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34 Social Media Truths in a Nut Shell. As my loyal blog readers know, I have been working on a series over the past year titled “35 Social Media Truths.” The Social Media Truth series is based on a keynote presentation I did at the Rochester Institute of Technology last year. I have been writing on the core concepts since then and it has served as a foundation for much discussion. I used the content as a test project to practice what I preach, build and execute an integrated plan around one solid piece of content. The return on investment (ROI) on doing such has been high and something I will do again.

Below I share a few of the statistics and approach I took on the project and leveraging of one slide deck to help meet business goals for a year. As I bring the series to a close to work on the next similar segment I want to share all 34 of the social media truths as originally written. The marketing nut community and loyal followers will probably see many familiar quotes and concepts. This post includes the following: Approach: How Top Brands Are Using Instagram [Study] By Kevin Shively – August 8, 2012 40% of Leading Brands Are Now Active on Instagram They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. But for the big brands who are already engaging with Instagram’s 80-million users, it might be more fitting to say a picture’s worth a thousand fans.

Instagram’s consumer adoption has been well documented, but how have brands tapped into the hot mobile photo sharing service? And just as importantly, what are brands that have decided to hold off really missing out on? These are the questions we set out to answer with our first Instagram study. M Booth - Introducing Framed. Deepening Engagement, One Drawing at a Time. Note from Beth: Just as I was leaving for Cambodia, there was a great discussion within a comment thread over on my blog brand page on Facebook in reaction to post about the HSUS Facebook post that went viral.

Darren accepted my offer to share a post to deepen the discussion about engagement. Deepening Engagement, One Drawing at a Time – guest post by Darren Barefoot This spring, The Big Wild launched Drawn to the Wild, a collaborative digital art project that invited Canadians to creatively contribute to a new version of a singer/songwriter Sarah Harmer’s music video and support the protection of part of the Niagara Escarpment at the same time.

This story is about how we measured our results, and what conclusions we drew from the metrics. When visitors arrived at the website, they were presented with a randomly-selected frame from a video of Sarah Harmer singing her song “I’m a Mountain”. Framing up the Results In terms of measurement, here are some key facts about the project.

Analytics

50 Free Social Media Tools You Can't Live Without. A couple years ago, Jay Baer wrote a great blog post called ‘The 39 social media tools I’ll use today’ which was an all-in-one toolkit for social media marketers (and still is). A lot has changed in the two years since that post was published so here is a ’2012 remix’ featuring 50 (mostly free) tools you can use on a daily basis. Whether you are just starting out in the social media arena or have been at it for a few years, this will hopefully be a handy resource.

So, let’s serve ‘em up! Listening / Research The foundations for any social media marketing activity start with listening and in-depth research, ranging from influencer identification to campaign planning. General listening tools Best in class: SocialMention.com – As far as ‘free’ options go, this is a solid as it gets.Alternatives: BoardReader.com (discussion board specific), Addictomatic.com (a general listening dashboard) and PeopleBrowsr.com (big data, big insights).

Specific listening tools General research tools Engagement. Heads or Tails – Don’t Gamble With Your Email Marketing Success | Tips & Tricks. By John Hayes, iContact Business Development Executive When pride and reputation are at stake, would you risk it all on the toss of a coin? This is the unfortunate situation two athletes found themselves in when competing for the third and final place in Team USA’s women’s Olympic 100 meter sprint squad.

The coin toss was suggested after a photo finish failed to separate Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh as they crossed the line in a qualifying tournament. With professional pride and the hopes and dreams of an entire nation riding on the back of such an important selection, is it ever acceptable to leave this kind of decision to chance? In the business world, many email marketers risk the success of their campaigns to chance, often using “gut feelings” to plan what should be strategically developed campaigns. iContact’s email marketing software allows marketers to test, compare and analyze all aspects of their email marketing campaigns. 5 Gold-Winning Email Marketing Tips. New Groupon Site Allows Charities to Update Donors - Prospecting.

With the unveiling of a new Web site, charities now have a better way to tell subscribers of Groupon, the popular discount and deals site, how their money has made a difference. Groupon Grassroots has replaced the G-Team name and online portal that simply allowed charities to learn how to get their cause in front of Groupon subscribers. Such online “daily deals” have become an increasingly popular fundraising method among nonprofit causes.

The new site has the same features, but charity officials can now also write updates on the projects that people have financed by buying Groupon “deals.” The updates will also allow potential donors to find charities or projects to support in their community. “It’s an easy way for people to see the collective impact that they’re having,” says Patty Huber, manager of Groupon Grassroots. Ms. Huber says Groupon supporters were clamoring for information about the difference their money made to the charities and projects they helped support. Return to Top. Non-profits and social media: how to leave the competition behind : Social Media 4 Good. I’m a firm believer that you get what you pay for and in that respect I find little encouragement in the “2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Report“.

