Friday 28 February 2014

INFOGRAPHIC: The importance of ‘mobile first’ marketing strategies

Check out this infographic from the guys at Unified, which reveals how to help drive brand awareness and successful marketing campaigns via mobile marketing.

mobile

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Emotive video from SOS Children goes viral

A new video campaign from SOS Children’s Nordic branch that aims to raise awareness for Syrian children facing the harsh realities of winter has racked up almost 13 million views on YouTube since it was uploaded just over a week ago.

Not that you particularly need captions to understand what happens in the video, but if you want to follow exactly what’s going on, it’s recommended you select ‘English’ in the captions icon on the media player.

Check out what happens when citizens of Oslow, Norway, encounter a young freezing child at a bus stop, and get ready for your heart to melt.

Synne Rønning, from SOS Norway, who helped to create the video, said: “The campaign has worked as an eye-opener – people who watch it ask themselves: What would I do? The goal was to touch upon the fear of becoming numb to crises that don’t affect you directly.”

Donate here: http://www.sos-barnebyer.no/syriahelp

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Thursday 27 February 2014

NipNominate outstripping deadly drinking craze for charity

The new viral campaign, serving as a positive antidote to the deadly drinking craze, has taken the internet by storm. Thousands of people have been stripping to their undies and posting pictures on social media for the Bangers to Cancer campaign, which seeks to help raise awareness and money for Breast Cancer Care.

The online trend was started by 35-year-old Michelle Kent in revulsion to NekNominations, which originated in Australia by former professional rugby player Ross Samson.

Kent is delighted to have helped raise £4,000 in less than 24-hours for the charity.

It is not only women getting involved, but some men have taken up the challenge too. It’s a way to raise cash and stop this NekNominate game,” she said.

It is a wonderful charity and we seem to be getting support from as far as New Zealand, the states and South Africa.”

Kent hopes the trend will raise £50,000 for the cancer charity while serving as a positive deterrence for future booze fuelled fads.

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Rucksack containing portable mobile network launched by Vodafone Foundation

In an innovative charity tech move, the Vodafone Foundation has unveiled the new Instant Network Mini, a light mobile network contained in a backpack that can be deployed in only 10 minutes. It is hoped the device will help out aid workers who need to send out warning messages in disaster situations.

Weighing only 11 kilograms, the ‘robust’ backpack is able to be carried on as hand luggage and is simple enough to be deployed by non-technical staff.

The Vodafone Foundation Instant Network Mini is able to power five concurrent calls within a radius of 100 metres and send out thousands of essential text messages to people suffering in the surrounding vicinity of a disaster.

Within 24 hours of Typhoon Haiyan, the original Vodafone Foundation Instant Network, a portable network in four suitcases weighing 100kg, which offers a larger radius of up to 5km, was deployed to help enable 1.4 million text messages and 443,288 calls to be sent out in 29 days.

Andrew Dunnett, Director, the Vodafone Foundation, commented: “The Vodafone Foundation Instant Network has enabled thousands of people to reconnect with their loved ones. Vodafone Foundation Instant Network Mini is simple and quick to deploy and will be particularly valuable to those humanitarian workers without any other means of communication”.

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Wednesday 26 February 2014

7 Habits of Highly Engaging Facebook Admins

Marketo recently published an eBook called Contagious Content: What People Share On Facebook and Why They Share It.

The sheer mass of this ebook will blow your mind. And so will the examples, tips and tactics.

Plus, on page 10, you’ll find this list:

7 Habits of Highly Engaging Facebook Posts*

  1. GIVE: Offers, discounts, deals or contests that everyone can benefit from, not just one sub-group of your friends.
  2. ADVISE: Tips, especially about problems that everyone. encounters; for example, how to get a job or how to beat the flu.
  3. WARN: Warnings about dangers that could affect anyone.
  4. AMUSE: Funny pictures and quotes, as long as they're not. offensive to any group.
  5. INSPIRE: Inspirational quotes.
  6. AMAZE: Amazing pictures or facts.
  7. UNITE: A post that acts as a flag about how great your community is doing.

*In their ebook, they titled this list “7 Functions of Highly Shared Posts”, but I like my title better.

