Building Your Online Presence on a Tight Budget

Tuesday, July 15, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern time

Beth Kanter is a nonprofit technology consultant in Boston who specializes in helping charities use social media tools. She is also the author of Beth's Blog, which dispenses advice to nonprofit leaders on how to use online tools to communicate with supporters.

Jonathon D. Colman is the associate director of digital marketing for The Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Va., where he leads the strategic marketing and promotion of the organization's Web site: http://www.nature.org/. The site saw a 72 percent increase in unique visitors in 2007 using many of the techniques that will be discussed by Mr. Colman during this event.

A transcript of the chat follows.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    Welcome to today's live discussion. Our focus today is one that is crucial to many nonprofit organizations: how to improve your online presence with a small budget. And we've enlisted two fantastic experts to take your questions. Joining us today are nonprofit technology consultant Beth Kanter and Jonathan Colman, associate director of digital marketing for The Nature Conservancy. Both are available to answer your questions and provide some tips on how your nonprofit group can become more effective with online communications.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    For those of you who are new to this format, we will be posting questions and answers on this page for the next hour. To ask a question, simply click on the "ask a question" link. I will then direct your question to either Beth or Jon. Once they have posted a response, it will be added to the discussion string. I also invite you to share your own examples and offer tips by using the same link. The more voices, the better.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    Ok. Without further ado, let's get started ...

Question from Trent Walden, Presbyterian Homes & Services:
    What are the best methods for driving traffic to your web-site?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    This is an interesting question -- there's "best", there's "easy" and there's even "free", but rarely do they all meet up, Trent. I think that having engaging, compelling, and even surprising content is the best way to drive traffic, but of course that means that: - you're getting people to link to you, both by asking them (we call this "link-begging") as well as having content so good that they just *have* to link to you (we call this "link-baiting") - you're engaging external communities in the conversation (be they social networks, discussion groups, Craigslist portals, etc); - you're involving your supporters and constituents in the content -- whether by including dynamic user-generated content or even just static snippets -- and then e-mailing them to attract them to your site; and - you're optimizing your content for search engines, using both popular and niche keywords to make sure that you can be found by the people who are most interested in what you're talking about.

Question from Bill:
    I created a "page" in Facebook for my non-profit, which seems to be what Facebook wanted me to do instead of creating a "profile." Now how do I promote the "page?" There does not seem to be any natural way to solicit "fans" for the page the way you can search for "friends."

Beth Kanter:
    You need to approach your Facebook Fan Page as online community building and word of mouth marketing versus using a traditional communications strategy of "promote." The way people find out about your organization's fan page is by seeing newsfeed activity from their friends or if your fans have put your fan page on their profile.

So, you need to invite your "friends", one-by-one to join the fan page and add it to their profile. When they do, post a thank on their wall. There isn't an invite feature for Pages that allows you to directly invite your friends to become fans of your Page. However, you may use the Share button on the bottom right hand corner of your Page to share the Page with your "friends." Your friends can then easily become fans of your Page.

You could also put a "status" message like "Come join our organization's Fan Page" or then give updates about how many people are joining, etc.

If you have other supporters from your organization working with you on Facebook or other staff members, more than more can be doing this.

You can promote your page through Facebook’s PPC advertising if you find you can't get decent traffic on your page.

Facebook fan pages are public, so keep Seo in mind. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-you-need
-to-make-a-facebook-fan-page-for-your-website-now/5971/

You could also put a link and mention in your organization's web site, email newsletter, and mention it at face-to-face events.

Here's the link to Facebook advice http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=175

Also, Heather Mansfield has some good general tips for your facebook pages http://www.diosacommunications.com/facebookbestpractices.htm

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    You can see how a lot of other nonprofit groups are using Facebook by joining the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Facebook group. Most of our members are professionals who work at nonprofit organizations -- and you can see how they present their groups on Facebook.

Question from Damita Chambers, Interact in Raleigh, NC:
    Interact is a domestic violence and rape/sexual assault agency in Raleigh, NC. We have two web sites right now: a main web site and a site for our capital campaign. How do we increase visibility for the campaign site in a way that doesn't detract from our continued promotion of the main web site?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Let's assume that you cross-link between your capital campaign web site and your main brand-building web site and that you don't want to spend money on this marketing effort.

In that case, I'd recommend that you engage in search engine optimization (or "SEO") for your capital campaign web site, focusing on niche keywords that will draw good leads to the site but that are wholly different from the keywords that you use to optimize your main, brand-building web site. This means researching the keywords that people use to find your content in search engines that have a *high* volume of searches but a *low* volume of competition.

One free tool that helps you estimate search volume is http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/; the Google AdWords keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal helps you estimate both volume and competition.

