A new study from the Overbrook Foundation about Web 2.0 adoption by nonprofits confirms what I’ve been saying for a long time now:  Too many organizations (nonprofits and .coms alike) are completely missing the point of Web 2.0 and the concept of Social Media.  As noted in a very thoughtful post yesterday, “the potential of Web 2.0 is in the interconnectedness around tools and communities, not in any single tool or community”. 

Overbrook found that most nonprofits are not fully utilizing Social Media and Web 2.0 principles (no surprise there).  However, what I found most interesting (or telling) about this study was the examples cited from grantees “using social media in spectacular ways to engage their constituents in conversations”.   Most of the examples cited were completely tactical (focusing on specific actions, sites or tools), but even more surprising, had little — if anything – to do with Web 2.0 and Social Media:

1.) Signing a petition (a form of engagement, yes, but hardly a Web 2.0 form of engagement)
2.) Joining an offline rally and lobby day (again, engagement but not exactly Web 2.0)
3.) Allowing members to comment on an issue blog (Blogs are certainly a big part of Social Media, but the implication here is that allowing people to comment is somehow groundbreaking…it isn’t a Blog if people can’t comment on the posts.)
4.) Visiting/viewing a MySpace page dedicated to the campaign (MySpace may be a Social Media destination, but creating a page on MySpace does not constitute Social Media engagement)
5.) Donating (I’m not even sure where to start with this one)
6.) Adding a campaign icon to the supporter’s own home page or Blog (Now we are dipping a toe – a pinkie toe, but a toe all the same – into Web 2.0 waters).

There is certainly nothing wrong with any of these tactics – it’s just that they don’t have much to do with Web 2.0.  Why?  They are “one to many” (the organization acts as publisher by providing content that is blasted out to an “audience”) and they are focused on motivating the masses to do what the publisher wants the masses to do (join, donate, lend support to the publisher’s cause).  In short, these tactics are what I would call “Web 1.5”. 

What does that mean?

In the early days of the Internet, the Web was really nothing more than a digital newspaper (Web 1.0).  Organizations published or broadcast information out to mass audiences.  Interaction was limited to joining an email list where the audience could receive more broadcast information from the organization (the publisher).  Web 1.5 was a bit more interactive.  Users could participate in a forum or discussion group, sign a petition, etc. 

Web 2.0 is all about co-creation and connection.  Thanks to the proliferation of easy to use tools, everyone has become a content creator. In fact, many sites such as You Tube provide no “published” content whatsoever.  Content is created by the community.  True Web 2.0 engagement tactics would include things like this:

1.) Providing users with content to create their own videos or mashups (or seizing publisher content and creating something unexpected, such as Democratic Underground’s campaign against the Chevy Tahoe);
2.) Providing users with tools (a Facebook application for example or a tool that Bloggers can use on their own Blots to track a particular issue or statistic such as hunger, infant mortality, AIDs deaths, etc.)
3.) Providing users with ways to review, rate and/or vote on your published content and giving that content prominent placement accordingly (not a lot of examples of this in the nonprofit world, but the Edwards campaign does something like it with their weekly user generated Blog posts).

I’m not suggesting that organizations pick a handful of “Web 2.0 tactics” and jump in.  True Web 2.0 engagement is a comprehensive approach to building and nurturing relationships.  It requires taking the time to understand the needs and desires of your community and then identifying ways to facilitate what THEY are interested in, as opposed to a singular focus on getting the masses to do your bidding.  That doesn’t mean that the organization/content publisher can’t realize benefit from Web 2.0 engagement – far from it.  There can be some real magic when an organization takes the time to identify the win/win, i.e., the intersection between facilitating/contributing to a community and achieving organizational goals. 

A recent Marketing Sherpa article delivered some really interesting email link test results that improved click performance significantly.Within their own list, they isolated and tested some link language to see which would have a better click through rate:

• Click to continue
• Continue to article
• Read more

In this case the ‘click to continue’ link peformed much better than the other two. Not really a suprise to me because I have tested calls-to-action frequently and found that you have to be very direct in your link language to get any sort of responses. (you may have a hard time getting away from the less-is-more “read more” language argument though)

I’m a strong believer in testing email since it’s easy and provides almost instant gratification/results. But, i’m a geeky data-head that thrives on proving my email theories with intense testing.

If you haven’t already, you should create an email test plan to start increasing your email performance.

