposit, a gift, shared her wisdom on how to create a successful crowdsourced campaign from appearance and copy to who you’re reaching and how and in-kind investment anita fi willis, vice president of strategic partnerships at new york, needs you. She and i talked about how to create or grow your in-kind giving program, she stepped through the process from assessment to thank you this week. Trim tab marketing james eaton is president and creative director of the tronvig group. The metaphor of the trim tab as one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meeting from him. We’ll hear about both of those he explains how something small and seemingly insignificant could make a big difference in your marketing and had to figure out what that small thing is. This is an archive show originally aired on july twentieth last year and more social now what? Amy sample ward, our social media contributor, co author of social change, anytime everywhere and ceo of non-profit technology network, has thoughts about how to manage the internal changes. When you make social media a part of your office culture, amy’s lives and on tony’s, take through this week, take time off. In fact, i’m off this week. Where, ah, were pre recorded. My pleasure. Now, to bring you. James he eaten and trim tab marketing with me now in the studio is james eaton he’s president and creative director of tronvig group. He grew up in florida and left the u s at nineteen for an eight year odyssey in asia, where he had a near death experience in the north of tibet, became a terra bod in buddhist monk in thailand and studied calligraphy in japan. He’s, fluent in japanese and proficient in chinese tronvig group, has worked for clients in a wide variety of business and non-profit categories, including museums, community organizations, funds and think tanks. His philosophy is based on the power and efficiency of truth and importance of doing good in the world. James speaks on marketing and branding, and he blog’s at tronvig group dot com. I’m very pleased that his work and his very interesting background bringing to the studio james welcome. Thank you, pleasure to have you on the show. What is your definition of marketing? Marketing is tactical activity that you engage in on top of your brand messaging so that’s, very dense technical activity, your brand messaging, what does? What does it mean in your heart? So for example, uh, marketing activity will get you to buy a particular toyota s o you’ll see an ad, you’ll say, wow, that’s a great price. I’m going to go buy that toyota, and but that needs to be built on a brand and it’s the brand that allows you to ally yourself within that that product and believe in it so that you will subsequently say, never buy another car other than a toyota for the rest of your life. So the marketing is tactical in the branding is strategic ah, the marketing ask youto to engage in a particular activity make this donation volunteermatch volunteers have to be all about money that’s right here beyond our board and that supported by your mission, you’re your brand or the the the notion in people’s mind of, of why you exist and why you matter so ah, the so marketing is essential as the communication tool to get out a request for specific activity and you want to do this all in your own voice, right. This is why marketing you matters that’s, right? You want to do it such that you are creating a sense of alignment with your with your organizational with your organizational brand. You want them to do what you want them to do. But then, at the end of the day, you also want them to believe it and believe in you and believe that they have done something good. And before they can believe in you. They have to know about you and there’s. Where the right communications eso marketing is communications there’s an interesting statistic that just came out from nancy shorts. Men’s blood getting attention which says that eighty four percent of non-profits characterized their own messages as difficult to remember. Oh, my eighty four percent of non-profit difficult to remember difficulty. Remember how this is a communications, but they know it well. Yeah, then and there’s nowhere. This issue, they know. So, what we gonna do to cut through this so first, uh, one thing that’s important is teo. Not be afraid of marketing. When people think of marketing the i did get a little bit of cold. Feet like this is something that’s going to be costly it’s going to be in order for it to be effective it’s going to have to be big, and for some people it’s just a pejorative term. And for some people it’s a sort of term it’s ugly thing it’s a it’s, a it’s, a it’s, a right it’s a for-profit or it’s a commercial activity that non-profit shouldn’t be engaged in, but actually because it is about communication. If you have an organization whose mission is good who’s doing something good in the world, it’s almost a crime not to communicate that if you don’t communicate that thousands of people who are actually in alignment with what you do, who care deeply about what you do don’t know about it, right, you don’t want to hide and right. So marketing is your is a means teo, get that out in your own voice. Um to those who are already predisposed to want what you do to to want to support what you do. Ah, so it’s not it’s, not about a chain, you know, trying to create a marketing message like a ginsu knife. Kind of like push of course, it’s really about just explaining in ways i think old thirty second infomercials at four in the morning or too expensive, anyway, it can’t be engaging in that. So put those aside no it’s about communicating the true value of of your offerings