Once each site is optimized for their unique sets of keywords, I would go out to external web sites, communities and portals to solicit links to each site. Note that it will serve you best if the links contain the keywords that you've optimized each site for. You can also offer these external web sites free graphical banners/stickers/buttons that they can use to link to your sites; in essence, this is free placement of affinity banner ads.

You can also create separate social network presences: one for your organization, another for the capital campaign. These are free and cost you nothing but staff time.

Question from Dorcie Dvarishkis:
    Thank you for offering this exchange. I just began working for a health care foundation and we are looking to redo our web presence and explore social networking options for our hospital and office volunteers, our high school and employee scholarship recipients, and perhaps our donors (if such a move makes sense for us.) If you have worked with other health care foundations who might serve as e-mentors for us, I'd appreciate being put in touch with them. Thank you! Dorcie

Beth Kanter:
    Hi Dorcie: I recently gave a keynote at an IT Leadership Summit for a Boston area healthcare foundation - it was introduction to social media and healthcare. This page has the slides, plus links to a lot of examples.

http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/health

Andre Blackman and Patricia Anderson has excellent blogs and I suggest that you visit their blogs and also ask them for more referrals.

Looking forward to learning what you come up with ...

PS you're really so smart to add the phrase, "if the move makes sense for us" - here's some reasons that might help you consider that first step http://www.wearemedia.org/Strategy+Track+Module+1

Question from Marilyn Bant, University of Illinois International Programs:
    Can you please offer some basic tips for increasing how web crawlers, bots, etc., and especially Google rank a site?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    To be honest, Marilyn, no one really "knows" how Google or other search engines do this. Anyone who claims to "know" or to have "reverse-engineered" a search engine's algorithm is trying to sell you their services. :)

But we do have some very good guesses on how to increase a web site's ranking based on how the top sites are listed in search engine results pages (also known as "SERPs"). They all seem to have a few things in common:

- Smart, compelling, and genuinely useful web content that serves the needs of their audience. That alone will drive traffic, inbound links, and higher search engine rankings. For best results, this content should be newsy, timely, and updated regularly.

- A lot of links pointing to them from external sites. For the best results, those sites should link to you using the same keywords that you want to be found for. These sites should also be well-optimized for those same keywords that they're using to link to you. These sites should also be authoritative, valuable, trustworthy and reliable. One link from a credible site (let's say it's an educational or foreign government partner of yours) could perform better for bringing you traffic and search engine rankings than 100 links from non-name blogs and discussion boards.

- They continually receive new links from new sources, not just a burst of links when the content is launched. This means that they're probably seeking online/offline media attention, pitching bloggers, and soliciting links from other sites. The more new links that are made to your site, the more often Google and other search engines will crawl your content.

- They continually receive new links from diverse sources: not just blogs, but also news sites, social networks, portals, static content sites, foreign and domestic sites.

- Their content is already optimized for the keywords used in the search query; this means including those keywords in the page title, the text headers, ALT content for images, and, of course, within all links to that page that occur in their site.

Google offers a free suite of tools that can help you measure inbound links to your site, crawling errors, and other factors that influence your site's ranking at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Question from Chris Conroy:
    Our firm specializes in working with nonprofit organizations to help obtain and maximize Google Grants. I would like to learn about success stories of nonprofits using social media, specifically viral widgets that can be distributed to social media sites.

Beth Kanter:
    Great question. Where to begin? Here's a case study using the ChipIn fundraising widget for my first personal fundraising project which had a modest goal http://widgetfundraising.wikispaces.com/ (I've done four more campaigns - the last one raised $93,000 - my campaigns are documented here: http://gsp4good.wikispaces.com

I was obsessed with widgets and blogged quite a few examples, you'll find them here: http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/widgets/index.html

This was part of my preparation for a screencast and panel session at NTC. http://nonprofitwidget.wikispaces.com/ http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/for-widget-presentation-at-ntc You'll find lots of links there.

Question from Kevin Martone, Harold Grinspoon Foundation:
    Do you have any recommendations for free/inexpensive tools that will allow a nonprofit to easily place a registration form on their website that directly integrates with a constituent database?

We work with nonprofit camps that could utilize this functionality to ensure they capture their alumni and prospect information while they are visiting the camp's website. Current efforts require additional work to enter submitted information manually into the database.

Thanks!

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Check free resources geared for nonprofits like TechSoup at http://techsoup.com/learningcenter/funding/ and free reports and other "white papers" developed by organizations like IdealWare at http://www.idealware.org/donations/

NTEN did a "webinar" on this topic last year: http://www.nten.org/events/webinar/2007
/01/24/getting-started-with-online-donation-tools

Depending on your back-end CRM database, your choices may be limited or require customization in order to achieve your integration goals.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    For those of you who use Twitter, Beth is posting some of the questions she receives on Twitter to get others opinions and resources. You can find Beth on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kanter

Question from Tara Collins, Watershed Agricultural Council:
    Can you share any grants, foundations, or financial opportunities that help subsidize website revamps or online outreach?

