Here’s a great learning opportunity! The Collaborative: Virtual Sessions from Classy is a virtual nonprofit conference coming up June 8-11, 2021. The second annual conference is free for nonprofit professionals and will attract over 10,000 registrants. 

The best part? Sarah Best will be sharing insights into social media strategy alongside the YMCA of USA, one of our clients.

Sarah will join over 50 of the social sector’s most respected leaders and innovators speaking in this four-day online series. The event will bring nonprofit leaders from around the world for engaging conversations and online sessions, including Sarah’s session, “How the YMCA took their Social Media Strategy National.”

Last year, Sarah Best Strategy teamed up with YMCA of the USA to conduct a social media audit of their national and local social media program. The end result was a vision, strategy, and  playbook that empowers executive directors and marketing and communications leaders at 2700 Y Associations Nationwide to use social media to meet their goals. (Check out the case study here.)

This ‘can’t miss’ presentation will provide insight into the key components that were instrumental in rolling out a social media strategy nationwide.

“We’re committing to helping organizations that do good, do that work even better,” says Sarah.  “The YMCA is a perfect example of how a large organization can increase the impact of their work by getting all of their members on board with a cohesive digital strategy.” 

​Some faith communities who offer online services and programs have reported an increase in viewership and participation in online programming since “stay at home” orders were put in place. In times of crisis, people often naturally turn to faith communities for comfort, strength, and hope. 

But along the convenience of watching a service online comes the threat that members are also “shopping around.” Maybe they’re virtually visiting their hometown church or temple. But they may also be taking some time to experience other communities in your area to see what’s the best fit for their, or their families’, needs. 
 
While you shouldn’t panic, this presents an opportunity to reflect on how well you’re meeting your congregants’ needs and gather feedback from them using a temple or church survey.

Here are some ideas of questions that you might ask:

• How have you been? What's been difficult during this period of quarantine? What's bringing you joy?
• Have you been able to access our online programs and services? 
• If no, what obstacles are preventing you from accessing them? (Examples might be: lack of access to internet or computer, poor audio quality, etc.)
• Have those programs and services been feeding you spiritually/meeting your needs during this time?
• Have our online offerings given you an opportunity to connect with others in our community?
• Is there anything we didn't ask or any feedback you'd like to share with us?​

Reflecting on feedback, you will be able to identify gaps in programming more successfully, identify misperceptions that might need to be corrected, address difficulties that are creating barriers to participation, or program ideas that better speak to your congregation’s needs during this time.
 
This might include shifting fundraising events online, holding faith services via Zoom, or finding ways to offer formerly in-person programs via a virtual format. For example, you might get the feedback that people miss socializing with each other and offer something beyond services that is fun and interactive—like a family-friendly sing-a-long or all-ages bingo game on Facebook Live. You might discover that folks are seeking reflective time, such as a meditation group, or are looking for ways to continue social justice work while social distancing.
 
Keep in mind that the needs of different members will vary, so you might choose to talk to a sample of members across age groups. The needs of young families, for example, may be different than the needs of teens in a youth group, or seniors. ​

Here are a few simple ways to gather feedback on how people are feeling about your community’s mission and programming.

#1 Make a Few Phone Calls

A phone call or video chat can be an effective way to quickly reach out to select members to gather some feedback. When gathering feedback, consider reaching out to people across a few generations.

It’s also to stay in touch with congregants who are less tech savvy and perhaps feeling isolated at this time. For example, Interfaith Volunteers, a faith-based nonprofit located in Minnesota, has pulled in additional people to offer phone all check-ins for local seniors who may be feeling particularly lonely or scared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

#2 Email a Survey
 
Surveys can be a great way to collect both qualitative and quantitative data that assesses the needs of your community members. 
 
SurveyMonkey is a free and easy-to-use online tool that lets you create, send, and analyze questions. Other popular tools include Google Forms, Survey Gizmo, and SoGoSurvey.
 
Of course, a survey is only as good as its response rates, so here are some tips for getting congregants complete your survey: 

• Personalize each email and let recipients know why you’re reaching out and how you plan to use the data.
• Keep your survey short, and let congregants know approximately how much time it should take to complete (for example, 5-10 minutes).
• Consider offering an incentive to encourage completion, such as a gift card, personalized item, or special “shout-out” in community announcements.

