On Tuesday, TechSoup followed up the event with an online forum discussing Twitter, which I co-hosted with Marshall Kirkpatrick.

To top it all off, I held my first office hours for NTEN, which incidentally will re-occur every Tuesday from 3-4 pm EST here, if you’re interested in stopping by! In case you have other questions I might not cover, definitely check out the office hours schedule, there are some great folks volunteering their time!

Big thanks to everyone who participated in some or all of these events this week. It was great to have some friendly faces stop by, and awesome to make some new connections with folks dedicated to using social media for good. I am particularly amazed and inspired by organizations who are using both Twitter and Flickr for so many diverse things. I’ve even found my own self reevaluating my thoughts and strategies for these tools based on some of the great topics that were discussed.

In case you missed the Twitter forum, where the bulk of discussion took place, we chatted about:

• Whether to Tweet or Not to Tweet,
• How to Use Twitter to Market Your Organization,
• Whether Organizations Should Purchase a Company Cell Phone to use with Twitter,
• What Mix of Professional and Personal is appropriate?, and
• Twitter Downtime and it’s impact on users

Some great takeaways from the discussions are:

1. To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Survey says? Tweet! If your organization has the resources available and the audience need, chances are, Twitter might be a great choice for some of your communications needs. From using Twitter in the developing world to coordinate disaster relief to helping colleagues share knowledge across the world, Twitter is such an open and flexible platform, the possibilities are endless. As more third party applications integrate Twitter, I’m certain more applications of the tool will evolve. Regardless of the social media tools your organization uses, it will always be important to review your communications goals and whether your current choices are meeting those needs. You can’t expect your followers to move with you to every slick social networking tool that gets invented, but you do want to make sure your time and resources are well spent.
2. From advertising links to press releases, to asking for followers to support your cause, Twitter is a GREAT tool to market your organization. You can post these shout-outs to your organization manually to make a connection with your audience, or you can even use an RSS/Twitter tool like TwitterFeed to automatically send blog updates to your organization’s Twitter account.
3. Tweeters have personalities! Creating an “organizational” face for your Tweeting persona may be ultimately less successful than if your organization chooses a few individuals to speak on their behalf. For the most part, people agree that they like to know there’s a real person out there communicating with them, not a group of folks following predetermined guidelines acting as the voice of an organization. This strategy might not work in all cases, but a review of your audience and possibly some focus groups might be very telling about the direction your organization should choose.
4. Everyone has different opinions about what mix of professional and personal tweeting makes the best use of the tool, however, at the end of the day, most people agree that the lines are blurring quickly, and the lines between our professional and personal relationships are becoming seamless. At the end of the day its up to the individual to determine what their best use of the tool is, but it seems as though a little bit of both go a long way in building your Twitter karma and solidifying the “weak ties” you make in the Twitterverse.
5. Twitter has grown so quickly and as a result, the service has recently experienced a lot of downtime. Should you leave Twitter for FriendFeed or Plurk? Maybe, but Twitter still has the critical mass of users, and that counts for something. There are lots of financial and reputation-based incentives that Twitter has to get things back on track, so it could be worthwhile to be patient for now. In the meantime, TweetLater and Twiddict will help you post your tweets as soon as the service gets back on track.

Thanks again, and see you on Flickr and Twitter!

The folks at Kenneth Cole Awearness approached me several months ago, after viewing some of my Cambodian photography on Flickr. The photograph they chose to feature is one that means a great deal to me. It was taken during one of my first field visits to speak with women participating in our micro finance program and this woman’s particular story (and the image that was burned into my memory) kept me awake at night. Like so many other Cambodian women (and women globally), this grandmother has lost her daughter to HIV/AIDS and is now primary caregiver for several grandchildren. She is overburdened physically and financially and is trying to keep hope alive where there is virtually none. The work that Pact’s WORTH program was doing in Cambodia offered this woman possibility - a chance to lift herself out of poverty. I’d love to go back and find her to see if our work had an impact. I’m praying it did.

The Awearness blog is a great place to get inspiration on a daily basis. View my full Awearness blog posting here, and thanks again to Kenneth Cole!

OK, we’ve all equally enjoyed puttering around on Facebook, uploading images to Flickr and seeing how many comments we’d get, putting together photo books on Blurb, and building our own social networks in Ning, but now the initial “woah” has worn off (or there’s just too much damn stuff to keep track of) and it’s a good reminder to return to the business practices communications folks have been practicing for years: planning, frameworks, and process.

