The Cathryn Sloane Firestorm-Where Are You Ms. Sloane?

The technorati are not amused over recent college graduate Cathryn Sloane's blog post that all social media managers should be under 25. I wont enter the fray on that argument; suffice to say that in my experience, usage of social media for personal interactions does not equal qualifications gained over time managing a brand. (One of the complaints I often hear from Marketing and Communications Directors who have young staff working under them is that their team excels at understanding how new media tools work, but they don’t always know why they should be using the tools in the context of brand management.)

What fascinates me about this story, is that more than 500 people commented on Ms. Sloane’s article and numerous folks took the time to write articulate rebuttal articles, and even linked back to “prebuttals” such as this one. In short, it’s been a veritable link fest, engendering the kind of response to a piece of content that most of us who work in social media hope, and work hard for. Yet the crowd that she so successfully engaged has received nothing but radio silence from Ms. Sloane since the article was posted. She even went so far as to block followers on her Twitter account who had a dissenting opinion to her article. 

This is a problem.

I tell my clients to compare "engaging" on social media to going to a large, in-person networking party. There’ll be important people there that you should get to know, as perhaps they could be the key to the particular nut you’re trying to crack at the moment. You may know a few people already, so you shouldn’t ignore them, but you also have to have conversations with people you don’t know–whether it’s by listening in on an existing conversation to see where you can add something of value, or approaching a stranger and striking up a dialogue. And you have to do this in a respectful way; you have to be smart, interesting, funny and a really good listener and someone who can keep a conversation flowing. You must also hold people’s interest, so they feel a connection and start to see something in you. You never know who’s going to be there, and what role they could have in your life and career, so you wouldn't go to this party dressed in a risqué outfit, you wouldn't share intimate and inappropriate details about your personal life and you certainly wouldn’t start throwing out incendiary remarks to get attention unless you really had a good reason for doing so, and were prepared to defend them.

What Ms. Sloane did was the social media equivalent of dropping a politically incorrect bomb at an important cocktail party, then making a run for the door. While the dropping of the bomb itself might have been a strategic move to encourage link bait, her response seemingly was not. Not only did she not explain her position further–something anyone who has taken an undergraduate critical thinking class knows is, well, critical to credibility–she also missed a golden opportunity to engage and continue the debate with her detractors which could have created meaningful dialogue and provided a lot of value across the Internet. The fact that she eschewed such rigorous discourse is more damaging to her reputation than her actual article because we have to surmise that she’s either intellectually lazy or thin-skinned, and maybe a bit of both–it certainly doesn’t help her argument that young people just “know” how to be social, better than their older counterparts, because they are digital natives who’ve been using social media from a young age. Ultimately, the fact that she hasn't yet stepped up to the plate to take responsibility for and address the impact of her provocation, makes her look, at best, inconsistent and certainly not someone you’d want to be in relationship with–which is still a lot of what being in business is all about. 

The mind boggles as to what exciting things may have come her way–interviews, speaking engagements, job offers, book deals, etc., but I hope that no-one offers Ms. Sloane a job in social media–at least, not yet, anyway–until she’s learned (or displays) better etiquette. Her behavior is the antithesis of how networking and making real connections works, whether it’s in person or on the Internet. In professional settings it could seriously damage relationships and ultimately a brand’s reputation. In any case, it’s behavior that shouldn’t be rewarded.

And that’s true, no matter how old you are.

Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.

Content Creation and Curation

How do organizations maximize their limited resources and take advantage of various online channels to not only put out information they themselves create, but to recycle content – content from their community, and also content from other organizations and resources that are relevant to their work and useful to their community?

Content curation (the act of finding, grouping, organizing and sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online), can be very resource and capacity-friendly if done strategically. The challenge is in the strategy however: which channels should be used for which purpose? What kinds of content works best? What kind of volume? Frequency?