According to the report, non-profits and NGOs are still very reluctant to allocate resources to their social media activities. However, this is also a chance for those who are willing to make the investment. If you haven’t done so yet, please take a look at this infographic which sums up the key findings of the report nicely. Time is more valuable than money It is good to see that around 45 per cent of NGOs say that they have a budget for social media. However, money is not the main resource you need to build a successful social media presence – it is time: time to listen to your followers and to engage them. Full-time employees working on social media (Source: 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report) Unfortunately 67 per cent of all respondents said that they only have one quarter or less of an employees dedicated to social media.

Optimizely: Pricing. How are monthly unique visitors counted? Monthly unique visitors are counted by adding the number of unique visitors in an experiment on the web to the number of monthly active users in an experiment on a mobile app. You can distribute the unique visitor allocation however you like. What amount of coding knowledge is required to use Optimizely? Once the Optimizely Snippet or SDK is installed, you can get started optimizing without technical expertise using a visual editor for both websites and mobile apps. What will I need to install on my website or in my mobile app?

Implementation for the web takes one line of JavaScript on every page you want to optimize. I signed up for Optimizely's Bronze, Silver, or Gold plan. As a current customer, you are grandfathered into the original plan you selected. Does Optimizely offer nonprofit pricing? Yes. I have more questions. Check out our Knowledge Base for questions about how Optimizely works on your website or mobile app. Recognized Leader in Email and Cross-Channel Marketing. Responsys Interact helps you deliver orchestrated marketing, at scale, across every digital channel. Interact Campaign Create and send tailored messages across every digital channel.

With Interact Campaign, it’s easy to create, test, and execute your digital campaigns across every channel, including email, mobile, social, the web, and display. And only Responsys gives you the power to create individually tailored messages at massive scale. Features Multi-Channel Messages Step-by-step wizards guide you through creating tailored messages through email, mobile, social, and web channels. Dynamic Message Content Pull in message content that’s dynamically tailored to individual audience members based on who they are as well as how they interact with you. Real-Time Monitoring See what’s happening with your campaigns, from execution to conversion, through live performance reports. Distributed Campaign Management. Nonprofit Data Visualization: a Gallery - Mission: Innovation. Can Branding Help Fundraising? 99designs | Logo Design, Web Design and More. Design Done Differently. Great ways to use Pinterest.

Get Your Nonprofit Started on Pinterest. When Mashable first started buzzing about Pinterest in December 2011, I took a quick look at the site and thought to myself, “Shopping, crafters, and foodies. Not relevant to the vast majority of nonprofits and (whew!) Not another site I need to pay attention to.” Now, just two weeks into January, I am completely addicted to pinning boards for social good on Pinterest. I haven’t been this hooked on a new social networking site since I first got on Twitter in June 2008, and based on recent data released by comScore and Hitwise, Pinterest traffic is soaring. Consequently, some of the nonprofits best known to be early adopters are pinning away too: National Wildlife Federation, Amnesty International, SFMOMA, Water.org, and the AARP. That said, my Pinterest Profile for “Nonprofit Organizations” (pinterest.com/nonprofitorgs) will only follow nonprofits. If your nonprofit starts pinning, be sure to follow me and I’ll follow you back. 1.

Pinterest is currently invitation only. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Youtube

Google+ could become a key social network for charities | Voluntary Sector Network | Guardian Professional. Google's social networking site Google+ could become a key tool for charities: the search engine recently rolled out new features in the US that may make charities rethink their approach to social networking. The UK is next on Google's plan. Google+ – which opened its +Pages for brands in November appears to have attracted a significant number of charities. Mimi Kravetz, senior project marketing manager at Google, said take up among UK charities had "exceeded early expectations". The service itself, she said, has grown quickly, with 40 million users within 100 days after its launch in summer. However, until the announcements, consensus among charities appeared to be that there was little benefit in paying attention.

Most charities appeared to be pushing similar content on Google+ to their Facebook and Twitter feeds. So attracting followers on Google+ could become a priority, and Google has created web pages to help charities understand what they can do on the site.

LinkedIn

Strategy. Website. Twitter. Facebook. Thank you for your trash « Nonprofit Nate. I’m upset. I got a call yesterday from a friend of a friend. “Could you guys use some books for the homeless kids you tutor? We want to do a book drive but I wanted to see if that would truly help.” I wanted to hug her over the phone. Why? There’s a misnomer in philanthropy that the act alone is enough. Oooh! You can go through the motions but if you don’t stop, think, communicate and make a conscious effort to provide what’s truly needed, you’re often doing more harm than good.

I’ve heard countless stories of organizations accepting people’s old stuff that they drop-off. They’re old, dirty, stained, ripped, or really, really ugly (think Aunt Ruby’s 1984 neon Christmas sweater…with kitty cats on it). And you say ‘at least it’s something’. The same goes for equipment. How do we fix it? Communicate. Create a wishlist on your website. We all can do a better job of calling ahead, and thinking through what we are giving. Sharing makes the world go 'round. Like this: Like Loading... Texts for Nonprofits | SMS Marketing Software | JA.TXT.