Web 2.0 applications don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re fun, definitely addictive, and continuously challenge us to look at what we do in new ways, but there is one thing they also consume of us - our time. We all know in the back of our heads that using these pieces of technology *should* have a purpose. Granted, I’m sure we’ve all thrown together a blog because the boss said so, or set up a Facebook presence because the folks at *that* campaign did it. The point is, getting the basics together upfront will pay off dearly in spades later on.

People in non profits have limited time and several hats. When you choose to do a blog outside of a larger technology framework, you’re committing some of your valuable resources to maintaining it, keeping those resources from something (maybe not even technology related) that could drive up your email numbers and/or increase your fundraising potential. I know I’ve caught myself time and time again, getting caught up in the excitement of the new challenge and the fancy GUI on that spiffy new Web 2.0 app, but patience grasshoppers. Patience and planning and a larger strategy framework will go a long way in not only your communications impact, but your ability to sustain and manage the technology initiatives you do pursue.

Other tech life-lessons I’m carrying in my palm pilot these days:

• Buy-in for new tech is critical, and it’s not easy to get (even though you’re already thoroughly convinced that what you want to do is the ONLY way you can get 5,000 new emails). Web 2.0 scares a lot of senior staff . ROI is fuzzy and fluid. We’re working in a black hole and there isn’t a lot we can actually promise in terms of results. Implementing technology processes to compensate for concrete ROI data can help, but at the end of the day, your senior management has to be willing to take chances, be flexible if your plan doesn’t initially work the way you hoped it would, and accept defeat (because it definitely can/will happen). Encouraging managers to become users and champions of the technology can go a long way. ~ Holy Ross, NTEN; Cassandra Koenen, IFAW; Lynn Labieniec of Beaconfire
• The new paradigm of marketing and reaching audiences is multi-dimensional (print, digital, synchronous, asynchronous, real-time, global, mobile, viral, *insert your adjective here*). I know it. You know it. But does your CEO know it, and better yet, is it identified in your communications plan? ~ Katya Andreson, Network for Good; Mark Rovner, Sea Change Strategies

• and two of my favorites from my new friend Rose Vines:
  • Invite interaction in your new media – give people an opportunity to take an action, hand the job over to your audience, ask a question after every post.
  • The way to gain the trust of your audience is to show that you give a damn

What were your favorite takeaways from the last few weeks of tech inspiration?

A few days ago TechSoup and Flickr sponsored an asynchronous chat discussion about the use of Flickr and photography in non profit organizations. Being an avid Flickrite myself, I popped on over there throughout the day and got involved in a lot of different discussions - from how to choose a camera to uploading photos and color profile integrity. I found that more often than not I had answers to questions instead of ones I wanted to ask.

In the process it occurred to me how I’ve developed a Flickr strategy over the past couple of years - much of which I can attribute to my photo obsession when I was living overseas. After Beth and a few others pointed out that the strategy behind my Flickr behavior could be beneficial to others in non-profits, it seemed only obvious that I mention some of my learnings in a blog post, so here goes:

1. Uploading - if you want your images to be seen by your Contacts (and the rest of the Flickr community), post only a few at a time. Only 4-5 images display on the Flickr homepage and on the Contact’s page, so the more you post, the less likely your audience will be able to find your best images (and messages!). So, even though every so often I upload 30 images at a time, I feel like it cheapens the Flickr experience and adds more clutter instead of focus.

2. Quality, not quantity - this builds on #1. Upload your best pictures in batches of 4s and spend more time on editing and building context around them. Use compelling titles, detailed descriptions, geotagging (if it’s safe to do so), and organize them in sets and collections. The more you share about the photo - personal anecdotes, how you photographed the image, how the image made you feel - the easier you can develop a connection with your audience. This helps change the Flickr experience from a one-way photo feed to a compelling conversation.

3. Timing *could* be everything - my Flickr pal Richard would disagree, but I’ve found that the time of day you upload your images has a direct correlation with how many people see your photo, potentially impacting your views, comments, and Interestingness. When I lived overseas I played around with timing a lot because I was hours ahead of most of my Flickr friends. The hours between 8 - 9 am EST worked the best for me, but it may have been dependent solely on my audience and their Flickr schedules. *note: I say all this now, but I’ve gotten far away from trying to “game” the system. When I lived away from friends and family I wanted their feedback as a way of keeping in touch. Nowadays when I want to upload an image, I upload it. I don’t wait until the “right time.”

4. Want to make sure that one photo and message is seen? - Upload that image and nothing else. Don’t distract your audience with unnecessary clutter. There are millions of amazing images out there, so your image needs to capture their attention at first glance. If your Contacts return to your stream and you’ve added many other photos, it’s unlikely they’ll see the image you want them to. Send the image to relevant groups, cross-reference it in blogs, and feature it on your website.