There are many schools of thought when it comes to creating an email test plan. What to test, when to test, when to re-test, etc. Should you test to your entire list and risk interrupting a normal communication stream or do you isolate a portion of your
email list by segment? (That is IF you have a normal communication stream AND are able to segment your list, but that is another entry for another day…)

Don’t be afraid to test. BUT don’t rely too heavily on creating a ‘control’ as the industry and technologies chage, so will the way people interact with email communications. Be ready to change your strategy quarterly. Luckily the email environent will allow you to test to your controls on a regular basis.

Roger Craver and Tom Belford over at www.theAgitator.net also
weigh in on this topic – you should be reading their posts just as frequently as Marketing Sherpa for additional thought leadership.

 

Yesterday I ran the Philadelphia Distance Run, a half-marathon race, along with 11,628 of my closest friends. I was doing fine the entire race, measuring my pace with the mile markers, ensuring that I was on track for where I wanted to be. Then I hit the 9 mile mark and my left leg began to hurt. Despite this, I carried on and at the 11 mile marker was still on pace for my ‘best case’ goal, however the leg continued to become more painful, to the point where I couldn’t even jog. I kept walking, and testing the leg, running in spurts, until I got over the finish line, not meeting my ‘best case’ goal, but still recording a personal best. Had I determined that I was doing more damage to the leg by continuing, I would have stepped off the course and quit the race, regardless of whether I was only 1/2 mile from the end. On some levels I was disappointed that I didn’t get to that ‘best case’ goal, but on another level, I was proud of myself for keeping going, and finishing in the time that I did, despite the unexpected challenges that came my way.

So why isn’t this on my personal blog? Why am I talking about it here? Well I think that it’s a good analogy for talking about Search Marketing, or really for that matter about any time you try to do something to improve your business. I believe that these 6 steps are fairly comprehensive:

1. Identify the problems / Issues that you want to address
2. Identify potential solutions
3. Determine your goals for those solutions, identifying your bounds for each – your upper and lower tolerances
4. Implement the solution(s)
5. Monitor the solution(s), correct for the unexpected, determine whether these changes push potential results outside of the predetermined tolerances.
6. Reap the rewards / identify reasons for any failures, and return to #1

So, taking SEO as the example, part 1 could address the issues that your company faces. Does your site need more traffic? Are you attempting to increase brand awareness? Are you looking to collect email addresses? Increase sales? A combination of these? Part 2 would involve identifying what could be done in-house, and what needs a partner / vendor with experience / bandwidth in those areas. Part 3 would then be done in conjunction with the in-house team, or external partner / vendor. Part 4 is fairly intuitive, although you have to also ensure that there is support for the implementation, and that it is done at the appropriate time. Part 5 would involve reviewing your analytics solution, to determine the changes. Has a particular change had a knock-on effect on another piece of your site, or is it on track? If there is an issue, what corrective action should take place? i.e. a change to your orders page has increased sales, but has decreased your newsletter signups, is that something that you can live with, or should an alternative version of that page be tested? Part 6 is what it says. When something works, identify why it did, and the same for when something doesn’t go to plan. Then, identify what now needs to change, and start the whole process again.

As for me? Well, for my next race, I’m going to wearing a knee brace on my left leg, to give it added support, and given that my next race is twice the distance, we’ll see how much that helps, and I’ll make adjustments as I need to during the race.

Previously I had written a post on leveraging Google Grants for non-profits that talked about the Google Grants program and how non-profits could receive up to $40,000 per month in PPC advertising on Google for only $1,500. While that was the stated value in PPC advertising that you could receive, the spending cap had not been enforced until just recently. In the past my non-profit clients who used Google Grants accounts could spend over $40,000 in a given month. Additionally, they had never been charged the 5% of ad spend when going over $10,000.

Google, however, has decided to enforce the rules as is evident by the excerpt of an email my client recently received.

…To ensure that we can continue to offer this program to even
more non-profits, we have implemented monthly budget caps of
either $10,000 or $40,000 on all Google Grants recipients. Moving forward, your account will be automatically capped at
$10,000 per month in free AdWords advertising. However, if your
organization has a demonstrated need for additional budget, you
may be eligible to receive an increased budget of $40,000 per
month and be invoiced for 5% of the spend between $10,000 -
$40,000 (up to a maximum of $1,500 per month)…

It appears from the excerpt above that in order to get the full $40,000 in advertising you have to have a “demonstrated need for additional budget” beyond the initial $10,000. I have yet to hear back from them on exactly what that means, but no matter what the answer is, changes will be made to how the accounts are managed.What does this mean for non-profits that had been taking advantage of the remarkable generosity that Google has and continues to show? It will require them to refocus their goals for Google Grants in order to mitigate the loss in donations as a result of the lower monthly spend. In the past I had leveraged Google Grants in a number of ways for my clients, but there was usually a strong focus placed on branding and educating visitors on the mission of the organization. There was a more long term approach taken when looking at how we could use Google Grants to build the brand and in tern increase donations. This, however, will now have to change since the budget will no longer allow us to partake in as many branding campaigns, but instead we will have to focus mainly on the immediate result of delivering a donation.

