Treasured Links About Blogging and Nonprofit Blogging

Blogging

5 Types of Blog Content That Drive Engagement (Social Media Today)

50 Blog Ideas to Help You Keep Your Blog Fresh (Marluck Marketing)

Social Media: 23 Ways To Promote Your Blog (Heidi Cohen)

How To Get More Blog Traffic (Business 2 Community)

Blogging Tips A-Z: the Ultimate Guide (Business 2 Community)

What Painter Bob Ross Can Teach Us About Blogging (Business 2 Community)

The Secret to Creating Stellar Content Marketing (Heidi Cohen)

65 Metrics To Track Blog Success (Heidi Cohen)


Nonprofit Blogging

Should Your Nonprofit Start a Blog? – Benefits and Drawbacks (Wired Impact's Blog)

11 Blog Content Ideas for Nonprofits (Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog)

Quick Guide to Starting A Nonprofit Blog  (Nonprofit Bridge)

Four Things A Blog Can Do For Your Nonprofit (The Salsa Scoop)

7 Tips for Successful Nonprofit Blogging (Miratel Solutions)

Clairification's Series of Posts about Nonprofit Blogging



Image from tao_zhyn on Flickr

How Nonprofits Are Like Snowflakes

Nonprofit organizations are like snowflakes. There are many organizations that are trying to solve the same problems. But each organization is unique in their way of solving the problem. Just like snowflakes, no organization is the same.

One way for nonprofits to share how their organization is unique is by sharing their stories on the Internet.  Nonprofit Quarterly has some great web content ideas for nonprofits in their article titled "The Role of Hope in the Nonprofit Website".

Here are some ideas mentioned in the article -

• Showcase your past impact my sharing your past successes
• Share stories about individuals
• Share data
• Let community members tell their own stories

How Nonprofits Can Take Advantage of Their LinkedIn Page

While researching nonprofits on LinkedIn, I noticed that many organizations are not taking advantage of their LinkedIn page.

Nonprofits can upload their logo, add a header image, share news, and add products & services.  LinkedIn members can follow nonprofits to stay updated on their news and recommend their products & services.

I like how organizations (and companies) can add a thumbnail image for their products & services. The product or service has its own page on LinkedIn with a description and a link can be included to that product's page on the organization's website.

Examples of products & services listed:

• The American Red Cross lists donating blood and disaster relief as services. The disaster relief page has a link to their newsroom on their website.
• The American Cancer Society lists Relay for Life (which has 52 recommendations) and their blog as products. The Relay for Life page has a link to the Relay for Life website and the blog page has a link to their blog.

Listed below are links to LinkedIn pages for nonprofits that I think are great examples. These organizations have updated their pages with their logo and banner images. They have also listed products & services. Most of these organizations keep their followers updated by posting videos, photos, news updates, and links to their website.

American Red Cross

American Cancer Society

American Heart Association

National Kidney Foundation

Invisible Children Inc.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

The World Bank

Action Against Hunger | ACF-USA

The Nature Conservancy



Links for more information about LinkedIn pages:

HOW TO: Claim Your Nonprofit’s “Company Page” on LinkedIn (from Nonprofit Tech 2.0)

Company Pages - Frequently Asked Questions (from LinkedIn)

LinkedIn Offers Personalized Banner Image For Company Pages (from Business 2 Community)



What are your favorite nonprofit pages on LinkedIn?

Arts Organizations and Digital Technologies

Pew Internet released a report this month titled "Arts Organizations and Digital Technologies".

Here are some of the findings that I thought were interesting:

• The most common activities on arts organizations websites are content creation, sharing, and comments.  These activities include posting photos (94%), allowing users to share content (90%), streaming & posting video (81%), streaming or posting audio (57%) maintaining a blog (50%).
• The other major activity on websites is event promotion and management.  These activities include maintaining an online calendar (74%) and selling tickets online (72%).
• I was surprised to see that not many arts organizations have online exhibits (20%) and have educational/instructional content (22%) on their websites.
• The three social media platforms used the most are Facebook (99%), Twitter (74%), and YouTube (67%).
• The most common thing they do with social media is to engage with member before, during, or following an event (82%). The second most common thing is monitoring what people are saying about their organization (77%).

2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report

The 2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report was just released. Here are some of the findings:

• The three most important goals nonprofit communications strategies are acquiring new donors (57%), engaging our community (52%) and general brand awareness (45%). Creating website traffic was at 22% and building print or e-mail list was at 18%. 
• Websites, social media other than blogging, and email marketing are the most important tools. 
• The three most important social media sites are Facebook (94%), Twitter (62%), and YouTube (42%).
• Nonprofits are most likely to add or experiment with Pinterest this year.
• Nonprofits expect to spend the most time this year producing content for Email newsletter articles (52%), Facebook updates (49%), event marketing (38%), and website articles (36%).  Producing content for blog posts was at 20%,  Twitter updates was at 18%, and infographics was at 6%.
• The biggest challenge nonprofits expect to have is lack of time to produce quality content.