Marie Forleo has some great tips for you if you are feeling pressured about being on all social media platforms and posting constantly.
I particularly like her tip about finding one or two that you can be successful on, commit to those and get good at them. I would even take it a step further and say that once you feel confident with those, widen your circle and bring in another. You will need to evolve and find that sweet spot of where your audience responds and where you feel comfortable communicating.
This is a cool infographic that shows just how important social media has become in getting a job.
I’m shocked that Facebook has gotten more people their job than LinkedIn! The idea of getting a job via Twitter is so intriguing to me. I think I need to beef up my posts…
What do you think? Are you surprised that over 18 million people say they have their current job because of Facebook?
This post is primarily for those who are going into non-profits. There are probably some tips for sales too so if that’s your thing please stick around.
Money is what makes the world go around. Just because an organization is a non-profit doesn’t mean that money doesn’t have a huge influence on how they do “business.” Having more money coming in than going out can be an obsession – and a drag – if you aren’t prepared for this going into non-profits.
You can’t operate without income. Pure and simple. Whether your heart is in animal rescue, giving voice to abused children, cancer research, or saving an historical landmark, you need income to get the word out and address the issue of your heart.
“Everyone will support poor, hungry children. All I have to do is show pictures of the kids we’ve helped and share their stories and ask for money. No one wants to see a kid go hungry,” you think. “I’ll just do my fundraising in November and December. Heck, this year I might even get out there in October.”
StaffingRobot.com
Fundraising is about building relationships ALL year long. Sure, your money may all get to you in Q3, but you have to earn it all year long! This is why e-newsletters, social media, press releases, events and appearances are so important. Communicate all year long. Have you gotten a prestigious grant? Everyone needs to know about it. Regulations change that affect your mission? Talk about it.
Find out why the folks support you already. Capitalize on that to bring in more people. Particularly with charities, people will support you when their friends do. It’s called trust.
Fundraising is only as successful as they relationship you’ve built with the community.
Do you have cool tips on how to build relationships for fundraising?
This seems pretty obvious but I’m willing to bet that there are some knuckleheads who get into this because they are prolific personal social media posters. They think, “How hard can social media for a brand be? You just post stuff and get likes. I’ve got 862 friends on FB and 1637 followers on TW, I’m a freaking natural.”
So what’s the difference?
You need a Strategy to reach communication goals. You don’t post just because the urge strikes. You don’t post just because you see something funny you want to share.
You’ve got to Research your audience. What do they want to hear? When do they want to hear it? How do they like to hear it?
You should be Crafting a message based on your strategy and research. Just throwing out slop loses the respect of your intended audience. When you lose the respect of your audience you lose their attention. When you lose their attention often enough, you lose your job.
Posting comes back to strategy. Don’t post when your target won’t hear it. Don’t post where your audience won’t see it. Don’t post what will lose/alienate your audience.
You’ve got to be Listening to your audience. It’s not just what they say, it’s what they do. Look at your metrics. What do people respond to the most? When are they responding and where?
If you’ve been listening, you will certainly need to make Tactical Adjustments. That’s your life now: making adjustments – All.The.Time. Social & digital media move so fast that everything you do will be about adjusting to changing responses from your audience, changing conditions on the Interwebs, and changing technology.
Ad infinitum into this ouroboros thing where the head swallows the tail – no beginning or end. (look it up)
When was the last time you did research on your personal followers before you posted that picture of the ultimate ice cream sundae on Instagram? Do you know your strategy for your tweets about your displeasure at a college football game? What message are you consciously crafting for Pinterest?
See the difference?
Have I left out any considerations or steps in this social media cycle? Which step do you like best? In which step are you weakest?
I love marketing communications. I dig the data-driven strategy combined with the possibility of innovative tactical maneuvers. I thrive on thinking outside the box and project implementation to achieve measurable goals.
I’ve learned that just because you love something doesn’t make you good at it. You may have the best of intentions, but if you don’t have some knowledge to pull from you’re going make bad mistakes. (I’ll talk about good mistakes in a later blog.)
So where can you get marketing communications knowledge? I have some awesome resources that I pull from for my personal edification that you might want to check out.
