Social Media

June 16, 2020

Social Media Tips for Nonprofits

Ewald in Practice Marketing Communications, Social Media 0

Your organization was likely founded with the goal of creating a community for your members. Fostering a virtual space where your members can come together and communicate with you and each other is crucial to community building. Social media is also a cost-effective way to get the word out about your organization.

Buffer explains that the top social media platforms used by nonprofits are Facebook with 98% of nonprofits using the site, Twitter (70%), LinkedIn (55%) and YouTube (45%). If your organization is not already on these platforms, take some time and set up profiles on each. Some associations are also using Instagram or even TikTok to communicate with younger audiences. You do not necessarily have to start posting today, but start your presence. Here are a few ways you can grow your presence online.

Encourage engagement
According to a blog post on Sendible, each post should include a call to action—every post you create should invite the audience to do something. For example, if you are promoting a conference, rather than merely announcing “Our conference will be this July in Chicago,” include a link for the audience to click that directs back to your website’s conference page. Whether it is a link to click, a video to watch, or asking the audience to leave a comment, opening the door for interaction is a major component of a successful social media presence.
Use the right hashtags
Sendible also explains that hashtags act as a great, free way to market your organization. Do some research and discover what hashtags are used in your industry. If you find ways to incorporate these hashtags into your posts, your content will come up in native searches that use that hashtag. It is a great way to get exposed to those interested in the industry.
Be responsive
Buffer explains that you should respond to every person who reaches out to you on social media. This ideally should be done in 24 hours or less. You want to make sure you are seen as friendly and open to those who reach out. This helps you build community by fostering communication with members and others interested in your organization.
Observe
Mission Box emphasizes the importance of social listening. Social media is a wonderful tool to get your message out to the public and communicate with your members, but social listening helps you understand what is going on with your competitors and your industry and examine how your organization is being received. To do this, take some time to research competitors and comb through their social media. How often do they post, and what are their messages? How many likes are they getting on their posts? You should also search your organization’s name to look at mentions on these platforms. Social listening not only helps you better understand the nuances of social media, it also gives you insight into how your organization is being received.
Schedule your content
Plan your posts ahead of time and use tools (such as Hootsuite, Zoho or Sprout Social) that post the content for you at designated times. This is a great way to ensure that social media is updated without having to dedicate time to posting every single day. According to Sendible, this is something that many nonprofit marketers struggle with, so having that assistance will make consistent posting easier. Beyond the schedule, be sure to monitor your social media accounts regularly. Sharing and liking posts from your members, allied organizations and other industry thought leaders can magnify your reach. It’s also important to be aware of major news stories, and to be sensitive to situations when your tweet or post could be perceived as out of place with current events.

By using and consistently updating social media, you are building a community around your organization.

December 18, 2019

2020 Technology Trends

Ewald in Practice Social Media, Strategy, Technology 0

As we wrap up 2019 and begin planning for 2020, here are some technology trends for 2020, according to Gartner analyst and VP Rita Sallam:

Augmented analytics – enables more people to gain insights from data;
Augmented data management – by 2022, data management manual tasks will be reduced 45% with machine learning and automated-service-level management;
NLP (natural language processing)/conversational analytics – by 2020, 50% of analytical queries will be automatically generated by search, NLP or voice;
Graph – the application of graph processing and graph databases will grow 100% annually through 2022, enabling more complex and adaptive data science;
Commercial AI/ML will dominate – there will be more commercial platforms rather than open source to manage artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques;
Data storytelling and visualization – creating meaning from numbers to take action, by understanding the story that data are telling us.

For more insights and trends from Gartner: https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning/10-data-and-analytics-trends-for-2020/d/d-id/1336310

October 24, 2019

Top 3 Reasons Your Conference Needs Mobile

Ewald in Practice Conferences, Marketing Communications, Social Media, Technology 0

What was once a deluxe conference amenity has become a necessary tool of engagement for successful events. Make your conference mobile and watch as speakers, exhibitors and attendees connect and communicate online. Excite your potential audiences before the event starts, engage with the attendees onsite and evolve throughout the process in response to change. All it takes is an app.

Excite your audience

In the weeks leading up to your event, a mobile app campaign drives excitement for a future experience. Downloading a conference mobile app provides a tangible teaser for a still far-off event. It gets the conference on the minds and in the hands (literally) of your audience before a meeting convenes.

Through yet another channel, your brand, your content and your vision can reach your anticipatory audience.