Beth Kanter:
    Tara, This may be a question that Jonathan can answer better. I'm not actively fundraising for grants ...

However, I put this question out to my network on Twitter and asked them to respond with a hash tag #chron.

If anyone answers, it will appear on this link http://summize.com/search?q=%23chron

Living in a networked world, you don't need to know all the answers, you just need to know who to ask to help find people who that information ...

Question from Cheryl Posner:
    I'd also love to hear about how those of us who have developed only basic computer literacy can boost our web presence without involving costly technical experts.

Beth Kanter:
    Cheryl,

While many people accuse of the opposite, I'm not a techie. I can't code my way out of a paper bag! That's one reason I got into blogging - it was an easy content management system for me to publish my resources and update my pages without knowing the code.

And, as a side benefit, my blog turns up really high in google results. For example, if you google the word "beth" I usually come up before KISS song Beth!

Here's a post called "Ten Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes To Be a Better Nonprofit Using Social Media" http://tinyurl.com/3zds6c many of these will boost your web presence.

These are low hanging fruit ... I would urge to back and think through your goals, what you want to accomplish, your audience, and then look at strategies.

good luck -- I also put this out to my twitter network as well.

Question from Ron:
    I am a volunteer for a small 501c(6) that plans to change to a 501c (3). We host a large conference each year and that conference has its own website and is well known. We also have a website for our center, which is not well known, even though we host the successful conference. We are planning a complete redesign of the Center's website, but for now how can we add online donations without much expense? Also, do you have any suggestions on how to make the Center more prominent with the attendees at the conference?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Ron, this illustrates two aspects of web marketing that I really enjoy: cross-linking and offline marketing of online content.

If the large conference is what truly represents the "brand" of your organization, then you'll want to focus on building links from that web site to the site for the Center. Those links should be prominent, occur on every page, include the full name of your organization (not just an abbreviated version or acronym), your logo, and other branding elements (such as your tag line or major accomplishments).

Updates regarding the conference should continue to be posted on the conference web site, but also summarized into blurbs on your organization's web site. Additionally, any e-mails that you might be sending to your constituents or attendees should contain links and branding for your organization.

In a best-case scenario, think about adding your organization's name to the conference title. After all, it works for college football: think the "Allstate Sugar Bowl" and the "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl". That branding trick from the field of corporate partnerships can also work for you here.

Finally, you'll want to use search engine optimization as a way to help your organization's web site appear in results pages when people search for your conference.

At the event itself, print your organization's brand identifiers and web site URL in strategic locations: banners, business cards, handouts, and freebies or takeaways given to attendees (especially bags and other durable goods -- anything that will be used after the conference is over), as well as the main podium or staging area where speakers perform. That's where your attendee's eyeballs will be riveted for long durations, after all.

Also engage in word-of-mouth marketing with conference attendees, particularly with individuals at your organization who have high recognizability or authority, such as your CEO. It costs nothing for your leadership to mention your URL in their speeches and side conversations.

As for low-cost online donations tools, please see my other answer about resources for nonprofits seeking to integrate these tools on their web sites.

Question from Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation:
    Since the NWF is a larger nonprofit, we tend to have a ton of programs, some with their own branding and others heavily influenced by NWF's branding. Do you think that when messaging to people about donations it is more successful to ask for money based on the program or should I stick with the overall organization. Do you think that programs should be represented online as well as the larger nonprofit or do you think that would fragment the cause too much and confuse people as far as where they should donate?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Danielle, I think you're asking about the differences between marketing your brand versus marketing specific elements of your work, which carries over into a discussion of fundraising: should you raise money for project-specific activities or for your organization's general unrestricted fund?

I'd suggest that nonprofits -- large or small -- need to focus on developing specific strategies for each goal.

There's a lot of research suggesting that brand marketing online is a lot different than specfic engagement and cause marketing efforts... in order to be successful, you need to use a diverse spectrum of strategies, tactics, and tools.

At The Nature Conservancy, we think it's less a case of either/or, but more of how to do all three with limited staff and budget.

The most important thing that you can do to accomplish your organization's goals is to come up with a test scenario, measure your results, and then analyze the data so that you can see how to do better next time around. No amount of guru advice will ever be able to overcome the power and insight that data gives you.

Question from Paula, Crisis Connection:
    We're a small suicide-prevention and phone hotline nonprofit, and it would be helpful to improve our visibility. However, most of the population we serve and most of our donors are from our particular Metro Area. Is there a way to create online publicity focused within a specific geographic area?

