Just wanted to say hello. I focus on social media and I am blogger who writes about how nonprofits can use social media. All of the above strategies can work for you if executed well, if you set clear objectives, and you evaluate how well your strategy does in relation to specific metrics.

Therefore, I think it is important to have a good mastery of a web analytics tool. Google Analytics is a great place to start because it is free and it gives you a lot comprehensive reports. The trick is to identify the most information you need and use it to improve your results. I think growing traffic takes time, patience, and reiteration. If you're interested in learning more about Google Analytics, I have a primer and screencast http://analytics.wikispaces.com.

I focus mostly on social media strategy and metrics. By building a community and a network, I've seen traffic to my web site and blog grow - but because of a lot of rapid word of mouth and through conversations. Also applying the same approach of tracking strategy and reitering. If you want to know more on social media metrics and measurement - I have another wiki here: http://socialmediametrics.wikispaces.com

Finally, I just wrote a post tonight about how Twitter has been helpful with referrals to my blog - but its more than blasting out a message .. it's a lot more about community building and conversation.

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/04/twitter-is-2nd.html

Thanks Beth for your comments and sharing the great resources. For those of you who have not seen Beth's site, visiting her blog should be at the top of your to-do list. It has everything you wanted to know about social media marketing at http://beth.typepad.com/.

I completely agree that the Google analytics tool is extremely valuable. For those of you who have not used Google Adwords or Analytics, let me try to illustrate how this works. In this example, Social Edge has a wealth of knowledge about youth opportunities in social entrepreneurship including fellowships, funding, and conferences. But when someone searches on Google for "youth social change", Social Edge does not show up at the top of the listing. By setting up a Google adwords campaign, Social Edge can buy the phrases "youth entrepreneur" and youth social change" or even just "youth". Now a description of Social Edge shows up in the paid search results near the top when someone searches. Each word "costs" money if, and only if someone clicks on it. [I put "costs" in quotes, because if you are in the US or UK and a registered nonprofit, you may apply for the Google Grants program which can award you in-kind value for Adwords marketing.]

Here's where the Analytics comes in. Now that you are showing up in the search results, through Google analytics, you can see WHICH words people are clicking, WHICH description or ad gets clicked on more, and you can even set your Adwords account up so you can see if the person who clicks on the ad "converts" or does something on your site like sign up for the newsletter. This information allows you to optimize your campaign, and as Beth suggested, continue to improve and grow your traffic over time. This is great information and can help you make decisions about marketing communication and messaging in your other collateral or outreach materials.


This brings me to another question that I have heard often: Who do you hire for web marketing and what does the job description look like? Please jump in and let us know what you think. Here are a few of my observations to agree with or disagree with:

What do you look for when hiring for web marketing - Overall, you are probably looking for someone who is good at communications first (and a techie second) since they will be crafting the first impression people have of you and as you can see in the example above, they are revising messaging to be most effective. A "start-up" jack-of-all-trades personality is helpful, as is the "learn-by-doing" sort of person, since the technology is evolving and you need to continually test new things, learn, and improve.

As far as who you should hire - staff, students, consultants, do it yourself, or some of each? You may want to outsource search engine optimization (there are lots of small firms) to do an assessment of your site and make recommendations (but keep in mind that you still have implement those suggestions). You may want to be more hands on at the start with Google Adwords - it's a great learning environment where you can test what messaging works. To help with the work load, high schools often have community service requirements so this can be a source of fresh talent for implementing, but you will still need someone overseeing your web marketing strategy.

Great article.

When I began the start up of my social enterprise - SKIL2 (http://skil222.ning.com)here in Ireland - one of the first things I did was to set up an online social network with Ning (free and easy peasy to set up). I wanted it for a few reasons:

1. To promote SKIL2 2. To document and share the SKIL2 journey and learning 3. To gather support and feedback on SKIL2 beyond Ireland and my existing networks 4. To celebrate the whole idea of SKIL2 5. To get some hands on practice with social media

In the 6 weeks or so since I began SKIL2 I have gathered a small but quality membership - which keeps growing as I spread the news of SKIL2 online.