5. You’re not the only one with interesting photos - Flickr is really about community. Jumping in on the Flickr bandwagon just to engage in your latest campaign, will likely be seen as a marketing ploy (because it is). Having a presence on Flickr and making the most of it involves nurturing your relationships with people.

6. Get involved - Explore what other neat stuff folks are doing, and build community knowledge in forums. Some great places to start are:

• Utata - a Flickr community that has evolved into so much more
• The Flickr group for the type of camera you use
• The Flickr group for your geographic community
• Start your OWN Flickr group

Incidentally, I thought there might be an NPTech community group out there, but there isn’t. Maybe it’s time for me to start one….

7. Color Profiles - so I’m really not sure I understand this yet (or if I’ll ever understand how to work around it), but it’s important to mention that photos look different in different browsers. Safari is great because it maintains color profiling of images, while FireFox tends to scrape away all the saturation and oomf of your image, depending on how you process it.

Here’s an example of the differences:

If you’re a perfectionist like me, you won’t like that your image appearance is inconsistent, and you’ll continue to seek out ways to manage this. Here’s what I’ve founds so far:

• Use color calibration software with your monitor so what you see is really what you get.
• Process your images using an sRGB color profile instead of Adobe’s format.
• Read about gamut and ICC profiles here and how to calibrate your monitor with this in mind here - Macs and PCs have different monitor calibration resulting in different tones
• The Mac version of Firefox does a worse job than the PC version of Firefox, but that also seems to be directly related to the quality of the monitor and how it amplifies Firefox’s shortcomings
• Great article on web browser color management here

On the trolley with Rose, Amy, and Laura

I’m still behind on my personal wrap-up of NTC ‘08, but work keeps getting in the way and I’m trying to make sure I don’t forget the big lessons I learned with all you awesome folks down in NOLA. The personal impressions and friendships aren’t going to fade anytime soon, and will be waiting when I have a breath of fresh air.

The following is a summary of my favorite takeaways. The list may seem long, and some items may seem more elementary than others, but I think all have significant value in the success of an organization’s online strategy.

Google Analytics, Know your website, one hour a day

• Never let your data be lonely. Pair up your data with other data.
• Industry benchmarks - when you choose to share your data with the rest of the world, you get to see their data too.
• Goal Conversion tab - segmentation. How well does direct traffic do with “goals” we’ve set.
• Bounce isn’t always bad. If you’re a blog, they read 10 posts and leave. If bounce rate is 100%, you have to take it in context.
• Setup Google Analytics filters to follow the analytics of paths you want your users to take.

For more summaries of Google Adwords, SEO, the new paradigm of marketing, and the joy of CMS, please keep reading :).

Intro to Google Adwords

• Search Marketing is efficient in terms of cost.
  • Direct mail - $70
  • $8.5 for a direct search
  • 10x less expensive than most other mediums
• Concept is getting in front of the right customer, at the right time, with the right message
• Ads on right - ranked off a combination of relevance and how much you’re willing to pay.
• Relevance is key and KING.
• Keywords need to be directly linked to ad text, so it’s better targeted and creates better ROI.
• Very few people go to the 2nd and 3rd pages of organic results on google
• No more than 10 words per keyword phrase. Most people search between 2-5 words.
• Relevant keywords accurately reflect products/services being offered, match what your audience is looking for, and target the audience without being too general
• Rank = quality score * maximum CPC

From Techie to Leader

• The NMA ( Leadership Model
  • Set direction - envision the future, share vision,
  • Demonstrate Personal Character - foster relationships
  • Engender organizational capability
• Understand strategic technology planning - too often the answer is no, orgs don’t consider tech.
• Develop a vision - align Technology with mission and business goals
• Build the team- benefits of buy-in from all levels.
• Communication - build internal enthusiasm.
• Role Model - continue to provide thought leadership in the organization

The Seven Things Everyone Wants

• People care about how an “ask” makes them feel
• Marketing is a lot different than it used to be. We’re at a crossroads. Traditional folks are nervous. A new “tabula rasa” - reinventing new marketing for a new era. Time to “write on the wall”. Traditional marketing no longer works.
• People want to be Seen and Heard - for their voice to matter, to be part of the conversation, and to “own” the cause an speak on its behalf
  • Does your homepage make your audience feel heard?
  • Real listening means giving up control of the final words (e.g. blogs)
• To be CONNECTED to someone or something
  • Authenticity is key piece to true connection
  • People don’t build experiences around the brand anymore, they build experiences around REAL.
  • The messenger - and their authenticity - is key to success in connecting.
• As we get more cynical of marketing, people are starved for a message of trust.
• 70% of givers say they are most inspired by friends and family. Most do something because a close friend asked.
• Most people stop giving money to organizations because they were treated like an ATM.
• Coalitions of organizations working for the same cause is more compelling.
• Important to have a product that doesn’t suck. If it’s not happening already, soon donors will be sharing their experiences with charities much more intimately.
• If someone gives to an organization, they are likely to give to 7 other organizations too.