I have no complaints that are directed at Google, however, since neither Yahoo nor MSN offer a similar program to help non-profits with limited budgets reach their target audience. The benefits that my non-profit clients have received from Google Grants are amazing and the donation revenue that has been achieved would never have been possible without the generosity of the folks over at Google. Changes will need to be made to how I use Google Grants, but at the end of the day how could you ever complain about receiving up to $40,000 per month in advertising for only $1,500?

Have you received a similar notice recently from Google Grants? What are your thoughts on the Google Grants program for non-profits? 

“Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you.”

 

Since Facebook opened its doors to non-students, the site has had rapid growth.  From late May to late August they had an increase in registered users of 62.5% to 39 million, which is a great growth number.  Facebook is easy to use, and has many plug and play applications that are simple to install on your Facebook page.  You can easily find and add friends, and message back and forth between each other.

 

One feature that’s getting a lot of use these days is the groups feature.  Anyone can set up a group, and send out invites to their friends, who send out invites to their friends and so on.   These groups range from the bizarre – “I’m tired of getting shocked every time I touch anything” – to the industry specific – “SEO by the Sea” – to activist groups.  Facebook has really proven itself to be an easy way to gather like minded people together and push for a specific cause.  A recent example of using Facebook groups in such a way is “Students against Interest on Overdrafts as HSBC“, which actually succeeded in forcing HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation) to forgo charging students interest on overdraft loans upon graduation, after over 5,000 students signed up for the group.

 

Facebook, itself, is not immune from their own groups, in fact one that has recently generated some publicity is a group of over 7,000 breast feeding mothers (lactivists) that is rallying against the facebook photo policy, whereby pictures of breast feeding have been removed due to obscenity rules, and some users have been banned due to contravening these rules.  The chances are, that with the publicity that is currently being generated by this group, Facebook is going to sit up and take notice and work with this group to come up with a workable solution for both parties.

 

So if you have a cause that you feel that people may want to rally behind, setting up a Facebook group is a good way to get the word out, and pull people in to support it.

Or, what to read and why.

Over the past few weeks I have seen an increase in specific buzz-terminology subject line emails that I receive in my inbox and my RSS readers. Mostly it seems that everyone has the latest tip or secret to a successful email campaign, or how to drive the most traffic to your site, or how to quadruple your ROI. All you have to do is sign up and download a white paper, or read that writer’s top ten tips and —voilà!—you are an overnight success.

Of course, most of these tips are geared towards the clients ‘we’ work with and that rarely read these types of emails because they expect US – as paid consultants – to tell them what they should be doing. My first step: Don’t read too many of those emails! (probably NOT a popular statement to make…) Find a few reputable sources and follow their advice, but don’t over do it.

It amazes me that many of these ‘magic bullets’ rarely speak specifically to a client or a client’s need, but are really just a lead generation technique to sell services. I don’t have a problem with that, but that goal should be pointed out sooner rather than later and that the information the reader is going to accept as ‘gospel’ is really biased towards a closed-sourced-product. And for this magic bullet to work that they must sign up for a service or subscribe. Keep in mind that many of these best-of techniques may work against your existing tracking and metrics and cause you to lose data on processes that are working for you but just may need some tweaking.

So, here are MY tips to make your way through the clutter of “Industry Averages,” “Best Practices” and the “Tips to Increase your ROI” propaganda.