I have a blog and different discussion groups going and they have already added value for me in terms of fine tuning aspects of SKIL2.

I added Google Analytics to the network (once again easy and free) and now have an amazing amount of rich info to help me focus how I communicate on the site.It tells me how many people have visited; how they found me ; how much time they spent on the site; what they read ... useful stuff.

I went out and found sites and blogs that relate to SKIL2 areas of interest - non profits, social media, informal learning, design, learning technology, resourcing, - and made comments on their blogs. I contributed to conversations and told people about SKIL2 (because if you can't talk about your enterprise without passion and enthusiasm then I wonder why you're doing it) and as a result traffic to the SKIL2 network has increased.

I also found great people online with lots more experience than me (particularly in the area of learning tech and social media) and asked them to be my SKIL2 mentors - they nearly all said yes. I now have mentors in Ireland, UK, USA & Singapore.

I asked an open source learning management systems organisation (Sakai) if they would waive my fee to their international conference after I told them about SKIL2 being a social enterprise (and me being an economically poor social entrepreneur) - they said yes.

And it's useful to offer people something when they come to your site. One of my mentors - Jane Hart - has developed a list of over 2000 learning tech tools - and - she gives it away free. You don't have to be into learning tech to find her information useful. You may want to develop a wiki on your site or a podcast to attract investment - her list has the tools folks. Her site www.c41pt.co.uk

I created an info pack about SKIL2 that people can download free from my SKIL2 network http://skil222.ning.com - and I'm sharing what I gather and learn about learning tech, social media and informal learning in non profit workplaces - free.

And as you wander online you'll want to save lots of stuff - rss it. Yeh - and then try and find it! I use a great rss aggregator called Sage (free) that captures all the blogs and sites I rss and I can scroll down them and see what's new. Love it. I can then reference good information back to my network.

As a social entrepreneur I have very little money and I'm finding that there's a lot of social media and online social networks that I can use free to develop and communicate the story of my SKIL2 project - and gain support. It effectively extends my reach waaay beyond my budget.

It's a 2 way communication - the same as all the face to face stuff we do - where I make the effort to get out and tell people about SKIL2 - and some of them make the decision to support the project.

Good luck with your enterprises.

Liz

Hi Liz. Thank you for sharing your experience building your web traffic. By the way - Social Edge is built on open source Plone. Here are a couple of thoughts I take away from your post:

Find and involve key influencers in your area of interest. These can be bloggers - as in your case, or academics, or issue area experts. They are the knowledgeable, well connected individuals whose opinions matter and are heard by the community that you would like to connect with. On the internet, links to and from those who are established, relevant, and trustworthy (including .edu sites) will not only help people discover you, but will help your natural search ranking as well.

Make it easy for people to save and share information from your site. This type of viral networking is the key way you will get "word of mouth" online. What does this mean? As Liz suggests, RSS is a good option to offer. Not everyone uses it, yet, but those who do, find it invaluable. I will have to check out Sage :-) It also means "print" and "email" icons should be easy to see and use on your site; and you should also make it easy for readers to bookmark and tag the information that they find and like on your site. Bookmarks: www.google.com/bookmarks, bookmarks.yahoo.com/. Tags: (del.icio.us, reddit.com, digg.com).

It also opens the door to other ways your community might want to help with your web marketing. Beyond tags and emailing, you may want to make it easy for people to add your organization to their Facebook page or enlist people to help with an online fundraising contest. Giving people a way to show off the causes they care about is a great way to expand your community and tap into your supporters' own networks. For example, consider creating widgets (gydget.com/my_widget, clearspring.com, widgetbox.com) or Facebook applications (apps.facebook.com/causes/about).


Has anyone had success with competitions, Facebook applications, or other online programs that engaged their community in spreading the word about their organization? What worked, what didn't, and why?

I spent 17 years as an advertising manager with a large retail organizaiton. We spent over $250 million a year to send three waves of print advertising, plus radio and TV into 40 states where we had 400 stores. Our aim was to draw shoppers to our stores by communicating the value and breadth of our merchandise selections. We measured the results by weekly sales results, as well as by profit reports. Too much advertising can reduce profit is you don't get enough sales, or your costs are too high.

