Some Non Profit Collegues and their Visual Social Media -

Continuing with our discussion on visual social media marketing this week; our class is now analyzing some of the organizations that are similar to our own business, to see who has been using Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube, or Instagram effectively.

Starting with Pinterest - I found several Non profits similar to The Sabrina Keller Foundation who are making strategic pages and targeted pin boards - to reach out to potential stakeholders with their visual social  media marketing efforts. Such as featuring their sponsors or creating topic boards, which are dedicated to engaging and highlighting their supporters and the community projects they are involved with.  

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a Pinterest Page with several Pin Boards related to worldwide topics, and are featuring videos highlighting Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates (and others) giving speeches about the philanthropy and other endeavors with the Foundation.  They have one pin board dedicated to the World Economic Forum (which is held annually); as well as pin boards dedicated to highlighting community and woman; with “Newborn Health”, a “Social Good Summit,” and one entitled “Faces of Humanity” to name a just few.   

Another Non profit on Pinterest is called “Operation Smile” which is a medical group dedicated to helping children worldwide who suffer from facial deformities.  Some of their Boards and Pins include highlights about the Charity and their volunteer doctors who work with the organizations founder Dr. Bill McGee. The boards include pictures and commentary about their twenty care centers located around the world including India, the Philippines, and Guatemala.    

Tumblr is said to be a good place to share your “story” as business or organization, where you can present information and content in short visual blogs, while using mostly visual media with short written captions.  According to Mashable.com the blog can get very viral, and is great place for tagging your content (for SEO optimization), displaying videos, and making creative image postings.  But they do recommend that you have used solid unified branding for you organization across all your social media marketing platforms when you decide to participate with the website.   

A nonprofit called “Meatless Mondays” strategizes for social media reach by using Tumblr content tags related to non meat recipes such as meatless pizza. They tag the visual blog with the words like  “pizza recipes” – which when people who find the recipe in a Google search and they click the link, it would bring them to the Meatless Monday Tumblr page, to learn not only about how to make a pizza but about the organization’s meatless  mission and other endeavors as well.   

While Mashable.com doesn’t recommend you use the Tumblr site to disseminate your annual report; it does recommend you use the visual blog to explain what your organization does, and to show off and highlight your successes.   Another nonprofit using Tumble effectively in this manner is called “Good Neighbors U.S.A.,”   who is using images as updates about their latest projects and partnerships with the United Nations. There visual blogs highlights their efforts to aid nations with improving educational standards  and life quality, as well as helping people who are affected by civil unrest or when  facing natural disasters.  

The ASPCA – American Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - has taken advantage of YouTube’s nonprofit channels program, where it provides qualified nonprofits the access to free tools to use on their Video Channel WebPages, including a Google Wallet donate button, call to action overlays, live video streaming, and video annotations.  With a YouTube video channel page your organization can highlight videos about your organization, show past events, and make advertisements, sales or donation pitches; like in this example case with the ASPCA using an MTV celebrity “DJ Pauly D” to solicit for donations from their page visitors.  

The last Nonprofit using a visual social media platform I will be highlighting today is called Robin Hood New York, who is using the mobile social platform tool (an app) called Instagram; which works much like Tumblr with a visual blog and the use of limited text for content captions.  

The digital company Instagram started off on just a mobile platform but has since expanded for some limited access for business and individuals to see, comment, or like a page/blogs online with a computer or tablet devices.   Robin Hood New York’s mission is to “fight poverty” in New York City. There visual blog is seen here through a third party webpage called Webstagram, designed to bring in the Instagram mobile blog-feed through a shared  RSS platform.  The blog highlights RHN’s fund raising events, partnerships, and the volunteers who make the organization successful. 

Hey Picture This! -Growing Your Organization With The Right Visual Platforms

This week my class is covering the use of the more visually oriented social-media-tools that are getting popular and are available online for business promotions, including Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube and Instagram.

I am not going to pretend in my blog today that this week’s social media lessons (and the following examples for business use) present some easy online strategies for me. And I don’t think they will be for the smaller business owner either. And especially for those who do not have large marketing budgets and are not artfully minded or artistically inclined.

Also not every business will find a need to use them, or that they fit into their best strategies for their Branding and their Product or Business Development. Each business needs to come up with its own strategies and ideas of how these social media tools can potentially be useful to them. 

But for those of you who can manage the costs of digital media outsourcing, or are more artistically inclined, or perhaps you are just an artist at heart, or you have a business that is highly visual; such as within the industries of fashion, publishing or broadcast media. You just might find these visual social media tools I am going to cover today quite useful.

