Adventures in the Social Universe

Discovering Ways for Nonprofits to Thrive Online


So, it's been about two months since I left my job at New Hampshire Public Radio as the Senior Director of Marketing and Development to join Aleuromedia and immerse myself in social media and online marketing. I'm absolutely loving working for myself, and having a blast meeting and talking with nonprofit professionals and business leaders looking to put social networking to use at their organizations. So much fun and so much more to learn!

I've been thinking a lot about the things I want to explore with you in this blog... And when it comes right down to it, I want to discuss everything I'm learning as I become more and more obsessed with and excited about interactive media and the evolving online Universe.

Yes, obsessed and excited are strong words - but hey - I'm a superlative sort of person. I really do feel like an adventurer... learning and discovering new things each and every day. The really cool part is I see so many ways in which nonprofits can use the things I'm learning about to thrive, both online and off.

Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, Social Actions, delicious, Digg, Flickr, blogging... they all allow you and more importantly your constituents to tell your organization's story in incredibly dynamic and vibrant ways.

Think of my space within this blog as a travelogue through the social universe, exploring successful online communities and why they work, finding the best nonprofit social and online straetgies and tools, discussing how you can delve into this world efficiently, and have fun doing it at the same time.

What questions do you have? What worries you? What excites you? What confuses you? Let me know and if I don't have answers - you can bet I'll find them for you! I'm having the time of my life connecting nonprofits with the social universe... lucky me!

You can contact me here, on Twitter, through Facebook, through LinkedIn, or email me at tara@aleurosolutions.com.

I'd love to hear from you any time!

Off to distant online lands...
Tara Mahady
*********
TMahady

Splash into social media...

You know how you have these voices in your head sometimes - waging war over what you should or shouldn’t do?  Well, mine have been vacillating between "Jump!" and "Don't Jump!" for over three years.

Why? As the daughter of a political-junkie-turned-judge father I was bred for fundraising. Memories of my first house party reach back to when I was five years old. I remember passing out drinks and holding a candidate for U.S. Senate’s hand as he spun his pitch.  I’ve been stuffing envelopes since earliest memory - either for my Mom’s run for school board, or for her latest favorite cause.  My father’s mantra - ‘you have a moral obligation to give back to society what society cannot give to itself.’

I’ve lived by that code. I started working for a non-profit at eighteen and haven’t looked back.  Twenty years of fundraising and marketing for some of the best organizations and brightest non-profit visionaries in New England provide me with a wealth of experience of which I’m proud.  I’m passionate about mission-driven work and always will be...

But there’s always been this little voice... ‘Make something of your own.’ For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to ‘do my own thing’... have my own business. I’ve just been too afraid.  What if my idea isn’t good enough? What if I’m not ready?  Do I have enough knowledge?  And, I knew that whatever I wanted to create for a business would have to be intimately tied to the non-profit sector.  I just never knew where to start - and I didn’t know where the ‘sweet spot’ was.  

That is, until my friend Kelley-Sue started AleuroMedia.  A full-service interactive media marketing and development firm, Aleuro focuses on helping start-ups, established businesses, and non-profits leverage online and Web 2.0 tools to create and nurture community, strengthen constituent loyalty, and help make or raise more money.  At the beginning Kelley hinted that I might have something to contribute to this venture, but I was too afraid.  Afraid of the things all potential entrepreneurs are afraid of at one point or another.  The people who evolve into entrepreneurs are the ones who put the fear behind them and forge ahead.

I've decided that sometimes you just have to jump. Take the leap into a world that intuitively or otherwise, you know awaits your presence and participation (heed a calling so to speak). For me this manifested in my recent resignation from my full-time job as the Senior Director for Marketing and Development at New Hampshire Public Radio to 'do my own thing.'  I’ve joined Kelley-Sue as a partner in Aleuro. Yes - now. Yes - in this economy.  

What gives me the confidence to jump into an entrepreneurial endeavor today? I have a vision. I believe in the power of social networking to help non-profits and start-up businesses. And I believe that the time for organizations to truly embrace social media is now.  To succeed you need a community of loyal supporters.  Social media will support you in that work - especially in times like these.  Now I combine my fundraising and marketing background with my passion for social media. It’s a primary focus that allows me to help you acquire new supporters, build loyalty with your current stakeholders, and ultimately raise more money for the work you do.