I began leading a tutor/mentor program at the corporate headquarters, and used the same principles to recruit volunteers, then support them weekly with ideas and activity information that would help them have a more satisfying experience, and thus stay longer. That program grew in size from 100 volunteers to 550 volunteers over 17 years.

In 1993 I saw a need for a retail-type advertising system to support the growth of non profits in Chicago who all do similar work (volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring), but operate in different parts of the city, and usually in isolation, and in competition with each other. I began building a database and creating events to draw attention, volunteers and dollars to programs. One measure of success was the number of people attending events, like conference, that we hosted. Another was a growing number of newspaper, TV and Radio stories generated by our efforts. Another was the growth of the tutor/mentor program I started in 1993, from 7 volunteers to 100 volunteers by 1998.

We started using the internet to share this information in 1998 and we've counted visits and page views ever since. Last year our sites totaled over 100,000 visits and over 1 million page views. One result is that a donor contacted me, used our information, and made anonymous donations to one or two other tutor/mentor programs, as well as a $50,000 donation to support my organization.

We generated the web traffic by creating a library of information, which has helped us rank high on Google search fields for specific categories related to "tutor mentor". We also have reached out constantly into other forums, like this, to share information and meet new people. And we've continued to do place based events like the conference coming up on May 29 and 30.

The strategy starts with a purpose. We want to support the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs. To do that we need to get workplace volunteers into programs all over the city and the country, not just our program. We need to support these volunteers and their leaders with internet based information, which we do. And as people grow in their own organizations, we want to convert some to leaders who go back to their college, business, church, etc. and recruit other people to support one or more tutor/mentor programs with time, talent and dollars. Ultimately this is intended to create programs within industries who provide their own leadership to support multiple tutor/mentor programs.

An example of this is the Lawyers Lend A Hand Program in Chicago. In 1994 when we first connected the LAH was awarding one program a $2,000 grant to recognize it's outstanding work in the mentoring field. This past year they awarded $240,000 to 31 programs as a result of steady growth since we suggested in 1994 "Why not support constantly improving tutor/mentor programs all over the city?". You can see this program at http://www.lawyerslendahand.org .

As more and more places grow where we can share our message we keep reaching out to them, engaging our teens, our volunteers and staff, and our peers as evangelists of this outreach. We simply do not have enough staff, or time, to be in all of these places as often as we'd like. Thus it is critical to find others to help spread the Gospel of what we're doing. The result will be more traffic to the web sites, more support for individual programs, and a duplicate of this overall strategy in other cities around the country.

Daniel, Thanks for sharing your experiences. You bring up several interesting points that I would love to explore further: Strategy, Fundraising, and Prioritization.

First and foremost is the issue of strategy. It is important to remember that your internet strategy is not separate from the overall strategy of the organization. How is your internet strategy contributing to your mission, not just as a marketing or fundraising tool, but as another venue to actually achieve your mission whether that be educating, providing skills, connecting people, or showcasing the accomplishments of your beneficiaries.

Since the internet is no longer "brochure-ware" (an online version of your printed collateral) --to gain traction and retain traffic--, you need to provide more value, present information in a different way, and integrate real-world or high touch experience along with the low touch.

One social entrepreneur emphasized your site should have 1/5 the words that your marketing collateral has, you need to have excellent pictures (for example in a fundraising contest, generally the organizations with the best pictures - that convey the programs and beneficiaries, wins!), and it should involve your community by reducing barriers to interacting with your organizations and establishing a personal connection through transparency, openness and exchange of ideas (such as a blog or discussion).

And just because you're on the internet, does not mean you are "low touch," meaning you don't have to have staff for or make an effort to connect with your audience in other ways, through local events or personalized communication. One site whose audience is kids, points out they have 8 seconds to capture the attention of the youth and that if they are lucky, they will press "play" on a video. So they have a team of 10 that video their projects. But they also arrange local gatherings for their registered users.

