Social Web Advocacy: Do’s and Don’ts

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A canvasser knocked on my door last night to sign us up for a petition in a community clean water campaign.  On the same day, I got an email link to a new candidate’s YouTube Senate campaign video. Both campaigns offer case studies for things to do and those to avoid in issue advocacy.

An engaging, passionate, and very cold (it was below freezing outside) canvasser made a great case for lobbying our county council against development along Ten Mile Creek, which eventually makes its way into the Potomac. We asked for more information and he left us with a printed fact sheet. I wanted more information so I emailed a friend who works at an environmental organization and he asked me for the sheet. That’s when the problems began. I couldn’t find the talking points anywhere online–not on the organization’s web link provided, not anywhere on its website, not by Googling it.  Having a physical person come to my door to sign me up for the petition was great. No one loves those telemarketer phone calls–even for a good cause. And he was able to engage in more in-depth conversation about the issue. But the handout was too long (front and back of a page!) for today’s short attention spans and there was no way to share it other than scanning it. The website doesn’t feature any way to Tweet, promote on Facebook, or otherwise connect socially to this campaign–boo hoo.

Takeaways: Handouts are great. Emails are even better, with web and social links. But all physical page handouts should include easy ways to share the content in social forums.

The next campaign came via email. Shenna Bellows is running for Senate in Maine and looks like a great candidate from her YouTube campaign video. I love the personal interviews and the way they cut together people looking straight to camera to convey the variety of her prospective constituents. What I HATE HATE HATE (can you tell I hate it?!) is how she is reading “off-axis” from a teleprompter. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had to do this reading from prompter thing. But the axis is entirely too severe to be believable as an interview setup. [Insert shameless self-promotion here:  See my Lynda.com Art of the Interview class for more on best interview setups.]  It would have been better to cull these points during a real interview. Or to just do the prompter-over-the-camera and have her deliver straight to the audience. Either way, the great techniques of the rest of the spot are undermined by this rookie mistake.

Takeaways: Real people, real interviews are key to believability in social web.

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Budget Branding

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Nautilus-1 To quote @ScottMonty Global Head of Social Media at Ford Motor Company, “What’s the ROI of not putting your pants on in the morning?” He’s talking about social media marketing. But the same applies to branding. In other words, you can’t afford not to brand.

So if the ROI of good branding is huge, how do you minimize the costs?  Here are three cost-effective tools you can start using right away.

1. Email is Free Ad Space!

I often receive emails without any “signature” –what a lost opportunity! A signature line doesn’t just give you a chance to tell your name and title, it gives you space for a blog link, twitter hashtag for an upcoming event, or YouTube link to your latest video.  This simple free advertising can be employed unilaterally—and uniformly–across your organization. (Send a “signature of the week” email to everyone with easily copied info.)

2. Mine Your Own Content!

A tool everyone has, but rarely maximizes—is your own media library. Maybe because it’s not so much a library as a pile, a box, a series of files that no one can find.  Graphics, photographs, audio interviews or videotape footage–these all have sunk costs, and can be re-purposed for much less than the initial investment. The key is to use metatags and an archiving and workflow system that makes sense to everyone in your organization. Avoid those awful automatic names (IMG_001) by batch renaming–but always maintain the original name in the data. (Adobe Bridge is a handy tool for this, though there are many others. Here’s a “how to” video by my friend @richardharrington on how to do this.) But whether you use a sophisticated archiving system or a spreadsheet,   the ultimate cost savings to promote your brand is large, since you will avoid re-shooting or re-acquiring images or footage where something from your own “stock” library would work to tell the story.

3. Video Sells!

According to IndieGogo, “Crowdfunding pitches with video content raise 112% more than those without.” Video certainly is one of the top-most searched items on the web. But producing a branding video in-house can be daunting, and commissioning one to be made can be costly. So consider starting small, with a podcast. With just the investment in a digital audio recorder or a small digital camera, and some basic audio recording/mixing software (here),  you can give out some useful information, and cross-promote your organization’s other content–books, websites, conferences, upcoming events.

Just using these three low-cost or free tools can help you gain ground with your brand, which in turn can help you increase fundraising, sales, visibility, memberships or issue awareness.