so that people can understand it with with, with clarity and and and understanding of what there they need need or want to hear. So it’s this overlap this intersection between what you are and what you do and what they’re ready to listen to and to find that place and we’ll talk about. We can talk about that a little more in in a minute, but don’t take over the show we’ll get, we’ll follow my agenda, okay, okay, but we’ll get to that point, but you have some very good ideas. First, about howto identify who these people are, who might be predisposed. We have just about a minute before the break, and then we have lots of time after the break, so we just sort of tease the, uh, the your idea around finding the right people for your message. You have lots of information already, probably about your constituency. Who gives you money? Who comes to your events? Who visits your institution? That data, i cannot just sit idly at the, you know, in the corner somewhere. One of the things that an organization can do that can be tremendously effective in this is something that anyone can do, and it doesn’t require any money at all. And that is to take all that data and build it up into what we call personas teo to make of that information, eh, really, person, something imaginary person that you can talk to that will, that you can use toe bounce off your marketing ideas and your location idea. Okay, we’re going to talk about these personas after the break. Hope you stay with me. Trim tab marketing with james eaton talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth? Seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our culture and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe. Right, groat. For your business, call us at nine. One seven eight three, three, four, eight, six zero foreign, no obligation. Free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com 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. Join me. Larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society politics, business 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. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s ivory. Tower radio. Dot com. Every tower is a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com so let’s, look a little more into these thes personas that may be could be a donor or could be a potential boardmember or maybe some other kind of volunteer. Or how do we identify these people? You want to think about who engages with your organization and essentially list them out first by type? You know we have donorsearch thes general characteristics age, you know, sixty five who’s retired who’s, you know, has time now too volunteer at the organization and so forth. So you you’ll know these people are but what you need to do is too create hey ah, an amalgam of a couple different people, but then make that into a persona that is very specific. So it has a name birthday on address. Particular children, particular pet peeves. Interests? Yeah. Such that you can actually write a journal entry and their in their head a cz if you were them. And of course, you could have multiple personas for each category. You wanna have a view percent might be a teenager. That’s, right? I also be your retiree that’s, right? You want to create a number of them? I think the maximum number is about nine but you want to have these very specific persons and you, khun, you know, grab a picture off the internet, give them a face, make them as real as possible, and you can actually bring them to meeting. What else do we know about them? What? Where they shop exactly where they shop. What? That, what websites they visit? You know what they do in their free time? What their secret fears are? What would be the hope? What would be the worst thing that could possibly imagine happening to them in their entire life for you? So that you create something that’s sort of a sort of psychologically formed imaginary person. And you give it a name and a face, and you use that to look at what you’re doing. Look at oh, we’re going to send this appeal letter out. Well, what would george think of that? And you be george, read the letter and say, well, this is this part of the letter is silly. I don’t i don’t care about that. So it gives you this consumer. Ah, perspective on what it is that you’re trying to say and it can make it substantially better. And it takes some work, but it doesn’t really cost you anything to put this put these personas together and it doesn’t cost you anything to bring them to a meeting and some people, like physically, like, have a little alright, stand on then or do these people talk in the meeting? What are we doing with them? You could so yes, they will criticize and review what you’re planning on doing that the actual program that you’re going to come to put out there, and that gives you this view that internally you don’t have and it’s, like focus group almost, but you but you’ve got this sort of imaginary person in the room and this can be extremely beneficial if particularly you then sort of look at your organization to create a kind of a latto vent diagram. What do we do? What we do this and we do this and we do this and he’s like the three areas of our of our activity. Where do these personas overlay on that you could like? You have little chest piece is almost like where did they sit on this thing? And where is our sweet spot that is? That is going to capture the broadest group of our constituents. And how do we need to talk to them? Who are they? And what language did they understand and will make sense to them? You can then tail your broad brand message. Your your your overall institutional organizational