How is your site helping achieve your mission? How do you know you are attracting the "right" audience? Or audiences? (who is your site for - supporters, potential supporters, beneficiaries?)

Another point Daniel brings up is fundraising and the power of the internet to connect you with donors. "One result is that a donor contacted me, used our information, and made anonymous donations to one or two other tutor/mentor programs, as well as a $50,000 donation to support my organization."

In driving traffic to your site, remember that customer service can make the difference between a one time visit and a long-term donor relationship. In the book Fundraising on eBay, I spoke with nonprofits about using the eBay marketplace to raise funds and find new donors, and one person said that they regarded it as much "friend raising" as fundraising. Another discovered they were able turn a one-time celebrity in-kind donation for an auction into a loyal ongoing donor by sharing the stories of their beneficiaries. Check out tips for effective and moving story telling on Social Edge: http://socialedge.org/search?SearchableText=storytelling+or+story+telling

Other ways to drive traffic specifically for fundraising include:

Go where the donors are:
Create a facebook causes app (apps.facebook.com/causes/about), Network for Good Charity badge (networkforgood.org/pca/PcaLandingPage.aspx), put your organization on eBay Giving Works (givingworks.ebay.com/nonprofit), Charity.com (charity.com/register.shtml), JustGive (justgive.org/html/nonprofits/faqnonprofits.html#1) or see the cheat sheet for more international options (http://socialedge.org/features/issue-areas/online_marketing)

When they get to your site, make sure you can take their money any way they want to give it to it to you:
Provide options for:
PayPal Donations: paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/donate-intro-outside
Google Checkout for Non-profits: https://checkout.google.com/seller/npo/
Credit cards, debit cards, and even an address if they want to mail a check.

What other ways can you not only driving traffic but also convert that traffic to donors? Do fundraising contests work? Has anyone participated in the Yahoo! for Good Cyber Giving Week (http://bix.yahoo.com/cybergiving) or The Facebook Causes Giving Challenge (http://apps.facebook.com/causes/giving)? Did this work to drive traffic, viral marketing, donations, awareness?

Daniel also asked the Number One Traffic Driving Question of the Day:
"As more and more places grow where we can share our message we keep reaching out to them, engaging our teens, our volunteers and staff, and our peers as evangelists of this outreach. We simply do not have enough staff, or time, to be in all of these places as often as we'd like."

So when there are so many places to be, what are the best ways [most effective and the least amount of time to implement} to drive traffic? Google adwords and the top trafficked sites in your issue area? Other ideas for greatest bump in traffic numbers with very limited limited time/staff?

Just checking last months web statistics I can see that about 75% comes from direct entry, a statistic in which the observer is most definitely part of the result. Of the rest, there's more or less an even split between exhaustive efforts to place links and the results returned for targetted keywords by search engines. This I put down to a well structure basis in the DotNetNuke CMS I've been using which can deliver surprisingly quick results. Then there's the smear campaign Google hosts about us, which may produce traffic of the wrong kind.

Yes, it's often a struggle against misinformation just to stand still.

An interesting case of misinformation developed over the last few days. A poorly researched news story on the part of the BBC had the world believe that Hitler dolls were on sale in Kyiv. By yesterday it had gone worldwide, from a single kiosk shop with a doll, it was reported in the Israeli press as being widely on sale in supermarkets. An unrepentant BBC pulled the story today, when the truth was out, the dolls were manufactured in Taiwan, but the damage had been done.

http://eng.maidanua.org/node/857

Hi Jeff,

I agree that a good structure for your site is important for search engines to be able "See" and rank your site for keywords. It's also true that whatever goes on the web, tends to stay on the web in various forms so, while you can immediately correct things on your own site, addressing information on other sites is difficult.

In terms of submitting your site and tackling natural search engine optimization, a good first step to understanding how to improve your site is to visit the useful and content-rich site http://selfpromotion.com/ which also provides a handy tool (free but a contribution based on value received is suggested) to get your site submitted to a bunch of places, fast.

What are the other quick things you have done to make your site easier to find?

