Is Blogging Part of Your Nonprofit Social Media Strategy?

Julia Campbell
J Campbell Social Marketing
http://www.jcsocialmarketing.com
Nonprofit Net
March 2017
Tweet! @JuliaCSocial #sm4np

Takeaways From Today
 The benefits of blogging – why you need one
 The best platforms to use
 How to get more readers
 How to find and create fresh content
 How to promote your blog posts
 Top 10 tips to creating fantastic blog posts

Before We Begin…
 Blogging is a marathon, not a
sprint. Don’t get discouraged.
 Time, capacity and resources are
needed to do it effectively.
 Every organization, no matter
how small and strapped for
resources, has great stories to tell.
 They key is passionate supporters
– not number of Facebook fans.

Does the world need one more?
It depends.
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

Remember!
 You are writing for YOUR
audience. They are unique.
 You don’t need to have
500,000 subscribers to have a
great blog.
 You just need to tell your story
and authentically connect
with your audience.

Why have a blog?
 To improve SEO – search engine results.
 To build trust and community.
 To establish yourself as an authority on an issue.
 If you are active on social media, you will always have
new content to post!
 To drive website traffic, email
sign ups, social media
followers and even donations.

Why have a blog?
 Having a blog will continually force you and your
organization to ask the tough questions:
 What impact are we having on the world?
 What would happen if we disappeared tomorrow?

Why not have a blog?
 According to Technorati 40% of people that have a blog
spend more than 3 hours per week blogging.
 It’s a lot of work – researching and writing posts, editing
posts, formatting them, promoting them.

Establish Goals
As with any marketing strategy, you need a measurable goal to
determine success. (Blogging is not a strategy – it’s a tool.)
You need to know where you are going/want to go.
What is the goal for the blog?
 Establish authority
 More website traffic
 More email signups
 More Facebook fans
 Advocacy

Measurement
Start by writing down 3-4 goals for your blog (should
tie with overall marketing goals).
 Think measurement and
benchmarks.
 What will you measure?
 How will you be held
accountable?
 Monthly reporting? Weekly?

Getting Started
 Get excited!
 Secure buy-in from
Executive Staff and Board.
 Hold a staff meeting and a
Board meeting to announce
that you are going to start a
blog and that ideas for
posts are welcome.

Getting Started
 Educate everyone on the importance of the blog – it’s not
just “one more thing” to add on the pile.
 Always explain the WHY of the work.
 Tell staff, board, volunteers and Online Social Media
Ambassadors about it first. Be excited and enthusiastic!
 Let them know that you are going to call on them to help you
find content and to promote the blog.

Choose a Platform
 My recommendation is WordPress. SquareSpace is an option.
 Easy to use (you don’t need to know HTML or code)
 Can manage it from anywhere
 SEO
 Control
 Plugins
 100% customizable
 It can grow
 Multiple users

The Blogging Process I Use
 Ideas
 Outline
 Draft
 Edit
 Published

Calendars & Worksheets
Free resources:
 http://www.infarrantlycreative.net/2012/02/free-
printable-blogplanner.html
 http://www.business2community.com/content-
marketing/an-editorial-calendar-for-your-blog-tips-
and-templates-0465693
 http://unbounce.com/content-marketing/blog-
editorial-calendar/

The Work of Blogging
4 elements of blogging
1) Research
2) Writing
3) Formatting/Editing
4) Promotion

#1: Research
 Stories & Testimonials – personal stories of the people
that you serve, your volunteers, staff, and donors.
 Denver Rescue Mission Stories of Changed Lives:
https://www.denverrescuemission.org/stories
 St. Baldrick’s Foundation Real-Life Stories:
https://www.stbaldricks.org/blog/category/real-life-
stories

#1: Research
 Instructional/How To posts – telling people HOW to do
something. Generally popular in the long-term because
people will search “how to” fill-in-the-blank.
 A step-by-step list for collecting food for a food drive,
organizing a fundraising walk, preventing elder abuse or
calling a legislator.
 Blog for foster parents: http://plummerhome.org/cms/
 TIP: Incorporate a testimonial or a story of a person who
took this action, how they did it and what impact it had.

#1: Research
 Informational posts – giving readers information on a
news or a topic. Answer the FAQ about your organization.
 What do you always get emails about?
 What do people always ask when you meet them?
 Myths vs. Facts: Top 5 myths you encounter regularly.
 Stereotypes or misconceptions you want to address.
 TIP: Add links to other blog posts and articles that support
factual evidence – outgoing links create community and
help make your blog more interactive.

#1: Research
 List posts
 The Top 10 Ways to…, 7 Reasons Why…, 5 Favorite…, 5
Mistakes to Avoid…
 Examples: Top 10 Dog Training Tips, Top 10 Tips To
Keep Kids Active in the Summer, Top 10 Tips for Helping
the Environment Locally
 TIP: Make an infographic of your top 10 ways to/7
reasons why with Canva, Venngage, or Easely and share
it widely.

#1: Research
 Profiles & Interviews – highlight a particular person.
 Can be done in story or interview format.
 Point out how they reached their position, why they are
successful, other interesting characteristics.
 TIP: Embed a short video introduction or a 30 second
highlight of the interview. Can also be used to for social
media promotion.