messaging to speak to them it’s one hundred times more reflective already already writing in their voice. I mean, you said you can even write their journalist that’s, right? Right? To write to them right to a specific person and not to this sort of amorphous, fuzzy general audience. And it will make whatever you’re doing one hundred times better. Okay, who do you who should be involved in creating these personas? Well, that’s an interesting thing and and it’s. Okay, say that’s a good question. It is a great. Even though i admonished you before you can say that’s a good question, that’s allowed. Can i tell a little story about this? Sure welcome. Who should? Who should be involved in understanding the consumer’s perspective in relation to an organization? The best answer is everyone that may be impractical, but arnel lehman, the director of the of the brooklyn museum who i think has a kind of a visionary and an adherent to trim, to have marketing, whether he recognises it or not initiated a few months back. A new program on this institution wide program where he requires every single person in the institution, whether the c f o the chief curator or a research associate to sign up on a sheet or not maintenance maintenance on a rolling basis. Ah, spend an hour on the floor of the museum interacting with the general public. Yeah, and just a knauer or an hour a week or just an hour on a rotating basis. So i don’t know how many employees they have. Quite a few, so copy takes a while to get through that cycle. And i think he instituted this, you know, basically with a switch of an aven edict in this case, and i think there was quite a bit of resistance internally to this. But what this does is it gives everyone that kind of on the ground retail insight about the experience of the exhibitions at that museum. Uh, the insights gained there will have, eh, a long term sort of cascading impact on improving everything that they do because they’ll be aware of the ultimate final on the ground, sort of experienced how people are using that museum because they’re interacting with absolutely answering their cause. They get to their watching. Maybe even yes. And i went to an unrelated meeting there recently. And when i came out of the meeting, i went into the great hall, and there was a fantastic exhibition there, and i had to tell somebody about it. So i walked overto this man who looked official. And i started saying, this is an absolutely fantastic exhibition. And, well, what was it? What was it was thie connecting cultures in there in the great hall? Okay. And we started up what turned into a forty five minute conversation about the exhibition and the institution and how it relates to the public. And it turns out that he was serving his his one our mountains from the borders of his three quarters of his one hour, i think, to both of our both of our ar benefits and that it was actually edward bleiberg who’s thie, curator of egyptian cloudgood on ancient eastern art. So but what he learned from you in that forty five minutes, do you think it was very interesting because he had contributed to that exhibition and he was resistant to the notion of that exhibition? And i spent, like fifteen minutes extolling how basically saying why? I thought the exhibition was great. And in fact i brought my kids to the exhibition that the following saturday, and they thought it was great. So he was getting retail in sight. He was getting what? No, i as the actual, like coming to it, knowing nothing about the background or the struggles that led to that exhibition, but the the actual user interface he was getting a firsthand account of how his work and the work of all the other curator’s who worked on that played out on the and this is the this’s, the tactical experiential level which makes all the difference for the success or failure of a particular exhibition, and ultimately of the institution and all that. And in order for that to happen all aren’t a lehman had to do is just have this idea. Yes didn’t cost him a thing. And this would obviously contribute to the creation of the personas? Yes. Okay. James eaton is president and creative director of tronvig group, which you’ll find at tronvig t r o n v g group. Dot com. What is tronvig yeah, that’s. My great uncles name. Carl tronvig emigrated to the united states in the nineteenth century and went to north dakota. Okay, south next-gen in memory, and we’re gonna talk a little about another family member of yours shortly. Let’s, talk about the trim tab. What? What is it? What’s. A trim tab. And why is this trim tab marketing a trim tab is, uh, a little a device the edge of a rudder that helps it turn. But the importance of the trim tab is a metaphor is let’s. Say you’re a child and you’re in a bathtub. And you have a little replica. A miniature replica of the queen elizabeth to this huge ocean liner and it’s floating in the bathtub. And you want to turn it well, the natural reaction would have to be in the tub with my brother. Do i? I hated bathing my brother. You want to turn the ship chips, and i’m there alone, we think my little boat. So you touched the bow, right? To turn the ship. You wanted to go left. So you you touch the touch the bow and that turns the ship. But if you had an actual queen elizabeth to ocean liner and you wanted to turn it by touching the bow, the force required to move the ship by touching the bow is astronomical. So how does this ship actually turn the rudder? Right. The rudder is in fact the size of a house, so i can’t turn it with my own strength. So in fact, on the end of the writer there’s, a little tiny rudder i called a trim tab turns in the opposite