Change of mindset for humanity. Marking once feared and now there is a critical need for authenticity and need for hopeful future, shift to goodness and humanity.

Search Engine Optimization

• The search engines have a direct interest in making sure you are NOT at the top unless you belong there.
• The google toolbar for SEO: toolbar shows PageRank plus more useful SEO info. Sites’ back-links, cache, etc.
• Make sure all content is readable by search engines. Text must be in spider-friendly readable formats: HTML, PDFS (properly formatted), Word documents, PPT files, Text files/RTF
• If content is embedded in an image, it can’t be seen by the search engine.
• Content search engines can’t read: images, graphics, animations, fancy flash movies, javascript DHTML content, dynamic content and media (AJAX, iFrames)
• Use an inverted pyramid style when you write: Start with the meatiest part of the story…
• How to make your site SEO friendly:
  • No javascript, flash or pull-down form navigation unless mirrored in text
  • navigational breadcrumbs and sitemap links
  • text link navigation
  • good url formation - no session IDs
  • Unique title tags, some other meta control
• Links from trusted, reputable sites will generally improve ranking

The Joy of CMS

• Have content owners migrate the content so they can identify things that are out of date. Use it as a training exercise.
• Use a tool like delicious to tag areas of content and archive them that way. Then you have them in a format where you can analyze all of it in one place and move forward.
• Develop a quickstart guide, one page long, to teach new users how to work in the CMS
• Educate your staff on how people should be writing for the web and what the differences are. Sub-heads, bullets, smaller snippets. Make sure to pick a good title for SEO!!
• For RSS, pipe the entire article. Don’t grab the first 40 words and make it your title and the way that content is indexed.
• Content often overlooked in CMS migration: Transitional, instructional information explaining how to get to content.
• When does it make sense to put content in CMS and to use third party applications? Days of control are long over. Encourage users to develop their own content in 3rd party apps and they can further your mission. Don’t get in the way of this potential, the way of the new world.
• Workflow best practices: attach rights to “groups” instead of individual users.
• Don’t overthink your workflow - 1-2 people process

I plan to do a full round-up of the entire first day of 08NTC (long overdue), but in the meantime, please enjoy some of the images I’ve posted on Flickr from the Day of Service.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the day of service, and thank you New Orleans for giving us an opportunity to learn a little bit of your story and provide support in your rebuilding efforts!

The success of content management isn’t based on what product you use, but how you implement it.

What is CMS?
Something you use to update a website. Useful because it aloows you to give non technical people the ability to more easily update content. It should be decentralized.

Does my organization need a CMS?
Not always, but when you have a lot of content and have a desire to spread responsibility, it makes sense.

What product features does a CMS provide? What features does it not include?
Good to know beforehand what you plan to do with it beforehand.

Implementation options

• Hosted, ASP model, lease
• Installed, commercial product (buy)
• Installed, open source (buy) - open source are particularly strong in CMS. This does not mean free. You’ll have to pay for customization and support. Implementation partners are just as important as software choice.

How much should I budget?
All over the map. Many people use a blog as a CMS. If you go with the major open source softwares, you won’t have a problem finding support.

Vendor quality is important regardless - on a short-term and long-term basis.

Planning
Who will install?

• in-house team
• existing vendor you trust
• new vendor (who specializes in CMS?)

How will I migrate existing content?
If anyone tells you it’s going to be easy, they are probably lying. Everyone has to do it. Recommendation if you are doing a complete redesign and changing the structure of your content (going to a more customer centric), automating that switch is hard to do because the nature of the changes you’re making are so dramatic, automation is not effective. If you make a huge change, you’ll likely have to re-write most of your content. Migrate some old and over time, remove what doesn’t make sense.

Use it as a training exercise. Get trained, lock a team into a conference room and use the content as training practice. Then people will be able to go off on their own.

Some times you need brute force - employ temps and interns.

For most of the content, you want the content owners to help with the migration so they can identify things that are out of date. Editing content as you go, lengthens the process.

Planning can be a huge job in itself. Use a tool like delicious to tag areas of content and archive them that way. Then you have them in a format where you can analyze all of it in one place and move forward.