These tools would also be good for those of you who might have larger highly-visual business websites. Where you probably have the needs and access to large amounts of visual materials and related business content. Plus the capabilities and resources to manage the time, and personnel, you would need to create and publish these digitally appealing Social Media Pages.

  

Even though I speak with the caveat toned above – those on a lower cost budget (such as with my project with the Sabrina Keller Foundation) can still use these tools in more simple ways – such as by creating a quick promotion or providing product/service information or presenting a how-to video (etc.) on YouTube. And by posting more simple pictures, images and other imaginative content on Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram using simple Microsoft Office tools, a computer webcam or a cheap digital (or video) camera.   

I will first start off with the social image website Pinterest – which is essentially a public pin board for you and your followers to post images from online or off, which are uploaded to share and comment upon by your Pinterest Community. This is good for a Business or Brand with image intensive content, such as those selling products and services, or who hold events and manage attractions.

Maybe with some experimentation I think this is probably one of the most useful visual social sites for the Sabrina Keller Foundation, with their need for low budget or no budget options for social media strategies.  The Foundation can post photographs from events as well as other images regarding nonprofits and heart related or arrhythmic diseases. Pinterest has also been increasing the utility of their site with added tools that help you create and manipulate your images for more creative pinning.  They use features similar to Facebook with a “like,” “comment” and “re pin” functions - which is when users are sharing their favorite posts with other friends.

The foundation could encourage followers to pin their own images from SKF events or their own (heart related) information on the Keller Foundation Community Pin Board. Event pictures can be linked to the Foundation Website as well as to their Facebook Page. Pleas for monetary support or recruiting volunteers can be integrated into the content occasionally, and be linked to a landing page for giving donations or signing up to attend an event/volunteer, etc.  

Tumblr is similar to Pinterest with visual posting as well as using textual content (akin to a visual blog) to explain the materials in captions. This would use the same strategies for engagement as with Pinterest - using images and linking back to other Sabrina Keller Foundation websites/pages for getting more information and increasing our audience engagement.  They have many unique features to engage an audience including a random post function, post archives, and a “piggy back” feature, with capabilities to integrate with other social media tools.

A lot of visual context is used by business at this site with dynamic imagery. Someone - a business that is more artistically inclined - would find this site a very attractive tool to promote their brands. Video and sound clips can also be integrated into your business profiles on here if they are relevant and work with your marketing strategies.

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet after Google and it is a good place to showcase a business or organization with videos; especially if it can go viral. As mentioned above, showcasing How-to-Videos for using a product are a good example of how to utilize YouTube for engaging and attracting your audience. 

Using YouTube for The Sabrina Keller Foundation might not be that functional, as they are not selling a product or service, or have a need to show how to use something properly. They could probably post video clips from SKF and other related events to entice followers to engage with them. Linking the videos to the main SKF Foundation Webpage/Facebook to make comments and create anticipation for upcoming events within new and old followers/fans. SKF might also use the national SADS Foundation Videos (and other related organizations) as a repost through their own YouTube channel and then link these videos to their own content on their Home Webpage and at Facebook.

The last visual platform I am covering today is Instagram - Instagram is like Pinterest and Tumblr – it acts a place to showcase mostly images and generally limited textual content. It was originally designed for mobile applications but has expanded to a greater web based presence - where users can use many types of devices to engage with it –including smart phones, tablets and now on regular computers.

It is one of the fastest growing social sites on the web and attracts many types of growing demographics, with their largest demographic base currently being those between 18 – 34 years old, and who consist mostly of women. The Keller Foundation would be wise to use this application – or social tool - as women are a large part of their target market and have been the biggest fans on Facebook who demonstrate their engagement with SKF. 

Growing Your Business: Facebook Strategies Part II

Today we are finishing up our lessons on using Facebook Strategies in my Social Media for Business class.  And the topics were covering include creating some engaging content for our page, planning it out over time, and then scheduling it to be posted using the Facebook Event and Scheduling tools. 

We have learned this week that we should think about our Brand and our Customers Psychographics (target audience), and then think about the “language” or “tone” of our Facebook Pages – what we can say or not say - and what we should use to attract and engage with them online. Can we be light hearted and fun with the audience, or is our Brand Image something that needs to be more professional and we should maintain a more reserved tone? 

Does it need to follow a strict corporate image such as maybe for a law firm, banking, or an accounting agency? Or can you be more personal and campy like an owner of a used car lot called Big AL’s Automotive?   