Here’s why: “Function” puts the focus on the content, which is certainly important. But simply publishing content based on these seven functions won’t work unless you adopt them as habits too.

7 Habits of Highly Engaging Facebook Admins

In other words, great content is just a byproduct of your habits. So is a vibrant and responsive fanbase:

  1. GIVE: Be generous with your community. Focus on their needs first.
  2. ADVISE: Listen and be helpful and responsive.
  3. WARN: Tap into the latest news about your community (donors, volunteers, supporters).
  4. AMUSE: Entertain and enchant your community. Recognize them as human beings first, Facebook users second.
  5. INSPIRE: Yes. But don’t be preachy.
  6. AMAZE: Always be sharing amazing content.
  7. UNITE: Become a respected member of your community.

Community managers who develop these habits essentially guarantee success. And by success, I mean creating a growing, thriving, and responsive community.

But maybe there’s more. Do we need 37 habits, or is 7 just fine?

What am I missing?

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Fundraising Basics: [Part 1] How to Create and Provide Value to Your Donors

Overall U.S. giving was up 4.9% during 2013 while online giving was up 13.5%.

In order to see those types of increases in fundraising performance it’s essential for you to get the basics right. I believe when organizations focus on the core principles and best practices of fundraising, no matter how simple, basic, or straightforward, it leads to sustainable and substantial growth.

With this in mind, I’ll be conducting a three part fundraising series on the core principles to acquire, retain, and upgrade your donors.

In this first, short video of the series, we’ll focus on viewing your donors as customers and why it is important to offer value in exchange for contributions. You’ll also learn how to provide value to your donors in a practical and straightforward way:


Video Transcript

Welcome to part one of Back To Basics: How to Acquire, Retain and Upgrade Your Donors. Donors are customers of your organization. Donors are contributing something to your organization in exchange for the good feeling they get by donating or the social equity your organization provides a community. They are buying into the outcomes of your organization. Because donors are customers, we want to acquire new ones and retain and upgrade existing ones. In order to achieve acquisition, retention and upgrades, we must do three things. Show donors the value of your mission through the impact of your programs or services, build relationships with donors and provide them an exceptional donor experience, focus your message on the donor. The simplified version of these three points produces three principles of effective fundraising. Number one, offer a valuable product. Number two, provide great service. Number three, build a donor-focused approach.

Number one, offer a valuable product. The market of philanthropy, both large and small, is comprised of donors who are willing, able and looking to donate to causes. Therefore, your goal is to lure them your direction and retain them with an incredibly powerful value proposition. Your mission is a purpose, and by achieving that purpose, you create tangible impact that is valuable to society. That impact is your product. Here’s a quick statistic showing why it’s important to offer a valuable product. A study by Root Cause found that 72% of donors who regularly or sometimes give to new causes or non-profits are actively seeking information about that non-profit. As many as 75% of those donors use information about a non-profit’s impact in their giving decisions. That is an overwhelming majority of donors that are making giving decisions based on the product or value your organization offers. That statistic shows that offering a valuable product is important, but beyond the numbers, this makes intuitive sense.

Would you rather give to an organization that is effective at achieving their mission or an organization that is ineffective? This sounds like a silly question but donors make this choice every day. It is important to show donors that you offer a valuable product. So how do we offer a valuable product? First, we need to understand what our product is. Your value in your product can be discovered by answering the question, ‘Are we making an impact?’ Frame and define your organizations impact with these five questions. Number one, how do we define our impact? Number two, how do we know if we’re making having an impact? Number three, how do we articulate and communicate our impact to others? Number four, how do we evaluate our impact? And number five, how can we increase our impact? Once you’ve developed a clear understanding of your impact, it’s important to package it, frame a message for it and present it to donors. I called this process “productizing your fundraising.”

Instead of offering donors generic giving levels, offer donors giving levels tied to mission products. Flip the donation process from “how much do you want to donate" to "how much impact you would like to make?” Productizing your fundraising simplifies the message for donors, it grounds the active giving in something tangible and specific, not generic or general. Productizing your fundraising message gives donors an applied message that allows them to immediately quantify, determine value and comprehend what their contribution does for the community.