• Only read the emails that you feel are in line with your current activities or goals. If your emails are not selling a product; then a best practices email to increase online sales or conversion rates will not help you much if you really just want provide information about a product or service. In that case, look at tips that help you increase your open rates to increase brand awareness – everything else is icing on the cake. Make sure that you understand the goals of each email that you are sending, and test test test to get a good idea of what works for YOU. Do you really think that following what Amazon.com does is going to work with your audience?
• Understand Industry Averages. Industry Averages are generally calculated by the ‘big guys’ that have sophisticated tracking in place and years of data to work from. It is important to understand your own ‘industry average’ and look at the trending of your own results and how they measure up against your business or organizational goals. In some cases, for smaller businesses or organizations, ‘industry average’ can crush your infrastructure and cause more problems than good. This is not to say that all “Industry Averages” are bad numbers to be avoided, but they help to keep your own metrics in check. Establish your own average by looking at your historical data and make changes to increase the numbers that work for you.
• Be leery of anything promising an ROI of 2000%!! These are probably rare cases and interesting math (let’s say an email costs a nickel to send and generates a $100 sale…that’s 2000% ROI in some calculations). Be realistic in your ROI calculations, and be thorough in all the criteria included in the calculation to get a truer idea of the money you are spending and the return on that investment. It’s not just how much that email cost to send, but the staff in the marketing department, fulfillment centers, outside vendors, profit margins. That 5cent email probably really cost a few dollars to send, dropping that ROI considerably. And that one email has is cyclical – it drives repeat traffic to your site, and will lead to more and more sales over time, so that ROI calculation over time – annualized – could be much different than that one email send and that one time ROI calculation.

The most important take away from this posting is that you shouldn’t worry if you are just starting an email or online marketing program or have a program that has been running for years and you are seeing results from competitor organizations or companies that are not in line with yours. Sit down and look at your numbers and work with your vendor to create a plan that will increase successes by testing and re-testing, segmenting, analyzing ROI, and most importantly – identifying goals and objectives that work with your overall business goals.

On August 27th, a video on behalf of The Human Rights Action Center and the U.S. Campaign for Burma was placed on YouTube. In the week since then, it’s garnered almost 200,000 views, drawing the attention of people to the plight of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (formerly Burma).

“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”- Aung San Suu Kyi Who is she? Well according to the video, 11 years ago she won 82% of the parliamentary seats, and was subsequently placed under house arrest by the military regime that controls the country. In the video, she’s compared to both Nelson Mandela and Gandhi, as her nobel prize was awarded for her non violent struggles against the ruling regime. Now, even though she’s been under house arrest, the government has made it clear that she’s allowed to leave the country, but she would not be allowed to return. Knowing this, she decided to stay under house arrest and help her people how she can. This means that she hasn’t seen her children for at least 12 years, nor did she see her husband for several years prior to his death in 1999.

So why is this video suddenly garnering attention for her cause? Well, the main reason is that it’s a celebrity that’s taken it up. In this case it’s Jim Carrey, who states the case for Aung San Suu Kyi, and clearly with almost 200,000 views in a week, it’s obviously working. Does this mean that in order for your YouTube video to generate views and buzz you must have a celebrity? No. It makes it easier, but there are many other hooks that you can use, such as humor or the ‘wow’ factor, but whatever direction you go in, you should ensure that it fits in with your goals and corporate / project outlook. As for this video, the tone and message that Mr Carrey delivers fits perfectly with the topic.

 

There are people out there who take great delight in saying controversial things to get people all riled up. This typically happens on any kind of site where a 2 way conversation takes place, and those people are referred to as ‘Trolls’. These people do this because they delight in what they believe to be the anonymity provided by the internet. Sometimes it’s people working for rival companies that do this, but as Whole Foods chairman John Mackey found out, such actions will eventually come out into the open.

Typically whenever you leave a comment on a forum, or change a wiki page, your ip address is registered. That ip address can lead someone back to your machine, or at the least to your company. One student – Virgil Griffith – decided to write a program that looked at edits made to Wikipedia pages to see who was making the changes. His program found the following (amongst others):

• Microsoft tried to cover up the XBOX 360 failure rate
• Apple edit Microsoft entries, adding more negative comments about its rival
• Microsoft edits Apple entries, adding more negative comments about its rival
• In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that “Iraq was involved in 9/11”
• Amnesty International removes negative comments
• Dell Computers deletes negative comments on customer services and removes a passage how the company outsources work to third world countries
• Fox News removes all controversial topics against the network from the Fox News page
• DieBold, the company that controversially supplied computerised polling stations in the US elections, removes numerous paragraphs with negative comments

So what’s wrong with this then? Well, if you recall our post on Wikipedia, editing your own page is frowned upon, as for editing the page of your competitors, that’s just plain nasty. While these companies may have delighted in causing reputation management issues for their competitors, or have thought that by editing these pages they were removing potential reputation management issues for themselves, what they’ve now done is create potential reputation management issues for themselves. Once this story broke, it was linked to, and written about by many sites, all it takes is for one or two of these sites to rank well for this story against their name, and then not only do they have the original issue brought to the forefront, but then there’s the proof that the company has behaved deceptively. Not something that you want to see ranking for your name, especially when you’re the root cause…