#3 Social Media Check-Ins

Another way to check in with congregants is to ask questions on social media. This enables followers to respond to your post and to each other, which can help you gain insight while also encouraging community engagement. 
 
Ben Vorspan, the Creative/Communications Director for Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills, CA, wrote about his experience shifting everything from services to website copy to be 100% accessible via phone. From their Facebook page, he has helped the temple host Bat Mitzvahs on Facebook Live, conducted check-ins with daily “Sundown Shares,” and promoted community events like virtual bonfires and streamed music from temple musicians.
​

In Boulder City, CO, Christian Center Church and other faith organizations are using social media not only to provide programming to congregants, but also to check-in via social media to assess how church members are handling social distancing and if there are specific supports they may need. 

The nonprofit Hi, How Are You Project is using the month of May to improve awareness of mental health and encourage interaction by encouraging members to take a pledge to ask those in their community “Hi, how are you?” via social media as a way of checking-in and acknowledging the importance of mental wellbeing.

If you’re unsure how to adjust your messaging on your social media channels or feel like you could use a little assistance strategizing how best to use your social platforms (or just get some support keeping things running smoothly), feel free to reach out to us for help.

Also - keep in mind that we offer free, 30-minute consultation slots weekly for nonprofits and faith organizations, where you can ask questions about marketing, Zoom, SEO and more. Nonprofit organizations can sign up here. Faith organizations can sign up here.

'Tis the season for event planning, but how do you plan an event when donors are sheltering in place? Crossroads Fund is a public foundation that supports nonprofits and groups in the Chicagoland area working on social, economic and racial justice. 
 
The transformation of their popular annual "Seeds of Change" spring gala into a vibrant online celebration--complete with DJs and awards--offers a great example of how to pivot from a traditional offering to an online format that is still full of celebration (and still meets fundraising goals).

Here are our 5 top tips for moving events online.

Crossroads Fund decided to move their one-night event into a weeklong Zoom celebration with an online silent auction, live DJ sets, and dance party--and were successful in raising $135,000 (and counting).

​Their online event captured the joy of their annual in-person event, which is both a fundraiser and a social gathering, bringing the feel of a venue-based party to a digital space.

The foundation took advantage of many social media platforms in their communication about the event, including Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, your Facebook and Instagram news feeds, and Facebook event pages.

Facebook Live gave Crossroads Fund a way to celebrate award-winners in real time. Awardees help attendees get fired up to carry on the fight for social justice, and to open their wallet to support this important work. 

Award-winners are often a key driver of connection for the event and can help motivate a decision to give.

Crossroads Fund's easy-to-remember landing page URL was a key for driving action off of the social posts related to the gala. By driving all event-related activity to one landing page, they made it simpler for their audience to respond to their main call to action: Donate.

They also created a hashtag for their virtual event, #virtualseeds, which empowered all participants to spread the word. This type of tagging builds brand recognition and creates a ripple effect that can hook new viewers into learning more, or participating.

Crossroads Fund did an excellent job keeping its eye-catching images consistent across the many social media channels it utilized for the event. Their decision to choose bold colors and use consistent fonts, images, and messaging that were clear helped donors quickly and easily identify their event and stay alert to new information.

One of the most compelling opportunities that social media presents us with is the opportunity to speak in a direct and personal way about the causes that are so important to us, and to make personal requests to give.

Crossroads Fund's staff, board, and host committee made compelling, direct appeals through pre-recorded video and participation in the nightly Zoom celebration. Their stories helped attendees feel more engaged and put familiar faces front and center.

Not sure how to adapt or promote your spring fundraiser? We can provide remote consulting--and help you strategize how to work remotely with staff and volunteers. 
 
Crossroads Fund is offering a Virtual Fundraising Grassroots Webinar, scheduled for May 5, 2020, where they'll share what they learned from their Seeds for Change event.
 