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Big Data and Social Change

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Sky at Sunset With whistleblower or traitor (take your pick) #edwardsnowdon in the news this week, everyone’s talking about our government collecting Big Data.  But guess what? Google, Verizon, Facebook, CVS Pharmacy, Giant, Safeway and all the rest have been doing the same thing all along. The difference is this: these companies are monetizing our habits, but we aren’t.  Hey come on, people, why do you think Facebook and Google and Linked In are free?! At least the local pharmacy and grocery store offer me discounts in exchange for my personal buying habits. Jaron Lanier’s thoughtful and interesting article in the New York Times this week Fixing the Digital Economy got me thinking. He talks about how we could build a new, robust middle class if we stop giving away all our personal data for free, and letting only big players and their investors reap the rewards. (Ironically, Facebook’s investors aren’t rich enough yet.)

But what if Big Data could move the needle even more, and not just benefit the middle class? What if it could change the world for the seemingly permanent underclass?

Nonprofits need to start harnessing Big Data to serve mission-driven outcomes.  Only that can topple this robber-baron economy we have created. In a knowledge-based economy, it’s important to know what people are thinking and doing. And if you’re selling change, that becomes even more critical.   In fact, collecting and understanding data is really just another way of looking at and telling your Mission Story. (Sidebar: fabulous blog post about mapping data and storytelling by @eSpatial–I now reveal my wonkiest side!)

Of course correlation and causation are two different animals–just because most axe-murderers drink milk doesn’t mean milk turns you into an axe-murderer! So you need quantitative data–real people collecting real stories of what is happening in the field–to know the difference. And you don’t just want to collect data on your own programs; you need to know who else has tried certain approaches to the very same issues your nonprofit is working on–whether it’s homelessness or environmental degradation or education for girls in Africa.  Organizations are turning to tools like Flux or Social Solutions or a mapping tool to build their own data–even while they are out in the field changing the world. But collective data-sharing would be even more effective, and less costly wouldn’t it? It’s the direction in which the philanthropic and nonprofit sector is moving and I think really must move to be effective.  Places like Global Impact Investing Network and others are already doing it. More should follow. And every nonprofit umbrella association can be doing the same.

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Musings from #NABShow

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I’ve been giving workshops and hanging out at NAB (National Association of Broadcasters, for those of you who aren’t in this field).  Three questions I think worthy of consideration (and future blog posts by moi):

–Are ubiquitous digital tools causing us to overshoot photos and video (well, yes), thus making workflow overly focused on dealing with quantity as opposed to creative and quality…and what are we going to do about it?

–How are issue advocacy nonprofits leading the way in terms of the convergence of multi-platform media and communitiy-building, and what can the rest of us learn from them?

And a question for those of you here in Vegas: What’s the coolest “new thing” at NAB that will change the way we think and work creatively? Comment below!

(Shameless plug: See the post before this if you want to come to some of my remaining sessions!)

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Why It’s Worth Hiring Professionals for your Web Video

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Can you believe it was just 2005 when YouTube was invented? Since then, millions of companies, nonprofits and government agencies have seen the impact of telling their stories through video.  And with so many tools–from iPhone cameras to Videopad Video Editor–you can do it yourself.  So why bother hiring a professional video production team?  Consider these:

1. Time.  Good story-telling and mastering the technical tools to make it possible can be much more time-intensive than most people realize. Typically I spend a minimum of 100 hours on a 5-6 minute video project, but often more. The work starts with developing the concept and script, but also includes selecting the right people to be part of the story and the best technologies to deliver the content. You’ll have more time to do your real job if you are overseeing others doing this work, but not actually doing all the tasks yourself (like logging footage for editing–a real time suck!). You’ll also be in a better position to make the Decisions That Matter–like What are the key values of your organization (your brand story), Who is the target audience you want to reach, What do you hope to achieve with the video and How will you measure your success?

2. Quality. A professional video production team has decades of experience that can maximize impact for budget. Areas of expertise include: creative direction, writing, storyboarding, camera equipment and lens options, sound recording and equipment selection, interviewing techniques, lighting design, set design, casting, makeup, music licensing, voiceover artist selection and direction, editing (absolutely Huge part of good storytelling!), motion or still graphics design, audio mixing, etc.  Every one of the decisions of the team will impact the final production, so choosing the right team leader (the Director/Producer) and the right person on your team to manage that person (your Communications Director, or a point person on your team who can help funnel decision-making) is a big and important decision for your team to make.

3. Dependability. Hiring a professional team should give you a dependable workflow and schedule for your project, even if it means shooting in your office and working around other people’s schedules. By hiring people who must show up for shoots and edits on a certain timetable, rather than depending on colleagues who have other work to deliver, you can ensure you hit your upload deadline on time.