Beth Kanter:
    One thing first. The word "publicity" implies communications, broadcasting - not social media. There are differences http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/2654663846/

So, with that said, I'm going to give you some resources for how you can use social media or for a specific geographic area ...

The term is: hyperlocal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_news

There are blogs that focus on neighborhoods or communities - they are a genre called "placeblogs" - these hyper local blogs focused on reporting on a particular area Here's a site that aggregates these types of blogs and has more information http://www.placeblogger.com/

There is also hyperlocal marketing: http://hyperlocal101.com/

Social media is simply a group of tools that help facilitate conversations, but there’s really no replacement for face-to-face interaction. Use events as opportunities to build even stronger relationships with your stakeholders. If your organization hosts events, you may want to use something like Yahoo Upcoming or the Facebook Event promotion feature. Also, you can host "meetups" - too.

Another way to go about this is through google ads -you can target your key words to a specific geographic area.

I've also cross posted this question on twitter too

Question from Leo Quigley:
    My nonprofit (The Community Builders) would like to promote new ideas on what works in urban revitalization, public housing redevelopment, and housing policy. Our audience is foundation program officers, Mayors/Governors, and thinktanks and to some extent, individual donors. We develop and manage affordable housing in more than a dozen states. How does one figure which blogs or channels are most influential?

Beth Kanter:
    Hi Leo,

This is a terrific question and you are very smart for starting off with a listening strategy first.

One easy way to do this is to use the site all top which categorizes the best/influential blogs by topic http://alltop.com/

Not sure if they have housing yet, but maybe so.

You can do more analysis - takes a bit longer - by doing searches on Technorati, etc.

I've written out some step-by-steps here: http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/Listening+101 http://socialmedia-listening.wikispaces.com/Project+3

Also, I got a little obssessed with social media listening - and have lots of other resources here http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/listening/index.html http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/Listening+101

Question from patrick o'heffernan coro center san francisco:
    how do you reach older donors 50+ by email...or do you?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Depending on your constituent relationship management (that's "CRM") tool, you should have the ability to splice and dice your database however you see fit. One useful experiment to run is to create a group segment within your database for those 50 years old or older and then start testing messages to segments of that segment in order to see how they perform, trying maybe bursts of 10-15% of the group at a time -- whatever number you need in order to have a significant sample size.

Question from Lynette, small national nonprofit:
    We're working on a microsite strategy, in hopes of building leads for individual donations. What strategies do you suggest to drive traffic to the microsite?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Hello Lynette. My organization built a micro-site at http://plantabillion.com/ that seeks to do just the same thing: garner individual contributions online. To encourage giving, we set a very low price point for entry: just a $1 gift will make a big difference in this program.

We also built a widget that people can embed on their blogs and social network sites like Facebook and MySpace. The widget not only tracks their giving progress but also tracks how much money each person has raised, which gives them positive feedback and encourages them not just to give, but to raise money as well.

Question from Lisa Tumminello, BRG for Home Safety Council:
    Do you have any top line tips for a successful SEO strategy?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Lisa, this is one of my favorite subjects -- SEO was my entree into online marketing. The real key to SEO is to conduct thoughtful, exhaustive research into keywords and choose not just the most popular ones (that is, the keywords with the highest volume of use) but also the keywords that have high volume but low competition. If you optimize your content around these "niche" keywords, you can own them in search engine rankings quite easily and garner a lot of well-qualified, organic leads for your site.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    We're about halfway through today's live discussion and we've received some fantastic questions so far. If you'd like to get your question in front of Beth or Jon before our hour is up, please click on the "ask a question" link on this page.

Question from Caitrin :
    Has anyone created a diagnostic where, based on a series of inputs--i.e., objective, existing capacity, time commitment, online social activities of stakeholders--a nonprofit can receive a list of 4-5 'best fit' social media tool recommendations?

Beth Kanter:
    All those variables are so different across nonprofits - that it might be a difficult tool. There's no getting away from doing audience listening and research - and some experimentation before you know what works for YOUR audience. And, of course, setting up metrics for success and learning from your experiments.

The closest thing that gets at that is the forrester technographics http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

Also, take for example what Carie Lewis presented about her experimentation across different social networks during this panel from the NTC on ROI http://socialmediametrics.wikispaces.com/ntc2008

Question from Gateway for Cancer Research:
    Our organization has only 2 events. Can you please share ideas to create more events? Ideas how to connect with the local community?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    One of the best ways to connect with your local community is to look for local portals, discussion groups and bulletin boards as well as local bloggers and work with them to promote your events. For example, there could be a Craigslist portal that serves your area -- that's a great place to find people within your geography who are looking for events. http://upcoming.yahoo.com/ is another great way to promote events. You can also use the great technorati.com search engine to look for bloggers who blog about or mention your area and then go pitch them to cover your event.