Getting personal when you can is what makes Social Media most effective – so even if you have a certain corporate image that needs to be maintained and more reserved; it is a good idea to get creative and reach out to your customers on a more “intimate level.” Some articles I read this week suggested you create Facebook Company (upper management) Personnel Profiles connected to Blogs, which can make the owners or senior managers more accessible to customers.  

Topic number one for this week has been challenging for me – how do I reach and engage my nonprofit audience?  What do I post to engage both my Facebook Fans and the non-fans who visit my page and/or see my posts? What kind of content will get them to take some actions while on the page or when they see my news feed, to get them to click on them by liking, commenting, or sharing?
 

These are questions I am still struggling with for the (SKF) Sabrina KellerFoundation Page, as well as my Personal Branding and Career Page HTDEnterprises.  The images above are some of my first attempts with planning out some content for SKF.  

SKF is a nonprofit and little is going on right now for events – the next planned event which is still in development is not until next year - sometime in February. So I am essentially just trying to build the brand knowledge and awareness of the page right now as I do my class projects.   

I am searching for content that is going to be interesting and hopefully engaging.  I have linked or “liked” and “featured” several pages such as the National (SADS) Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome Foundation Page and some other related nonprofits, which promote SADS education and raise funds for research. 

Before we were assigned this week’s lecture and assignments to learn how to use the Facebook Scheduling and Events tools (which are located at the top of your Facebook Business Page in a text box with the labels “Status,” ”Photo/Video,”  “Offer/Event+” -refer to Facebook Help).  I posted a link on SKF to an article for a related SADS story; about a teen collapsing recently on a football field, and I also posted a question I wrote out asking who ate healthy food today. At first I got little or no response.   For the question post I made there was no one but myself (through my personal page) who responded and answered the question I had posted. I was disappointed. For the article I linked - I paid Facebook $5.00 for a 24 hour “Boost” – to prospectively reach several thousand people with extended news feeds. 

According to the Facebook statistics 1,432 people saw the post; just ten of them actually saw it on my page.  There were eight (8) that engaged with the page. We received five (5) page likes, six (6) “liked” the article linked to the post, but only two (2) actually clicked the link to go and read it on a third party webpage.  

I also had placed some other linked article-posts which did dismally without any boosts over the past week or two.  So I am still struggling to find the content that can be engaging for my nonprofit. It is recommended we make our posts and content “dynamic” and varied”. I am kind of running out of ideas. I have read that women (a core target audience who has been doing the most engagement by my analysis with Facebook Insights) are more visually interested in pictures than men who prefer videos. So I am going to try to post more pictures or images for women in the future. I shared an image of a short epigram which spoke about a "Happy Heart" which has received several likes in just a few short hours. I will have to strategize with some more content like this. If you have any ideas of content for a Non Profit such as The Sabrina Keller Foundation Page please leave a blog comment.  I welcome your ideas.

With the next four SKF Posts illustrated above - I have scheduled them over the course of the next two days. I have tried to mix them up a bit - first with a question asking about the importance of genetic testing for SADS related diseases. I have that scheduled for two separate days at different times (Monday 6am & Tuesday 2pm). I am hoping to get existing fans to engage with the page more. Something the SKF page has received very little of in the past few years.  While the SKF director has posted content and events in the past, people have not engaged with them very much so far. We need to work on this.

I also have posted an Event (see above) – inviting people to come “LIKE” the new Sabrina Keller Foundation Page from on our older page - “The Sabrina Keller Scholarship Foundation” - which was set up first and actually has more Fans following that feed. We are trying to migrate our older fans to our newer page. According to the director this has been very challenging to do – the old page has over 400 “likes” - the new page has just over 150.  I have created an “Online Event” to get people excited about the newer page and come to comment on it. I used an eye catching photo with lots of balloons to attract some attention and hopefully spawn some actions. 

The second post pictured above (Scheduled for 10 am, Tuesday, Oct. 15) is to an article about living with SADS related diseases which is located on the National SADS Website.  The third post is for an embedded video that is about SADS - it is touching and emotional as well as educational – it is also short and to the point - lasting only about two minutes. I am hoping these scheduled posts bring our page some more engagement over this coming week.I will probably “Pin” (a way to keep an important post or picture at the top of your page/feeds) this video post to the top of the feed.   

The planning out for my SKF strategy is still a work in progress with trial and error sure to come - I need to come up with something more creative to engage my audience that is fun.  What do you think?    

