Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Are You Communicating Better This Year?

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It’s a new year.  Here are ten resolutions that every organization should make to improve their communications in 2014.
  1. Google yourself. What are the first things people see about you? Would you support the group you see on screen?
  2. Take charge of your brand. Create your own reputation through the news you make and the stories you post.
  3. Cultivate local reporters.  They work too hard: if you feed them human interest stories and photos, they’ll be grateful.
  4. Everyone in your organization speaks for you.  What are they saying to their friends? Do they have stories to tell your supporters?
  5. Your website: keystone of all your communications.  Ask an outsider to click through it. Is it easy to navigate? Informative? Fun?
  6. Facebook is a party, not a meeting.  Find ways to get your fans talking with each other.  They’ll come back more often and like you better.
  7. Which social media should your group use?  Depends.  Who do you want to reach?  Where do they go when they’re online?
  8. Horror movie: “I mail to dead people.” In January, take people off your postal and email lists if you haven’t heard from them since 2011.
  9. Photos: not just for breakfast any more. Your readers want to consume photos at every meal, including online posts.
  10. Your good name is your most valuable asset.  What’s it worth to you?  THAT’S the return on investment for your communications.

 

What I Learned at Social Media Manager School

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Have you heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as a social media expert”?  It’s true.  Social media are changing too fast for anyone to know it all.  But Andrea Vahl and Phyllis Khare come close.

Along with a few hundred students from around the world, I enrolled in Andrea and Phyllis’ Social Media Managers School this fall.  They have a wealth of practical experience and they shared as much of it with us as they possibly could.

I learned a lot more than I already knew about:

  • Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest
  • Top tools for managing multiple clients’ posts on multiple social media
  • Analytics you can use to measure what matters
  • Producing webinars and Ebooks
  • Finding clients, online and in person
  • Setting expectations and actually doing the work

I came to the course with a well-developed sense of strategy, the writing skills I needed for content marketing, and long familiarity with social media.  What I knew less about was a) advanced social media tactics and b) running a business.

Phyllis and Andrea took the mystery out of it.  With patience and good humor, they led a varied group of wanna-bes and already-ares through the course.  The Facebook group for participants was a great bonus: there were some days when I learned as much from the other students as I did from the teachers.  That’s a sign of a great course.

If you are interested in managing clients’ social media for a living–or if (like me) you want to add social media management to what you can offer your clients–then you cannot do better than to sign up for the 2014 Social Media Managers School.

Just don’t call yourself an expert.  Let your expertise speak for itself.

How Small Nonprofits Light Up Social Media

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Are you a small nonprofit organization, based in a single community?  Congratulations: you have natural advantages when it comes to social media.

What are your advantages?  The same strengths that social media maven Mark Schaefer sees for small businesses–only more so.

Local angle.  “I could care less about a tweet from a mega-brand,” Schaefer writes, “but I would certainly be interested to get to know a local shop owner in a personal way.” The people you serve, their families, your staff and Board, their families and friends, your city council, your school committee, and all your donors and volunteers are interested in you in real life.  They might be interested in you on Facebook or Twitter, too…but only if you show you’re interested in them.

Personal touch.  As a small nonprofit, you can know more of your supporters personally.  This one is always talking about raising a biracial child.  That one prides herself on her mouthwatering vegetarian recipes.  When you can provide useful information on a subject they care about , your supporters will notice.  (And they will always appreciate a compliment!)

Relationships. Businesses, and large nonprofits, are tempted to look at everything in terms of ROI, Return On Investment.  They miss the intangible results that small nonprofits perceive. If your supporters are telling you, “I loved that picture you posted,” or if they’re sharing information that you put out, or if municipal officials are treating you with more respect, you know you are building loyalty that will help you sooner or later.

Don’t Hide Your Light

“But I don’t know how to use social media,” you say.  “And I don’t have the time.”  You do know how to be social in real life, right?  A good consultant can train you on how to do social online.  A consultant can also help you use your time to best effect, or you can pay him or her to be your online voice.

Is it worth it?  Using social media well means getting closer to the people who matter most to your organization.  Yes, that’s worth doing.  You are ideally positioned to do it.  Go ahead: let your light shine!

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