Karen Luttrell Communications - Public Relations for Nonprofits

Weren’t able to attend the Social Media for Nonprofits conference at the MARS Centre today? It’s worth checking out the hashtags #sm4np and #ncwk. You may also want to look at the presentations.

Conference organizers Ritu Sharma and Darian Rodriguez Heyman put together an information-packed event with great speakers. Here are some highlights from the first two speakers I heard in the afternoon. (More to come in a part II post tomorrow.)

Social Fundraising Best Practices & Key Metrics
Todd Levy, Founder & Managing Partner, Donor Drive

Todd served up lots of great information about Millennials in particular. They are networked and like to engage and participate. They want DO something with your organization. For more information see the Millennial Impact Report.

He also shared some social fundraising best practices:

Coax participants to personalize fundraising pages with stories, photos and videos. Those that customize raise 20% more money.
Make it easy to use the tools. Remember that different people have different learning styles, and you need to cover them all off.
Coach people on how to fundraise. Send them reminders to communicate with friends and family regularly.
Communicate the results and promote your success. Say thank you. Remind people about next year. Give them another way to get involved.

Tools Todd recommends: Crowdbooster, Tweetdeck, and Topsy.

My favourite quote from this session: “Turn your donors into fundraisers.”

Fundraising on Facebook
Michael Rajzman, Social Media Manager, Free the Children

Michael presented the Mamas to Mamas campaign as a case study of effective Facebook fundraising in an integrated campaign. Michael shared so many great tips, I highly recommend looking up his presentation. I’ll share just a few of my favourites here:

Leverage material you have already created for other materials
Use photos – big, clear, bright photos with faces. They create much greater engagement. (109 users engaged in a post with just a link vs 309 users with a photo and link.)
Optimize your photos for all the places they will appear. (You need a square image for Facebook timeline for example.)
Be sure to capture testimonials, comments and shares to help prove the value of your campaign and because you can use them in other materials like your annual report.
Expect most donors to look at your site more than once before they donate. So running an integrated campaign with Twitter, Facebook and other components can help you reach potential donors more than once and increase your success.

Favourite quote from Michael: “Our most popular item in the campaign was at the $100 price point. That’s higher than normal, but we had a ridiculously cute baby picture for that item.”

Check back for more on mobile trends, video tips, measuring and monitoring information, and Google Analytics. There were great insights on these topics from speakers Claire Kerr, Heather McKibbon, Tierney Smith and Eric Squair.