How to Craft a Strategic Nonprofit Online Communications Plan - Second Half

Let’s Review!
 We identified a goal for our communications efforts.
 We wrote down SMART objectives to make sure we can measure our
success.
 We listed tasks to carry out to reach the SMART objectives.
 We reviewed the best ways to use your nonprofit website, email list,
and social media accounts.
 We reviewed some examples of great nonprofit social media content
and types of content and stories to post and share.
(c) 2016 JCSM www.jcsocialmarketing.com 2

Social Media Calendar – sheet 1
 Website updates
 Blog
 Email campaigns going out
 Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
etc. (don’t have to post to all of
them every day)
 Review – 10 best types of content
and story types

Know the Science of Social Media
 Facebook: Post 5-7 times weekly (at least once on the weekend)
and then monitor your Insights. Post visually appealing photos
and graphics and now that the new Reactions are live, test
positive and negative content to see which inspires more
engagement. Limit post text to 80* characters or less.
Resource: http://www.nptechforgood.com/2016/11/08/10-social-
media-strategies-that-increase-engagement-and-inspire-donors/

 Twitter: Tweet or retweet every one or two hours. Visually
compelling photos or graphics receive 3X the engagement as text
tweets – especially if the images are properly sized for Twitter
Mobile (800 x 420 pixels).
 Use Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule tweets in the evenings and
on the weekends.

 Instagram: Post or regram once per day alternating between
morning and late afternoon. Nonprofits that consistently
use hashtags have up to 3X more followers.
 Use the Repost mobile app (it’s free in the Apple store).

A Word On Blogging
Q: Do you need a blog?
A: It depends. Do your donors use Google?
The key to effective blogging – quality
over quantity!
“You can’t beat the Internet on volume, but
you can beat it on quality, clarity and
perspective.”
– Rich Brooks @therichbrooks
(c) Julia Campbell 2016 www.jcsocialmarketing.com 8

http://marketingland.com/generational-content-gap-how-different-age-groups-consume-content-138810

Remember Your Audience When Blogging
 You are writing for YOUR specific
audience.
 You don’t need to have 500,000
subscribers to have a great blog.
 You just need to tell your story, share
your insights, and authentically connect
with your audience.

Blog Calendar – sheet 2
 Call to Action – Fundraising, advocacy, engagement, more
 Ideas – Organize your thoughts around keywords
 Title – Sometimes you think of this first!
 Status – Research needed? Draft format?
 Due Date – Keeps you accountable
 Date Posted – Compare with due date to see if your goals are
reasonable
 Notes – Was it popular? Was it hard to write? Do you want to explore
more like it?

Social Media & Blog Calendar Tips
 Save it somewhere like Dropbox,
Google Docs – accessible anywhere at
any time.
 Use your smartphone to record ideas.
 Color code and assign tasks.
 Review regularly – staff meetings,
Board meetings, Social Media
Committee meetings!

Four Tools to Find Great Content
1. Daily by Buffer – they provide handpicked content suggestions
daily
2. LinkedIn Pulse – Customized stories and updates from the
influencers and companies you follow on LinkedIn and your direct
connections
3. Medium – Browse the collections and the trending lists for the
most popular and widely shared content
4. Twitter – Search on relevant hashtags and explore what
influencers in your industry and cause are tweeting about Finding

Best Types of Content & Story Ideas
Content Types
1. Stories
2. Videos
3. Photos
4. Quotes
5. Thank Yous
6. Advocacy
7. Current Events
8. Education
9. Compelling asks
10. Paid social ads
Story Ideas
1. Creation Stories
2. Continuous Improvement
Stories
3. Behind-The-Scenes Stories
4. User-Generated Stories
5. Impact Stories

1) Create two weeks’ (if not more) worth of ideas!
2) Fill in that calendar and assign responsibilities and
choose dates to post.

Facebook & Instagram Adverting
Social media advertising 101:
 Ads can be used to get more fans/followers, to promote event
registrations, to promote online donations, to get more email sign
ups, to promote a link to your website, and more.
 You design the ads using your wording, headlines, and images.
 You choose the specific demographics of your target audience.

 You can “boost” posts that you have already posted, or you can
create brand new ads. (Only promote awesome!)

1. Identify the goal for your ad.
2. Choose your measurable call-to-action
(sign up, donate now, register).
3. Determine a budget – lifetime or daily.
4. Select high-quality, unique, non-text heavy,
eye-catching images.
5. Pick relevant demographics for the target audience.
6. Measure results.