Here are some of our favorite resources you can peruse for ideas on moving your event online:
 

• If you're grappling with how to transition a 5K, Gala, or Appreciation Dinner from face-to-face to fully online, check out From In-Person to Virtual: How to Maximize Your Fundraising Event Revenue, which includes excellent examples and tips (Classy)
• Learn How to Recession-Proof Your Fundraising so you can hit your revenue goals even during an economic downturn, including boosting your social media posts and setting up recurring gifts (Network for Good)
• Videos are a fantastic way to connect with donors and drive emotional connection. See some great examples and gather a few useful pointers so you can learn How to (Easily) Thank Donors with Video (Classy)
• Find COVID-proof strategies for handling events, fundraisers, dinners, content, appreciation and more in Coronavirus Impacting Your Nonprofit? Here's What to Do (Network for Good) 
• If you're waking up in the middle of the night yelling "Help! Coronavirus Might Force Me to Cancel My Fundraising Event," this Ask a Fundraising Coach post will help you create a Plan B (Network for Good) 

 
Learn more about our services on our website. Nonprofits and faith organizations can also sign up for a free 30-minutes consultation to get help with marketing, Zoom, SEO and more. Nonprofit organizations can sign up here. Faith organizations can sign up here.

Google recently released a new update to search algorithms, which features improved AI with a greater ability to read and understand more content. Having a clear sense of how your customers search (and what they search for) can enable you to use SEO and empathy to connect in a way that meets their needs.

This BERT update, which impacts both Google’s software and hardware, provides greater clarity on two things that are essential for creating useful and effective content: What people are thinking about and how they’re living their lives. In a nutshell, it means Google’s search feature will enable users to find more useful information based on their queries, more quickly and easily:​​

​As a firm, we’ve been saying for a while that with improvements in artificial intelligence and voice-based search, Google will be able to read more of the internet and to understand more of it. To date, Google has been skimming the internet and looking for keywords in places a human would look to understand an article at a glance - in headlines, in the first paragraph, etc.

​For that reason, we’ve always suggested having content that follows SEO best practices, but more importantly that puts the core needs, struggles, and desires of your customers first. To understand those needs, struggles, and desires, we must use empathy in conjunction with data, which helps us understand how customers are searching for our products and services in different scenarios.

While some of the focus of Google’s update is simply clarifying search intent in basic ways:

​It’s also easy for there to be a mismatch between how you present your products and services, and what customers are actually searching for. A common mistake businesses make is to focus their copywriting on their own business goals and personal passions. Sometimes, we do this at the expense of connecting effectively with our customers and their problems, aspirations, and goals.

For example, looking at the websites for two farms in the New York area, the first example focuses on traits like how big the farm is, and how it is family-owned.

In this second example, this farm focuses on the desires of their customers (for delicious, nutritious, farm-fresh food, for people who want their purchase to make an impact) as well as on things that might be difficult for their customers (emphasis on ease of sign-up and pick-up, and ability to pause CSA subscription at any time.)

There are a few tools that we regularly use as marketers to help us understand our customers:

• User Personas: Often used in web design, but just as helpful in marketing, user personas are fictional characters that represent your ideal customer. They help us imagine our customers’ needs and wants and effectively market programs to those customers. 
  
  • Button: Download our User Persona Template (we can make people give us their email addresses to do this - there’s a way to set this up in Mailchimp.)
    
    
• Customer Value Proposition Statements: A value proposition statement explains why people should buy your product. It should also convince a customer why they should pick your offering over the other options that they have. What you’re looking for is product-customer fit. We like Strategyzer’s value proposition canvas for this exercise. They have a nice explainer video here that explains how to fill out the worksheet. 
  

Start by taking your best guesses based on your interactions with customers, and then work to validate your assumptions by conducting user research. This could be as simple as making a few phone calls, observing customers as they search for various scenarios, or evaluating marketing analytics.

A great example of this in action can be seen in our work with Easterseals of DuPage & Fox Valley. With Easterseals, we asked parents of children with disabilities to explain what search terms they'd use in different scenarios, and one of the discoveries we made is that parents were searching for toddlers with [name of condition], rather than for services. This knowledge allowed us to write and implement new condition-focused landing pages—such landing pages for families seeking ADHD therapies or Down syndrome therapies—to reflect how parents were actually searching for services.