Growing Your Business: Facebook Strategies Part I

This week with my Social Media for Business Class, we are continuing with our social media planning efforts, and have further developed our Facebook Business Pages. We have created a Facebook Page to match our business websites; with some comprehensive themes and matching colors; as well as using quality pictures that will convey a unified brand and business image.  We are now going to focus on developing some Facebook Marketing Strategies in order to increase our Consumer Reach, and to improve our Customer and Facebook Fan Engagement.   

As I had mentioned in an earlier blog, when we are using Facebook Insights for our marketing analysis – The Overall Total Reach for our Facebook Business Page is defined as “the number of unique people (fans and non-fans) who saw any activity on your page; including your posts, posts by other people, page like ads, mentions, and check-ins.” In contrast “Post Reach” is described as “the number of Unique Fans (people who have already liked your page), who saw your post, which has showed up in their personal news feed.”  

Engagement or Post Engagement is when anyone clicks on your page at all (fan or non-fans) – and makes an action with your page/posts (which is considered engagement) either through their liking, sharing or commenting.  

  
While getting a lot of “likes” for your page can indicate increased awareness of your business – when you get more “Fan Engagement” you have more opportunities to interact with your page visitors; especially through your business related posts, which show up in your Fans News Feeds. These posts will be seen further by their Facebook friends – creating virility – and giving your Business Page/Posts more reach out into the Facebook Community. 

One strategy a business owner can use to increase their Facebook Business Page Reach and Engagement; is to be regularly active and social with your page. It is good to be in the habit of making regular posts with content that is varied, interesting and related to your customer’s interests. You can promote products, events, or respond to a customer’s complaint or praises. Using Facebook to manage your customer service can potentially be very successful and popular with your customers, as well as it can free up your store employee’s time in your brick and mortar locations. 

This week our class assignment was to think about how to develop a Facebook Marketing Strategy. Using a Facebook tool called “Featured Likes,” for increased reach and engagement with our fans and non-fans. The strategy entails seeking out some of the other Businesses/Organizations or prominent thought leaders in our prospective industries (professional personal pages) located on Facebook; which are relevant or are a complement to our business and our brands.  These should be other Facebook Business Pages that our customers and prospective consumers might be interested in, and they may already be located there as Facebook fans. 

When we “like” or “comment” on these pages ourselves (as our business), we create a connection to the related business which shows up in our news feed, as well as the news feeds of the followers (Fans) of our page. By doing this we can monitor what these businesses are doing (posting), and comment on them when they are relevant. This provides us more exposure to the Facebook Community – and can create viral communication that spreads rapidly, and can potentially increase our reach or even more importantly our engagement – which can ultimately end up in increased sales and/or reaching our business goals.  

I have been developing two different Facebook marketing campaigns simultaneously as I have been doing these Facebook assignments. One with a nonprofit fundraising group called the Sabrina Keller Foundation, as well as my own personal brand career page – a business page I entitled “HTD Consulting.”  

For the Sabrina Keller Foundation I have used the Facebook “Featured Likes” strategy explained above, by connecting with seven related organizations that complement the Foundations cause – which is to educate, support, and inform the community about SADS – Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome. As well as provide educational scholarships for girls who are a part of the San Diego Girls Scouts Organization.  

The most obvious Facebook Business connection I could make with another related organization was with the National SADS Foundation – who promotes national education on the sudden heart-attack death syndrome.  They are often posting about upcoming funding events, as well as educational information about the syndrome, which our Sabrina Keller Foundation Fans might have some interests to read and engage.  

The second Facebook Page I liked and featured was the memorial page for Sabrina Keller – this is where a timeline/wall was created for her family, friends from school, and church; as well as members of the San Diego Girl Scouts, to eulogize and celebrate her short life, when she died in 2011 at the young age of 16. There are still some recent posts being made here, with some pictures of Sabrina and others, from what was her very large network of friends and family members.   

The third page I connected was with another nonprofit called “Parent Heart Watch” - the title is pretty self-explanatory - the goal is to reach out to parents who are dealing with heart related issues with their children. The fourth was Rady Children’s Hospital – I chose this page because Facebook fans here will be concerned with children and their health, as well as professionals like nurses or doctors could be present on this page, and other types of children's-medicine content will be streamed through the Facebook news feeds.   