Pro tip: offer an incentive to download the app. Nothing spurs attendees into action faster than the possibility of free stuff.

Engage your attendees

At any event, you’ve just gathered many of the best minds in your field in one space for a few hours or a few days. Now that they’re here, you need them to engage: with speakers, with exhibitors and with each other!

Engage with Speakers: Speakers come prepared as subject-matter experts. Polling and survey features offered through a mobile app can turn a presentation from a one-sided lecture into an interactive event. A mobile app’s ability to collect real-time data from the audience allows speakers to connect with attendees, answer questions and shape their presentations to suit the crowd.
Engage with Exhibitors: Companies joining you from far and wide come with expectations to make connections. As their unique swag often demonstrate, sponsors and exhibitors want to get their name in your hands. With a mobile app, it already is. Exhibitor websites and contact information, and digital handouts become instantly available to all attendees. It’s a simple perk for the companies that might just keep them coming back for more.
Engage with each other: The universal advantage of in-person events is the networking opportunities inherent. However, as attendees meet new faces in the field, especially at large events, it can be difficult to keep track of these new contacts. Mobile apps provide a fully filled-in contact book and messaging system without the hassle of keeping track of business cards or asking for phone numbers. Encouraging attendees to include their picture with their profile? Even better for those of us not blessed with the gift of face/name memory!

You’ll want an app a mobile app to drive your speakers and attendees to not only to listen but to engage. Empower your audiences to connect through a technology we all know well.

Evolve with change

Despite your meeting planner’s best efforts, plans change. As rooms fill up faster than anticipated and speakers call in sick—your mobile app can alleviate the headache of last-minute change.

Rather than disparaging your beautifully branded signage and collateral with handwritten speaker updates and blacked-out sessions, leverage the power of digital technology to make quick updates looks seamless.

Mobile app push notifications provide a sort of virtual intercom. Communication is immediate and allows your event to evolve as quickly as the outside world.

Conferences are a great opportunity for your organization to showcase the caliber of members and body of knowledge. Mobile applications will only help you improve your conference attendee’s experience and increase the ROI of your event.

July 18, 2019

Don’t Get Left behind! Four Content Trends for Associations to Stay Relevant

Ewald in Practice Marketing Communications, Social Media, Technology 0

The world of marketing moves fast.

The industry is constantly progressing, and nothing is exempt. Standards, processes, and especially trends may change at any time. In order for organizations to survive, they need to be dynamic, quick, and up-to-date on relevant trends because if they are not able to adapt, they will get left behind.

The same applies for associations, with one key difference; they don’t necessarily require the newest, best, or flashiest tools and technology. As a result, some are far removed from the newest marketing methods and trends.

Associations often ask when faced with marketing challenges becomes, “How can we be a resourceful organization and stay relevant in the fast-changing marketing industry?” The answer is easier than one may think. To stay on top of relevant marketing trends, associations can adopt basic, necessary tools and techniques to deliver meaning and value to members.

To help get you started, here are three of the top content marketing trends associations should consider to keep up in the fast-changing industry.

Writing

Written content is a mainstay in the marketing industry. Even though how writing is consumed has changed over time, for example newspapers vs listicles, writing itself is timeless and serves as a foundation for other content including white papers, long form blog posts, advertisements and webinars. As associations think about the future, it is important that they have a strong, reliable writing base developed as a foundation for that content.

Video

Every day, 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube and 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. Viewers are 95% more likely to remember a call to action after watching a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text form. Video is clearly a form of content that people consistently consume and remember. By producing video associations can increase brand awareness, social reach and engage with a huge number of users. When producing videos, they should be optimized for the platform they will “live” on and their use. For example, videos promoting a certification session should be high-quality and have professional production to guarantee quality sound and graphics whereas videos promoting a social event can be more “approachable” and filmed with a cellphone. Whatever the use of the video, the content should include subtitles and not just for accessibility. At least 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound, make sure to include this overlay text in all of your video content.

Live content

At the end of the day, associations are resources that focus on promoting events and conferences. Whether it’s live tweeting or recording a live Instagram video, live content provides value to members, association and builds event awareness, and also gives the association future content for professional videos, webinars, and more. With the popularity of social media, live content provides too many benefits and opportunities to not capitalize on it.

Staying up to date with content trends should be a fun way to consistently deliver meaningful content to members. While the industry will always shift, adopting basic trends is an easy way to provide value to your members. Go ahead, adopt the trends, and unleash the new possibilities for your association.