#1: Research
 Link Posts – finding a quality post on another site and
linking to it with an explanation.
 Share why you are linking to it.
 Share your own take on the topic and a quote that
resonates from the post.
 The more original content you write the better.
 Example: http://www.genderavenger.com/blog/

#1: Research
 Sign up for free Google Alerts:
http://www.google.com/alerts
 List of blogs by topic on Alltop: www.alltop.com
 Keep a list of topics always accessible so you can add to it
when you think of a potential topic.
 Are you locally based, regional or national? Focus on local
events and news rather than national depending.
 Ask your community! What do they want to learn more
about?

Brainstorm a list of at least 10 potential blog post ideas.
Create a different document for each of these ideas and put
them in the Ideas folder.

#2: Writing
 Sit down and write an outline for your post.
 Headline – incredibly important!
 Intro – Why read this post at all? What is the issue?
 Body/subheads (the who/what/where/when/why/how)
 Examples
 Summary
 Next steps

#2: Writing
 A blog post can be 300-500 words and a photo or a video
embed. It does NOT need to be a novel.
 Picking a great headline is the most important part.
 Make it catchy and tweetable!!
 Look at other blog headlines that grab your attention.

#2: Writing
 Think about a Call to Action to incorporate into your post.
 Why are you writing this?
 What do you want people to do after reading it?

#2: Writing
 I find it helpful to do a “brain
dump” and put everything on the
page.
 Then I create an outline – a
beginning, middle and end.
 Opening paragraph should grab
people’s attention.
 One-two sentence paragraphs.
 Bolded headlines.
 Bulleted lists.

Set aside an hour per week to work on writing a blog post.
Determine who will be researching and writing the weekly blog
post.

#3: Formatting
 Get or make photos and graphics.
 Canva.com
 Photopin.com
 Morguefile.com
 Flickr Creative Commons

#3: Formatting
 Categories
 Always think of your reader
and topics they want to
explore.
 Like Chapters of a book.
 Tags
 More specific.
 Like ingredients in a recipe.

#3: Formatting
Make sure:
 There is a way for people to subscribe to the blog.
 There are social share buttons so people can share it.
 Experiment with email sign up/pop ups.

#3: Formatting
 Enable comments.
 Encourage communication and dialogue.
 Comments can be monitored/approved.
 You can set it up to get a notification email each time
someone submits a comment.

#3: Formatting
 Great WordPress plugins:
 Disqus Comment System
 Akismet (for spam)
 WordPress SEO by Yoast
 JetPack
 CommentLuv – places a link to the commenter’s blog
 WordPress Popular Posts
 Publicize

#3: Promotion
 If you write it, they will
come!
 Not necessarily…
 You need to promote
each blog post.
 MORE than just a few
times.

#3: Promotion
 Post the blog to all your social
media channels:
 Facebook
 Pinterest
 Twitter
 Post to Medium and LinkedIn.
 Create a checklist.

Julia’s Blog Promotion Checklist
Post to:
 FB page
 Twitter
 LinkedIn personal
 Tumblr
 StumbleUpon
 Reddit
 Digg
 Delicious
 Social Buzz Club
 SocialMarker.com
 ShareBloc.com
 SocialADR.com
 LinkedIn groups
 Facebook page – add
hashtags
 Google+ Community
– add hashtags
 LinkedIn Company
Page
 Pinterest
 Scoop.it
 Business 2
Community
 Sulia.com
 Patch
 WickedLocal
 Triberr
 NetSquared
 MosaicHub
 Quora

#3: Promotion
 Include in email blasts.
 Guest blogging – look at Alltop
for the lists of top bloggers in
your industry and contact them
to write guests posts.
 Ensure that readers can
subscribe to your blog to see a
new post when it’s published –
either via email or RSS feed.

#3: Promotion
 Don’t be passive!
 Ask Board, staff and volunteers
to share the blog posts.
 Read them at staff meetings and
encourage comments.
 Make it a team affair.
 Remember – you cannot do it
alone!!!

Get People to Share
The Customer Insight Group (CIG) at the New York
Times published a study exploring why people share
content online. People share to:
 Bring valuable and entertaining content to others
 Define themselves to others
 Grow and nourish relationships
 Give self-fulfillment
 Raise awareness for causes or brands
 How can you help your community do these things through
your blog?

Create Great Content
 Dedicate time and resources to creating content that is:
 Well-written
 Original
 Compelling
 Timely
 Relevant
 Interesting
 This is what it takes to stand-out online.

Keeping Momentum
 Be open-minded and don’t get
discouraged.
 Not everyone will a superstar
blogger.
 Just because someone is
influential does not mean that
your cause will resonate with
them.
 Actively look everywhere for
people who are passionate about
your cause.

Top 10 Takeaways
1) Figure out the “why” of your blog and be consistent.
2) Write good stuff.
3) Post at a regular time.
4) Mix up content – How To posts, FAQ, Video Testimonials, etc.
5) Don’t be long-winded.
6) Make sure you keep readers with an email sign up, etc.
7) Promote all posts. Promote them again.
8) Measure, improve, measure, improve.
9) Incorporate visuals and video.
10) Be social yourself – comment on other blogs, be active.

Nonprofit Resources
 John Haydon – www.johnhaydon.com
 Nonprofit Tech for Good – www.nptechforgood.com
 Beth Kanter – www.bethkanter.org
 Amy Sample Ward –
www.amysampleward.org
 Problogger –
www.problogger.net
 My blog –
www.jcsocialmarketing.com

Questions?
Tweet: @JuliaCSocial
Facebook:
www.fb.com/jcsocialmarketing.com
Email: julia@jcsocialmarketing.com
THANK YOU!

Is Blogging Part of Your Nonprofit Social Media Strategy?

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Is Blogging Part of Your Nonprofit Social Media Strategy?