*Turn off workflow during content migration!!

*Goal to get the IT person out of the workflow.

Who will update web content?

• creative/design team
• marketing/communications
• IT/Technical
• subject matter experts
• volunteers

Always keep in mind the folks who will be updating it. It should be more than just the technical folks. The culture in the organization might need to change, and you have to be open to that.

CMS can be used to re-use content too.

Training and Support

Who should manage the CMS?
Usually lives in the marketing/communications department. Collaboration for the content to be managed by the comm people and IT to back up the infrastructure. Often pre-requisites. Distributed authoring takes some time to get to. Create an internet department and folks can be peers within their own groups - becomes much more critical when you roll-out a CMS. Encourage people to look at creation dates of content in order to know when new content needs to be developed.

Need to consider how much training will be needed for our staff to use CMS?
Develop a quickstart guide, one page long. Monthly webinar training sessions.

Managing web content

If you are updating content frequently, make sure content is not embedded in Flash, images, etc.

Preparing and Editing Content

*Whatever CMS you pick, you need to figure out its “quirks” and drink the Kool-aid the faster you’ll be able to refine your process.

• Can I rely on WYSIWYG or will I need programming help?
• How does writing for the web differ from writing for other communications media? You need to educate your staff on how people should be writing for the web and what the differences are. Sub-heads, bullets, smaller snippets. Make sure pick a good title for SEO!! For RSS, pipe the entire article. Don’t grab the first 40 words and make it your title and the way that content is indexed. Think about short attention spans. If people can’t find your content, you may need to redesign. Good book: Web style guide.com, Jakob Nielson (useit.com).
• What sort of skills are needed to be a content contributor? For workflow, look at structures already in the organization (like enewsletter). Develop policies and procedures for educating people about what is good, implement review process too.
• When preparing content to load to a new CMS, how should we organize it?
• What sort of content is often overlooked when preparing for a new CMS?

Workflow

• How often should web content be reviewed/updated?
• Who will need to approve it before it goes live?
• How should I setup rights to use our CMS?

Types of content that are often overlooked

• Flash, image files, etc - can your CMS handle these?
• Transitional, instructional information explaining how to get to content. Especially when making copy decks you can’t see the way that content physically lives and if it makes sense.
• Copy that goes into emails
• Lots of data in tables and charts

*Strategic advantage to keep web 2.0 off your website

• Slideshare.net
• graphwise
• dabbledb
• gliffy - google docs for Visio

Web 2.0 conundrum

• When does it make sense to put content in CMS and to use third party? Days of control are long over. Encourage users to develop their own content in 3rd party apps and they can further your mission. Don’t get in the way of this potential, the way of the new world.

• Open source does better at incorporating web 2.0

Workflow

• Make sure correct people have rights to right pages, especially in the case of turnover.
• Benefit of attaching page rights to groups instead of individual users
• Make sure workflow owner has time and interest in approving pages so they push things through efficiently but there is a review process in place
• Name each user individually
• Don’t overthink your workflow - 1-2 people process

System should have updates once or twice a year.

Are you Geeky? SEO isn’t really very geeky, but a bit of understanding of HTML is helpful.

Who is your target audience?
Your target audience for your site and your SEM efforts may extend beyond the obvious:

• donors
• volunteers
• the press and analysts
• foundations
• government orgs
• non-profit rating orgs
• employees
• potential employees

*Consider the needs and behaviors of all important constituents.

Search, a psychic mailman: search engine marketing is like direct marketing with a psychic mailman

• keywords are like mailing lists - scarce, valuable
• search listings or ads are like the envelope
• your web site and the material are inside the envelope
• messages hit the searcher at the perfect time
• the searcher is thirsty for info, leaning forward and open to information
• search fulfills needs of the searcher

Top organic position is the goal. Being at the top drives more magnitude.

The search engines number one priority is relevance, part Google.

Keep your hand up if you truly believe that you are the most relevant of all possible results for your boss’s keywords?

There lies the SEO quandary. The search engines have a direct interest in making sure you are NOT at the top unless you belong there. Trick is to find where you truly ARE the most relevant, what you’re an authority in. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Don’t expect to be in the top position if you don’t belong there. Too much brainpower deployed against you being there.

Can you give yourself a little edge when your competition does an inferior job at SEO, yes….