4. Flexibility. A quality professional team should ask a lot of questions at the outset so they understand what the final deliverable format(s) are optimal. If you want flexibility–to put something up on the web as H.264 video, but also compress it for mobile web and Also be able to use it on a big screen at your next annual meeting–you’ll need the team to know that and “bake it in” to the acquisition specs and workflow for the project.

The big downside to hiring an outside production team is, of course, cost. A professionally produced 5-6 minute video costs $2,500 per finished minute on the low end, and goes up from there depending on number of shoot days/locations, complexity of editing and graphics, professional talent, etc. But often people don’t consider the hidden “opportunity cost” of do-it-yourself work.  Such costs can include: not properly formatting video, so it won’t play on your site or on mobile web; not properly licensing music so that you are at risk of being sued or having your video pulled down; having the production take many more hours to create, because the folks creating it have to learn the craft as they do it; losing sight of the goals of the production, because everyone on your team is too busy to consider the big picture. Not to mention losing sight of your actual job!

The upside to do-it-youself is–well–you get to have the fun of creating a great and compelling story and bringing it to a wider audience.

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Improve Fundraising Results in a Social Media World

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If your development director isn’t delivering on fundraising as you’d hoped, you’re not alone. According to a new national study by CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, many nonprofits are not raising the money they need to succeed. For those on top, one of the key factors was “a culture of philanthropy” by an almost two to one margin.

What does a culture of philanthropy mean? According to the study:

  • People across the organization act as ambassadors and engage in relationship building.
  • Everyone promotes philanthropy and can articulate a case for giving.
  • Fund development is viewed and valued as a mission-aligned program of the organization.
  • Organizational systems are established to support donors.
  • The executive director is committed and personally involved in fundraising.

At the heart of many of these success indicators is storytelling. And in today’s world that means harnessing digital media and social networks. Here are some ways to incorporate those tools in your fund raising work.

  1. Mission ambassadors and relationship building -Make sure board members, alumni, and other key supporters and donors use their social networks to promote your story. That means traditional social networks (i.e. speaking to friends about your organization), but also digital networks. Provide these boosters with regular support—like emailing the right hashtag to use when tweeting about an upcoming event, or sending them links to a new video on your web or Youtube page that showcases your mission in action.
  2. Everyone promotes philanthropy and can articulate a case for giving-Provide “elevator pitch” training volunteers, including board members, but also to staff who are not directly involved in fund raising.  Help these natural supporters explain the case for giving by explaining their own passion for the organization and their connection to your mission.
  3. Fund development is mission-aligned-Be sure budget presentations show your outputs (results) in terms of mission accomplishments, not just programs. Video and photos can be a great way to demonstrate this impact (and keeps people from falling asleep in budget meetings)
  4. Organizational systems support donors.- Cultivation systems and databases are critical. But one of the most overlooked “systems” is creating an internal online-accessible library of images, fund raising scripts, and videos that volunteers can use to make the case for support. Once you’ve create this space, be sure to encourage staff to update it regularly, so that new content is always available for the latest stories about your mission success.
  5. Executive Director commitment to fund raising. – Part of fund raising is not just meeting with prospective donors and making the ask, but raising the profile of the organization and its mission. ED’s can often raise their personal profile and reach a wider community efficiently by taking advantage of social media tools: regular blog writing, microblogging on Twitter, or even photos uploaded from events to Instagram.

There’s no magic potion for development success, but digital tools give us more of a boost than we realize.

Amy DeLouise frequently works with nonprofit boards, leaders, and marketing staff to improve their branding impact–in other words, how they tell their mission story.

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Was Steve Jobs a Philanthropist (and who cares?)

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c 2010 Barbara DeLouise

Since the recent death of Steve Jobs, there has been lots of discussion about how he changed modern culture, with all of the i-things he invented. There’s also been talk, in hushed tones, as to whether or not he should have taken some of his gazillions and changed modern life through philanthropy.

The culture of Silicon Valley and the tech crowd had been pretty mute on the topic of philanthropy, until Bill and Melinda Gates stepped it up with their Foundation in 1999. And even after that, a generation of new millionaires has not been as visible on the philanthropy scene as their predecessors like Andrew Mellon and Edsel and Henry Ford. Why? (And who cares?)