directions writer creates a vacuum and allows the rider to swing easily the direction that you wanted to go. Okay, so now if i take that model and i lifted out of the water and i tried to figure out what makes this ship turn it’s going to be very difficult for me to understand that it’s, that little tiny trim tab on the tip of the rudder on the rather runner on the redder, they’re actually allows me to easily turn this ship. So this notion of the obvious small changes that can turn the whole organization is what we’re talking about. This is the notion of a trim tab this’s finding those things that that actually can steer the whole system in the direction you want but are not big, they’re not costly, they’re not. We have this idea that big solutions are big problems have to be solved with big answers that end marketing is one. Of these big answers it’s like oh, well, we need to have more money. Well, let’s, let’s mount a big marketing dr and that there’s big marketing drive is going to give us big results. That notion is flawed and that’s good news for small and midsize charity is very good news in the fact of the matter is that if you think about the system and you think deeply enough about changes that can be made at the user experience level, there are some very minor that’s what i say when i say tactical, they’re very minor changes that can be made that can have the same effect as these big marketing programs were. We recently did a thing for the bronx museum, where we were asked to get more people to come into the museum. Ah wei have a certain amount of money, and they wanted to do a traditional marketing program, you know, bust signs, bus shelters, subway posters and so forth, which we did, but we set aside a little bit of that money to do something else that they didn’t really ask us to do. And that was to change the sign ege on the door and the windows of this at the street level of the museum. Okay, that thousand dollars from the however many thousand dollar budget we had was the best money we spent because that’s what actually brought people? How do you know that? How do you know that? The door sign it and the windows made the difference. Because when we were a few, a few a few things one when we were talking to people as they were walking on the right on the grand concourse, they’ve been there for forty years. Ah, and we were asking people on the street will what’s this. And they were saying, i don’t know they’re working buy-in causevox busy. Is that? Is that a courthouse? I don’t know. And if you looked at it, then considering okay, why don’t they know? Well, let’s, look at it. Oh, okay. There’s. The sign the sign is is way up there over the top of the door and there’s a flag way up there. But people tend not to really look up when they’re walking down the street. So and it’s a beautiful building. But there was nothing on the front door that you could see that the windows there wasn’t really anything that was big and obvious telling you what this was and and they were announcing in this case that they were free. So we put big orange signs in all of these places that you would see on the street and lo and behold, people walk. How come? How can charities find their trim tab? The the example that i give you that i give you a minute ago about understanding who you’re talking to and how they see you is a is a is a kind of trim to have activity the personas as a function of your spending the time because i think any trim tab action requires a kind of research it requires thought you’ve got to find that thing it’s not going to be obvious it’s not going to be the the i mean the thing that’s right there in front of you it won’t be the big an obvious thing, so you have to look at your system. How does it operate? What mental models are you operating with? What is what is this? And this is also how personas are interesting because they get you out. Of your mental models, you’re your marketing department might have its own vision of, like what? What the organization is or what have you and you we work psychologically with this kind of shorthand? We don’t necessarily think through every step along the way that gets us to a particular decision. We we use shortcuts and mental models are a shortcut, and we have them for our for organizations and and the way we operate and also who we think we’re talking to. Bye that’s what the specificity of these personas? Why it’s so important? Because you’re getting at something that breaks through these short hand models that we have of, well, we have this, you know, the retired over sixty five crowded and is too superficial, yeah, it’s the need to get into the detail we need to get in. We didn’t think we need to talk to the time you know, the curmudgeon, right, who comes every saturday and, you know and complaints to the guard, you’ve got to get into his head and start talking to him, and then he will break down your you’re in perfectly formed mental models and help you create useful ones, we have just a minute before we have to go this trip tap metaphor has personal residence with you. You explain. Tell listeners why that is. Yes, well, the notion is not applied to marketing. It may be mine, but it’s, not mine at all, in the sense that my great great uncle, buckminster fuller, whose people know as thie, inventor of the geodesic dome, futurist designer argast maximilian of the dime actually and map, and maxine carr and and the geodesic dome, which everyone knows because it’s, the lightest, most cost efficient, strongest structure in the world and your uncle, has this on his on his tombstone. Great uncle martignetti he on his tombstone, has engraved. Call me trim tab. Great nephew of buckminster fuller, james eaton is the president in creative director of tronvig group. You’ll find his blaga tronvig group dot com james, a real pleasure having you on the show. Thank you, thank you so much. My pleasure. I was a very touching end to that interview. I remember it very finally, we’re go to a break, and when we come back, tony’s take two, and then amy sample ward talking about cultural change. When your organization becomes more social, how do you manage that? Just keep listening. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. E-giving good. 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 in 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 going 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. Hyre sametz hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i can’t send live listener love this week, but i certainly do love the people who are listening live were pre recorded this week for a couple of weeks, but i know california, texas, oregon occasionally, and we got oregon represented very soon with amy, new york, new york, brooklyn, new york and all our asian listeners. I’m sure you’re out there live listener love to each of you, thanks so much for listening podcast pleasantries for everybody listening through itunes and all the other podcast sites that the show is on. Thank you so much, tony, take two a sigh said, i’m away this week. If you go to my block this week, you’ll see it says gone swimming, and i’m a tte bethany beach in delaware taking a week completely off offgrid off line i’m not looking at email, not checking phone messages, not checking twitter it’s just a week disconnected on the beach, and i heartily recommend that for you you’re each in a urine e-giving profession you’re either giving to the organization or you’re directly giving to the people that you’re non-profit helps. And when you give and give and give, i believe you’ve got to take and that is time off. So think about yourself. I hope this summer you took time off to whatever you whatever you love to do, call it decompressing generally, but whatever it is you love. I hope you got some time to do it away from your phone and all the social networks that we enjoy so much most of the time. But we got to take some time away from all that just for ourselves and that’s. My that’s, my week that’s, my suggestion and that’s tony’s take two for friday, august twenty ninth, the thirty fifth show of the year. Amy sample ward. You know her she’s, a ceo of non-profit technology network. Our most recent car third book is social change. Anytime, everywhere. She’s, our regular social media contributor on dh her blogger is amy sample ward dot or ge? How are you? Amy? Welcome back. How are you? I’m terrific. Welcome. Welcome from oregon. Yeah, thanks. And i’m very jealous about a week. Totally unplugged on beach. That sounds like heaven. Well, you’re a very connected person. Do you? Do you take time off for yourself where you’re where you’re offline, i do not as often as i probably should and, you know, i definitely unplug from feeling like i need teo, you said, check twitter or stay on top of e mail, but it’s rare that i wouldn’t i even have my phone, right? Well, now you are ceo of intent. So that’s hyre responsibility. Yeah, i think you would be hard for you to go away and not be connected to them for however long, right? Exactly. Yeah. Ok, but the social networks you can let those go and and your friends and your followers they’ll all still be there, right? When you come back. Exactly. And it’s, you know, it’s kind of a nice feeling to come back from vacation and see people have kind of left left pieces of conversation for you to jump back into that that’s one of the cool things about social media. Yeah, you can get back right in. Yeah, a tte this point, i would say, i’m looking forward to my vacation and then, while this is playing, i’ll be on it. So let’s talk about what it looks like inside an organization. And some strategies for managing on organization when it becomes more social. What are what are some of the concerns that we wantto talk about? Well, i think we’ve talked before about how, you know, if you want your staff to be engaging in social media, we need to create some sources for them, like a social media handbook or even part of your arm fully handbook that there’s examples of you know what his customer service was like or here’s some commonly asked questions so that you can, uh, answer them with these examples, things like that, but the next step beyond that, when you’re when you’re really trying to move your organization to be a social organization and let those staff across the organization, not just one, engage online with your community, that next step then is to identify what that engagement looks like it’s part of their job description because it may be different department to department for staff buy-in staff person and it may be that some people, you just want to be accessible and to show that people across the organization or online and it may be that there’s a certain department, that actually you know, responsible for campaigns and it’s a bigger part of their job description, but it’s, hard as we know toe hold staff accountable to different pieces of that work is it isn’t explicitly in their job description that you can’t then put it in their review. Okay, so we’re going to make that, and we’ll talk a little more in detail, i think about what? Maybe some of those, uh, descriptions and maybe some of those metrics might look like it does impact the organization broadly when even even beyond individual responsibility. When you start sharing annual reports and financial