Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Branding is also vital when your organization is launching specific fundraising campaigns, events, projects, or programs. An excellent example of a nonprofit with a well-known brand that helped one of its major campaigns is GiveCorps, which recently had a Giving Tuesday campaign called BmoreGivesMore.

The consistency of the branding for GiveCorps proved to substantially aid its messaging and helped form strategic partnerships with like brands. The end result of these efforts? Well, the organization raised $5.7M in one day (yep, one day).

Let's break down the organization to see exactly who they are and what has made them such a success -- including its branding techniques....

As my good friend, Michael Brito, SVP Edelman, stated in an interaction yesterday, So many people are open to like, share and comment for social issues...

 

UNICEF is currently running a brilliant Facebook campaign that focuses on the inaction that is often observed in the social media campaigns. It delightfully pokes at the online media phenomenon, “Slacktivism”.

 

Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a portmanteau of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel some amount of satisfaction.

 

The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them. (Source: Wikipedia) Malcom Gladwell, in his Oct 2010 New Yorker article, argued that it is not right to compare social media “revolutions” with actual activism that challenges the status quo ante. He argued that today’s social media campaigns can’t compare with activism that takes place on the ground....

Fundraising for non-profits is no easy task. No matter how noble the cause, getting folks to part with their hard-earned cash presents a tricky challenge.

But, more than ever, non-profits are relying on social media to reach their target audiences and help make the world a better place. Why social media? Because Facebook, Twitter and other networks are where the eyeballs are. In fact, socially shared content makes up 10% of all web content, at least according to analysis by the social platform ShareThis.

2012 saw more social effort and engagement than ever by non-profits, and the following infographic from MDG Advertising provides a handy overview. Based on statistics from a number of non-profit advocacy groups, it reflects a world of newfound potential for rallying people online for social good....

Cultural organizations like theater companies, orchestras, and art museums are using the internet, social media, and mobile apps to draw in and engage audiences, provide deeper context, and disseminate their work beyond the stage and the gallery...

 

A survey of a wide-ranging mix of U.S.-based arts organizations shows that the internet, social media, and mobile connectivity now permeate their operations and have changed the way they stage performances, mount and showcase their exhibits, engage their audiences, sell tickets, and raise funds.

 

These organizations are even finding that technology has changed the very definition of art: 77% of respondents agree with the statement that the internet has “played a major role in broadening the boundaries of what is considered art.”

 

“For most of these organizations, technology suffuses their operations and their engagement activities with their communities,” noted Kristen Purcell, research director at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, and a co-author of the report. “They are using the technologies to expand their offerings, grow and diversify their audiences, and bring technology users into the act of creating art itself.”

The purpose of your website is to encourage people to take action. Period.

 

Now the actions might very – like joining an e-mail lists or donating money – but regardless what the specifics are, your website’s value is the net of action it encourages.

 

Two critical areas of action on your website are:

1.  Sharing content from your website via social media.
2.  Liking and following your organization’s outposts.

 

The reason why these two areas of action are critical, is that they help build your fan base, amplify word-of-mouth, and increase traffic to your website....

 

[Alway great social media tactics from John Haydon - JD]