This new generation of (potential) givers is more skeptical of institutions. They are more likely to give through self-organized groups like Crowdrise than through existing foundations. If they are large institutions themselves (i.e. Gates), they may defer giving until they can create their own foundation and manage it themselves.  This is not always optimal, as there are plenty of 501(c)3’s already convened and working on the ground. But it’s the new reality of “control” we all seek through electronic and social media.  A Convio survey found that website giving increases with each younger cohort so that for Gen X it is nearly equal to mail, and for Gen Y it is greater than mail. Nonprofits with websites with videos showing demonstrable impact of donor dollars have an even bigger spike with the Gen Y donor group.  And if you’re thinking, well these young folks are pretty under-employed right now and won’t be our big donors, remember they are the Big Donors of the Future. To capture this younger generation of givers, we can’t wring our hands, but instead have to engage them where they are in meaningful, hands-on philanthropy.

How is your nonprofit engaging the younger generation of givers? How much control are they seeking over how their gifts are used? Are you finding this engagement burdensome or exciting (or both)? Please share your experiences with me for more in a future post.

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Tips for Rebranding a Nonprofit

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Solid branding is just as critical for nonprofits as it is in the corporate world.  A brand that is not aligned with organizational goals, principles, and donor investments, is in serious trouble. And because a re-brand can take time and dollars away from key mission, it scares people .  Nonprofits can also find re-branding daunting because it can be a deeply emotional process for donors, long-time volunteers and staff.  Here are some reasons to do a re-brand and ways to make it a productive, even exciting process.

Why Re-Brand?

1.  Your name/logo/tagline no longer reflect your true mission.

2.  No one knows what your mission is when they hear your name.

3.  You are expanding your mission and want to ensure all your external materials reflect this.

4.  You have gone from being a collection of local or regional organizations to being a national one and need a new, unified identity.

Reasons NOT to Re-Brand a Nonprofit

1. You have multiple and divergent missions that not everyone can agree on (not a re-brand issue, but a good reason to embark on a strategic planning process).

2. You’ve really messed something up (you need crisis PR and brand attention, but not necessarily a re-brand).

3. Your logo style and color is dated (this may be true, but may not be reason enough to give up the brand capital associated with it).

Okay, let’s assume you’ve gone through all the due diligence and decided it’s really time for a change. What’s involved?

A Strategic Plan for Your Brand

Branding is always an act of imagination. The question to ask if you want to re-brand is “will this help propel our mission to where we envision ourselves 10-15 years from now?”  Or, in the lingo of corporate brands, “does it help us deliver on our brand promise?”  And just as you have a multi-year road map for your organizational work, you need a strategy for your re-brand.   Here are three things to focus on in a re-brand and questions for your board and staff to consider.

1. Programs and Services.  Are they consistent with our mission/vision?

2.  Governance Structure.  Do our bylaws, board governance, and staff-board  and staff-volunteer relationships effectively support our programs and services? Do we offer a consistency of vision and goal-setting across all parts of the organization?

3.  External Signifiers. Do our name/logo/tag line/communications channels help people understand our mission, vision and value to our community?

So many organizations start a re-branding with the externals and then fail at the re-brand because the internals are still not quite in sync.

Brand Identity Touchstones

Another element to success is checking in with key constituencies.  I’m not recommending crowd-sourcing your new logo. But when considering changing any key aspect of your branding—colors, logo and/or tag line—consider these useful perspectives:

1.        Current customers/clients/donors.  Organizations that already have deep roots into social networks can use them for feedback. But it’s also good to use old-fashioned focus groups, with a trained professional to run them. However realize that all of these sources are subjective and subject to change from a variety of external pressures you can’t necessarily control.

2.       Prospective customers/clients/donors.  This one is always a bit harder to pinpoint, but a firm specializing in both quantitative and qualitative survey data can help you hone in on key sub-markets and assess the resonance of your new branding with them.

3.       Vendors.  I know, on first blush this seems odd. But as one of the people who often has to deal with people’s new logos (for multimedia/video production), I’m often struck by how they don’t work across multiple mediums.  Check in with your essential communications vendors–from printers to video producers to webmasters–and be sure that you are considering the fonts and colors that work best in their media.

As you craft your new brand vision, always come back to mission. Consider how your donors, volunteers, policymakers and the public will remain confident that you will provide the value they expect and deserve.

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Music and Editing Matter for Web and Event Video

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I was thrilled that The Social Network won Oscars for original music score and editing. Both of these crafts are essential, in my view, to successful narrative film.  And they are critical elements to my most successful online and event video productions, too.