Question from Martha, IJIS Institute:
    What do Foundations/grantmakers expect to see on a website?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Martha, I'd say that accountability -- that you will be a good steward for their funds -- is of key importance to foundations as well as to individual donors. Highlight those Charity Navigator and American Institute of Philanthropy and Forbes charity ratings badges on your web site. Publish regularly about where the money goes. Solicit testimonials from foundations and major donors in their own words. Give a detailed, objective account of your organization's finances. Seek objective, third-party validation (i.e., in major media) for having the best oversight of gifts. These will all help build your accountability and credibility in the eyes of foundations and other institutions.

Question from Lisa Sommer, Michigan Nonprofit Association:
    Beth - Do you have a recommendation on how much staff time to allow for ensuring your facebook and myspace stay active and current? We're in the process of hiring a Social Media Manager, but not every organization can bring someone on board full time.

Beth Kanter:
    You get what you put in .. http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/04/social-media-ti.html

For social networking site profiles and fan pages - you are implementing an online community - and that is most time intensive .. so at least 20 hours per week.

If you get someone who is really experienced, possibly less.

Here's some efficiency tips http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/internet/page8075.cfm

Question from Meghan Oakley, Pennsylvania Campus Compact:
    Our website has old, static pictures. Is there a place the we can get free "canned" pictures for our header, etc?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Meghan, here's the real question: do you really want "canned" photos or any other content on your web site? Photography is very important for my organization (one of the ways that many people find is by searching for nature photos) and I bet that it's important for yours, as well.

One good way to look for great photos that you can use is to conduct a creative commons search of photographs on Flickr -- be sure to check on the requirements of the particular CC license, however. Another way is to buy very inexpensive photos on sites like istockphoto.com.

Question from patrick o'heffernan coro center:
    any ideas for using Twitter as a promotion device - how do you get people to follow your tweets?

Beth Kanter:
    Twitter is not a promotion device!! If you approach twitter as you would an email broadcast, I think it is less effective. But that's my opinion based on my experience http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/04/twitter-is-2nd.html

With that said, some people set up a twitter feed and have content automatically cross-posted. I think if you use a twitter feed to aggregate responses from people at an event - that is a great way to use twitter. http://www.nten.org/blog/2008/03/12/more-twitter-fun
-now-with-more-andy-carvin

But, Twitter is far more effective as a listening tool and for conversation. Here's some step-by-steps http://socialmedia-listening.wikispaces.com/Project+1

I think Tavis Smiley at PBS does a great job as twitter as conversation tool http://tinyurl.com/52b2pr

Question from Jessica, The Colonial Theatre:
    Hi there, We are a nonprofit performing arts center, and we are planning to offer podcasts (possibly vlogging) on our website of upcoming performances...I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this (suggestions/feedback welcome re: pitfalls and benefits, etc), and how we might be able to capture info from people utilizing this (should we ask them to register? will that alienate them?).

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Hey Jessica, my organization used to pursue a strategy where the RSS feed for our "Nature Stories" podcast existed behind a registration wall, even though the individual episode files were out in the public. While this yielded a number of sign-ups for us, we ultimately decided that we were shooting ourselves in the foot -- we could get our content in front of many, many more listeners (over 330,000+ last year alone) by placing everything in the public and not requiring a sign-up.

Podcasts can be difficult to measure because -- while it's easy to see who visits your podcast page and how many episode files are downloaded, etc. -- it's hard to tell how many people actually listen to the podcast. Useful metrics here include how many RSS subscribers you have (Feedburner is a free tool that will tell you this), positive reviews in iTunes and other top-tier venues, and the rate of increases in new listeners and links to your podcast over time.

Question from Claire:
    What tools do you recommend to someone wanting to increase their online presence but are older and unfamiliar with social networks such as Facebook, MySpace? The constituents are older currently, but is aware of the younger generation and wanting to move there...slowly.

Beth Kanter:
    Claire: That's a great question! I think you first need to be super clear about your objectives (reach out to your current older audience or reach out to younger people). These will, of course, require slightly different strategies.

Some more on generations and social media http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/06/social-network.html

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/digital_natives/index.html

Question from DeAnna Martin, Center for Wise Democracy:
    Time and resources are precious. Every time I visit a new social networking site, it takes a commitment to learn how to use it, keep my profile updates, etc. How do you suggest prioritizing these various sites and making choices about which ones to invest the time resource into?

Beth Kanter:
    DeAnna, That's is such an important question! It goes back to audience and objectives - once you know those - you can start to prioritize. So, I would do something like this:

(1) Gather up background research information about the social media sites you want to set up a presence - there's free information.

(2) Do an exploratory visit - and search to see if there folks who are talking about your issue or have already set up a group for your topic/organization.