SEO is not a game

Content is key. Organic search results appear based on a search engine visiting your site. Alternatively your site may be included in the results partially…

Defining success in organic SEO

Don’t go crazy trying to track and manage organic search position across specific keywords. Instead, get your great content as search engine friendly as possible. you’ll get more traffic and if your content is targeted so-too will be your traffic. High quality traffic drives:

• donations
• Registrations and Volunteerism
• Large number of page views (sticky visitors)
• Longer time on site (minutes spent interacting and reading
• Interaction with the site (commenting, blogging)

Success depends on:

1. how many other sites are seeking to get organic or paid traffic on a similar keyword set and content
2. how many sites have similar or identical content with better “reputations”
3. magnitude of resources (human capital, PR and other capital) which those sites are putting into organic SEO
4. your level of SEO investment and execution
5. Changes in the algorithms
6. Whether your supporter assets can be fully leveraged.

How hard should you fight? Ironically for organic SEO, the worse your site is now, the higher ROI you’ll get on SEO investments

Sites with poor SEO normally have some easy fixes:

If you are the most relevant and not there: fix what’s wrong. Search engine spiders:

1. Find good content
2. Identify that content and separate it from extraneous information
3. Grade the content for clarity
4. Extract the essence of the content
5. Assign the content a source reputation score

Google webmaster central is a great resource: www.google.com/technology

The google toolbar for SEO: toolbar shows PageRank plus more useful SEO info. Sites’ back-links, cache, etc.

Make sure all content is readable by search engines. Text must be in spider-friendly readable formats:

1. HTML
2. PDFS (properly formatted)
3. Word documents
4. PPT files
5. Text files/RTF
6. A few other selected file styles

If content is embedded in an image, it can’t be seen by the search engine. Any kind of animated graphics. Comments are generally downplayed or ignored. Alt tags are recommended. But limits to what you can put in an alt tag.

Content search engines can’t read:

1. Images (only knows name and alt tag)
2. graphics
3. animations
4. fancy flash movies
5. javascript DHTML content
6. dynamic content and media (AJAX, iFrames)

The search engine can’t even tell when you have navigational element that is an image what that image actually looks like to the surfer.

If you’re trying to rank well for what you’re good at, you shouldn’t need tricks. Tricks usually come back to bite you in the bud.

Back to basics for optimal site-side SEO: SEO is about going back to basics for textual content so that the engines get what they need.

• simple
• compelling
• descriptive
• clear
• complete

Many old websites do particularly well for SEO because the developers had to rely on text and copy.

Inverted pyramid style for copy

Writing for publication in newspapers or magazines or for press releases uses a a concept called the inverted pyramid style. Start with the meatiest part of the story, even the story’s conclusion, and then support that conclusion or the essence of the story with more facts or emotional copy.

Each page of your site has a concept that describes that page, as well as how that page fits into your site. Keep that core concept in mind when writing the copy for the page.

The CMS: many of you don’t have control over your CMS. You work with a web vendor and that’s what you get. Consider a blog like the free Wordpress software if you can’t make your CMS spider friendly.

How to make your site SEO friendly:

• No javascript, flash or pull-down form navigation unless mirrored in text
• navigational breadcrumbs and sitemap links
• text link navigation
• good url formation - no session IDs
• Unique title tags, some other meta control

The almighty anchor tag

Search engine spiders have moved toward weighing external variables when determining relevance. The most important concepts to understand are. Links from trusted, reputable sites will generally improve ranking (Yahoo, DMOZ.org). An anchor link is one that includes the keyword or phrase as the underlined portion. Most engines consider the words or concepts in anchors when determining relevance. It’s quantity but more importantly quality of links.

Seen as a “vote” for you. That webmaster is essentially voting for you as worthy.

Reciprocal linking isn’t good. Good to have partners link back to you - transmitting page rank when there is linkages. But reciprocal linking dampens that “juice”

Put the human first, and think about how else it could be better for search engines.

Communities exist online. For every industry or topic, communities.

Don’t want to be part of a link farm, especially as a non-profit. Build your links with online PR and leverage your support base. Leverage bloggers, volunteers who have sites of their own. Think about supporting foundations. Optimize your press releases. Think about your partner organizations. Mobilize the forces at your disposal.

If you are using a link directory (gradschools.com), check links to make sure they are going to directly to your site and not internal redirects to just count clicks.

SEO status research, how am i doing?

google: site:www.yourdomain.com

yahoo: site:www.yourdomain.com

MSN/Live: site:www.yourdomain.com

This can be done with a keyword:

Remember Search is rarely spontaneous

Consumers search because they:

1. saw media/advertising
2. read or heard something in the news or magazines, potentially PR-driven
3. word of mouth conversations (online or off)
4. Online surfing stimultes a search (content, blogs, etc)
5. Interacted with an offline mar-com (mailing , event)

Questions

Be specific in your newsletter when you talk to your constituents about where they might be able to help. Make it a call to action. Give by placing our badge on your site (that is SEO friendly). Reach out to partners and big company websites within your ecosystem. Try to avoid backlinks.