You can productize your fundraising with three clear steps. Step one, define your results. Clearly define the impact you make. Step two, attach value to your results. It takes funds to produce results, outcomes and impact. What is the monetary value of the real difference you make? Step three, position your mission products where donors can see them. All channels can be formatted with this approach. By productizing your impact and offering a valuable product to donors, you create a vehicle that takes intangible components of your mission and transforms them into tangible and relatable giving options.

Watch part two of this series to learn why it’s important to provide great donor service and how to do it.

Don’t miss part two!

Next week, I’ll be covering the importance of providing exceptional service to your donors, and how to do so with one simple rule.

 

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What’s your favorite word? Mine is the “f” word.

Nothing made me happier than to hear the "f" word dropped with blatant disregard. While some may be offended; I relished in the moment, enjoyed the conversations and I'm hopeful about the future.

How did one word cause so many emotions?

That's an easy question to answer. After years of fundraising, I've realized that we don't have a fundraising problem. We know how to fundraise; we have tools to fundraise and year over year we push ourselves to raise more.

If fundraising isn't our problem, than what's the issue? Our challenge is marketing also a dreaded, dirty and scary word.  But like the "f" word we need to embrace the "m" word.  Marketing is amazing! Marketing educates supporters and drives interest in our cause.  So, why do we have a marketing problem and not a fundraising problem?

Why aren’t we raising money?

I often hear "why do we have so many zero dollar participants" and other common question is "why is our participant fundraising average so low" – have you asked yourself these questions? I have. The answer is another easy one – we're not communicating the right message.  We expect people to fundraise, but we're not asking them to fundraise.  Why?

This post would be way to long if I listed all reasons, so let's get to root cause.  As an industry we're scared of the "f" word.  We don't like to talk about the "f" word.  We don't train staff to feel comfortable with the "f". We're scared we'll lose people if we talk about the "f" word.  Our fear of the "f" word is holding us back.

Embrace the “f” word

Yesterday at the The Peer-to-Peer Professional Forum (formerly the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Conference), we spent the afternoon talking about the "f" word and our aversion to it.  I' m happy to report, that times are changing and we're embracing the "f" word. But, don't just take it from me.  Here's what others are saying.

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Facebook Lets Marketers “News Feed Bomb” Other Pages

You know photobombing, when a random stranger hijacks your family photo? Well now you can do that with Facebook Pages.

Starting today, Facebook Page posts might be seen by fans of similar Pages simply by tagging those Pages in the post.

Andrew Song, a Product Manager at Facebook writes:

When a Page tags another Page, we may show the post to some of the people who like or follow the tagged Page.

Tagging other pages does not guarantee exposure to those fans. The News Feed algorithm considers several factors:

  • Posts are getting the most engagement.
  • Which users have engaged with similar topics.
  • Posts are getting the most engagement from people who like both Pages.
  • Relevant topics the Pages share.
  • The degree of overlap within the fanbase.

Sidenote: Pages still can’t tag people in updates.

What do you think about tagging other pages?

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Newcastle-based charities to benefit from Go Digital scheme

Newcastle has launched plans to become one of the UK’s first super-connected cities in a scheme that will boost the city’s economy by a predicted £150 million.

Go Digital Newcastle, a government scheme delivered by Newcastle City Council, will see 97% of Newcastle given access to superfast fibre broadband by 2015, free Wi-Fi in Newcastle City Centre, a cloud computing centre, business connection vouchers and a business support programme.

Newcastle is one of 22 super-connected cities where small businesses (SMEs), charities and social enterprises can apply for connection vouchers worth up to £3,000 to get connected to high speed/high grade broadband with one of nearly two hundred registered suppliers.

Local charities are being urged to sign up for a connection voucher to open up a world of superfast opportunities for their organisation. They will also be able to benefit from a free business support programme offering digital master classes and workshops.

Council leader Cllr Nick Forbes said: “Superfast broadband can help turn local heroes into superheroes – our city-based businesses can use the faster speeds to reach new markets and products and compete on both a national and international scale. The economic benefits to the city will be significant and further cement Newcastle’s reputation as an exciting place to live and work. Go Digital Newcastle will boost the local economy and help create and protect local jobs.”