So how do we improve our search terms to be better aligned with our customer’s needs? Here are two of our favorite tools for improving our “listening skills” in the digital sphere within a search context:

• Google Trends allows you to track interest in specific search terms or topics, as well as view data for top keywords and topics based on “recently trending” searches. For example, by typing in the search term “things to do from home,” we can see that it rose from 61 searches the week of March 8-14, 2020, to 100 searches from March 15-21, 2020, as coronavirus quarantines were put into place.
  ​
  For some businesses, this suggests some natural ways to engage with customers or to connect them with related services, such as printable activities for kids, streaming video services, or at-home workouts:
  

Here are some examples of businesses who responded to this trending inquiry in a paid advertising context, using offers to drive urgency to sign up:

Photo credit: Acorn TV

Photo credit: Barre3 Madison

Even though these examples are from a paid advertising context, good content, optimized for search queries can fulfill this need as well. Which brings us to….​

• AnswerthePublic.com is a specialized search tool that enables you to enter a topic, brand, or product and see what language people are using to search for it based on the most common questions asked.
  
  For example, if we again search “things to do from home” within the U.S., there are 47 common questions users are asking—which can help point to how to shape your SEO and content in the most relevant way possible:
  

Listening to your audience “in real time” means you can respond with empathy, provide relevant information, and adapt in ways that can immediately fill a need. In some cases, this may mean using language or emphasizing elements in your content that match how your audience is thinking and making choices.

It may also mean adapting what you offer and how you interact with your audience to fit their needs. That could mean holding events online, building ecommerce platforms, or finding ways to offer services remotely. Adaptation is key—and you won’t know how to adapt if you haven’t first “listened.”

Here are some ways organizations have adapted to the current reality of social distancing, while meeting people’s needs with empathy: 

• Faith organizations are offering online sermons, singing, parent check-ins, classes for kids, and group activities to keep congregants connected. Read about these ideas and more in our recent blog post.
• Several museums, including the Louvre in Paris and The Art Institute of Chicago, are offering virtual tours of their art collections, which keeps museum-goers connected to their mission, while keeping the museum front-of-mind.
• The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden has been posting daily “Home Safari” videos on Facebook for families across the world, which gives their zookeepers a way to educate regular and prospective visitors and families a daily event to look forward to. By including a donate button, they’ve also enabled people from all over to provide financial support while the zoo is closed to the public.
• Multiple events have moved online in the wake of local and state restrictions on large gatherings, including Microsoft’s MVP Summit and the Google Cloud Next ‘20 event.

Not sure how to adapt your usual way of doing things to the emerging needs of your audience? Or maybe you’re struggling to maintain operations remotely and keep your team collaborating effectively. We can help with both. Not only can we provide remote coaching and online bootcamps on these topics, we can also helping you strategizing how to work remotely and provide services online.

Learn more about our services on our website, and if you’re a nonprofit or faith organization, you can sign up for a free 30-minutes consultation to get help with marketing, Zoom, SEO and more. Nonprofit organizations can sign up here. Faith organizations can sign up here.

In December of 2018, Sarah Best was a speaker at my Rotaract Club meeting, a student organization that I co-founded on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. She delivered an inspiring presentation about her path that lead to her founding and CEO of Sarah Best Strategy. What stuck with me the most was that she emphasized the potency of always asking questions and forming connections with others, so I did just that. I reached out to Sarah the following day and was fortunate to be offered an internship with Sarah Best Strategy the following semester.
 
My name is Elise Goldstein, and I had the pleasure of interning at Sarah Best Strategy for the spring and fall of 2019 (my sophomore and junior year). I am a student in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at UW-Madison, and I learned a great amount about working in a digital marketing agency. The unique aspect about my internship at SBS is that I had the opportunity to work hands-on with the CEO and founder.
 
Sarah has taught me the importance of being detail-oriented, mission-driven and loving what you do each day. When I would come into the Industrious Office and meet with Sarah, I truly admired her organization and ability to run the company while maintaining strong relationships with her clients.
 
Beyond this, being the only intern at the company allowed me to explore a variety of positions within an agency and figure out my strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. From day one, Sarah and I compiled a list of my interests and I was able to exhibit all angles of the company. On a daily basis, I helped to create, post and boost social media content for clients such as Clergy for a New Drug Policy while utilizing Sprout Social and Facebook Business, which are social media management tools. I conducted research on TikTok's impact on brands, which was used in Sarah’s consulting session. I sat in on meetings and consulting sessions with clients. I pitched and designed social graphics for Forward Community Investments to use to promote the Nan Cheney March for Justice Award Ceremony. I analyzed and synthesized data into a report for the YMCA based off of their competitors. I also was in communication with the rest of the Sarah Best Strategy team, and they were extremely warm and welcoming towards me.