disclosures on, you know, the way you’re supposed to be in good practice with transparency, people are going to start to ask questions about those things, man. So yeah, so i think what’s interesting is that, you know, organization sometimes start to share piela finance older annual reports or or, you know, impact reporting in some way and think, okay, here we go, one step you could be a lot of questions sometimes there isn’t because people just wanted to know, and that was it. But again, once you put it out there, it’s sometimes more about the culture changed. Within the organization that staff that staff realize that kind of information that really reporting is going to be shared publicly on getting all of the staff across the organization comfortable and batted on. Understanding why it’s important to do more so than it is now. You’re going to get it a lot of questions from twitter because people just read your annual okay, now i can see that probably true, right? It’s hard. It takes more cultural change to get it approved and understood. Then it does once it’s actually out there because that is true. How many people are actually gonna pore over your annual report? Like you said, they just want to know that it’s available right? Well, isn’t it a a great annual report? I mean there’s so many examples now of organizations really rethinking what the annual report did so that even as a report itself, its social and it’s engaging so it’s something that people come and directly interact with, you know, to open up different pieces and see different stories, maybe watch videos and then click on something else. Looked at the data from that program. You know what? Whatever it may be. But taking advantage of the fact they’re posting it on the web and making it and engaging interactive pieces of information on and that too, is going to take some culture change because many organizations have have created annual reports every year that are pretty static, you know, usually, like are are meant to be printed and then given to thunderzord donors are longtime supporters, but then also used in, you know, fund in different ways for forward over the coming year. Well, the idea, just creating an interactive, you know, the web page or something khun definitely could definitely take some convincing, especially when people are thinking of the annual port less so of it needs to look like this, but but more of a i like to have it in my hand when i meet with someone, how am i gonna have this interactive website in my hand when i meet with someone so recognizing where those people are coming from because of how they use that data so that you’re not creating us an infographic that’s how you know they couldn’t ever using the situation, but maybe something interactive online that still has some of the feature. Stories and the rial financial and, you know, fundez breakdown over the year and things like that so they could still pull the pieces out that they used in those meetings and when they’re trying to convince me funders teo, give you some more funds, but that otherwise it’s still meeting the need online have seen something a little more engaging. This all has implications also for our volunteers, and i’m thinking of the key volunteers, the board members, they need to be a part of this cultural shift also. Oh, exactly, i mean, you know, there are a lot of organizations out there where the board is technically considered, you know, working board, it’s a it’s, a very small organization, and the board is there to really contribute directly to the operations of the organization, which for many organizations now means someone on the board or a couple people on the border actually managing the social media accounts for the organization, and that doesn’t mean that they just talk about how great, you know, the organization is on twitter once a week. If whoever is going to be a man, you know, social channel needs to be prepared to answer questions, jump into conversations, be accessible regularly and if that’s not something that a boardmember who, as you pointed out is a volunteer, is able to commit to it not then that you don’t want the board to have access to the channels, but they’re just not gonna be able to be there as much as the community is on dh, maybe that’s an opportunity to have boardmember have personal accounts where they can certainly, you know, engage with people directly representing themselves, but you still have that organizational profile managed by a staff person just so that it is more more reliably online account. We’ve had lots of guests on talk about the setting, the expectations for board members appropriately at the recruitment stage, and if you do expect them to be out there and engaged socially on behalf of the organization, i think you’d want teo make that clear in your board expectations discussion while you’re recruiting people. Yeah, exactly make sure if you know, that’s something that there isn’t capacity on staff for and you need to recruit for it on the board. Be very open about that end about you know, how big nose communities potentially are how much time commitment and engagement there will need to be, and then, you know, proactively look for someone who is, as you and i have talked about before, recognizes the way that social work’s so it’s not someone trying to come into, you know, quote unquote have that message control, but someone that gets that this is a conversation we’re here to engage with the community directly it’s a great opportunity to do that and that we’re going to shave the conversation together and not someone who’s going to say, well, i’ma boardmember and this is all that we want the community to talk about, so, you know, that’s what? We’re going to tweet because you know that it doesn’t matter if they have all the time in the world to be on there because they’re just not going to be engaging in the right way? Yes, okay, we’re talking about getting buying at all different levels from leadership certainly employees, volunteers, key volunteers like board members were goingto go away for a couple minutes, and when we come back, of course, amy and i will keep talking about more social now what? Keep listening. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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 conscious 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. Welcome back on dh amy and i are still we’re going to continue talking about the cultural change and howto manage that when your organization becomes more social, more engaged. Amy well, let’s, talk about some of the strategies we you mentioned, including in job descriptions, what are what are different levels of engagement that might be appropriate for different, uh, sorry, different job descriptions where it’s not the person’s primary job when they’re not, they’re not the organization’s social media manager. What is just sametz samples of different levels of engagement, you might you might call on, well, one example that i like to use from n ten it’s. You know, for us, we want to make sure that all staff across the organization have an opportunity to connect with the community because that’s important to us and your mission is to help all staff use technology well. And so if we only had our community, you know, well the manager online engaging in social media, we also wouldn’t be practicing what we preach that all staff could be using social media. So we want to make sure that it’s staff running those channels what they can, but we also recognize that some people just you know, i know that it sounds crazy and unbelievable, but some people don’t have a facebook account for twitter accounts, and we’re not goingto have them create an account just because they work at ten and then have them not. I feel comfortable using it or not engaged very much there, because ultimately, that’s, what happens in this movie will be feel feel more just connected on confused then, if that person didn’t have a twitter account that s o that also is going to be contrary to what, what you stand for, which is real engagement, and if you’re not comfortable doing it, then you don’t force people into it exactly it’s not going it’s not gonna feel like a great conversation and came across their twitter account anyway, but there are opportunities to be accessible to the community and engage with them in a way that is comfortable and authentic. And so we have what we call weekly touchpoint and we have, you know, listening dashboards and all of those kind of resource is talked about in the past, and staff are expected to find one one thing that they want. To comment on or engaged with maybe, you know, someone participates in a twitter chat on, you know, a topic that they’re interested in or that is part of their work. Other people will find a news story about non-profit or technology sectors, you know, whether it’s from the chronicle for him to be or non-profit times and, you know, something like that, other people will just find block post from someone in the community, and you leave a comment and engage in that way, but whatever it is that you feel comfortable doing, the expectation is that you participate once a week, you find one conversation to contribute to in some way because the goal for us is, yeah, that you contributed, but it’s that actually, that means that was one member or maybe many members, if it was something like a tweet chat that feels like they got to have a direct touch from the organization and that it was it was really it wasn’t just, you know, one more email that we’ve sent out, but it was that staffers sense going and reading your block post, which feels good, you know, someone actually left a comment on your vlog and twenty thirteen were killed, like knowing these cummings anymore. So that’s one way where we set the expectations but left it open for open for interpretation, if you will so that staff can pick the channel that makes sense, and then if they’re doing this once a week, that’s fifty engagements per year per staff member that’s that’s, considerable, exactly, yeah, there’s twelve staff and, you know, easily fifty weeks where we’re online, so yeah, it adds up to feel like we’ve we’ve done a lot of external engagement and that’s not counting, you know, the actual social media engagement out of the organization’s profile, the foster parents and so on. And if you have that metric of one a week, some people are going to embrace it and do three or four or five a week it’s more natural for some people, others will be at that many others will be at that minimum, but even at the minimum, that’s still pretty good fifty engagements a year out of somebody who is not really that comfortable, but you know, that does what they do, what they’re being asked to do. That’s pretty good, exactly, and we have staff who, you know are are those staff i was talking about before that don’t have a twitter account that, you know, don’t log in to facebook, teo really use that, and so they choose the blog’s comments because for them they always get excited to actually hear what one of the end members was thinking about our working on so as much as it’s an opportunity to go the comment yes, engage directly, it also lets them feel like, you know, they can turn around in their chair and tell the rest of the office, hey, did you know that twenty