Click here to find out more.

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Age UK teams with Breezie to get older people online

Age UK, has teamed up with tech company Breezie to offer a solution that helps make the most of the internet for people who are less familiar with digital technology.

Breezie is supplied with a Samsung tablet and works by simplifying every day apps such as Facebook to make it easy for customers to get online and stay connected with friends, family and keep up to date with interests and hobbies. The system is customised at purchase with settings based on the individual’s interests and gives a nominated trusted relative or friend the ability to sign-in remotely, set-up accounts and add contacts via Breezie’s support service. It makes the internet easy — to call someone for free on Skype, all the customer needs to do is simply tap a friend’s picture in the address book and soon be talking face-to-face.

Having worked with technology giant Samsung to develop its functionality, Breezie is built on the Android platform, which means people have access to a huge range of apps which can be used for social media, shopping and online utility bills.  Breezie also suggests which ones the customer might like then adds more features as they become more familiar with the system.

Helena King, Head of Affinity and Development at Age UK said: “Breezie differs from most other desktop computers and tablets in that it tackles the two main barriers to internet adoption: over-complication and lack of relevance.  It is set up to meet the individual needs of the customer and evolves with them so as the customer grows more confident and becomes more comfortable with the device Breezie can help makes the Internet easier. We hope this will make a real difference to people in later life, helping to stay in touch with family and friends and access the Internet easily and quickly.”

Click here for more information.

 

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Tuesday 25 February 2014

11 Responsively Designed Nonprofit Websites to Study and Learn From

nonprofits-must-us-responsive-designWith 51% of Facebook’s referral traffic now coming from mobile and more than two-third’s of Twitter users being mobile, many nonprofits are finally starting to come to the realization that their social media campaigns are doomed unless they embrace a mobile-first approach to online communications and fundraising. Your nonprofit must now assume that the majority of website and blog content you share on social networks is being read on a mobile device and if that content is not mobile compatible, then any attempt to inspire a followerer or fan to donate or get more involved will fail.

The easiest way to ensure that your website and blog are mobile compatible is to embrace responsive design. As a follow-up list from last year’s 7 Responsively Designed Nonprofit Websites to Study and Learn From, below is a new selection of 11 exceptional, responsively designed nonprofit websites. Pay particular attention Heifer International. Their new site is gorgeous. Hopefully, your nonprofit has a new website on your To Do List for 2014-15 and you can study and learn from the websites listed below. Be sure to experience each of them on a desktop, tablet, and smartphone – and if possible, on two new screens we’ll be paying more attention to and designing for in the coming years – a smartwatch and smart TV.

1. Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)
famm.org

famm responsive

2. Gates Foundation
gatesfoundation.org

gates foundation responsive

3. Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad)
glaad.org

glaad responsive

4. Heifer International
heifer.org

Heifer International Responsive

5. National Campaign to Prevent Teen
and Unplanned Pregnancy
thenationalcampaign.org

national campaign responsive

6. Nature Conservancy
nature.org

nature conservancy responsive

7. Oxfam America
oxfamamerica.org

oxfam america responsive

8. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
peta.org

Peta Responsive

9. Pew Research Center
pewresearch.org

pew research center responsiv e

10. Rijksmuseum
rijksmuseum.nl

rijksmuseum responsive

11. Wilderness Society
wilderness.org

wilderness society responsive

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Embracing the Rush: Preparing for the Arts and Cultural Busy Seasons

Last week Ginny Fitzgerald, the Director of Visitor Services and Membership at Chicago History Museum, joined us to host a webinar about how she prepares her team for peak attendance times. Ginny has over 17 years of experience in visitor services.

Here’s Ginny’s advice for how your organization can best prepare for the seasonal rush that’s quickly approaching:

1. Summer Tourism

Chicago History Museum defines their summer season as June 1 through August 31. Because of this, they make sure their prices and packages are buttoned up by early March so that their program and tour information can be made available to members and the public. Once they publish this information, changes can't be made to pricing models.  Something that goes along with pricing is membership. Members are the first to receive the quarterly program brochure, and they use the member pricing benefit to upsell membership to the museum all year long.  They make sure that all of the benefits of membership are communicated effectively and repeatedly to visitors in the summer, since many summer visitors are visiting for the first time.