Well, I've concluded that pay-per-click and especially Google adwords doesn't work for me, except perhaps to get the first hits on a new site. One of my early endeavours was to help a group who where collaborating to sustain themselves as a flower and cake service. Though their business was very local, Google wouldn't allow a place name to be used unless promoting accommodation or tourism. So, that meant competing against international giants. I hear recently they've lifted a more sensible restriction on the use of trade names, BTW.

I try to make the most of RSS feeds and Feedburner does at least offer feedback, which you've referred to earlier. Pageflakes as a medium makes a more interesting space to collect like content, so I mix in my feed with other local news. I've added other domains to point to the same space. These alternative domains, are to take advantage of search engines which rank on the name of the domain. So, for example, my org being p-ced.com is also people-centered.org.

Tagging seems to be a good idea to me. The problem is that it's still a bit of a geek thing and difficult to convey to supporters that raising the profile of an article by means of collabration, will help get the message out. So it's Tagging alone for the time being as far as my social capital goes.

Beth is the queen of this stuff, so my first point would be towards her blog and all its various resources.

Secondly, I'll point to a couple of posts over on the School for Social Entrepreneurs blog: CAn blogs boost your (triple) bottom line? and Should social entrepreneurs and social enterprises blog?

Finally, I'd just add that, from our point of view, the use of web 2.0 tools (blogs, del.icio.us, facebook etc) has definitely increased traffic (we use Google / Feedburner to measure). Although obviously just increasing traffic in and of itself is not always that useful: you want the right kind of traffic that's bringing relevant influencers and people to your site.

What we find working with early stage social entrepreneurs at SSE is that there's no pat answer. Some are already twittering their every move; others need to have an e-mail address set up for them. Some have four different websites, others need to get a basic presence online.....

Thanks Nick for joining and sharing the blog posts. I like your triaged list of helpful urls and summary of key points from the articles. There is a lot of information out there and it is nice when someone takes the time to sift through and pick the out the "top ten" best of the best for the rest of us. We do love lists ;-)

You bring up an interesting point about the technical diversity of social entrepreneurs and their audiences. When eBay was just getting started, much of the marketing was real-world grass-roots marketing including going to tradeshows and setting up a booth to demonstrate the site and show enthusiasts how the site could help them find what they were looking for.

Is there a place for real world marketing to drive traffic to your site? Above and beyond putting your website on business cards and marketing collateral - should you get out there and have a booth at a tradeshow, give a speech where you demo the site at a conference, co-sponsor or be the online partner for a real world event? These could be great ways to leverage an existing gathering, connect with people personally, and expand your community ...so it is something to think about.... So what do you think?

I've found some great info at www.mequoda.com on best practices for web development and publishing. They have a weekly? e-newsletter with tips about creating effective layouts / site navigation / content based upon proven research.

My biggest challenge is developing content... because of the nature of our organization, finding creative and relevant content is difficult, and I don't always have the opportunity to dedicate lots of time towards writing articles.

Has anyone found a good, cost-effective solution? Freelancers can be hit-or-miss, and can get expensive quickly.

Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your comments and tip about mequoda. Thank you also for sharing your challenge of creating content.

Developing relevant and fresh content on an ongoing basis is a great way to educate and engage with your audience but it is a significant time commitment. Writing a blog can take less time than formal articles but you have to be willing to share thoughts in a more informal format. Hiring bloggers as part-time employees could reduce the hit or miss aspect of freelancers and increase their loyalty and enthusiasm, and may even help keep your budget in check. For example, Change.org is hiring a bunch of bloggers right now. http://socialedge.org/features/job-listings/archive/2008/05/02/change.org And of course, the great thing about the web, is if you find someone whose writing you like, it doesn't matter where they are based. elance.com lets you look at sample portfolios, feedback, reviews, and their rates so that might be another resource to investigate.

Since your organization focuses on youth leadership and social entrepreneurship, you may also find resources and inspiration for content from the youth page on Social Edge: http://socialedge.org/features/issue-areas/youth-social-entrepreneurship/ and specifically the opportunities section that has leadership training, conferences and funding options for youth: http://socialedge.org/features/opportunities/topics/youth.