Conclusion

Stay educated on best practices

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Copies of ppt? kevin[at]didit.com

“If it takes a village to raise a child, what’s it going to take to raise a village?”

Renaissance in New Orleans. 25 feet of water in 23 minutes. Imagine that? Like Dorothy’s home in the Wizard of Oz.

Amazing resurgence where people are bringing their passions to the forefront for the first time in years. YURPES - young urban rebuilding professionals. Imagine this renaissance will feed up as volunteers return to their communities and churches after they get back. No profits are working out of the trunks of their cars.

People don’t say the word “Katrina” anymore. They talk about it as the “storm” or the “thing”.

LouisianaRebuilds.info

Provides good, real-time info online to speak to the audience that is back in town (how to rebuild home, utilities, how to find groceries and doctors. Helps people reconstruct their lives. Also speaks to displaced folks trying to get information and/or coming back and trying to find resources to do that.

Website went live in March 2006 (8mo later). Wanted to make information easy to see and read. Huge literacy problem in LA. Information is written at a 7th grade reading level. All information is accessible in 2-3 clicks maximum.

At an interesting place in the recovery. Traffic has begun to taper off on the website. High point was 20k visitors a week. Now visitor rates are at 10k a week. At a point in the recovery where people made up their minds whether they were coming back to New Orleans or not. Sign-up rates for the newsletter have increased. Website as a whole has become a driving force in providing information.

Now in the process of working with a foundation to find out how the website entity came to be, in order to inform other foundations and agencies on lessons learned, and how this can be replicated. Government agencies had to step outside the bureaucracy and do what was needed in new ways. Strong personality challenges between state and city governments, but folks realized that the community had to be put first and were able to get past that.

Texting has tremendous power in an emergency situation.

When was the last time you saw, heard or read something from a good cause (not your own!) that prompted you to donate or act?

Why did you do it? Why did you hear about it? What was the compelling message that caused you to act?

• Green the 9th ward - friend involved in project and the story compelled her to give.
• $$$ to Obama — registered for campaign, email asked for money and gave. Wanted to be involved in some way
• $$$ to Obama — heard Barack speak in a way that she never heard any other politician speak to the public
• JFK center — see the growth and the passion in the people involved. Impact.
• Pet rescue - - was connected as volunteer, a specific ask
• Helped a Friend running for Congress; encouraged friends to donate too.
• Fund for daughter of friend’s brother who died
• Give and help (SVP) — dress for success - “passion, satisfaction of bringing new skills”.
• AIDS clinic in Malawi
• Fire — impromptu fundraiser — reach a goal to HELP FRIEND

Common denominator - personal, specific and tangible, specific goal, compelling story, connection on an emotional level (how the action you took effects you on an emotional level and how it effects the people involved in the cause).

Need to remember how it’s like to be on the receiving end. People aren’t giving because of a very cool “tool”. That’s not what matters, it’s how the ask made you feel and what action is asked.

Why are we here?

Marketing is a lot different than it used to be. We’re at a crossroads. Traditional folks are nervous. A new “tabula rasa” - reinventing new marketing for a new era. Time to “write on the wall”. Traditional marketing no longer works.

Is there a new approach to marketing and communications that might be more suitable for the times. Time to pull back from the technology and determine what we’re doing here. We’ve seen that marketing fear works (Bush), but what we’re seeing is the inevitable response from that. If that’s the dark side of the forest, we’re looking to articulate the lighter side.

Identifying deep human needs beyond Maslow’s hierarchy. This is just the beginning of the conversation. Seven human needs to start us off.

The tools that work well, work well because they have caught the right audience. the tools that don’t work, don’t connect with the audience. What is our audience and what do they really want? And how can we use these to motivate people?

1. To be SEEN and HEARD
2. To be CONNECTED to someone or something
3. To be part of something GREATER THAN THEMSELVES
4. To have HOPE for the future
5. The security of TRUST
6. To be of SERVICE
7. To want HAPPINESS for self and others

1. To be SEEN and HEARD: Fundamental human needs. (web 2.0 is people wanting to be seen, heard and connected to each other). This is why Facebook has had such success. You can use technology to acknowledge these desires and LISTEN to this.

Not listening to each other is the root of all our problems. Creates problems in our relationships and customer service. And creates problems in how we go about online outreach.

Example: Teen Health Talk.org

Teenage girls spend their time talking and connecting. Site makes their audience feel heard.