When communicating program pricing externally, use three main access points:

  1. A quarterly calendar 
  2. Your website
  3. Printed brochures

Ginny pointed out that on all printed materials they ask for people to check the website for the latest pricing information in case any changes have to be made.

The ticket counter 

You want to be as efficient as possible when people start visiting, whether it's a group or an individual. That means staff working the counter should be fully trained and comfortable before June 1st. In a perfect world, no one should be going through the training process during the summer months.

Tours and programs

These go hand in had as both are the programs you want in place for the summer to encourage traffic. Depending on the size of the program, the majority of the planning has likely already occurred for this summer but there are some final program details still underway. The museum likes to find new and unique ways to engage visitors each year. One really popular way for encouraging people to visit, or repeat visit, is by offering offsite tours to different parts of the city. Chicago History Museum has found that getting out of the building is a low cost way to increase engagement, and the city is their premier artifact!

2. Spring Field Trips

Chicago History Museum has more school visitors between April 1 and June 15 than any other time of the year and they are operating at full capacity for the school audience at that time of year.

Website brochures

At this point, in the winter months (February), it is typically most important that the School Visit pages of their website are up to date because they have found that their brochures are most helpful in getting schools to book trips and the website is the teacher's point of reference in the weeks just before the trip. The museum has "Guidelines for your Visit" that describe when to arrive, what students should wear, how students should behave, and any applicable waiver forms.

Staff Preparation

Long before April 1st make sure that you have the appropriate staff in place. You need volunteers and visitor services staffing to be on their "A" game for a field trip because there are so many visitors. In addition, try to remember that if the kids have a good time, they will want to bring their parents back. You want to make sure your volunteers and staff are doing everything they can to keep kids engaged and, of course, safe. Also, make sure the orientation process is smooth and quick, requiring the staff member(s) responsible for checking-in the groups to be properly trained on the processes and tools.

As you can imagine, a group of kids is messier and harder on the museum than a group of adults. Be sure your facility maintenance staff's schedule is in place for this busy time of year so that your facility stays clean and neat.  Provide them a copy of the weekly school visit schedule.

Plans for the future

By the end of the field trip season you should be beginning to prepare for the next year. The heaviest volume for field trip reservations for Chicago History Museum is from September 1 through October 10. They design, print, and mail their field trip brochure between July 15 and August 15 and make sure their web pages are updated to coordinate with when the brochure will land in the teacher's mailbox.

Additionally, a very important function of Visitor Services is accurately tracking the attendance and revenue for the school audience.  This is vital information that is reported externally and it is essential for future planning and school program development.

3. The Holidays

The holidays are a big season for everyone and the museum is no exception. Depending on the day of the week that Christmas and New Year's fall, Chicago History Museum sees a rush of General Admission tickets for anywhere from 10 days to 3 weeks.

Staff Vacation

Many of staff members are taking vacation during this time of year, but visitor services, membership sales, and facility support are operating at full capacity. In fact, Chicago History Museum notes in their job descriptions that no one on these teams will get to take the entirety of the holiday off of work. While it's important to give your staff time with family, make sure you have the staff members present that need to be there to take advantage of this busy season.

Program Promotion

Because so many people are coming in during this season, make sure to promote your museum programming. During this time printed materials fly off the brochure racks, onsite membership sales take off, and ticketing and reservations for upcoming programs all increase.

Don’t forget…

Ask for donations!

Tis the season for end of year giving, so make sure to remind your visitors that you are a nonprofit and gifts are tax deductible.

Conclusion

The biggest takeaway from this event was the importance of planning ahead. Ginny has a team of approximately 8 people from across the organization that are responsible for driving this planning and they are constantly looking ahead to make sure their museum is set up for success.

Is your museum planning ahead for busy seasons? What are you doing now to prepare for summer?

Want to watch the webinar? Check out the recording today!