martignetti thousand each right now, her, uh, whatever it may be, you know, because they just got to read, you know, take a few minutes out of their day of of otherwise, you know, just doing work and here, directly from a member as well, i love it and thank you for using intent as an example because i think that’s uplifting and motivating people because you are the non-profit technology network and still you’re saying you have people who aren’t all that comfortable don’t have a twitter account of facebook account and there’s still able to engage the love that you love it. Okay, so, uh, the the implication of including this in someone’s job description, as you said earlier, is that this is now going to be part of their performance review. We’re going, we’re going to talk about this once a year, once every six months hopeful i think once two years kind of bare minimum, but once in every six months, maybe in evaluating their their performance and maybe help them, i feel more comfortable or get to the next level if they are feeling like they’d like to get to next level, this can all be sort of growth opportunity. Oh, exactly. We’ve had staff where when they first join the organization, you know, they didn’t have have twitter accounts, for example, and they started out doing the community touchpoint knowing they had to find something to comment on or engage with and over time they got more interested and because it is and then they were on our own webinars as the half percent, you know, leaving the webinar and of course, that means you do the intro. You make sure that everyone’s able to log in eleven art, but then it means you’re listeningto all of these. Seminars throughout the year from, you know, experts in their in their different fields. So at one of the reviews, the staff person said, okay, i i listen to enough webinars about social media, i want to create a twitter account and i want to try engaging with the community there, you know, before our next unconference so that i can, you know, be a part of that online side of the conference, and i thought that was great a great way to for the organisation instead of us saying, we have a lot of people tweeting during the npc shouldn’t really have to do in our account and said by just saying here’s, the community, you need to be accessible, find the channel for you on the expectations you do something, you know, whatever town that is that over time they were able to see oh, i’m missing, you know, i’m missing this piece it’s on twitter, where i see people are doing things that i’m not there and they foreign fired-up join that channel on dh recognized the value themselves instead of us just deciding that they needed to be there. We have just a minute or so. Left, this should be part of staff training, too, not just the evaluation process, but regular staff training. Yeah, i mean, let’s think about how many times we complain that facebook has once again changed, you know, the the way that your friend list work or five settings or anything else if if you and some of plugged in recognized that weinger changing that it needs other people probably don’t recognize that. So having a regular checkpoints, uh, throughout the year where people can get together and say, oh, you know, i’ve actually been trying out google plus, does anyone want to talk about that? You know, or hey here’s, something that has changed in facebook setting, living off anyone needs to walk through it together. It could be a collaborative, learning type of meanings. That way everyone has a chance to share and to hear from each other just what’s working or what has changed in the different channel people are using under their own names. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing. Amy, amy, sample ward, dot org’s, herb log and on twitter she’s at amy r s board and she’ll be back in a month thank you again next week, the overhead myth letter it’s coming, the three co signers of the letter will be with me, the ceos of the better business bureau wise giving alliance guide star and charity navigator do you want to ask them a question? Put it on her facebook page or send it to me on twitter. I won’t answer this week, but i will next week and we’ll have your question for them. So please love to have your questions. Also, jean takagi returns are legal contributor what overhead should you invest in to protect your non-profit coming from the overhead myth letter what’s wise overhead investment so that you protect your non-profit those you’re helping your employees and your board members. If you love tony martignetti non-profit radio, you might also love fund-raising fundamentals it’s, a monthly podcast devoted to fund-raising topics that i host for the chronicle of philanthropy, you’ll find it on their website, and you’ll also find fund-raising fundamentals on itunes. Our creative producer is claire miree off sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next week. Friday one to two p. M eastern at talking alternative dot com, which is talking alternative broadcasting. Dahna hyre e-giving thing duitz good ending. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network waiting to get in. Nothing. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur? Ready to break through? Join us at sixty body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. 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This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio 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 friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all just better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. 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