JournaMarketing

Real-time social fundraising

Beth Kanter has a detailed analysis of why her real-time fundraising experiment at Gnomedex worked. If you don't know, she raised $3,700 to send a young Cambodian woman to college, simply by tapping into her online social network. Read the whole post, because it's chock full of great insights about social media and fundraising. But here are some takeaways:

• Beth's passion for the cause played a major role in people's willingness to spread the word and donate money.
• It worked because Beth has spent 5 years building a network, and establishing trust, by offering valuable information online.
• She didn't make a big request. She asked only for $10 per person, and directed folks to PayPal to make the donation easily.

Beth's post on this is an example of why people trust her. It's a seminar on social networking in itself. You'll be glad you took the time to read it.

Technorati Tags: Beth Kanter, social networking, fundraising, blogging, Gnomedex

Pikchur: quick photo sharing

Let's say your organization has a Facebook account to help you interact with young people. You're also on Friendfeed. And Twitter. And you'd like to share a photo of an event with all those social networks. It's a hassle up upload the photo three times, to get it in three different places. But a new service called Pikchur claims to automate that process. You simply upload the photo to Pikchur and it distributes the photo to several different social network accounts at once.

Technorati Tags: Pikchur, nptech, photos

Make yourself a digital curator

Steve Rubel writes today that we're facing an "attention crash." We have so many sources of information bombarding us, it's impossible to keep up. That's why we need someone to help us manage all that information. Rubel calls that person a digital curator.

Every high–interest niche will be met by digital curators who can separate art from junk online and present it in a very digestible form.

As a communicator, the question you have to answer is, "What am I doing to become a digital curator for all the people who share my interests?" We are at an important time when those curation roles are unfilled for 99% of niche interests. You have an opportunity to step into the void and help people find the information they really want. And you can do it even more effectively than the algorithm of Google, because you can personalize it for them.

Establishing yourself as a digital curator -- a provider of information -- for your organization's customers (or clients, members, or donors) is the most important thing you can do as a professional communicator.

flickr everywhere

Photo-sharing site flickr has released a new tool to allow you to embed a photo slideshow anywhere. That means if you have an event you're covering for your organization, you can upload the photos to flickr, and display them in a cool-looking slideshow on your own website. And you can even include short video alongside the still pictures. If your organization doesn't have a flickr account, get one. It's free, and it makes it very easy to tell your story through photos.

Technorati Tags: flickr, slideshows

A cute baby video. So sue me.

One of my encouragements from Steve and Jamie at Gnomedex was that I should stop worrying so much about whether every single post to my blog fits into my supposed niche. They're right. Blogs are about communicating, but they're also about being personal. And what says "personal" better than a cute baby video? Do not watch this if you are diabetic.

PR and Social Media

When you think of online social media, do you think of it simply as a way to reach people with your organization's message more efficiently? If so, I think you're missing the point of the power of new media. David Reich writes today about PR in the social-media space:

Marketers or their PR people who participate in social media to blatantly push a product, a service or a point of view without providing useful and honest content will get ignored over time. They may grab some people at first, but I think if they are continuously and blatantly self-serving, many people will tire of them. They'll eventually slide into a black hole where they'll still be there, but no one will be paying them any heed.

Too many PR people concentrate on the "public" and forget about the "relations." Social media turns traditional PR on its head precisely because it's less about public communications, and more about one-on-one relationships. Those small relationships can coalesce around common interests, and lead to a group dynamic. But they are not the starting point. Instead of thinking of social-media as a new way to reach people, think of social media as a new way for people to reach you. Use online tools as a way to put yourself and your organization out there, and be patient enough for people to find you.

(David's jumping-off point is a wonderful post from Tamera Kremer about how PR people are misunderstanding -- and misusing -- social media tools.)

Why you need journalists

A lot of you are concerned about search-engine optimization (SEO) -- a way to get your page to show up high on Google's results.  But the trouble with SEO is that it's not magic. 

"You can try all kinds of tricks to improve how highly your site ranks in Google and other search engines, but ultimately it comes down to linked content -- which generally correlates with good content. And in order to get good content, you need journalists."  - Paul Bradshaw, E-Media Tidbits

I always tell clients their first job as communicators is to tell the story of their organization and the work it's doing. And there's no reason a journalist can't help you tell your story, delivering engaging content to the people who care about the work you're doing.

I work with a lot of great freelance journalists who are producing content to help our clients connect with people. We're doing everything from a legal podcast to a blog for smoking-cessation professionals to a radio show for kids. And Paul Bradshaw is right.  There's no substitute for good content, produced by good story-tellers (i.e. journalists).  If you don't think you're capable of communicating those stories, find someone who is, and bring them into the fold -- at least as a freelancer -- to help you.

Lending an ear to Robert Scoble

I've always heard that Robert Scoble is a genuinely helpful and friendly guy. But I didn't know the extent of his friendliness until I met him this morning at Gnomedex, and he offered to help me with my pesky and recurring earwax problem. Thank you, Robert!

(Thanks to Jamie for snapping the photo. That's buddy smays standing by to offer emergency assistance in case of eardrum rupture.)

Gnomedex Day 2

Ready to start Gnomedex Day 2. Highlights from Day 1:

• Beth Kanter showing the power of connectedness by asking the group to share word of a fundraising effort to send a young Cambodian woman to college. Through the power of the online community, she raised about $2500 in 90 minutes.
• Talking to Kevin O'Keefe of Lexblog about everything from legal blogs to sports blogs.
• Getting a better explanation of visual search engine Viewzi from Giovanni.
• Seeing the power of story-telling as a communications tool from Amanda Koster of SalaamGarage.

Technorati Tags: gnomedex, Beth Kanter, Kevin O'Keefe, SalaamGarage, Amanda Koster, Viewzi

Photo tips

Vancouver photographer Kris Krug just gave some great tips for shooting good photos.  Here are a few highlights for those of you who struggle with getting good photos at your organization's events:

• Try to capture the light in people's eyes.
• Brace your camera on things (tripod or gear bag, etc.).
• Shoot from a different perspective (people look better from above).
• Focus on a theme (black & white, funny faces, etc.).
• Fill the frame. (Hold your hand out in front of you, and if your subject appears smaller than your hand, you're not close enough.)