So often, I find that music and editing get short-changed.  Clients want fast turnarounds–to get something on YouTube or their website–and these crafts get left by the wayside. But the projects that are most effective–whether for issue advocacy, education, or fundraising–are almost always those in which I’ve been able to spend the time crafting the edit and working with a composer on an original score.

What makes the difference?

On the editing side, it’s having time for multiple refinements. Not those that just wear down the original concept and don’t improve it. But those that are significant stylistic approaches–montage sequences, transitions, pacing–that result in better impact of the visuals.  An edit that I’ve been able to spend time designing, and my editor and I have had the time to evolve creatively, is one that will be stronger for that collaboration.  At a bare minimum, one should budget one edit day for every finished minute of end-product.

On the music side, a composed score matches the nuances of emotion and picture perfectly.  So often, clients want to rely on stock music for budget reasons. And yet, it often takes more editing time to make stock music support the images, pacing and emotional content without seeming to be overbearing or inappropriate.  Often stock music cuts have just one set of instrumentation per cut, for example. Whereas in a composed score, I can create a transition from a powerful, fast-paced montage to a slower-paced sequence by using different instruments but maintaining the same musical theme, for continuity.  I’ve been very effective with library music, too, but it takes significant time to search for the right cuts, with the right pacing and instrumentation, and having a specific (editing) game-plan for weaving them all together. Whether using stock audio or custom, having time to properly mix it–along with nterviews, narration, and “natural sound”–also helps keep distractions to a minimum and reinforces a production’s goals.

So if your story has an emotional component–as every good narrative should–then you need to strongly consider adding the time and budget for effective editing and music scoring.  Your show will have added impact, which can change bottom-line results from a “nice video” to something that changes minds, or opens checkbooks.

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Nonprofit Brands

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The recession is slowly lifting. Corporations are banking huge profits. Donors are getting out their checkbooks again. If your nonprofit weathered the storm, are you poised to take advantage of the new market landscape?  Do you have a marketing and branding strategy that positions you well for leadership, funding, and volunteers?

Nonprofits often resist marketing. Marketing and sales smack of for-profit activities. In the best of cases, marketing dollars are viewed as an expenditure that reduces money for core mission projects. Worst case, branding, marketing and brand management are considered downright inappropriate.

But whether you acknowledge it or not, you’re already selling your mission. The question is to whom, how, and how effectively?

In today’s highly competitive marketplace of ideas, your non-profit organization has very little emotional space in which to differentiate itself from the pack. When a nonprofit calls, or when a friend emails a Facebook link for donating, we look at this request not just against a backdrop of all our nonprofit investments but also against the other competing interests in our lives—our son’s Little League team, our work picnic, the birthday party we are hosting next weekend.

Here’s where a strong brand comes into play.

When a household already contributes to a church and a Little League Team and a PTA, they may feel that their nonprofit “basket” is full. To make an impression on this family, a nonprofit has to make a bold and memorable case for support. Having a strong brand already in place can help open the door or close the sale. For example, when my local volunteer fire department comes knocking at the door for their annual donation drive, I already understand their brand. They volunteer at our schools to explain fire safety to the children. The firehouse hosts kids’ parties and we’ve all taken the tour and tried to lift the 100-plus pounds of gear each firefighter wears in a fire. And a few years ago, they put out a fire on my street. They have a strong brand and they don’t need to tell me what they do. So the conversation is focused on what level of donation I am able and willing to give for the cause.

Not everyone can have as compelling and easy a case to understand as the local volunteer fire department. But if you don’t, you need to work hard to make it easy for people both inside and outside your organization to “get” what change you make in the world. A simple, uniform message across web, social media, email and print goes a long way. That doesn’t mean you can’t differentiate sub-markets. But the overall mission must fit into a sentence or two. Then, the trick is that once you’ve invested time and dollars making your brand known, you need to manage your brand so that there’s no slippage.

Your “brand promise” has to be delivered as expected every time your organization or its name/logo is used.

And that means Every Time, or you may have done lasting damage to your mission by reducing your ability to raise funds and attract talented staff and volunteers. This includes even what might appear to be non-marketing materials, such as a letter home to parents explaining an independent school’s decision about a health incident, or how a hospital handles patient family members during a blizzard, or how a university human resources department communicates–or doesn’t–to job applicants .  In today’s 24-hour news cycle, everything you do and everyone who does it reflects on your brand.

Do you have a brand success story or brand crisis? Please share (names can be changed to protect organizational anonymity)!

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