 

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Whizz-Kidz revamps website with focus on innovation

Children’s disability charity Whizz-Kidz has partnered with digital agency Strawberry to relaunch its website, for a fresh and intuitive user-experience, with a greater focus on parents and young disabled people.

Whizz-Kidz’s new ‘Parents’ section will form a one-stop-shop for all of the charity’s mobility equipment and life skills services, with an online Parents Network in development.

Whizz-Kidz CEO, Ruth Owen OBE, said: “By ensuring young disabled people and their families are able to access the best information related to their mobility, Whizz-Kidz hopes the site will help empower them to make more informed decisions relating to their own care. We are determined to give our supporters and stakeholders a smarter, faster way of accessing our expertise. We also want to work more widely with the NHS via our new Healthcare section, so together we can transform the lives of more disabled people in the UK.”

The new website is the latest in a series of recent innovations – including Whizz-Kidz’s Child in a Chair in a Day initiative and its new smartphone app.

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New NetXtra podcasts provide charities with free digital marketing tips

Digital marketing and website experts NetXtra has launched a series of downloadable podcasts aimed at charities and nonprofit organisations, to provide free help and advice to those with an interest in their organisation’s digital marketing strategies.

The first in the series ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)’ is available to play directly from NetXtra’s website or can be downloaded via Apple iTunes store. Downloads can also be made via the Stitcher website and mobile app.

Sean Greentree, Marketing Manager at NetXtra, and podcast presenter said: “We’d been approached by several people in the not-for-profit sector who told us that they really enjoyed and got a lot from reading our Insights articles. But in this new digital era where time is a rare commodity many people also wanted them to be made available in audible format too, so they could listen to them whilst travelling or going about their daily lives.”

Future episodes will also cover topics such as: What memberships and not-for-profits should look for in Google Analytics, a sector’s guide to Pay-Per-Click marketing (PPC) and getting the most from social media.

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Monday 24 February 2014

From a Millennial: Nobody Wants to Hear Your Stories. We Want to See Them.

Stories.

We all have them. We all love them. Entire civilizations have been built off of, held together by and divided by stories. Edward Bulwer-Lytton wasn’t far off when he so famously coined, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Stories have the power to bring together and to push apart –to distinguish and to extinguish. Stories are also integral parts to any nonprofit organizations and particularly when it comes to fundraising.

But who has time to tell stories? In the digital age, where most traditional storytelling is done over the Internet, attention spans are ever shrinking. In fact, the latest numbers given by the U.S. National Library of Medicine put the average 2013 attention span at 8 seconds. Of that 8 second average attention span, I can assure you that my generation is on the lower end of that count. Is that a character flaw? Maybe. But, the fact is, our minds are a byproduct of our instantaneous information culture. I can't really remember a moment in my life where I wasn't able to Google something.

What's the solution to the problem? How do we raise awareness about our unique stories to a generation of naturally attention-deficit individuals? Do we forget about this audience and keep doing it the way we've always done it? Well, no, that's not the answer. After all, we're going to be the ones who are holding the money soon. You may have read an npENGAGE article regarding how nonprofits can effectively leverage Pinterest and Instagram to reach a broader audience and to meet goals. It has become increasingly important for nonprofits to lean to the visual. Now there is even more incentive.

sponsored From a Millennial: Nobody Wants to Hear Your Stories. We Want to See Them.The rumors started rolling in around third quarter of last year – Instagram was going to fill up your photo feed with ads. The public opinion surrounding this move was anything less than positive – just another classic case of a social media avenue trying to further monetize itself. And, to some degree, even as the ads themselves started rolling out, a large handful of the comments left on those ads were extremely negative. But there was also something extremely odd about these "Sponsored" posts that Instagram. They were extremely captivating. Extremely moving. To date, there have been ads from a handful of companies including General Electric, Levi's, Lexus and Ben & Jerry's, to name a few. These ads didn't simply feature the intricacies of a pair of blue jeans. They didn't go behind-the-scenes on how cars were made. The pictures told a story.

charitywater 277x476 From a Millennial: Nobody Wants to Hear Your Stories. We Want to See Them.One of the most captivating pictures that we came across was actually an ad for a nonprofit – charity:water. This post was exquisite and honestly made me a little emotional. Having spent several months in Southern Sudan, I know the struggles that people have to find clean drinking water. Seeing a little girl, smiling, holding a jug of fresh water is something that rings true for many. Something that tells a story. But, perhaps what grabbed my attention most is that, at the time we viewed this post, it had nearly garnered 300,000 likes and amassed a little over 3,000 comments. Let that sink in. Imagine the exposure this medium could give your nonprofit.