If you haven’t jumped into the ocean of social media yet - hold your nose and take my hand.  The waves may be a bit choppy, but the water’s really just fine...

Great summary from Brogan's guest blogger

I've been buried lately and so I apologize for the lack of Aleuro blog activity. It's exciting times at Aleuromedia. We've expanded our services from Visual Comm and Web work to include more business strategy and planning for start-ups and nonprofits.  

I've had the great pleasure to work with Kristi Scarpone of Scarpone Associates teaching her class at UNH about Social Media for Nonprofits and Social Networking for professionals. You can see the slide shows on SlideShare.

I've been working all day and decided to check in on my Twitter feed a bit ago where I read a post from Chris Brogan's guest blogger,  Teresa Wu.  I loved it! Of course I commented. 

If your at all interested in Gen-Y, or the effects of web 2.0 technologies you'll want to take five minutes and read it through.

Screencasts to social networks and fundraising.

I LOVE the internet!

Kenny ran into this great article on the Non-Profit Times about screencasting. The author Beth Kantor did a great job of going "101" on the topic. It was very cool timing because I've been working with some non-profits and non-profit solution providers to give them insight about New Media and Social Networking. Helping these organization understand what social technologies can mean to fundraising, event, and constituent management, for example using Facebook to work a community based event, or using Inner Circle to connect and stay abreast of what your donors are doing.

Well I liked Beth writing enough that I went to her blog and found that she is infact managing a fundraising campaign for Leng Sopharath. Beth is using Facebook, flickr, ChipIn and her blog, among many other social technologies to coordinate and communicate her fundraising efforts and mission. Kudos Beth! The name of Beth's blog is "How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media", you should check it out.

"How is this relevant to me?"...

Shortly after my last post I received some feedback from a software business owner. He still didn't get how the video "thing" was relevant to his business, outside of say executive presentations. We'd talked previously about screencasts but it had always appeared to this person that they were things to be used after a release as a marketing tool. I guess I never really explained it, it just makes so much sense to me that I figured it was obvious. My bad. Let's start from the top.

When I was actively leading a development team, we worked in a modified agile, product centric way. That means we worked with QA, Doc, ET AL, early; even in design. We delivered work product in quick measurable iterations. The "keeping everyone in the loop thing" works so much better when the loop is manageable. So we bit off bite pieces and cycled through, gaining education and information across each domain every time. This not only decreases time to market, but it takes the "crunch" at the end of a project and dismisses it completely, because by the end, everyone knows what they need to know to execute their part successfully and efficiently. Big point coming up...This included Sales. Video is more than just the sexy, it communicates so much information, so quickly, that it just makes sense to use it.

We used screencasts to get project stakeholders and the sales organization up to speed on the new features as well as the look and feel, before we even hit beta. Letting the sales team get excited about the impending release is a good thing! Furthermore putting a similar screencast of "what's new" out to your beta users is smart. It can get them engaged and ready to use the new release instead of just letting it sit in their "when I've got time for it" pile.

Once you've brought your sales team and maintenance users up to speed; it's time market and demo the bits. Again with the video. If your not using it, you're missing it. Screencasts can be created to highlight the "wow" points of the new release. Putting a 30 sec./1 min. video teaser on the product page and/or landing page has a much higher rate of conversion to contact than a picture or big words with "New!", "Just Released!", or "Version XX!".

Giving the sales team a demo product is common, but unless the prospect is hot, and not busy doing their own job, it can be really difficult to get them through a product demo successfully and with any sense of urgency. But you give your sales team a screencast, or a webcast, or both, and now they have the tools to get the prospects hooked and evaluating the purchase options. These tools reduce the sales cycle significantly. Double check me with stats from all the big guns, it's true.

So with video you can shorten the time to market by making the information flow richer and faster, you can shortened the sales cycle with webcasts and screencasts, and you can increased the rate of conversion for sales by using these tools...I'd say that's pretty relevant.

Here are some businesses that get it (these are not clients, nor am I endorsing their products or services...they are just folks that get it):

www.ecopy.com watch a video that showcases their software

www.ektron.com watch a value prop video

www.fitnh.org watch a non-profit connect donors to the cause