(3) Select one site - and set up a small experiment - determine what you want to learn. Do the experiment and if it doesn't pay off - move to the next.

I really like the step-by-step that Mashable published the other day http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/07/how-to-develop.html

Question from Amy Hissrich, ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership:
    How have you incorporated social networking and/or social bookmarking into your traffic building strategies and approximately how much time do you (or your organization) spend on these efforts relative to content acquisition and other traditional web-site functions.

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Amy, social bookmarking is a great way to provide an initial burst of traffic to specific targeted content on your web site. Sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Reddit are all great networks to use to promote timely, newsy content for free and can provide huge spikes in your web traffic. In one instance, the digg.com web site sent The Nature Conservancy over 18,000+ visitors in a single hour and over 76,000 visitors in just one day.

On the other hand, these visitors tend to be "empty," meaning that they don't click on your calls-to-action, they don't sign pledges or sign up to volunteer, they don't tend to subscribe to your e-mail content, and they generally don't donate.

So what's the use? Big spikes in traffic reverberate around the web -- they can almost be felt or heard like an echo. If your content makes, for example the Digg.com homepage, it gets included in an RSS feed that winds up on thousands and thousands of web sites. Those links can not only help with search engine visibility, but also find their way to bloggers and other media outlets that you wouldn't have ordinarily been able to reach, even if you pitched them.

For example, one recent story that the Conservancy marketed on Digg was eventually re-blogged and linked to by The Huffington Post and Cisco.com. Why? Because it was popular on Digg. The Digg traffic didn't play out well, but the traffic coming from the HP and Cisco performed much better.

I personally spend about 5-10 minutes a day on each network that I use for marketing -- that's part of being a good community member -- but I also tend to go much higher when I'm actively marketing content for my organization.

Question from Heather Ray, Operation Migration:
    Where can I find stats that will help me to convince our CEO that it's worth investing time to create a presence on FB/YouTube?

Beth Kanter:
    Great question! Check out this slide show from slide 11-20 http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/making-media-connections/ Lots of stats there.

I also have a collection of screencaptures on flickr with links to reports/studies: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/collections/
72157605321939333/

and more here: http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/Social+Networking+Resources

Question from Leigh Petersen, Apollo Chorus of Chicago:
    We have a literal working Board with an IT Director and a paid webmaster, who work updating content. However, our function of the website isn't the greatest. Who on the Board should be active in the design and function of the website - PR, Marketing, Web, President, chorus volunteers; or do you suggest hiring someone to assist us with that?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Leigh, I recommend that you pick one high-level leader to act as your web site "champion" -- someone who's powerful enough within your organization to keep the project moving and to get rid of barriers to your progress. This leaves you free to solicit input from all those parties, but not to have all of your leadership duking it out during each web project meeting, as your champion can help you negotiate with difficult parties.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    We've received a tremendous volume of questions thus far. We'll try to squeeze as many in as we can before the end of the hour. For those who have submitted questions and haven't yet received an answer, thank you for your patience.

Question from Barbara Christensen, Conservation Northwest:
    Is there any data out there yet on the actual success of facebook for non-profits, especially in relation to budget/staff time spent? It would be interesting to know how much time to plan for in budgets next year to even come close to TNC's success! :)

Beth Kanter:
    I've documented the fundraising campaign I ran for Cambodia http://gsp4good.wikispaces.com

I did that as a volunteer - and averaged 5-10 hrs per week - but I had already built a huge network.

Most people say 10-20 hours a week for social networking group or fan page - it's an online community - so takes more time.

Here's another resource about time http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/04/social-media-ti.html

In terms of "data" as in a study - not yet - but check this great paper on Facebook activism http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/07/a-guide-to-face.html

Question from Caroline, small non-profit:
    The website at my organization needs help. It is not frequently updated and looks outdated. A company that creates websites has created ours for free and maintains it at no charge. However, updating and changing the format has proven to be a difficult process because we don't have direct control rather we submit changes we would like to see made. Do you think it's worth it to keep a mediocre website for free or do you think it's worth trying to get in-house equipment? The problem is, we currently have little to no budget for our website and the equipment and programs are extremely expensive -any advice?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Caroline, mediocrity won't sell your organization to grant-makers or individuals. Mediocrity won't suddenly help you become a household name or get you into major media outlets. Mediocrity certainly doesn't get linked to or appear in the #1 spot in search engines.

I would recommend creating a strategic plan that helps you measure your current marketing results with the web site that you have today and then, based on that data, predict what you could have tomorrow with a better system in place.

There's a wide spectrum of choices between pro bono hosting and doing everything yourself in-house. Look to NTEN, TechSoup and other resources for ideas on how to proceed.

