Update Your Nonprofit Communications Agenda –
3 Proven Ways to Make an Impact When Message
Control Is Out of Your Hands
Now that you know (ever since you read Everybody's
Talking About You...), what happens when control of your
nonprofit's message passes from your organization to your
audiences, you've got to do something about it. Here are
three strategies that will ensure your organization works
this new all-voices-have-equal-weight conversation to
your advantage.
- Start To Scan All Venues, All the Time
Your nonprofit may use a clipping service (most are based
online at this point) to capture print and broadcast
coverage of your organization, but how many of you are
capturing all the conversation and comments on your
nonprofit that happen online – on websites and in
blogs and message boards? Not too many, I bet.
At this point, your approach to media monitoring has
to go way beyond traditional media to encompass both
organization to audience and peer-to-peer (think blog)
content. Sometimes your media monitoring service will
grab this stuff (for a price). Here's how you can
automate a process to grab online coverage yourself,
hot off the "press:"
- Set up Google or Yahoo Alerts to alert you – via
email – to web content about your nonprofit
In addition, you can use these alerts services for
updates on coverage of keywords and phrases in your
issue areas, and of partner and competitive
organizations. The services do miss some mentions,
but they pick up a huge amount of content you're
not likely to see right away.
P. S. I use both Alert services, since they seem to
send me different content. Neither is perfect but
together they're a powerful tool.
Directory of Clipping Services –
http://dmoz.org/News/Media/Services/Media_Monitoring/
Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
Yahoo Alerts – http://alerts.yahoo.com/
- Use Technorati – a search engine of blog content – to
check for blog coverage of your organization.
Not all blog content is indexed by Google or Yahoo.
Technorati is as comprehensive as it gets, at this point.
Technorati – http://www.technorati.com/
- Check your nonprofit on Wikipedia
If you haven't already searched for your organization,
on the Internet's open source encyclopedia, do so today.
Wikipedia allows users to research a subject and add their
own information.
I just researched several nonprofits, and it quickly
became apparent that there's a lot of content here that
didn't come from those organizations. For example, the
Sierra Club entry goes into detail on the battle of a
group of members to have the Club adopt immigration
reduction into its mission. I'm sure that Sierra Club
communications folks would like to add their point of
view here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_club
Look up your organization, and check back frequently (once
every two weeks). If there's something missing that people
should know about, add it. You'll have the option of
registering as a contributor which allows you to remain an
anonymous poster.
Wikipedia is a popular place. You can be sure that some
prospective donors, volunteers, members and clients are
learning about your nonprofit here. Make sure you know
what they're learning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
- Use Bloglines (Or Use Another RSS Reader) to synthesize
content from the blogs (and some websites) that cover
your nonprofit or issues regularly.
Who has time to dive into a hundred sites or blogs on a
regular basis? Tools like Bloglines enable you to
identify the blogs (and more and more websites) that
offer downloads of new content via "blog readers."
Once you identify the sources that cover your
organization or field, Bloglines synthesizes all the
blog posts and website content on a single web page.
You can clip content (for later use) or email it to
a colleague.
Bloglines – http://www.bloglines.com/
- Build Internal Support For User-Generated Content,
Listening, and Active Participation
Once you start to scan, and find what's out there on your
nonprofit, you'll have some proofs of the importance of
nurturing this conversation (it's going to happen anyway,
so you might as well embrace it). It's likely you'll
need to convince your boss or leadership why to support
these conversations, and you have the data to do it.
But your work goes beyond support:
- Make sure you and your leadership are listening to
what you hear. It's all too easy to dismiss unwelcome
comments as unimportant or one person's opinion. The
fact is that, if those comments are online, that opinion
is accessible far and wide.
- Focus your communications on strengthening your
nonprofit's credibility. If your audiences don't
trust your organization, they'll ignore what you
have to say.
- Evolve your organizational voice to one that's
warmer and more passionate, so that your audiences
will develop a more genuine connection with your
organization.
- Participate, Participate, Participate – After You
Develop a "Conversation Policy"
You've got to participate in the online conversations
that are important – to show you're listening, to
add your perspective and, sometimes, to set the record
straight.
It'll be impossible for your organization to respond to
every conversation about it, and a bad use of your time.
Even though it can be so difficult not to shoot back a
knowledgeable response to a cutting (and uninformed) remark,
you want to ensure your response achieves what you want.
And you need to ensure that your responses are consistent
with your nonprofit's values and mission.
I suggest that you outline, and train colleagues on:
- What your organization will respond to:
- Format wise (blogs, message boards).
- From which organizations or individuals.
- On what topics.
- Who will respond?
Many organizations have one person responding, with
colleagues alerting her to online "finds."
- What to say, in what tone?
- When to step out of a conversation?
- Which comments and conversations to report out to
colleagues?
When you take these three steps to update your nonprofit's
communications agenda to fit today's all-conversation-all-
the-time environment, you'll ensure that your organization
is aware of what's being said about it, and participates
when it makes sense. It's a no-choice change of orientation
for 2007, and beyond.
© 2002-2008 Nancy E. Schwartz. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Nancy E. Schwartz helps nonprofits succeed through effective marketing and communications. As President of Nancy Schwartz & Company (www.nancyschwartz.com), Nancy and her team provide marketing planning and implementation services to organizations as varied as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Center for Asian American Media, and Wake County (NC) Health Services.
Subscribe to her free e-newsletter "Getting Attention", (http://www.nancyschwartz.com/getting_attention.html) and read her blog at http://www.gettingattention.org for more insights, ideas and great tips on attracting the attention your organization deserves.
NOTE: You're welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the copyright and "about the author" info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint.
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© 2002-2008, Nancy Schwartz & Company
Revised April 12, 2008
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