Instagram is in the testing phase of this program, but the results have gone above and beyond what was anticipated. The audience is certainly there – with a total population of roughly 180 million Instagram accounts. According to reports, Instagram is currently working on a built in metrics system, so that companies who invest advertising dollars on Instagram can get a moderate picture of ROI. According to Instagram's website, the medium is also trying to access users' Facebook accounts to target advertising unique to each person's interests.

Some say that Instagram is the most powerful social marketing tool out there right now. Fast Company just reported that users spend 257 minutes per month on Instagram, which is 15 times that of Facebook. Instagram receives 1,000 comments and 8,500 likes per second. Fifty-five million photos are uploaded each day. Incredible. Time is marching on, people. The train stops for no one.

When asked about his organization's involvement with Instagram, Paull Young, Digital Director at charity:water, actually told us that his ad was donated, as a part of a test case with Instagram. Indeed, per Instagram's website, the company is "starting slow with advertising" and will not be opening up ads to the mass market until its "testing phase" is over.

Whatever the future holds for this advertising medium, if you want to tell your story in a unique way, I'd keep an eye on Instagram ads. So, when telling your story to my generation, is the pen mightier than the sword? Well, yes. But, lest your nonprofit organization forget, a picture is worth 1,000 words.

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Worldwide Veterinary Service boosts efficiency with Access thankQ

Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS) is to boost its efficiency with the implementation of Access thankQ. The organisation previously relied on unsecure, manual handling of data and information. With the introduction of thankQ, processes will now be automated and secure, delivering greater control and visibility throughout the organisation.

James Florence, Managing Director for WVS said: “We were looking for a system with security in mind, whilst trying to capitalise on our finances and reduce administration time through consolidation of information. We compared a variety of systems, and with Access thankQ, the initial outlay proved to be the best return on investment for us as an NFP.”

“Once we’ve secured our data with thankQ, it will then let us focus on providing the best service we can, whilst maximising donations and fundraising. We want to be able to make our processes efficient from both a time and cost viewpoint. thankQ fits in with our other systems, for example; Just Giving will manage and automate donation data, which we can continually analyse through thankQ’s data management tools to then engage with our audience accordingly through MailChimps API integration.”

“Another benefit of thankQ is that we can now run Gift Aid effectively, which offers us a tax relief on the donations we receive. Previously it was a time consuming manual process that didn’t prove to be cost effective for very small donations.

 “We can also better manage our online donations through WorldPay, the systems aren’t directly linked, but with thankQ the two can communicate more efficiently, it will continue to be another area that we have improved.”

“I’m really looking forward to thankQ’s data tools, I can now drill down and analyse important data, review past donations, ROIs and KPIs. We can then track and gauge engagement through our newsletters and social media.”

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New Facebook Call-To-Actions for Link Posts (VIDEO TUTORIAL)

Facebook now allows you to add various CTAs to link posts using the Power Editor. CTAs include: “Sign Up”, “Book Now”, “Learn More”, “Shop Now” and “Download” (as shown below).

New Facebook Call To Actions for Link Posts (VIDEO TUTORIAL)

These CTAs are obviously geared towards retailers and for-profits. But what about nonprofits?

Call to actions work everywhere

First of all, call-to-actions do increase click-throughs – on your landing pages, blog posts, in your email messages, and in your Facebook Page updates.

CTAs work everywhere because, when it comes to all things internet, people are always asking themselves: “What am I supposed to DO now?” They may not be asking consciously, but on some level, people want gentle nudges.
So these new CTAs for link posts are totally worth testing!

How to add CTAs to Facebook Page link posts

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