Question from Judy-Anne Goldman, CFCAusa.org:
    Re: Jonathon's response to Danielle. How do you each suggest measuring social networking results?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    I personally measure around twenty individual metrics for each social network that I participate in -- friends, subscribers, views, members, application users, referrals, etc. -- in a simple Excel spreadsheet. with two years' worth of this data, I can see very clearly -- week by week, month by month, quarter by quarter, and year by year -- what efforts have truly made an impact.

Social media provides an excellent opportunity for analysts within your organization because nearly everything is measurable. The bottom line is to start measuring NOW, even if you're not sure how the data can become actionable.

Question from Carie Lewis, The Humane Society of the United States:
    Twitter has recently grabbed the attention of our higher-ups. They want to Twitter from conferences and disasters. It's great, it's timely, it's free... but how do I make sure that we don't go into this blindly and that we actually do it right?

Beth Kanter:
    Carie, Doing all the same stuff that you've done on social networks - you're a rock star there.

Here's a starter project on Twitter http://socialmedia-listening.wikispaces.com/Project+1 You may want to do some searching on tweetscan and summize for people talking about animals - and then friend them. You will want to set up a profile and start talking to these folks or sending along conversations about animals.

Don't just spam people with an RSS feed automatically posted to your twitter profile -- you could set up a twitter feed with pointers to your alerts. But also set a profile where you have a conversation with people

Here's my collection of Twitter how-tos http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com/twitter_primer

And, my twitter blog posts http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/twitter/index.html

BTW, as you know -- I'm a dog lover - and there are lots of folks with dogs in their Twitter profiles ..:-)

Question from Judy-Anne Goldman, CFCAusa.org:
    Do you have a suggestion for a social media growth plan for an org like ours: We're a nonprofit (of course) with about 275,000 community members who engage with people living in poverty around the world. We serve people of all faith traditions.

We have two current initiatives: a youth Web site and Facebook page (walkwiththepoor.org; and a documentary film in the making (zamboangathemovie.com); as well as our cfcausa blog, twitter and squidoo.

Thank you so much for your time and insights!

Beth Kanter:
    You need to reiterate and reiterate and find what works. Check out some of the planning materials in the NTEN wiki project http://www.wearemedia.org

Question from Barbara Christensen, Conservation Northwest:
    How much is too much? Many of my staff balk at sending more than one social media alert/grassroots email request/regulare-news/take action alert a month. Is there any data on when people experience burn out and stop paying attention to a group's message?

Beth Kanter:
    This is such a good question Barbara - I'm so glad you posted it ... I'm answering this in the context of social media, not email .. though

Listen to your staff ... people are overloaded. It's real. I know for example, personally - if someone spams with messages from a Facebook group i've joined - I'll leave the group. I know others are like that too. It is better to connect with people on a one-to-one basis and engage in conversation.

Read what Brian Solis has written .. excellent advice http://www.briansolis.com/2008/07/art-of-conversation-its
-about-listening.html

Question from Amy Pelsinsky, National Museum of Dentistry:
    Jonathon - Can you share with us the techniques that you used to effectively increase unique visitors to The Nature Conservancy site by 72 percent?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    You bet, Amy. The simple answer is that we transformed my organization from being one creating content to one that created *and actively promoted* that content.

To reference pop culture, we stopped being like Kevin Costner in "Field of Dreams," thinking "If you build it, they will come." Instead, we acted much more like Kevin Costner in "Dances With Wolves" and actively sought to join and seek input from outside communities.

Here's a few samples of techniques I used: when our communications team places a story in the media, we ask for a link (and we generally get it); when we publish interesting, unexpected, or surprising new content, I post it all over the web where its most likely to find an audience; we constantly optimize our site for search engines; we ask external web sites like blogs and static sites for links.

Once you start actively promoting your web site, you'll see a clear increase in your traffic just like we did.

Question from Ryan Yuhas, American Heart Association:
    Do you have any online gaming strategies--using games to encourage people to learn about your missions and outcomes; games to help raise money from contributors?

Beth Kanter:
    Ryan: Awesome Awesome question.

The best place to look for that information is Games for Change - I've been to their annual conference twice and they are the best of the best for online games and activism.

You can find links to examples I've written about as well as links to many others who know far more about this topic than me http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/g4c07/index.html

Question from Gateway for Cancer Research:
    Do you have recommendations on event and communication frequency from your page? It sounds as though our page can promote events not directly tied to our organization?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    That's correct. I recommend creating a simple calendar that tracks when your event messages have been sent, to how many people, with what response. Keep updating your data as you try new tests and record the interactions and try to test differences so that you can see what works best. Eventually, this can help you make data-driven decisions rather than just hoping to succeed.