All of these roles in my internship have strengthened my strategic communication background and given me tools that I believe will be useful for any future aspiration of mine.

A well-crafted annual report can be a powerful vehicle for sharing your message and accomplishments. Once finished, organizations often step back and strategize how to convert the full-breath of the report into engaging social posts. But what if you approach the annual report from a social media-first perspective at the very outset?

It's common knowledge that attention spans are getting shorter. We're bombarded by news, videos, and images every day, every where. It's estimated that Generation Z's attention span clocks in at roughly eight seconds, with 98 percent of them owning a smartphone. A report from Deloitte, the average American consumer now checks their phone 52 times per day. 

That means your audiences are likely interacting with your annual report in ways you never planned for. Taking a social media-first perspective will do more than make your social media manager happy, it'll bring in more readers and drive fresh traffic to last year's content, keeping key stakeholders engaged throughout the year. 

As you approach the year's end, take an inventory of all your blog posts, stories, photos, press releases and other materials over the past year. As you sort through it all, think about which stories qualify as the most compelling and keep in mind where you can utilize dynamic visuals. As you keep a social-first focus, consider using the following strategies to highlight the necessary facts, figures and images while opening the door to greater interest (and engagement):

With many annual reports, there's a tendency to create drafty long stories and standard letters from the leaders. With a social media-first perspective, consider where you can use visuals instead of text--and gather together facts, figures, images and examples that can demonstrate your work and vision in a more succinct way. 

For example, in developing last year's annual report for Food 4 Farmers, we spread a conventional story arc across three pieces:

• Illustrate the challenge - Food 4 Farmers does more than help farming families develop food security strategies, it builds awareness of the challenges that coffee farmers face. What's the challenge you face? What didn't work? How did you overcome the challenge or not?

• What success looks like - Success was illustrated by one of the Food 4 Farmers' most popular programs: beekeeping. Not only did it help farming families diversify income, these pollinators also contributed to food security. 

• Setting aspirations - Eighty percent of all participants in the organization's programs are women and young girls. While food security is the organization's main goal, there are intersecting issues—like gender and productive opportunities for young people—that Food 4 Farmers focuses on. You have challenges, you have success, but where are you headed next? 

When you build your story with different elements rather than a self-contained narrative, you'll make it easier to break your annual report down into posts that you can share over weeks and months as you roll it out. 

In any of the narratives we used for Food 4 Farmers, we gathered common elements that easily convert into social media posts:​​

• Impact information - What are the numbers that get to the heart of each story? (It's not just about how many people you reached.) For Food 4 Farmers, we looked into how much families saved on groceries after they added a home garden and how much income or productivity increased (or didn't) thanks to interventions like beekeeping.

• Images - Well-composed photos can generate interest beyond words. Make sure that each story has at least one photo that defies description and invites your readers in. 

• Individuals - Figures and numbers are important, but they're difficult to relate to. Create concise stories of people—the important individuals that illustrate the larger goal and make success possible. 

• Infographics - Rather than creating a singular infographic, develop artwork that can be broken down into pieces and shared individually or all together.

For those of you eager to go above and beyond this year, we've got two more tips to share:

• Sizing is important - Don't just share the same graphic across all social media channels. Make sure the images are cropped to the proper size for the channel you're chasing. Vertical, horizontal, square? It matters to your readers. Try using Canva, which offers free templates to help you set up the proper size.
• Extend the approach to all content - Preparing for an annual report shouldn't just come up at the end of the year, it's a process that hums in the background throughout the year as you consider what to publish on your blog, social media and in traditional media. How are you planning your stories for the entire year? How will these be reflected in your day-to-day posts on Twitter, Tik-tok, Facebook or LinkedIn? 

 
For ideas on boosting your content planning strategy, check out our Same-Page Content Planning Case Study. And if you're looking for help promoting your Annual Report or other accomplishments on social, we offer Social Media Management for nonprofits of any size.