According to a forthcoming report: “Content Creation and Curation in Your Communications Mix” by the Nonprofit Technology Network and Idealware, 78% of nonprofit organizations do not have a curation strategy. Yet time-strapped organizations are still using lots of channels – almost four each on average: websites are the most widely used, followed by broadcast email, then direct mail. Facebook is the next most widely used, followed by Twitter, YouTube, then blogs.

Regardless of whether you are a nonprofit or a for profit company, how can you maximize your time and be strategic about giving your audiences the best of what's out there through the right mix of content creation and curation?

1. Start with your goals.
For each "stream", ask your self:

• Who is the target audience?
• What does that audience care about?
• What's going to encourage them to engage?

Identify the channels you're planning to use, and what audiences are going to be the main focus of each.

2. Aggregate potential content into a single place first.
Pull in good resources so you have them all in one place, and then decide from there how to parse them out to different channels.

• Find an aggregating tool that works best for your team (workflow, ease of use), and your end goal (what kind of content? for what use?)
• Divide things to follow across team members, according to their interest, so that it becomes more manageable and part of everyone’s workflow
• Assign someone to define what's in the queue and where the curated content goes– what makes sense for your Twitter feed, Facebook, eNews, etc.

In addition, repurpose the queue wherever possible; you’ve spent the time gathering resources, be sure to pull the best resources out and use them elsewhere as much as you can.

4. Find the "ideal" mix of created-to-curated-to-promotional content.
Not all social media tools are created equally. Twitter and Facebook, for example, have the most complex mix of use and not one type of content; while for blogs and e-newsletters, original content is typically more dominant. A good informal rule of thumb for content: aim for 1/3rd curated, 1/3rd new content (including curated new resources), and no more than 1/3 promotional.

3. Match each tool to the kind of content strategy you have there.
Don't start with the tool and ask "what can I use it for?" Ask "what do I want to accomplish?" first, then match the right tool and strategy. Some examples:

• On Twitter, re-tweeting is really important, but make sure you're adding to the Twitterverse value rather than just pinging the same info around that everyone's already seen elsewhere
• For blogs, people expect original content, but a really useful blog could have its primary purpose be to round up information from elsewhere and put it in context for readers
• Publish a "Best of the Web" newsletter to round up other good nonprofit tech blog posts and articles from around the web
• Send a daily e-mail with links to the best articles of the day, as well as news from other sources

4. Use fewer channels more strategically.
It doesn't make sense for busy small and medium-sized nonprofits to be experimenting way out at the bleeding edge of tools. Let large nonprofits and the business world figure out what seems to make sense, and what's a good return on the time, and then do that.

Organizations that take the time to be strategic about content on their various online channels are more efficient and ultimately ensure the ongoing relevance of their work.

Idealware has a free Social Media Decision Maker’s guide, that includes a lot of research, demographics, and a workbook that can help you decide what social media channels make sense to use for what.

Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie.

May The Burning Bridges Light Your Way

It’s always been true that success in business is predicated on one’s ability to build enduring relationships.  And people’s reputations have always followed (or preceded) them. But now, as the walls between our personal and professional lives continue to crumble due to social media, we’re still connected online socially to people we no longer work with, which makes relationship and reputation management an ongoing concern.

It’s not only easy to trace a person’s path and network of relationships online, it’s even easier to draw conclusions about whether to recommend someone do business with them from how they conduct themselves there.

Take note of people’s behavior online, because according to a recent study, it's very likely consistent with who they are offline.

Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.

Infographic Of The Day

Here's a great infographic, created from this Copy Blogger guest blog post, that can help with content creation–something we all struggle with from time to time.



Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.


Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.

Non-Profit Shouldn't Mean "No Money" - 15 Ways Non Profits Can Create Economic Sustainability

These aren’t easy times for non-profits. External pressures from the economy are compromising the philanthropic sector and most non-profit leaders report that there just isn’t as much money to go around anymore.