Question from Stacey, Sightline Institute:
    Hi...we're a research & communications center with a loyal base of subscribers to three email newsletters as well as a lot of folks who visit our website and use the tools--books, maps, data, etc.--found there. We think of these users and subscribers as a super base for our fundraising efforts but so far have had trouble converting users to donors. Do you have any advice for how to better inspire our subscribers to give? Thanks.

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Hey Stacey, it may be that you need to test different iterations of your organization's value proposition. That is, you can test the ways that you promote the value of joining and giving to your organization. What are your member benefits? How are they making a difference? Try creating a segment within your database where you try out a few messages and see what works best.

Question from Alicia, The Staley Foundation:
    Do you have any suggestions or resources that can help small non-profits learn how to develop their "brand" in the social media space?

Beth Kanter:
    Begin by listening first ... http://socialmedia-listening.wikispaces.com/

Question from Liz McMillen, CHE:
    Hi Jon! Thanks for doing this chat. What are some of the sites you have successfully marketed Nature Conservancy content on? What are the relative advantages/disadvantages of digg, delicious, and other sites?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Hey Liz, we've been successful on a number of networks but the real question is what networks will YOU be successful on? To find out, you'll need to join a community that has encouraging demographics and and start testing to see what works and what doesn't. There's another question above from Amy where I discuss some of the advantages/disadvantages of using Digg and other social news sites.

Question from Barbara Christensen, Conservation Northwest:
    What are the best aggregators out there for non-profits to peruse news & blogs about their focus area, to watch for their own brand being mentioned, etc? It seems like the less focused Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, can be sort of overwhelming and really time-consuming...but maybe they are the best still?

Beth Kanter:
    Yes, those are good - technorati has the ability to do keyword searches and you can tweak them with a tool like Yahoo Pipes and you can filter with AIDERSS. Marshall K just did an excellent screencaston this http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/07/filtering-your.html

You might also want to start listening on twitter - using a tool like summize or tweetscan. more resources here http://socialmedia-listening.wikispaces.com/

Question from Alyson Friedlander, Historic New England:
    There is a lot of terrific information that is being discussed here. I am finding myself a little lost on some of the topics- is there a place where I can get some solid background on these subjects?

Also, many of our peer institutions have "member only" sections on their websites. We started to do this, and many of our members have a username and password, but really all they can do through the member section is renew their membership. How can we find out what our peer instituions are doing for their members? And then possibly implement it on our website?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Alyson, I also get confused and have trouble finding reliable information on these highly technical and complex subjects. I generally recommend looking to NTEN, TechSoup, Net2 and similar organization for background. My fellow chatter Beth Kanter also runs one of the most helpful, interesting and fun blogs around town. :)

Question from Emily, small children's museum:
    What is your take on online auctions? My organization is considering coupling an online auction with our annual fundraising gala/auction. Do you find that online auctions are successful? How much time is required to maintain such a site?

Jonathon D. Colman:
    Believe it or not, we once auctioned off a huge digital keyboard that was formerly owned and signed by none other than Kid Rock. We worked with eBay's MissionFish platform to do this and it was a lot of fun. MissionFish is a good place for nonprofits to work because sellers can give your organization a percentage (or all of) their sale and all you have to do is build a simple profile.

Question from Cheryl Posner, small 501(c)(3) arts organization:
    Wow! I've been reading through the questions and responses and feel a bit overwhelmed by the many options--blogging, asking others to link to our site, Facebook, social media, etc.

I did see Beth's response to my earlier question; thank you! Is that the place to start for someone who is almost entirely unfamiliar with these options, or is there an even more basic source (with definitions, please) where I should begin?

I am the only full-time staff member of my organization, and balancing all my responsibilities to the community (including our donors) and to our Board of Directors, while stimulating, often leaves me feeling that I am missing important opportunities to support our mission.

Beth Kanter:
    Cheryl:

Don't feel overwhelmed ..or feel bad about feeling overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed every day - I just shut the computer off and go for a walk ..:-)

The best place for beginners is Lee LeFever's Common Craft Videos he has a series called Social Media in plain english http://www.commoncraft.com/

I did a slide show called "Arts 2.0" and it has lots of links to examples of arts organizations. So, once you master the basic definitions and want examples go here: http://artssocialmedia.wikispaces.com/

Comment from Judy-Anne Goldman, CFCAusa.org:
    Thanks so much for your time and great insights!

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    Wow. That was a fast hour. We had some great questions today and a very lively discussion. Thank you to everyone who took part. A special thanks, of course, to Beth Kanter and Jonathon Colman for taking the time to answer questions.

Peter Panepento (Moderator):
    A quick reminder that we play host to these live discussions every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Next week, we'll talk about how nonprofit groups can get help creating and building endowments. If you would like to get updates on upcoming live events, feel free to join our Facebook group or follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/philanthropy