Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Why I Like Social Media

by 5 Comments

Cap-and-Gownhp-laptop-computers-2

“You have a Ph.D. Why do you like working with social media?”

I’d been helping Bobby, a young nonprofit professional in Ohio, think about relocating to the Boston area. He found my advice  useful.

Clearly, however, he found my choice of career puzzling.  Over time, I had moved from the academic life to nonprofit management, and now I specialize in nonprofit communications, including social media.

Here are some of the answers I gave him.  With social media, I can:

  • Help worthwhile organizations build closer ties to people.  Your agency’s Facebook friends and Twitter followers end up identifying with you, caring about your work, and supporting you with volunteer time or donations.
  • Continue learning more and more about any subject that fascinates me by following ongoing conversations on that topic.
  • Learn about subjects I had no idea I wanted to know about, until some interesting item crossed my path.
  • Keep in touch with people I like,  even when we’re quite unlike. 
  • Let some serendipity into my life.

How would you answer Bobby’s question?  Why do you like working with social media?

Here’s Your Communications Strategy. Fill In the Blanks.

by 16 Comments

Your organization needs a communications strategy.  Why?  For a lot of the same reasons why Kivi Leroux Miller recommends having a content strategy:

  • To focus on your supporters’ goals.
  • To make your readers think of you as a welcome guest who shares expertise.
  • To take your random content and turn it into a larger story.
  • To make your communications boost your programs and your fundraising.
  • To get results.

Developing a communications strategy takes time and patience.  But who has time these days?  And patience, too, is rare.  So, here are seven statements that make up a communications strategy.  Read them.  It will take one minute.

  1. A key audience we’re trying to reach is ___________.
  2. If we engage with that audience successfully, they will do ___________.
  3. A typical member of that audience has these characteristics __________, and cares about __________, and their favorite way to get information is _____________.

Therefore:

4. Our key message to this audience is __________.

5. We will communicate with this audience primarily through __________ and secondarily through __________.

6. The resources we will use to put this strategy into action are __________.

7. We will measure our progress by __________.

Are you aiming at more than one key audience?  Rinse and repeat.

What It Takes to Fill In the Blanks

Seems simple, right?  And it is.  But surprise, it will still take time and patience!  Chances are, people inside your organization have different ideas who the key audiences are.  You’ll have to list your audiences (current and desired), then discuss them, in order to make one or two your priorities.

What do you really want from the key audience you have in mind?  Do you want them to be your brand ambassadors and spread the word about your good work?  Are they potential volunteers?  Are you looking for major donors among this audience?  “All of the above” will not do.  What’s the first step you want them to take?

And so on.  To fill in the blanks, you may need to do research.  (Who are these people, anyway?)  You may need to shift time and money away from some other project to make your communications strategy feasible.  It’s a big undertaking.  But when you can write a strategy statement like this one  you will have taken the crucial first step:

Example: A key audience we want to reach is grandparents of children in our school.  If we engage them successfully, they will make annual donations and meet with us about including  the school in their wills.  A typical grandparent is Janice, 68, a widow and recent retiree who’s active in her church, rides a bicycle everywhere she goes, and cares about leaving a healthy planet to the next generation.  She keeps in touch with her family via Facebook but hasn’t followed any organizations on Facebook yet.

Our key message to Janice is that she can involve her grandchildren and their friends in learning about the environment through our school.  We will post photos of children engaged in learning, recycling, and gardening on Facebook, along with links to relevant policies, curriculum, and publications.  We will also include these themes on our website and regularly scheduled emails.  We will need teachers and aides to take photos, and the development director will work with the PTA president to produce other content.

We will measure our results this year by how many grandparents follow the Facebook page and comment on or share posts.  By next year, we will measure the number and amount of this audience’s donations to the annual appeal and the number of in-person meetings to discuss planned giving.

Does your organization need help to fill in the blanks in its strategy?  Please pose your questions in the comments section, and let’s see how we can help each other.

Chopsticks, Hammers, and Social Media

by 2 Comments

My dear father could never master the use of chopsticks.  He resented people who did.  ImageWhenever we went out to a Chinese restaurant and other people reached for the sticks, he would grumble, “A fork has always been good enough for me.  I don’t know why it’s not good enough for you.”

I think of my father sometimes when I hear colleagues ask why they need to use social media.  I’m a big believer in print, video, and face-to-face contact myself, but I have to wonder: how much resistance to adopting social media comes from the fear that we won’t use them well?  That we’ll be still dabbing away with tools we don’t understand while other people have eaten our lunch?

This fear is unnecessary.  Anyone can learn to use social media well enough for company.  Once we stop worrying about how to master them, then we can really ask why–and get good answers.

Contrary to what enthusiasts sometimes think, it is not self-evident why organizations should use social media. I see people who leap on board each social media trend as it comes along.  They remind me of the saying, “To the person who owns a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  Social media are tools.  One size doesn’t fit all.  We need to know what they can do, and what we want to accomplish.  Then, we can pick the right tool for the job.

Here are some questions we can ask ourselves to figure out what we really need, whether we are communications conservatives or early adopters:

  1. Who are we trying to reach?
  2. Where does our audience spend its time, and how do they like to get their information?
  3. What can we do for them?
  4. What are we hoping to get them to do?
  5. How much time can we invest?

Then, and only then, can we figure out which social media we should use, and how.  That’s a social media strategy.

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Yes! Please send me tips from Communicate! Consulting.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.