Do others have suggestions for good ways to develop content? What content have you found most useful in attracting and retaining your audience?

What I do on the web is a result of the mission and strategy of my organization. When we formed in 1993 we said we'd "gather all that is known about volunteer-based tutoring/mentoring" and "we'd find ways to increase the number of people who look at this information, via media, events, etc." We also said the purpose of this was that more people looking at the information we were collecting would result in more consistent support for volunteer-based youth organizations in Chicago.

Thus, our content and story telling are generated from what we're learning about where tutor/mentor programs are needed, why they are needed, what the challenges are to having good programs in more places, and who the programs are that already exist, etc.

We generate stories from the work we do in our own tutor/mentor program, and that others do in their programs. We also generate stories based on what the media talk about every day. If there's a shooting in a neighborhood, we can talk about where that took place, and who the programs are. Someone makes a speech about helping kids, we can point to places where they can help kids.

I've been a one-man army for many years, but I've also had a pr firm help me for almost 10 years. Recently I've been encouraging interns and staff and volunteers and even our students to write blogs telling about our work. You can read some of these at http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com

Because this is so important to the mission of my organization, I find time to write something in my blog, and in many other forums, like Social Edge, every day. It's this constant outreach into many channels that draws visitors to your sites. If your site has information these visitors are looking for, many will return, and many will encourage their own friends to visit.

Thanks for the insights Daniel. I think you are not alone in being a one person army, so I am interested to hear from you and others in the same boat, how you prioritize and leverage opportunities to drive traffic.

PR is a great topic to explore - are you hosting events on your site that may be newsworthy? Can you pitch your site as a resource, or a main article, for newsletters, newspapers, or even magazines? The same PR rules - what makes you newsworthy, what is your interesting hook, and why should they write about you NOW (what is the timely element). Are you announcing a new feature, holding a contest, or showcasing the recent accomplishment of one of your beneficiaries? If so, you may find it worthwhile to do a press release and put it on the wire services or one of these websites:

International
➢ AlertNet alertnet.org
➢ Inter Press Service http://ipsnews.net
➢ Nonprofit Online News http://news.gilbert.org/submit
➢ OneWorld.net oneworld.net
US with 501c3 organizations:
➢ AScribe ascribe.org
➢ Nonprofit Newswire nonprofitnewswire.com/for_nonprofits.asp
UK with charity’s Gift Aid tax reference number:
➢ Third Sector http://thirdsector.co.uk/ContactUs
➢ UK Fundraising fundraising.co.uk/newswire
Or for something a bit edgier – how about “crowd powered media” Now Public nowpublic.com

Other ideas for using PR to drive traffic to your site?

On any given day I'm reaching out into a variety of communications channels to draw support to my organization's mission. Right now I'm organizing a conference in Chicago that will be May 29 and 30 (http://www.tutormentorconference.org ) and we're doing a variety of press releases to draw attention to this.

However, I'm also recruiting others to take a role. At http://cabriniblog.blogspot.com you can see how several members of my staff, and interns, are writing blogs, attracting their own network of support.

Furthermore at http://www.volunteermatch.org and http://www.idealist.org you'll find job postings where we're searching for volunteers to help.

From 1994 to 2001 I had a Chicago PR firm working with us, and thus we appeared in multiple print, TV and radio interviews each year. We've not had such help in the past few years, making it more difficult to get into print/TV. We've compensated with more internet media, but we don't stop looking for PR partners.

Finally we're using the media as our advertising. Visit http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com and you'll see how we're building the capacity to map the news. Thus, if the headline on the front page of the local paper is on a shooting in Chicago, our maps can point to where it took place, and to the tutor/mentor programs in that area of the city who need volunteers. Our commentary can talk about the availability of such programs in those areas. Since it would cost more than $250,000 to buy the front page or a feature in the local paper, this strategy turns their negatives into postives.

We'll be doing more of this in the comming months, thanks to help we've received from a donor who found us via this strategy.