1) Social Media Examiner I recently discovered this one and I LURVE it! They have revived my enthusiasm for email newsletters. Their newsletters are short, heavy on links, and don’t employ “click bait.” I hate click bait. (hmmm that sounds like a blog subject.) These folks are also on Twitter and Facebook. They do podcasts and online summits. SME is pretty pimp if you dig this stuff.
2) Social Media Today This is overall industry news. I like it because they have neato infographics (which I love), and they talk about developing technologies and other things I may not go looking for but will impact my work eventually. I’m usually the first to know about a lot of tech stuff because of these guys.
3) Mashable I like how they integrate pop culture and social media/tech news. They are also rife with click bait. Mashable is worth it because that fusion of pop culture and social media keeps me on the ball and informed.
4) MarketingProfs They are geared more towards larger businesses. I like keeping up with what the Big Boys are doing because I want to know what my potential employer is doing. They also offer a lot of VERY useful hints and primers. Unfortunately, most of the good stuff you have to be a PRO member and that is $$$$. I guess it costs a lot of money to be so big and slick…
Anyhoo, those are my big references, and they are in order of value to me. If you aren’t familiar with them you really ought to check them out. They are all in my Twitter and Facebook feeds so I have knowledge being pushed to me all the time. Of course, I’m a nerd and read this stuff for fun. Did I mention that I LOVE this stuff…..?
What resources do you rely on? What do you like about them?
I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t be on 24/7. Since I can’t be the 24-hour-a-day Social Media Mama I’d like to be, I’ve found a couple of easy hacks to help me get the message out and stay engaged around the clock.
I’ve taken a tip from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It’s the idea of putting all your big rocks (in this case, your message) into your glass (your schedule) before it gets filled with other stuff. Trust me, it will get filled with other stuff if you don’t take control of your schedule and get the important things scheduled first.
Since you have a finite amount of time, attention, and space to communicate in, make sure you have the important messages out there first. I do this by scheduling my posts at least a week into the future.
I figure out what is the most important message/s to get out this week and schedule those posts first, typically one post a day at different times. Those are my big rocks. No matter what goes on in the world, this is what must be communicated.
Then I have space in between those rocks. I can play in this space. This is where I bring in breaking news, polls, funny videos. I can engage fully and respond quickly when I’m not worrying if I’ve fully communicated my message/s. I can focus.
Zack Levine via HudsonHorizons.com
To schedule posts, I prefer HootSuite to any other scheduling options out there. It’s fairly comprehensive; you can schedule & monitor Twitter, FB, Google+, LinkedIn, WordPress and others. It’s also easy to manage many accounts in one place. There is a free version for up to five networks. I highly recommend tinkering with it if you aren’t already in HootSuite. Of course, they do have an app for smartphones and tablets too.
I also use the smartphone and tablet apps for the various networks I’m on. So far, I’ve set my notifications only for retweets, shares, comments, new followers. This makes it manageable for me to respond and engage immediately without much negative feedback from friends and loved ones. (Stay tuned for my blog about monitoring digital media 24/7 while having analog relationships.)
What do you use to hack your social media posting schedule? Are you managing it all or crumbling under the pressure?
Speaking of being under pressure, enjoy this sweet video from the incomparable band Queen. Do you ever feel like this?
This grumpy-looking old cuss is George Bernard Shaw. He said, “I dream things as they never were and ask, ‘Why not?'”
I’ve always believed this. Being the nerd-bird that I am, that was my senior quote in high school. I see opportunity everywhere – even in things that are said to be impossible. Impossible only means that something hasn’t been done yet.
WETSFM had always had RTVF interns, but never a PR intern. I’m a constant listener of the station, and I followed their social media. I could see that they needed a PR person desperately!!
I contacted the person who is the RTVF internship liaison for WETS and asked how we could do this. Some emails and a meeting later, I was the Fall 2013 PR intern for WETSFM. Woo hoo!
It totally boils down to creating your own opportunities. I had my passion for public radio, I was a consumer of WETSFM, I recognized the need I could fill and I went for it. I connected the dots.
That’s what everyone has to do in this life. You have to look for how your passion can fill a need for someone. You have to always be paying attention and follow your passion and you have to always put that passion to work for you.
This video is of Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement speech. He is talking about connecting the dots in life. It’s less than 15 minutes and totally worth listening to for inspiration.
One Great Public Radio Intern 