The fifth page connected was with the Girl Scouts Organization, in order to reach out to the girls and their parents, to inform them about scholarships and awards, and to engage with them for Sabrina Keller Foundation support and volunteer opportunities. The sixth Facebook page was with the Westside Cafe – a local Restaurant that recently held a fundraising event at their eating establishment for the Foundation. This page was included in my featured likes in order to reach out to the owners of the cafe, show some good will, and show our appreciation for their help, by highlighting them for a while on our page.  The seventh business page connected was with a Facebook page called “HealthyEats.com” which promoted heart healthy foods and recipes – I thought this would be of interest to our fans who are concerned about eating for heart health. 

For my consulting and personal brand page “HTD Enterprises,” I am still working on ideas for my strategies for the Facebook Page connections I am seeking. My goal is to find Companies and HR Managers or Marketing Managers, who are looking for personnel for their company or marketing departments.  

So far I have connected with several related pages but I am still in the process of looking for the most appropriate ones for reaching my career goals.  The first one I connected was with the American Marketing Association (AMA), for pretty obvious reasons; if I want to reach out to some marketing managers - there probably going to be there. Their news feed will provide excellent opportunities for me to comment on or like the articles related to marketing management  – if I comment with some intelligence and link them to my online resume, I might just get lucky and see some results with a job offer. 

The second one I chose was a page called “Simply Measured” - it is a Facebook Page and Blog dedicated to Marketing Research and Statistics – another place I expect some marketing managers can be found online. I also have connected to several other marketing based pages which are mostly blogs about marketing strategies. I have a feeling these pages I have featured will be changed in the not so distant future, as I find pages more relevant to my career search. 

One important page  - I ”Liked” - was called “Red Door Interactive,” which is a Marketing Development Company located in downtown San Diego, that has often hired Cal State San Marcos Business Students. So I thought maybe they would be a good business to have relaying messages on my news feed also.

Facebook: Insights for Reaching and Engaging Your Target Market

Facebook is a digital monolith. It seems like you cannot surf the World-Wide-Web without seeing a Facebook icon on a computer screen somewhere. Do a quick search-query online for an important product or a business need, and you will most likely find a good business-website that will have a prominent link to a Facebook webpage. 

Like your Branded Business Webpage. Your Branded Facebook Page can act as a business card for your organization online. Digital Savvy People - your current and prospective customers - will expect it.  It also presents a way to stay connected to consumers, and to increase your Brand Reach and Engagement. 

With Facebook you can build a Customer Community - where you can create your own content and try to control the conversation; as well as follow your current customers or potential consumer’s comments and interactivities. Facebook calls this “Fan Engagement;” which is done by creating your own business pages and posts, as well as through your fans related page or post activities, including their own “post clicks” - “likes,” “shares,” and “comments.”  

Facebook has also become a great target marketing and advertising tool, and they are getting even better with an internal software tool called “Insights” - which provides a business owner a dashboard to analyze their Facebook Pages. Insights starts with a general analysis of your total fans who “liked” your page, and then moves on to other deeper metrics like “total people reached,” “post reach,” and “post engagement,” to name just a few. You can learn more about these analytical tools and metrics with Facebook Insights at the Facebook Help Section online.

Facebook Insights can provide your business a way to learn how to better serve your customers online as well as off, through monitoring your Facebook Fans activities and timelines; where you can see their conversations (posts, clicks, shares, and comments); which Facebook also calls “stories.”

Stories are generally the interactions that are going on between you - your page - and its visitors and their Facebook friends (fans and non-fans). They are spread to others through the virility of their timelines and comments to your posts, which then can be seen on other Facebook member pages or timelines throughout the Facebook community.  Essentially the more Fans you make who engage with your page or posts – the more viral your posts and engagement can be - to grow your Facebook business page and you brand awareness.  

 

It is important to know the difference between these metrics particularly with Total Reach, Post Reach and Post Engagement:

The Overall Total Reach for our Facebook Business Page is defined as “the number of unique people (fans and non-fans) who saw any activity on your page; including your posts, posts by other people, page like ads, mentions, and check-ins.” In contrast “Post Reach” is described as “the number of Unique Fans (people who have already liked your page), who saw your post, which has showed up in their personal news feed.”  

Whereas Engagement or Post Engagement is when anyone clicks on your page at all (fan or non-fans) – and makes an action with your page/posts (which is considered engagement) either through their liking, sharing or commenting.  

While getting a lot of “likes” for your page can indicate increased awareness of your business – when you get more “Fan Engagement” you have more opportunities to interact with your page visitors; especially through your business related posts, which show up in your Fans News Feeds. These posts will be seen further by their Facebook friends – creating virility – and giving your Business Page/Posts more reach out into the Facebook Community.