Like the small businesses that are weathering this economy, non-profits are saying yes to projects but not necessarily yes to more staff. Small business owners and non-profit leaders alike are rightly nervous about adding more fixed costs, but one essential difference between non-profits and small businesses is that even in good economic times, most non-profits revenue sources are inherently break-even, or worse, losses. How many small businesses could stay in business by providing a product or service, which routinely cost them more than they were paid to deliver? Not many, yet this hand to mouth existence is the norm for many non-profits. No wonder their leaders are also dealing with the internal pressures–such as burn out and high turnover–that come with trying to do too much with too little, especially when community needs are higher than ever.

Being funder/donor driven means most non-profits have historically had a lack of agency over what they could say no to. It’s hard to stop doing things with expenses to worry about, even when there’s a huge amount of work involved in getting a donation or grant. One Executive Director I know wryly notes that there is often an inverse relationship between the size of an award and the amount of staff time that has to go into getting it. But the old screen of: “Is it on mission?” “Is it funded?” doesn’t work anymore. Just because a project has a funder attached to it, doesn’t mean it’s sustainable.

Not surprisingly, there’s going to be a dearth of non-profit leaders in the next 5-10 years. It’s tough out there, but the good news is that times like these present opportunities for non-profits to rethink how they do business.Whether funding is restricted versus unrestricted isn’t really the question or the issue anymore – now it’s about working to get beyond break-even and aiming for modest profitability.

Granted, it’s hard to report a cash reserve to funders without them saying, “you obviously don’t need our money”, but struggling to get by no longer works – there needs to be change in how business is thought about and conducted in this sector so it can thrive. This will happen when non-profits start evaluating the opportunity cost of every project and say “no thank you” when it’s appropriate. What does this change look like? Here’s some ideas to take back to your organization: 

1. Understand that foundations are trying harder than ever to spread the wealth.
   Mobilize around this and decide to agree not to take on any projects that will pay less than the time you have to put into securing them. 
2. Realize that profit is not a dirty word.
   Think about the language you’re using. Are you really about no profit? Is that inherently sustainable? What alternative terms would be more powerful and accurate for you and your funders? 
3. Get better at saying no, by not making decisions alone.
   Listen to your staff; not just through financial metrics but also in how the delivery of service is going. 
4. Discard the notion that saying no means resources will go away, (but be ready if it does).
   Foundations might have been pulling you along because you’ve been in their portfolio. Re-shifting is happening with everyone right now. 
5. Look at the bad habits/ assumptions you need to eradicate going forward.
   Don’t be afraid to sit down and talk about what’s not working. 
6. Abolish financial illiteracy.
   There are four or five things about a non-profit balance sheet that you should know. CompassPoint has excellent fiscal literacy classes for non-profits. 
7. Embed economics into your strategic plan.
   What kind of stuff did you say yes to this year that hasn’t taken your organization where you want it to go financially 
8. Build clear revenue goals into your operational plan.
   If you haven’t hit your revenue goals for May, re-evaluate your budget and plan for the rest of the year. 
9. Create 3 budgets – optimal, maintenance and contingency.
   Use values-based decision-making in your approach to budget cuts. If you don’t have the cash it takes to do the work, and be modestly profitable, it’s not sustainable.
10. Stop thinking of your organization as a pass-through for other people’s resources.
    If grants require you to be break even, round things out with donations or earned income. A hybrid business model is key.
11. Make financial surplus a line item in the budget.
    Talk to funders transparently about wanting to have a surplus to be sustainable. Economic sustainability means you can be around for longer to do the work. 
12. Work towards modest profitability.
    Aim for at least 3 months reserve in the ban 
13. Understand which funders see you as being core to their strategy.
    Deeply understand how they think about their impact and whether you are central to that impact in their eyes. 
14. Stop writing grant proposals, start interviewing clients.
    Share your client’s stories with funders. It’s not about your organization and what it can do; it’s about the impact you’re having. 
15. Be clear about your purpose and be passionate about it.
    People naturally support leaders. If you’re engaged, excited and not burnt out, or worse yet, bored, they are more likely to support the cause you’re stomping for.

In good times or bad, social change and economics shouldn’t be at odds in this sector – they’re intrinsically connected and critical to its success and sustainability. 

Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.