Does your homepage make your audience feel heard? People don’t want to read your mission statement.

• March for women’s lives - post a message to be their virtually
• JDRF - kids’ site - pen pals
• Oxfam - photo petitions through Flickr: holding a message of the campaign. Staff video on Darfur.
• Meg - health care reform outreach to workers doing enrollments; created blog where people can comment; talking to each other and policymakers listening
• EDF new patriotism

Real listening means giving up control of the final words
This is key and you need to actually ‘listen’

To persuade, shut up. listen to be heard. see to be seen.

2. To be CONNECTED to someone or something

Reacting to what you hear and connecting to that. Authenticity is key piece to true connection. It matters the topics that we connect around.

Example:

• Beliefnet and prayer circles. Story about child with Leukemia. People sharing their prayers from every imaginable religion. Amazing example of giving people an ability to see and a way to connect.
• March of Dimes - mothers with kids that have been in the NICU - have an opportunity to share their stories. Opportunity to connect.

Your Stories - both true connections and fake connections (everyone is talking about sharing stories now, the story needs to be true, authentic, and compelling:

Faux-Thentic

• Wal-Mart
• Target

REAL

• Care page for someone who died
• NRDC - faces of a movement
• Cause page - Ocean Conservancy. Allow members to push what they want to talk about.

Commercial Facebook pages have failed drastically. Fauxthentic doesn’t play. The nice thing about this new paradigm because it gets outed. And people don’t build experiences around the brand anymore, they build experiences around REAL.

The messenger - and their authenticity - is key to success in connecting. Authenticity can come from any source - it just has to be done right.

Engage people by connecting to what they (not you!) care about.

3. To be part of something GREATER THAN THEMSELVES

Example: Moveon.org and BarackObama.org,

18seconds.org - call to action - change a bulb, change everything. You can see the larger vision. How what you’re doing is part of a greater hole, and when you do that, a nice thing happens with the momentum and the bigger vision - human consensus theory.

You’re not alone in the fox hole. Need to be part of something bigger. Communicate the Vision. Even widgets look better at 30,000 feet.

4. To have HOPE for the future

We pay huge lip service to hope for the future. Sometimes we fall away from the recognition that hope is more powerful than doom and gloom.

Bad Example: Ad Council Don’t Almost Give Campaign

3600 views on YouTube - paid thousands and thousands of money for this and response is all negative.

Good Example: Earth: The Sequel (EDF)

People are ready for a different kind of message!

Your Stories

• NOLA AIDS Task Force - actions embody a different kind of future
• Doom and gloom didn’t work: smokers aversion. Close cousin of doom and gloom is finger wagging and it’s very ineffective
• SPLC mi it up - sit at a different lunch table
• Gautemala/Haiti - only org with a hopeful story about Haiti

Ix-nay on the apocalypse; focus on hope!

5. The Security of Trust

As we get more cynical of marketing, people are starved for a message of trust. Take a negative and turn it into a positive.

Be an authentic voice and leverage fans and work through their networks

70% of givers say they are most inspired by friends and family. Most do something because a close friend asked.

Example: www.ipch.org/kids/english/index.html. Looks like Club Penguin, prepares kids for what hospital stay is like. Kids in hospital talk about their experiences.

The Geography of Bliss - world DB of happiness and what unifies. Mutual trust is key!

Your stories

• Todd - Leukemia. In 3 days registered 1,000 people for blood drive. Now youth ambassador.

Get Real! Authenticity is everything.

6. Be of Service

We all have a deep impulse to be of service.

Most people stop giving money to organizations because they were treated like an ATM. People want other ways to support your organization besides just donating money.

Bless me to usefulness!

7. To want happiness for self and others

Coalitions of organizations working for the same cause is more compelling.

The more you wish happiness for otherse, the better off we all are.

Example: Where in the hell is Matt?

Important to have a product that doesn’t suck. Charity Navigator now takes comments from donors. If it’s not happening already, soon donors will be sharing their experiences with charities much more intimately. Must be authentic and have your donor trust you in order to come out looking good.

If someone gives to an organization, they are likely to give to 7 other organizations too. Partnerships with groups of orgs are great to keep these donations in the “family”.

People want an opportunity to live out values and have their values reassured. Have your mission statement speak to this.

Humor is more than just snark, it’s ability to see the lightness.

People want to hear “yes”.

Change of mindset for humanity. Marking once feared and now there is a critical need for authenticity and need for hopeful future, shift to goodness and humanity.

Online networks are providing more opportunities for people to meet face-to-face and turn passion into action.

All good things begin with a quiet mind.