-
Website
http://johnhaydon.com/ -
Original page
http://johnhaydon.com/2009/01/2-ways-blog-rock-nonprofits-social-media-campaign/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
- Why I Didn’t Trust The Chase Bank Community Giving Campaign When It Started
- How To Integrate Your iTunes Podcast Into WordPress (video)
- How to customize blog pages and posts with the Headway Wordpress Theme
- What is the “31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media”? (video)
- Does your non-profit has a social media handbook (playbook) for 2010?
1. Asking for new ideas from your non-profit's stakeholders on the blog.
2. Crisis management. If the organization ever encounters poor publicity, a blog is a great way to instantly re-direct and explain the issue from the organization's point of view.
3. The blog is the historic record of the organization's achievements and activities. Similar to the website, but with analysis of great events, accomplishments and goals achieved give every achievement further depth in the eyes of potential/actual donors.
Great list - and I like Debra's additions above as well. Three additional benefits I have found in blogging:
1) Having to develop my thinking on a regular basis hones my thinking. I am able to make my case more clearly when I'm face to face, because I have had to think it through to write it.
2) A blog provides an official-looking way of making a point. As a consultant, if I am having a conversation w/a client who says, "Yes, but my board doesn't think so," I can respond in a number of ways. 1- I can ask to talk to the whole board, so I can make my case directly (not always easy). 2- I can make my case to the one person, hoping they will then make my case to the whole board (SO not a good idea!) or 3- I can make my case to that person, and then write a blog post that cogently makes that case again. I can then send the link to the person I've talked to, telling them, "To make it easier for you, so you don't have to explain to the board, just pass this link along to your board."
3) From #2, in addition to making the case to THAT board, I have now made the case to a whole lot of other boards whose members read my blog, and who likely have the same arguments.
From consulting clients to the donors of a Community Benefit Organization, anyone who finds him/herself in the position of having to "make their case / overcome objections / address risk factor" should absolutely be using their blog to do so!
Again, John, thanks for posting this!
Hildy
Hildy Gottlieb
Author - The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations"
to Create the Future of Our World
1. You will learn to anticipate your supporters, donors and stakeholders’ needs better with a blog.
Why?
Because by blogging regularly about your actions/achievements you will get a better feel of what they like or dislike about what you're doing.
Great list. Thanks for sharing.
Great list! I love the points about giving your stakeholders a voice. I find blogs to be so much more of a real-time feedback mechanism. It's a testing ground, too, for ideas and soliciting feedback from your community that might otherwise take time and more cumbersome effort through traditional mechanisms like surveys. It's more informal, but that more casual conversation I think encourages commenters to be more "themselves" and provide honest, off-the-cuff input.
Non-profits are especially in a position to tell lots of great stories about the work they're doing and the communities they're affecting in a positive way. Blogs can be great anthologies of the impact they're having on the people that need them most.
Great insights, John. Thanks so much.
Best,
Amber Naslund
Director of Community | Radian6
@AmberCadabra
This is a great article.
I always tell my clients (a mix of non-profits, and small to medium size businesses) that blogs are one of those foundational building blocks of a social media strategy.
It is amazing the insights you get when you watch what people read on your blog, and then what they do with it, e.g. forward to others, post it on other social media sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.), comment, blog about it themselves, etc.
One rule of thumb from all of the non-profits that I've worked with is that people like human interest stories. They like to be able to put a face to the people or cause that they're helping, and if (for confidentiality reasons) you can't highlight success stories, then highlight your team.
I'd suggest two more reasons:
1. A blog offers your supporters (and would-be supporters) an opportunity to share their content with you, whether it is a comment, a web link, or an embedded video or image.
2. (This really follows on from your #17 point about extensive free software/plugins). A blog can act as a hub for your other social media activities and thereby promote them e.g. by displaying a feed of your organisation's Twitter posts, YouTube videos, delicious.com bookmark links etc.
Two more reasons for the blog in a non-profit: It's a chance to show your expertise in your particular field, it also allows you to recognize some of your staff by having them add a post when appropriate. And that staff post can speak volumes about your org as opposed to a corporate voice.
Keep this info coming - invaluable stuff!
Keep up the great work, this site is a course within itself.
<abbr>bloggingbetty’s last blog post..Google Labs-Audio Indexing, Politicians Talk</abbr>