Buffer & Hootsuite
Benefits:
 Schedule tweets and other messages
 Include visuals
 Can schedule retweets (Buffer)
 Manage multiple social media accounts
 Run reports
 Create trackable short links

Visuals Are Vital 90% of information transmitted to the
brain is visual. Visuals are processed
60,000X faster in the brain than text.
 Videos on landing pages increase average
page conversion rates by 86%.
 Resource: Wishpond http://blog.wishpond.com/post/70300587846/10-
reasons-visual-content-will-dominate-2014

Video Creation Tools
 Animoto (robust tool with templates for creating professional
marketing videos)
 Adobe Spark Video (add text to photos; coming soon also add
video clips as in this video example)
 Adobe Spark Post (image creation app, now with some animated
effects for short videos)
 iMovie (use on mobile or desktop to quickly edit/stitch together
video clips)

Video Creation Tools
 Instagram and Snapchat
 11 more video tools listed here:
https://www.facebook.com/marismith/videos/10153807326840009
 Plus, Facebook's native slideshow (organic:
https://www.facebook.com/help/818247301636195 or ads:
https://www.facebook.com/business/help/149759192130274)

Lots of Places to Get Free Images!
Beth Kanter created a great List.ly:
The Ultimate List of Free or Low Cost Image Collections!
http://list.ly/list/703-the-ultimate-list-of-free-or-low-cost-image-
collections
iStock photo
Creative Commons
Photopin.com
Morguefile.com
Getty Images

Infographics
HubSpot found that brands that
publish infographics
increase their website and
blog traffic an average of
12% over those that do not.
This photo:
http://visual.ly/what-
infographic-2

Infographics
Infogr.am
InfoActive.co
Piktochart
Easel.ly
Venngage
HubSpot 
HubSpot has
free PowerPoint templates: http://offers.hubspot.com/how-to-easily-
create-five-fabulous-infographics-in-powerpoint

Word Clouds
Wordle.com 
Tagxedo.com
Tagul.com
WordItOut.com
ImageChef.com

Quotes
Quozio.com 
Recitethis.com
Behappy.me
QuotesCover.com
Inspirably.com

Enhanced Photos
UseChisel.com
Pinwords.com
PowerPoint
PicMonkey.com
Pixlr.com
This photo: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/430164201878271362/

Mobile Apps
Boomerang
Prisma
Ripl
WordSwag 
Over
Picstitch

My Favorite Tools
Canva.com

My Favorite Tools
WordSwag

What Tools Do You Recommend?

Resource: http://www.bethkanter.org/sowhat/

How to Find the Right Online Metrics
Start with measuring the interest in your
website!
Use the free resource Google Analytics to
measure the following:
 Unique Visitors
 Bounce rate
 Referrals
 Most Popular Pages

Then measure the interest in your email
campaigns.
 New email sign ups
 Opt-outs/unsubscribes
 Open rate
 Engagement/click through rate
 Most popular subject lines

Then measure the interest in your social
media content.
 Number of fans and followers
 Engagement
 Share counts
 Video views
 Most popular post (When posted? What
type of content?)
 Highest reach

Measurement Spreadsheet
 Overall website analytics
 Website content (pageviews)
 Social referrals to website
 Facebook Insights
 Twitter Analytics
 Instagram Analytics
 Email Marketing

Say So What To Your Data Three Times:
1) Today we got a huge spike in website traffic! So what?
2) Wow, it came from Reddit! So what?
3) Turns out that Reddit picked up a news piece about a related topic
that linked to our website. So what?
 Did the huge spike in traffic result in a spike in donations or email
signups?
Resource: http://www.bethkanter.org/sowhat/

Does Social Media = Donations?
To determine if the referrals to your donation
page from social media channels have
resulted in completed donations, you
need to ask deeper questions and go
beyond simple website traffic numbers and
Facebook reach.

Google Analytics Goals
 Your way of telling Google what is important to track
 There are many benefits:
 Make informed decisions about which referral sources are the most
valuable;
 Which advertising platform gets the most signups;
 Whether your social media efforts are driving quality site traffic.
 You have to manually set these up in Google Analytics.
 Read more: https://www.wholewhale.com/tips/google-analytics-
goals/

Resources
JCSocialMarketing.com
JohnHaydon.com
BethKanter.org
TSNE.org

Nonprofit Capacity Series
December 14, 2016 Strategic Nonprofit Communications
Trainer: Julia Campbell
January 12, 2017 Strategic Financial Management for Nonprofits
Trainer: Gretchen Upholt
February 15, 2017 Technology Literacy for Leaders
Trainer: Jenn Taylor
March 16, 2017 Fundraising 1.0 (1/2 day) and Grant Writing (1/2 day)
Trainer: Jenn Hayslett
Questions/Assistance:
Michael DeChiara mdechiara@communityfoundation.org 413-732-2858
Margaret Everett meverett@communityfoundation.org 413-732-2858
• All sessions to be held at Hadley Farms Meeting House, Hadley
• Session duration approximately 9:00am to 4:00pm, unless otherwise noted

Resources
JCSocialMarketing.com
SocialMediaExaminer.com
SocialMediaJosh.com
HubSpot.com
www.jcsocialmarketing.com @JuliaCSocial

How to Craft a Strategic Nonprofit Online Communications Plan - Second Half

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